closer and closer

The time for surgery is approaching. I will go to one of those new, same day, outpatient surgery clinics at 6:30 in the morning and pop out, oh, say noonish, all stitched back together. McSurgery Drive-thru. I am looking forward to the beginning of healing, and the end of this endurance contest that has nearly gotten the better of me. It hurts.

I have new jammies. I have more soup recipes than I can count. I have solicited the support of my mother-in-law. I am planning what I can and leaving the rest to the four winds and hydrocodone.

Just to give you some indication of my perceptions these days..... I live a block from Nature's. Wild Oats. Its one of those higher-end green grocers with shiny food and big pricetags for votive candles. And I bow to my lack of grocery knowlege in general and admit that most green grocers are good to their employees and that paying a little more to forestall what seems inevitable to me: global warming and all that bad stuff that this blog declines to acknowlege let alone address, is not a bad thing. It is, after all, the corner grocery store, and from time to time I have picked up produce or a can of tomato sauce that I didn't find at Winko. I hate Winko.

So anyway, I went up there last night because K ate the last chunk of good sourdough bread and I am on a french-onion soup kick. I HAD to have it. So I wandered up the street and over a block, and the store was dark. And I thought, Ah, president's day. This thought is followed closely by a second: Since when do hippies give a shit about president's day? Then, I looked through the windows, noticed empty shelves, and thought: Oh, they're restocking one side of the store. And I get to the front of the store and there was no sign, and nothing in the store, and the store was pretty much gone. And I thought, why didn't I know this? How could the store close that fast? So, I consulted Gwen, the only grocery expert I know, and she said it has been a 30%-40%-50% discount thrift store for awhile, and I know I have slept through this winter.

It is unacceptable to me that the world passes me by. I lived the first half of my life in a coma,and I refuse to miss even one more springtime. There is much to do, and healing is the first thing.

Here's a poem about that:

What It Was Like To Be Drunk In The Country For Years

it was like comin' home
beer bottles stacked on the porch
lolling around in the dust of a hot day
not a hundred yards from the river
sweating pure whiskey
too busy drinkin' to jump in the water
sleeping face down in brown grass
missing the spring
and the summer
and the fall
and spending the winter
planning all those things we're gonna do
when the sun comes out

j

dog wear

We are up, making a sweatshirt for Sid. Nicole is a seamstress and is carving up an old gray sweatshirt and Sid is a reluctant model. Any time we ask him to hold still, he seems to think we are going to cut his toenails. He really hates that.

It is nearly over now -- the weekend. Sid's unfinished doggie-cape sits in a pile amid the recently re-organized sewing supplies we have pulled together in the past couple of days. We have many sewing boxes and tins and baskets --Me and him. Me and them. Us. Since move and marriage, the numbers of boxes has dwindeled, but it has been a slow melding, like butter and sugar over low heat. We are caramel. I rarely order anything online, am still a bit of a chicken about all that, but needed a basket for sewing stuff, and I know they exist but I shopped far and wide and could only find an old-lady tapestry covered easter basket with little plastic liners. I'd rather have a good tackle box, and frankly, had one in hand at Bi-Mart, but K talked me out of it. He wanted me to have the real thing. I couldn't agree more. But neither of us knew where the real thing was. So I went to Jeeves and typed in "sewing basket", which elicited the response "Do you mean sewing caddy?" which I did. Which in turn provoked my husband to rent Caddyshack, but that's another story. So I said okay to Jeeves, and went for the caddy idea. Tap tap tap and there it was: a three-tiered wooden box on legs that folds out like a two-sided tackle box like the big boys have, and I ordered it. And it arrived, and I am not yet a victim of identity theft. I would hate that.

So I got the caddy, and it is full and organized, and the girls know where to find a needle, and, more importantly, where to put it back so it doesn't stick someone in the eye while they are rolling around on the floor with the dog or the husband.

There is a point to all this.

As I have whined about since mid-december, I am having shoulder surgery next friday. The day is nearly here, and since I will be down (but not out!) for the count, I figured I needed a hobby. I decided to learn cross-stitch. Needlepoint. I can do it with one hand immobilized and it passes the time, of which I will have much. Well, the same amount, but it will seem different. Already does: It is sunday night and I'm not suicidal. I just don't think I was meant to work. Do you?

So, me and the girls (the girls and I) moseyed over to Michael's hobby shop because if I have a hobby, they need one, and Haley got a bunch of embroidery floss to make string bracelets and Nicole got a set of those knitting hoops and some yarn. .... Yarn. Wow. There is some trippy shit out there these days. I've been watching women working on projects (thus the cross-stitch idea) and they have any manner of string projects they are weaving into any manner of winter clothing. Not me. I'm afraid of string. Knots kill me. So, I'm sticking with the smaller version: thread. I never did take up macrame, when every hippie chick worth her salt had plant hangers and wall art made of tangled rope. No way. But there is yarn that looks like animal hair and angel feathers and disco sparkles and vomit. You can get anything.

Anyway, all of this is in preparation for the aftermath. A hobby and good pajamas. Pyjamas. Whatever I buy needs to be easy on and easy off. I should just get some mumus but I am absurdly fashion conscious. Pain will dictate fashion rather than the other way around this time.

And soup. Asia will bring me Tom Kar Mushroom. The girls will cook me whatever they can on lunch break, and my hubby will treat me to his cuisine in the evenings like he used to. He makes great spaghetti. Tonight I made french onion soup. I have been wanting it since Valentine's day. We went to Montage and I had heard they have excellent french onion on their menu. But they don't anymore. "Sadly," said the Maitre d. A convincingly forlorn metroboy.

So I have a hobby, jammies and soup. I'm ready.

My fucking shoulder hurts. It probably wasn't a great idea to go see Buddy Guy last night and stand for four hours bouncing to the blues, but we had tickets, and sometimes moving is better than sitting still with this thing. But it was so loud, and I was really hurting. And this guy, some aged hippie with gray hair to his waist, decided to dance. And it was crowded, and he was feelin' it, and had to get his groove on. And it had to happen in my immediate space. And he was seven feet tall with big hair and I shoved him at one point. Because look... I can stand there and be in pain, but don't bump into me. Okay? I had no effect on him. He just kept on dancing. I was so annoyed.

That's the weekend update. I'm not working tomorrow.

valentine oversight

oops. I am so married. I forgot to post valentine's day.

Here's my favorite valentine poem. It was sent to Cooky by her first husband, Sherman. She'll never get a blog so I'll publish for her:

If I give you amphetamine
Will you be my Valentine?

Simple, to the point. Appealing. The sixties were a simpler time. I would know. I was 12.

We had dinner at Montage and are going to see Buddy Guy at the Roseland Saturday night. A valentine's week. I had never been to Montage. The pasta was good, but the gooey butter cake was memorable. The perfect combination of sweet and salty and mmmmm. Montage is messy and loud and there were people in sweats and in red-velvet valentine hair-dos, long sculpted curls that did not move, would not move in this morning's arctic blast.

