moving day

We have been storing Nicole in the attic for about 6 months and she's finally getting tired of it. You can tell by the way she leaves little piles of crap at the foot of the stairs. Little piles full of sharp things to step on. We finally got the hint. It is, after all, December. We are trying to find a way to co-exist with a messy teenage girl in a Victorian house. The thing is, I have way way too much shit. Way. I have more clothes than I will ever wear, more art supplies than I will ever use, more baskets, more fabric, more paper and scraps of precious words-- strung together in moments of impulse and imagination-- that may never find each other, that may not even be related, but will someday, dammit, be a book.

Or not.

I hate writing groups. I hate the fact that I keep going around in this circle. But what the hell. Its my circle. I know where it goes. Around. I have, we all know, been in worse circles.

So, the computer is repaired, the keyboard is sticky and needs to be replaced. But it works, and the new monitor is nice and crispy.

We decorated the unit for Christmas. It is all red and sparkly. I tried for a serene winter blue, but the old folks said it was drab. Boring. They like red and green. So, red and fucking green it is. It is actually very nice. At home, we are negotiating the tree deal. My husband says it is his turn to pick out the tree. I said "Why would you think you get a turn? Its not a turn thing." And he didn't like that. But I know him and his frugal ways. He'll drag home something on Christmas Eve from the Safeway parking lot that has been run over a couple of times and never was much to look at in the first place and bring it home and decorate it with devil horns and other Halloween stuff. And I know there's no such thing as an ugly Christmas tree. I've seen the Charlie Brown special. But I want full creative control and I am not going to get it. Marriage. It has its pitfalls. Its all that pesky thinking about the other person and letting them have a vote that I keep forgetting about. Ah well.

I started a special lunch and dinner group on the unit. So many have died, and we grieved, and had hospice grief support come in to help us buck up and do what we do, and in the middle of it all, four women needed some place safe to live. They are all walking and talking and crazy as loons. So I said, hey. Let's have them all sit together at the same table, away from the others who no longer come up for social air, and let them have a tea party, day after day. And the conversation goes something like this: (it doesn't matter what their names are).

When I was eighteen, I was sent to China to be a companion to my spoiled cousin.
Oh? I'm norwegian, you know.
I don't really belong here. There was a mistake.
Oh! That is so funny! (breaks into christmas song in a high soprano)
Oh, you like to sing.
Oh, do I?
She's always singing.
You know my son will be bringing my things here any time now. I should be going home.
When I was in China, I was a companion for my spoiled cousin. She had the same name as me.

And that is how it goes. Every day.

scrapbook