Arctic blast my ass. Where is it?

ahhhhhhhhhh

Me in the middle, walking down Eliott Creek Road, November 2003.




its over. I didn't keep the car that was behind door number three. Everything about that job was fiction. And it is over. Behind me. I got up this morning and didn't. Didn't get dressed, didn't scrape ice off the windows of the car that isn't mine anymore. Didn't drive to Mc-fucking-Minnville. Didn't.

Ahh.

I am sipping coffee, not on my front porch, which is my preference, but at this small desk, weather news in the background.

Once it was cold (view from the porch 2003:



It's gonna get cold. That's the news. I know, I know. I'm always whining about the weathercast. But it is february for crying out loud. Coldest month of the year. This is not news. But in the absence of something like the vice president shooting someone in the face, its all we have.

Dontcha love Dick Cheney? Isn't he just the epitome of power? When I behaved as though the rules didn't apply to me, I got arrested. Clearly not every time, or I'd still be sitting in jail, and I'm not suggesting Cheney should be arrested, but that guy really flies above it all. He just doesn't have to play nicely like the rest of the kiddies on the yard.

Well, enough political commentary for a non-election year.

The sun is out, my coffee's cold, and the most exciting thing I'm doing today is getting my teeth cleaned at 1:00. My shoulder is awful, still, and I hear surgery is a bitch. I am simultaneously embracing and dreading the idea. My arm hangs from its socket by skin and muscle, unaided by ligament, which is a real unsung hero in my world right now. Really, it isn't quite that serious, but it feels like it, and is the center of my thoughts most days, and spring is coming, and I can't use my shovel and that pisses me off. I'm planning to re-do the back yard so there is a pad for the pool (pavers) and sod for Sid to shit on. (say that three times fast: she sells seashells at the seashore...) and there is much to do. I understand that I will be out of commission for a couple of months, really, and the therapy is killer. But here is my plan: have surgery, get well, kick opiates, start yoga. It has been a long winter and I'm achin' for springtime.

What is the sound of one hand gardening?

The garden: post-hedge, pre-fence circa 2004




the garden midway taking the hedge down. This was the view into the neighbor's yard. Picture the cast of Deliverance.




The back yard in 2004 I think.

monkeys

Curious George is dead. Somebody killed Curious George. I don't know his name (the author) and it shouldn't make me any sadder than any other random death, but it does. I loved those books as a child, and have one of those monkeys in my truck. And the curious George lunchbox, and the Curious George-in-the-box the girls got me for christmas.

I love monkeys. I got a white one at a yard sale last summer. An odd looking homemade one. We have a collection of old stuffed monkeys my husband had as a child and one somebody left on the porch with a strange note taped to his overalls. I have one that sleeps on my shoulder, ever vigilant to a single missed step.

Here's a poem about that:

Junkies


Here’s to all you old junkies
still out there
keepin’ the home fires burning
the monkey on my back
only slumbers
light sleeper
my skin tightens
and leather begins to show through
my Eddie Bauer sweatshirt

on the other side of the other side of town
his porch is a minefield of
rotten wood and rusted nails
back seats from big cars
a water-stained curtain moves
slightly to one side

the smell of cooking heroin gags me
and I taste metal in the back of my throat
like a mouthful of cold pennies
syringes like tiny rattlers lay
ready to strike
veins like garden hose
hardened from unuse
give in

holding my breath
blood flags in the tiny cylinder
blossoming into
the warm brown liquid
like a dark rose
breath leaves me in contented release
and
just like riding a bike
I am home again


Anyway, I guess Curious George was co-authored. Look it up, I could be wrong. Sad day in the monkey world.

sweet endings

I was going to title this post "bitter endings" but it is sweet, really, to be leaving this job. As difficult as it is to fling myself out over the crevasse of unemployment, I will be better for it.

Anyway, the synchronicity of my shoulder surgery reminds me of a force beyond my own, beyond my knowing, that protects me from bad things. And the job was a bad thing. Bad for me. I lost my confidence, more than anything. The 15th will be my last day. I'm interviewing, but nothing yet, and I don't care. I just don't.

and the beating goes on

I am so sick of feeling like this that I am going to rant about it. No, I'm not. Second thought, I'll just write. You all know my arm is hanging by a thread that seems to be connected to every pain-related neuron in my body. Typing is beginning to hurt, and that is truly unacceptable. Work? Who cares. But writing, now that is important.

a. sent me the film of bennet, the smoking dog, which is always good for a laugh. this one made me laugh, but will piss off my peta friends, although I don't think the moron that made the film thought it through. He sounds regretful in the soundtrack.


We went clamming yesterday (what is the sound of one hand clamming?) and got skunked. We got one. a clam. one sixty dollar clam. (8 dollars each for shellfish tags, and gas.) the clams won. So we came home and had chicken instead. We timed it right, though. It was beautiful. A high and angry sea, any shade of gray, blue sky and white clouds, rain in the offing, sun setting through the clouds with rays like heaven behind it all. Since I was a one-armed clam bandit, I spent more time appreciating the scenery than looking for clams. They weren't home anyway. It takes a fairly good minus tide to find them, and low tide was at 5:30. We got there around 3:30, and clammed until just about sunset, but 5:30 was after dark or just at, and we didn't have light. I did purchase a set of waders last year, the kind that are lightweight overalls with nice, stretchy straps and footies made of foam that slide easily over whatever I am wearing and keep all water out. Out. I can do anything if I am relatively warm and completely dry. We went up to Mt. Hood last weekend and the snow blowing straight in my face exceeded my comfort levels. I am INTO the appropriate equipment. You should see the seat on my bike. It looks to have been made by John Deere. Comfort. That's what its all about.

So, today, we are having shrimp. Purchased at Winco.

Here's a picture of Nicole and Sid.

pain

I filled out a silly little questionnaire about friendship yesterday. One of the questions was about pet peeves.

Currently, mine is pain.

Yesterday I was not in pain for the first time since mid-December. It was galvanizing. It lasted a day. One day. I got a cortisone/novocaine shot in my shoulder and for a minute, it seemed like everything was going to be alright. The sun came out (figuratively, we're in Portland, don't forget...), my mood shifted, and the drive to McMinnville wasn't quite so unbearable. But it is not going to be that easy. The pain is back this morning, and last night, and the monkey that lives on my back, the light sleeper, is up and screaming for breakfast. It is a tightrope I walk, the abyss beneath me with depths familiar and terrifying, looms in and out of focus. And I starve the monkey today, as long as I can hold out. Surgery is sounding more appealing by the minute. My arm hangs from a partially detached shoulder joint, stretching the muscles of my neck and arm simultaneously. Something's gotta give.

nope

They didn't pick me.

Well, they did, but then some guy showed up who used to work for them and they gave the job to him. He's bald. That's all I know. He showed up just as my interview ended. If I was fatalistic, which I am not, I'd say it was meant to be, or not be, depending on your point of view. But there is no anticipating that. They want to hire me for another position. Okay. Whatever. Anything for a buck.

I'm hoping for a vacation between this job and the next, frankly. I may get it.

the waiting

I could write a book about this process. I am sitting at home, too nervous, full of anticipation about this pursuit of a new job. There is so much more riding on it for me than for the organization, and I wait. And it is only a job. I have had others, many, and like pippi longstocking always said, "Don't worry about me, I always land on my feet." Or is that a cat?

Anyway....

The tough part about waiting is the re-thinking I should have said this or that, done this or that, worn this or that, been this or that. And they will or will not PICK ME. My readers, my friends, my compadres, are certain I am THE ONE. I am not so confident. I know what I know, and am who I am, and so far so good. If I had the poem "Disclaimer" at my fingertips, I would include it here. I'll try from memory:

Disclaimer

Now it is not the best of me
that glorifies the worst in me
and it is not the east of me
that contradicts the west of me
nor is it just the first of me
has changed to suit the last of me.

the last of me has not yet been
the worst has never given in
or given up
or ever will
or even can
or has the will
to go beyond
the who I was
and still may be
and without pause
I celebrate the rest of me
I celebrate what’s left of me.

Okay. That wasn't entirely from memory... I had to peek.

So, anyway, I am waiting for this phone call. All Known Life hanging in the balance. And I have given notice. So I am out on the proverbial limb. I have said to others in similar positions, risk. Get out there on that limb. (the hum of chainsaw on wood behind me) but I do believe this is where the rubber meets the road. Risk is life. I hope they choose me. They should.... but they don't know me like you do.

I am working at home today.

Yeah. That's what I'm doing.

everyday halloween

We live in the Hawthorne. I think its why I like Portland. Now, I'm not much of a theme dresser--I wear black turtlenecks. I have 10. Three of them fit me. But I digress. We were walking driving riding down hawthorne last week, monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and in all of the store windows were mannequins dressed as, well, beyond the fact that they are all nazi atrocities and testimonials to bulemia, the clothing was so whip-me-beat-me that I thought it was halloween all over again. Ground Hog's day. I don't object to the style, I just can't wear it. I am so grateful that I know what age-appropriate dress means. I see women my age in belly shirts and low-rise pants and cringe. But walking down hawthorne, we saw an 80 year old indian princess, two or three librarians (you know the type: black hair cut with severe bangs, horn-rimmed glasses with wings like a 1958 caddy, nets and striped long stockings with club-footed shoes), several sluts, poor single mothers with 5000.00 strollers that weigh 14 ounces, roll uphill and can accomodate a 500.00 shopping spree at Walmart.

Here it comes.... I remember Marky's stroller. It must have weighed 25-30 pounds without him in it. He was one of those children who were simply reluctant to walk. I wouldn't say he was lazy (not until he was 16) but he just wasn't all that interested--takes after his mommy that way. And the stroller was one of the metal folding models. A goodwill find, probably free, and it got me through the first year. I was hitchhiking. That's how I got around in those days. Baby on one hip, thumb out, stroller full of laundry, groceries, garage sale treasures, you name it. Fold it up, get in the car. Get out of the car. Unfold it. Fold it up.... you get the drift. It was in the early days of public transportation in the Rogue Valley-- 1978-- But I didn't have any money. I had treasure... who needs cash? So, I was waiting for a ride, standing in the blistering heat of a Jacksonville day, sky as blue as a fair ribbon, too long in town, ready to head for the hills: my home. So an old chevy truck pulled up,'53 I think, so I unloaded my crap, and tried to fold up the stroller. It wouldn't fold. I tried and tried, exhaust billowing in my eyes, baby flailing around trying to get away. So I picked that stroller up over my head and flung it as far as I could into the Blackbird parking lot. That's when Marky learned to walk.

I also have to acknowledge the holiday just passed: Martin Luther King Day. Cooky and I were driving somewhere and she said, "Guess who's going to speak in Ashland for MLK day?"

I said I didn't know.

She said, "Martin Luther King, Jr. I heard it on the radio."

I said, "He's dead, Cook."

She said, "No, its his son. His kid. He's speaking."

I said, "Wow. That's amazing. I mean, here we are, in Southern Oregon, the last stronghold of the KKK and MLK's kid is coming here to speak?"

We sat there, together, for the longest time.

"Naw," I said. "That can't be right. MLK jr. IS MLK. He's already the Junior. His kid isnt' even named Martin or anything."

Cooky considered this. She started laughing, the kind of piss-your-pants laughter I miss so much about her. We laughed all the way to Ashland.

Each year I call her up and ask her who's speaking. Is MLK coming back this year? We laugh so hard every time. It never gets old. But we do.

interview questions

I'm still thinking about my upcoming interview.... Sorry. You'll have to endure my angst for a few more days.

I asked the corporate recruiter what the interview would look like -- questions they would ask, etc. and I thought you, my captive audience, could review my answers and it would give me an opportunity to express not only what i might say, but to also give voice to the truly unacceptable answers that might pop out if not given voice somewhere else. A vent, if you will, for impropriety. You know how I am, and underpressure, the whole "not caring" thing might get the better of me. I could decide halfway through the interview, for instance, that "fuck it" is the best I can do, and this would be based on a sideways glance that had absolutely nothing to do with me. An unrelated sigh. The wrong clothes. Somebody prettier than me. I throw in the towel for the most bizarre reasons.

So, according to Andrea the Recruiter, the questions may include:

1. What brings you to long term care?
A. A car.
B. I loved my grandmother.
C. No, really, this can be a short or long answer, and I think I'll try to keep it fairly short, (but I'll give you the full monty.)

In the early 70's I had been involved in a string of small robberies and was nearly caught. (Obviously, the statute has run out and I can tell you this without threat of incarceration.) So there I was, finally in need of legitimacy. A real job. Not drug dealing or petty theft. So Karla, this girl from downstairs, said, "Go to Hillhaven, they'll hire anybody." So, being anybody, I drove to the nursing home. It was a brief interview. "Can you take a temperature?" Mrs. Ingersol, director of nursing asked. I said, "Sure." And she said, "Be here at one." Then, as an afterthought, "Do you have any white pants?"

So, I showed up at one, in my white pants, and began my life's work. I wasn't serious. I didn't (as you know) care, even then. I was 19 or 20, and really an unfinished version of myself. Arrogant, drug addicted, but clearly on the cusp of something. So, they set me up with these two experienced aides who I was to follow around until I "got it." We went into this room and there was a man who, in my limited experience, appeared to be suspended from the ceiling by a series of leather straps. I hung by the door, staring, horrified at the circus geek in front of me. My trainers went to work on him, doing this or that, and ultimately, pulling a bedpan out from under him. I was horrified. They handed me the gigantic metal bowl full of human shit and I said, "Oh, so I get to do the good stuff."

And the man said, in a voice I will never forget, "Honey, if there was any other way...."

It is difficult to express the sudden onset of knowing that was contained in that moment: He became human, the job became real, and in my humiliation, I became part of who I am. His name was Gene Austin. He had been an army pilot and had the top of his head blown off in Korea, I guess. It left him quadraplegic, but his mind was intact.

And so it began. I have always treated arrogant young women who want to work in the industry with a measure of patience. I know what they can become.

Okay, question #2.

I don't really have that one figured out yet. It may be, "Why did you leave your perfectly good job last May and how do you have the audacity to come back grovelling for yet a second and better paying job???? Hmmm, biatch?" And you know, guilt may color my response just a teeensy little bit.
A. There was a car behind door number 2.
B. There was a car behind door number 2.
C. I wish I hadn't. I thought the job would be different. I didn't know where McMinnville was. Seriously. I just thought: free car, more money. But it is notable that I took a job without knowing where it actually was. I mean, I knew. But driving 99 day after day -- not so good. And like so many things that seem too good to be true: it was. The car wasn't free. The job wasn't anything like I was accustomed to. So. Here I am. Grovelling. Pick me. Everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?

I hope they don't ask. It will be difficult not to be a tongue in cheek version of myself.

So, it is Sunday morning.

dreams

I woke up this morning disturbed by dreams I can't remember. I know I was giving gifts to people and they were the wrong gifts. Big wrong gifts. My dreams are not usually too mystical. This one derives, I am certain, from the fact that I sent my son a ceramic drum for his birthday. In my distant memory, there was a time when he wanted one. They are called dubeck or something. Anyway, we found one at Goodwill in Lincoln City,and I mailed it to him, late, in a box stuffed with goodies and money. At least I know he liked the money and the cashews. He likes the drum, he says, but denies ever wanting one. But he says it looks good in the living room and is fun to pound on. Ah well, there is always next year.

The job thing continues. I just got an email from my former boss that I am the frontrunner. I do not feel confident at this point, not yet, but it helps to know that. I am still competing with someone already in the company and it helps to know that is what I am dealing with. Next week sometime is the showdown.

windows

Here is my Christmas Window, in pre-finished state:



Speaking of windows, the window of opportunity has not slammed shut just yet. Finally, I did get called for a third and final interview, a panel of judges, the corporate heads. ooooh. But now, I am competing for the job, hoping age and experience will win out over youth and beauty. But what do I know. I assume my competition is younger, and, by default, prettier. But as usual, I am making it all up in my head. I am studying, and making use of the time until the interview in ways other than shopping. For the last interview I spent about 400.00 on clothes and wore my black turtleneck. As usual. Its what I wear.

Working in the nursing home last year at this time, was gruelling, but a homecoming nonetheless. And working where I have been since May, I know that I should have stayed, and wish I had. And the reason I know this is because I was writing more then. That's my barometer of personal contentment. I may write shit, but I write. Just the opportunity to leave this job thrills me and makes it even more difficult to get in the car at the butt-crack of dawn and drive halfway to the coast.

I am quite ill, bronchitis, and my rotator cuff is still torn, awaiting MRI results and surgery. I am falling apart. And the related medication makes me feel dead.

So I remain just this side of oblivion and try to get a handle on what little I can (food) and control those parts of my life left to me. A woman at the nursing home where I worked last year just died. The cook. She was diabetic and ate badly. I've been eating badly for about a year, maybe. Off and on. And I was doing so well. Her death got my attention. It is a treacherous condition to have.

Isn't my window going to be pretty? we're still working out the final design of the side panels. The big square of glass in the middle will probably become different.

New things

I was up late so am up late. Clinton street is already alive and happening. There was a huge party last night across the street and hopefully some of them stayed put, didnt' drive home. It was a quiet night, a good night to be home. We watched the original King Kong and it was so much better than the new one. I did like the new monkey, though. This one, the original 1933 model, was such a cartoon of itself, and I know that at the time he dazzled audiences and struck fear in the hearts of children. We have come a long way in the movie biz. Too bad we don't bring such monumental change to politics.

Not to change the subject, but who the hell is going to be the next democratic frontrunner? I am always concerned at this stage, waiting for something like the Christ-child to be born in Bethlehem to lead us away from this mire. I don't think he/she will or can. I think they are all the same. I heard maybe Tom Hanks and Bill Cosby as the ticket to beat, but don't want to throw political commentary out there ahead of the pack. I don't know shit. There's always Hillary.

I think Jack Black ruined King Kong. I really do.

Well, it is a new year, and in the spirit of all that, I will remind you that I don't really do the whole resolution thing. They are all the same: Lose weight, exercise more. I would like to stop saying FUCK when I'm annoyed, but I never do. I try to stop cussing, but sometimes there simply isn't a more succint way to get my point across. My (tiny, asian, female) doctor says, "Whatever you eat, eat less; whatever you do, do more." Great advice. I hate her. The Christmas 10 sits on the hips of the Thanksgiving 5, and I sit on both.

My shoulder hurts. My arm hangs like a deadened limb in need of pruning. I had an MRI last thursday and should know the cause and cure on Tuesday. Probably a rotator cuff tear and subsequent surgery. I hate surgery. I mean, who doesn't, right? But I can speak with some authority. When my appendix blew up in July, I was really hoping that would be the last time somebody carved me like a ham.

I also had my big interview Thursday and am anxiously awaiting their response. Anxiously.... very. I met with two women, talked for nearly 2 hours, and came away feeling good about it. But time passes and I lose my confidence, and can't imagine anyone hiring me for anything. I should write for a living. I should paint. I am not fit for public consumption. Poor me. But truly, I will quit my job no matter what. I will jump out on the limb and trust. That may be a bad idea, but I am considering it. Driving to Mac every day is not okay.

My shoulder hurts. Did I mention that?


As to my life, I received a letter from my cousin Reed on Thursday. He is an honestly sweet man, first cousin on my father's side: the somewhat saner side. Actually, both "sides" are fairly sane. It was just that my family was the anomaly. The black sheep family of many fairly well adjusted families. But I'm sure you know what I know: scratch the surface and they're all a mess. Some just cover better. We didn't even try. We wore our wounds like badges of some unconveyed honor: the proud, the poor, the mad.

The Drunk.

So, my sweet cousin writes: "You have disappeared from the family."

I have. Effectively. And I am a happier woman for it. It is terribly convenient that I fell dead-set in love just after burying my brother, just after buring my mother, and deciding unequivocally that I would not see to the final events of my drunken sister's life. I was done. I am done, still. Done being the family social worker. And I don't know how to explain this to dear sweet Reed. I guess I could direct him to this diatribe and let him ferret out the reasons for himself. I am transparent as glass. No secrets here.

I think disappearing at 50 is a great idea. Become someone else. We live too long anyway. Have a couple of lives. Have three.

But whatever you do, have a happy new year. And I think: the whole year? Be happy the whole freakin' year?

Okay. I'll try.

Endings

Amateur night.

We are safely at home, toasting one another with Martinelli's after a morning spent watching the spouting horns in Depoe Bay, salt spray in my mouth and on my blue Nevada hat. We probably missed the worst of the storms, but got to stand by the sea as it proved point after point: I am not in charge. I am small. I am here.

Happy New Year.

26

My favorite day: December 26th. It is over.

I love Christmas, but it really stresses out alot of people around me, and I am glad to be through it. It was a good day. We planned well, and had the big shebang at our house on Christmas Eve day. Nobody in this family really wants to participate. They show up and roll their eyes as though we all understand each other and endure the time together for the sake of the children. But the children aren't children anymore. They are urban waifs who do not believe in anything, nihlistic little wannabes who suffer tragically in imitation of the homeless, a slap in the face of the truly poor.... So it seems a little silly to go to the extent that I do, but I have my fun, and some traditions must survive my former life, right? Next year we will tell everyone we are leaving town and stay home. The food is ridiculous. Excessive. But I didn't spend much this year on gifts, and had fun making candy, except for my shoulder injury.... it hurts. My son was flooded out of his underground apartment two weeks ago, so his holiday was spent relocating, which I don't thing was a bad thing. Sometimes it takes a push to move on, and he had been in the same funky little place for a long time. It did mean that he couldn't come up for christmas, but then he probably wouldn't have anyway. This way, I can pretend that he really wanted to, and the flood prevented him from a truly family holiday. HA!! He celebrates the 26th like I do. In our family, my former family, the pressure to be the Waltons is so intense that the day is lost in imitation of something we never were. In this family, it is different, but much the same. I don't know what is right. The older I get, and the more families that become mine, I have so many versions of Christmas to compare with my childhood, which seemed so simple. But it was a simpler time. My father loved my mother. My aunts and uncles were intact families. We celebrated pretty much the same way: not much money, lots of love and food. Board games. Remember board games? We got Haley Travel Scrabble. She was happy for a minute. That was worth it all.

Today, I am going to do something I ordinarily leave to the stronger in the herd... I'm going shopping on the day after Christmas. I am not looking for a sale, although I wouldn't mind one.... but I need something to wear to my job interview on Thursday. If I get the job, I will have to wear suit-like things. Suits, I guess. I will try to find some way not to do that. I am already looking for the back door. I see myself trying to be the one administrator who is allowed to wear levi's to work. It is tough to be this special. What I know is that I really had it made in my last job. And I knew it then, but I had to get married. Had to. It wasn't a shotgun weddin'... don't get the wrong idea.

So here I am, Clinton Street waking up beneath my bay window, rain falling down down down. There is a mountain of laundry awaiting my folding expertise. Why does it matter that the hand towels, the wash cloths, this dish cloths, the dish towels and the cloth napkins are each folded correctly? Who taught me that? They are all square-ish, and really, who cares? And bath towels. In my opinion there are two kinds of people in the world: the ones who fold in thirds and the ones who fold in halves. Kurt Vonnegut said (in Cat's Cradle) that there are two kinds of people in the world: the ones you know and the ones you don't know.

I don't know.

clay rabbit

Since I've lived here, there has been a shop on the corner of 26th and division called the clay rabbit. I guess it went out of business and they moved the whole house today. The whole house: a huge, two-story, shingled house. We walked down to the coffee shop to watch it go by, but it didn't. Here it sits in the middle of 26th, waiting for the power line crews to make way.



I was thinking what a bad idea to move it on a windy day, but worse is coming -- just ask the newsmakers.

It is so cold today. Bitter. Windy. The Channel 6 Storm Troopers are anxiously awaiting something, anything, to report. It IS cold. But they promise tragic proportion, bodies on the roadside, car trouble. As I look outside my window, clinton street is bathed in the cold white sun of winter, and but for the wind, it is a beautiful day. I may eat my words.

We put the tree up last night. I am so deeply compulsive about how to do this. K thinks it looks like the presidential tree, which is to say it looks nice. But then, he was accustomed to dragging something home from the corner the day before christmas and letting the girls have at it. Which is fine. And sweet. But I have been hauling my hand-picked ornaments around for a bzillion years, and really enjoy the process. I have one ornament that my mother purchased with her first paycheck when she was 14 years old and an usherette at the North Bend Theatre, which was likely child labor. So, if my math is correct, that thing is about 70 years old. I have the first ornament my son hung when he was a year old, a little wooden boy on a rocking horse and I have real blown glass ornaments from when, at a later age, he was making pipes. Ah, how they do grow up.... I have icicles by the box. It is a beautiful tree.

I was thinking, as we sat in the biting wind, holding sid for a hand warmer, about moving, and how I wouldn't have to pack if we just moved the whole house.

later same day.... the clay rabbit house is nearing the corner of 26th and Powell (Not 6 blocks since 8:00 this morning.) and the ice is falling from the sky. We left to go food shopping and didn't make it to Winko. We were stuck on 82nd, Christmas traffic and ice stalling the whole thing. We turned around, drove back roads home through the neighborhoods, happy to have all wheel drive, watching pickups slide around corners. We stopped by safeway for coffee and creamer and brie, and crept home. Safe and warm.

rotator cuff

I have a torn rotator cuff. or cup. call it what you will. I believe it is cuff. Anyway, Sid, pictured here,



took me for a walk and jerked my arm so hard he tore it. So for the past month or so, I have been in pain. Now, on top of my recent complaint: the snot-fest, I am miserable this morning. I slept all day yesterday, and thanks to my shoulder injury, not much of the night, and am happily NOT, for a change, driving to fucking McMinnville.

My arm is numb.
I am waiting for the job interview phone call.
I am going to take the maxx out to hillsboro and have lunch with my sweetie.
It may involve shopping.

Last night, we got the free tree.



and, like asia, I was grateful. I set aside all of my consumerist perfectionism and decided a free tree wasn't so bad. And like charlie brown, I can make anything beautiful.

And then my husband says, "Does the tree smell funny?"
"Smells like mentholatum to me," I reply. "But so does Sid." My nose is caked with it and Sid licks my nose.

So I wipe off my nose best I can and get up close and personal with the tree. It smells like trash. The pig farmer said he'd thrown it on the burn pile with a bunch of other trees from the boy scout sale that didn't get sold. And it smelled like a nasty old burn pile -- a non-wood burn pile, like garbage and burnt egg shells--my personal un-favorite. I hate it when people with wood stoves burn egg shells and that is what it smelled like.

"Nasty." I said. "Get it out of here."

So on went the night. MY darling husband, of course, had to post it to the free section of Craigslist and we answered the phone all evening and put a free sign on it. It is gone this morning, and who knows who got it? Some passerby, I hope. I just hope it had been sitting out long enough to air out a little.

So, that's my day, sitting at the keyboard, looking out on a frozen Clinton Street in the near dawn of a good friday.

'tis

'tis the season. I have a job interview in the morning and I am sick. I have used airborne all season, and have been sick much less than ususal, but will fight no more forever. I've been exposed many times, and finally, it got me. I am okay. Home, feeling like I am playing hooky, but am just taking care of myself. I have written about this before: the level of self-esteem required to take a day off for self care reasons. I have supposed that it is related to the many times I did not take care of myself, kept going in spite of clear symptoms, and like a psychotic energizer bunny, kept on. And that balanced by the many times I fucked off perfectly productive days for no reason save self interest. Nowadays, I am not so quick to be heroic. It plays well with the general tempo of this narrative: I DON'T CARE. And when it comes to giving my 12 hours to that fucking job (as I have begun to call it -- the whole acceptance thing is so over I need a new word for over) that it is fairly easy to walk away and take a day to heal.

So, heal I will.

I am learning, though, in this job and in this marriage -- (the hunchback just walked by in his shiny blue fur coat) Some things I am in the midst of learning are: I am selfish. (Not news.) I am a little lazy. No -- that is not so true. I just really really don't like to do what I don't want to do, which is to say I don't do it. I lag. I whine. I bitch. I don't. I don't like authority. I like attention. I don't like obligation, but do best under some pressure. I am absolute. Absolutely. But not concrete--an important distinction. I do not often indulge in magical thinking, and I find that a little sad. I am rational. My world, for the most part, is demystified. Einstein (or Edison) said, "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." There is much I don't know, but what I do know, or think I know, involves some fairly strongly held beliefs. I wish I was more magical. I wish I believed in something. Which is not to say I do not have faith. I do. It just annoys me that I do.

I am rambling, but it is my blog, so fuck it.

We are supposed to get a tree tonight. Some pig farmer from K's work is giving us one, and I am trying to be very conservation-minded about it and take it no matter what it looks like, but I love christmas trees. Mine are famously pretty (I'm going to try to add a picture:

well, obviously this is not last year's tree. But it is a Schwinn Apple Crate bicycle that we have for sale for 600.00. It is actually worth more. Will find the tree. Just a minute....



here is my favorite ornament



and another one



and an angel on top



So, see? I don't want some crappy pig farmer's tree that was leftover from the hillsboro boy scout sale. I want a DDT special. A brand new noble fir, fresh cut, billion dollar baby. I am a consumer.

So, back to politics as usual.... McCain says no torture, and Cheney gets booted off the committee. I believe we are listening to the next president. And the little I know about PTSD is that under enormous strain, people get a little sketchy. I'll bet he has PTSD in spades. He seems nice. But I always say that. I do think he'll run, and if he does, will be elected. There is no democratic candidate who could come close.

Is there?

tunnel lights

After a 12 hour, gruelling work day (I am cinderella), I came home to a message on my answering machine about a possible job. I have hope. I experience hope along many dimensions, and one look at my life and anyone would say, "that chick has it made!" But lately, it has been hard to find the strand, the silvery little thread connecting me to the great ah.

two new women friends - one just a girl, really - were sitting there waiting for me yesterday. me. and they had saved a chair between them, and I felt a part of that whole. finally. A year and a half later, and I felt that sense of belonging that has eluded me for so long. And it will slip away again. This i know. As they look to me and lean on me and I can't tolerate the leaning for long and I begin to lean back. It is as though their trust, their need, and the resultant obligation, just brings out the aloof side of me that I am so famous for. infamous. whatever. We'll see. One of them is very smart. I feel for her. There is no intellectual solution to a spiritual problem.

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and if it is a train, that's okay. It is illuminating the path for a little way.

Christmas looms ever closer, and I have hauled a couple of boxes of shiny objects down from upstairs and cleared a space for the tree. I have chosen and rechosen and rechosen the colors for my stained glass gift and my honey has cut them all out and it will be beautiful. Its funny. color is really difficult for me. this is my first foray into glass, or a glass store anyway (Cline's Glass on Grand) and there were so many choices. So many. There were rows I hadn't noticed at all. K says, "Oh, you finally looked up?" Yes. And there were more colors. And I had created this pattern, and it was supposed to look like rain, and so I got all tangled up in that IDEA. And the window will hang in the bathroom, which is kind of yellow-orange, and I had picked out this whole batch of teal glass, and anyone who knows me knows I hate teal. But some of it looked like a swimming pool, and it was entrancing. But I got it all home, knowing. Knowing. Knowing I had purchased blue glass because it is his favorite color, and rain is that color, and really, who cares if it looks like rain? I'm the only one who even knows what the pattern is supposed to be. It is quite abstract, as you might imagine. So, I admitted my mistake, and he knew it. He didn't care. Couldn't have cared less. Just wants to make me something I will love. And it could be nothing and I'd love it because he made it. But it will be beautiful, with faceted glass in a celtic knot in the center a foot square, and champagne pink around it, inset with glass drops-- rain ;) -- and bars of tiffany blue and pink marbled sky top and bottom. I'll take a picture when it is done. You'll see. Very girly.

So, that is my day. I sure hope I get that job. But the thing is that today was decision day with or without that happy little phone call. I had decided to quit the job anyway. I had finally arrived at something akin to acceptance -- acceptance that I am done, that there is no reason to take it further. I have nothing to prove. And that has always been the key for me. You can't fake that shit. Really. And it unlocks the cosmic tumblers like nothing else I know.

back to basics

Well, I don't really get how to do the wraparound text thing, but I'm sure it will come. I remember the first person who encourged me to learn how to type on a computer, and I said something very insightful, something encouraged by the lead pencil society, "Me? Never. Its fine-tip pens and yellow, thin-lined legal pads for me." And here I am, able to compose only in the shuddering light of a failing monitor. Time passes, and with it, my beliefs: about myself, about others, about so much.

I was so grouchy yesterday. It was a 12 hour day. A two hour commute home. Fuck that job. I just want you to hear it right here. I am nearing done. Stick a fork in me. Can you tell? And the thing is, I could quit. I am a quitter. Happily. I do have the money to coast along for a year or so. But I want to keep that money. I LIKE having money in the bank. Its a first for me. But this job is taking all I have and asking for more. I am a big baby. I REALLY don't like to do what I don't like to do. And the trouble is, I think, that the resistance really makes it more difficult. I am not a buddhist, although I think they have some nice ideas. I am a struggling, wailing, whining, white girl, living just this side of abject poverty. Close enough to smell the garbage that didn't get picked up because I didn't have the 8.65 to pay the bill for the third month in a row and now I have rats. It was like that, and I am not interested in living that way ever again. So I show up. I do. Like it or not. I go to work. And bitch.

I am grateful for weekends, for friends who show me how to press buttons and make magic, and now you can see my life. Its a good life. And 'tis the season, "Its a Wonderful Life." I a supposed to be grateful for my job, so I will be. Today. It allows me to pay the DSL bill. There. The beginning of a gratitude list. Oprah would be so proud.

We are going to see the Narnia movie. I read the book when I was a child, and loved it. I guess the movie is crappy, but so are most anymore. I like CS Lewis anyway. He described addiction better than anyone I've heard, "An ever increasing desire for an ever diminishing pleasure."

Yes.

okay

Alright. For the visual record:

haley at the record store



I think this is the kitchen, wall of plates.

the peonies in full bloom, corner of back yard.

my apricot begonia last year on front porch.

this may be nicole and sid.

nicole. she calls this one "woo"

This is haley's chalk art in front of our house.

I'm not sure, but I think this is kurt when he was seventeen.

.

mastige

New word. I was listening to NPR on the way to work and found the discussion of designer purse rentals troubling. I have had the same, or nearly the same, purse for decades. I always think that I need a different one, or better one, to make my life complete, but the advent of mail order designer bag rental, like netflix, is too much. Pay 50 bucks a month to subscribe and (oops, published the post...)

Anyway, back to the topic: Mastige -- prestige for the masses. A disgusting, albeit well-timed, word. Likely to make it into the Oxford Dictionary.

So these purse-happy people--women, more than likely--can order designer handbags to haul around for a month at a time, then, when after three weeks it becomes passe, return it; but only after the replacement arrives.

Truth is, I have been looking for a new purse. I've been everywhere, looking for just the right thing, but they are all so shiny, so sparkly, so dressy. I want something like a backpack with a pocket for my cell phone. Lots of pockets. I know what I'm looking for. I'll know it when I see it: the perfect combination of hipster nonchalance and organizational promise. Like nail polish, I always buy the same color. When I'm at the store, I think it is different, but I get it home and it is the same pinkish beige. The same black leather purse. The last time I bought one it was just pre-new job, and I was a little too professionally minded and got something too slick and now need to replace it. What really sucked me in was the light. It has a light on the latch so you can find stuff inside it.

But here's what I end up doing: I buy the purse and bring it home. I dump my old one out on the table. I sort through the crumbs and receipts, pocketknives, candy wrappers and broken ibuprofen tablets; and the change--The change I dug in the sofa for for twenty years, thrilled to find a quarter. Piles of change from money I don't need anymore. Not in that same sense of need that I will never forget. So, I sort the change, dump some into my honey's change jar, and unpack the new purse. Then I set up the new one, I plan it out, I fit everything into its own little space. At that point, I even know how much money I have. Then, it begins: the unravelling. By week's end, everything is in a pile, crammed into one pocket, slung like a hobo's bandana over my shoulder, cell phone ringing in the darkness, calling the last number dialed as it bounces among the rubble. One time I re-text messaged my boss: "I'll be your huckleberry" or something, that I had text'd my soon to be husband. He called right away. "Okay," he said. It was pretty embarrassing.

Anyway, after the unravelling, it is time once again, for a new bag.

Its not that I object to mastige as derived from something so abstract as prestige, something that by its nature does not keep. It is just so much worse to rent it than to attempt to buy it. Or is it? Is it the appropriate nod to the passing fancy?
Who cares?

ahhhh

Saturday morning. Clinton street is alive with walkers, cyclists, rain or no. It doesn't seem to matter around here. When we were down south last week, I noted the absence of two-wheelers in general. Why is this? The weather in the Rogue Valley is certainly more conducive to bicycles, not to mention that flat-landers wouldn't need so many gears. I didn't have any when I got here, and soon (well, eventually) realized my oversight, huffing up the hill in front of Hosford Middle School, dying for a full breath and the loss of 50 pounds. Its all luggage.

Tis the holiday season, and, master of the obvious, I am happy to be home. I asked my honey to make me a stained glass window and nothing else. He feels the pressure of my request, I know, but I really want one. I need nothing. Nothing. After many commercial years, I am hungry for a homemade christmas. I bought cards, and will write them out this evening, some lame christmas movie playing in the background. I am so passe. You each will receive one.

Asia will show me how to post pictures, and I can show you our new bikes. New USED bikes. I can show you my new bathroom. I can show you my dog and his pen. With any luck, we can catch him pressing his head through the bars, hanging like a Salem Witch in stocks--isnt' that what they're called--where their head and hands are locked up? He doesn't like his little prison, but who does? I think he is cold. We debate the relative temperature of dog-life to ours, and his skinny little naked nearly hairless body. I'll knit him a sweater for Christmas and take a picture of that. But if we let him out of the pen and into the open yard, the yard will soon seem the prison and so on. It is one of those things like holding a mirror up to a mirror. It just goes on and on....

I sent off my application for another job. I am adjusting to the one I have, but really, it is such a long drive. Oh!! I had a flat tire on the way to work. It has been a very very long time since I had a flat. Very long. I knew the sound, though. The tic tic tic, sh sh sh, of air escaping the gaping hole, and there I was, 6:30 in the morning, just the other side of King City (which is not really a city I think, but just part of Tigard) and well into the no-man's land between there and Sherwood, and I knew I had to turn around. I knew there was a gas station behind me. But nowadays, most gas stations are just run by minimum wage crack-heads who wouldn't help you change a tire to save their life, and this one was. Fortunately, a nice young man pulled in for gas and I asked in my blondest voice, "Where would you look for a jack on a Subaru?" and he walked over. Caught. He helped me and would not take money. Thanks to Mike from Gresham with the year and a half old baby who just moved to the burbs. I didn't have a lug wrench, and the jack that comes with the car was so obscure as to not be recognizeable to me as what it was. I could never have done it myself. And the spare tire was like something off a toy truck. I told him, "I think we have the wrong spare!" and he assured me that all modern little cars have these now, and they can't go more than 5o miles, at 50 miles an hour. Why? I really wanted to go 60 at 60, but it was early and dark and cold, and I was wearing a skirt and shoes that would be a drag to walk very far in, let alone crawl out of the ditch in which I had made my point. But really, it is good. I never could see the sense in buying five whole tires, and then, never plan to really use them up. You know? Living in poverty, we USED our tires. We didn't let the racist white boys at Les Schwab tell us our "tread was beginning to show wear." We waited until we were going seventy-five on the freeway, passing a semi, for a blowout. Now that was the essence of frugality.

I remember one time driving my '65 Dodge Polara with the plywood back seat that I had to smack the starter with a shovel or 2x4 to get it to start--I had two flats at the same time, going around a corner on my way to buy meth from Tony the Bearhunter at 3:30 in the morning in November. Ah, those were the days.

Another day on Clinton Street.

thanks

It was a long weekend. and it is still the weekend. Eliott Creek behind us as we head up I-5, and more and more this is a homecoming for me. Not my new home anymore, just home. This transition, this marriage, this life, continues to become what is true, and what is behind me begins to take its proper place: my past. Now, if you've been reading along, my past won't stay where it belongs, has a life of its own, rattles in the dark (I have so many skeletons in my closet its a wonder I can hang up my clothes) and also, truth be told, I drag it out and play with it when I'm bored; a time-worn stuffed lamb, once-white plush curls gone flat and gray, one eye hanging by a thread.

But Thanksgiving was big. Lots of family, but not mine. My son did not show up. And I went through what I suppose mothers go through to one extent or another-- sadness, rejection. I know it is not unusual for a grown child to dis' the new family on major holidays. Painful. And yet it is just another layer of the release that has been demanded of me as I move from that life to this, and see it as all one and the same. It is. I know. But I do draw my lines.

After a pretty rough start, I spent much of the early years protecting my son. I have spent my holidays making sure his were free from violence, from poverty and want. I have spent years dragging him with me, hither and yon, from one safe place to the next, dodging bullets and idiots. I have made my holidays special with his presence. And now he is grown. He is older now by four years than I was when I had him and began the soul-cutting process of motherhood and detachment. I know we birth them to release them. I know this. I read the book. And I thought I had. But this thing happens in layers. I remember a couple of years ago when my mom died, and I felt pushed to the front of the cosmic waiting line. Maybe that is the final release. But there is something about the physical distance between us now, and the selling of what was our home. It makes me wonder what he thinks of me. If he feels somehow left behind. It is not the same without him, that much is true.

Again, the cabin was warm and welcoming, set up like a b&b with almost everything we needed. Almost. No mirrors, which is not such a bad thing. The stove is propane, and I baked pies one at a time, an apple and two pumpkin. I reheated the ham and made terrible yams with pineapple. In my enthusiasm to get out of town, I forgot at least one ingredient for each thing I was making. And these are things I had agreed to make: a ham, pies, yams. I forgot: sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar and something else. But I didn't forget them all at the same time. ONe by one I ambled over to Patricia's house and asked for an item at a time. It became comical fairly quickly. I am not Betty Crocker. But I did bake the best apple pie I have ever made.

green apples
1 cup sugar
cinnamon (borrow as needed)
3 tbsp flour
dash salt
juice of 1/4 lemon

1/3 c butter

cut up apples, toss with next 5 ingredients
put in bottom crust
dot with butter

bake until you can see it bubble and smell the apples.

yum. pie. I love pie.

Everyone was hammered. The smoke was dense, and the comments, "this is the best apple pie I have ever tasted," were dimmed. I could have fed them cardboard.

But my son wasn't there.

home demolition

Poor Blog. I don't write, I don't call.... Okay-- its not that I haven't written. Okay. It is exactly that I haven't written. I have lost my fingers. I have lost my mind, my concept of time, and with those things, the memory of writing, of being a writer, has evaporated (picture morning mist) and honestly, I don't know what to do. My friend Gwen just got a new laptop and now I'm sure that's the cure. I know my life has been one huge transition over the past two years, but I had managed to keep the keys moving.

Lately though, this new job has become impossibly consuming, and I may just now be getting my head above water. Just. I have applied for other jobs, closer to home, and this act alone is somewhat freeing, but mostly, I arrived at acceptance the other day, as though at some distant address I hadn't visited in far too long: its residents lounging about on overstuffed chairs, drinking hot tea made of orange peels and the TV wasn't on. They didn't have any idea that there had been a 7 car accident on I-5 South; or that an amber alert had been initiated and everyone was supposed to look for a faded old blue Astro van. They didn't know who George Bush was. It was quiet, and I was nervous at first, but soon enough, I began to remember who I was.

City Life. It is no different from country life.... there is just so much more of it.

So that is my excuse. The dog ate my fingers. Back to life on Clinton Street: A chronicle of ordinary events.

Last Saturday, my husband was bored, picking at the edges of the bathroom floor. (I know I've talked about our bathroom before: pepto-bismol pink, lath and plaster exposed under and behind the fabulous claw foot tub. And men think because the toilet flushes and the bathtub drains, that this is enough. And it has been. For two long years. But he knows me, and the tiny little martha stewart that lives in my brain, and he knows it bugs my internal sense of decor. um.)

So there we were, a quiet Saturday morning, me: contemplating the Thanksgiving holiday shopping list and planning to head out to purchase christmas cards early so I'll have something to do after the sun sets at five o'clock in the cabin where we will be staying, because in the deep and forested gorge of Elliott Creek, the sun doesn't last long. You need good lantern and books.... and that's what I was thinking when from the bathroom comes these words, almost mumbled, "I wonder what's really under this...."

And it was on.

By noon, we had the tub, the sink and the toilet in the living room. And the bathroom floor--well, it really wasn't much of a floor--just a thin sheet of masonite. Let me try to describe this, because it was astonishing. First, there was more glue than board, so removal was interesting, but once we tore the floor up and drug it out of the house, the remaining sub floor was nothing but pieces of ancient, painted hardwood floor boards laid this way and that, no nails. I guess it had prevented the thin masonite from falling through to the basement, which was itself in full view through the spaces between the boards. But it was a weak attempt at making a floor. But they built it in 1911, so I guess they didn't have nails back then or something.

So it was a freaking tightrope act to get the subfloor on. But let me back up.... Upon finishing, we looked at one another across the chasm and said in unison, "What have we done?" And the thing is, you can't back off and wait until you're in the mood. It is the bathroom, after all. Press on...

Now, at times like this, I am always happy to report that, as a country girl, I can pee on command. I can pee in a snowstorm on the side of the freeway in full view of traffic, I can pee on a sidehill that is steeper than the back of god's head and not get a drip on my pants leg. --I don't like to or anything--its not as though I seek out opportunities--or, in the immortal words of Tom Waits, "Its not like I tie myself up first or anything." But peeing in the backyard was not a stretch for me.

So went the project. By saturday night, we had a floor. But the plumbing was old, and husband nervous about the prospect of everything going back together without a hitch. And of course, there were hitches, but not huge ones. We (and I say we in the weakest sense of the word: I handed him tools and did as I was told.) installed old beader-board wainscoating, four feet up, and the floor is beautiful: tile the color of fall leaves, marbled brown and rust and gold and green. I am going to paint the underside of the tub copper and the walls pale deep yellow-orange. I hate to admit it is orange, but I think it is. So Sunday was all about finishing. At 10:30 pm, we finally had a tub and toilet and sink, and didn't tear up the floor putting them back in. It is beautiful. Now it is my turn to do the painting...

There you have it. Another glimpse into my world. Domestic bliss. It is. We got a new bed last night. A custom, hand made mission style bed. It is beautiful. We had been looking for a long time for something, but this is real furniture. Heavy duty bed. But the problem with that is it puts the rest of the furniture to shame. Time for new shit. Must shop.

exotic neurotic

Halloween. I am waiting for k to get home so we can hand out sugar to other people's kids. I love this holiday. We carved four pumpkins: a tribute to Mardi Gras, David, the scary clown from Saw and a heart with wings with our intitials inside it. We are sappy.

Okay, so we went to the erotic, exotic ball. It was a regular whip-me-beat-me bash. We were dressed appropriately for the occasion: Kurt as Leather Boy, and me as some victorian slut. I just wear my top hat and can be anything I want because I say so. Pepe and the Bottle Blondes played, and too many men wore nets. We danced, well, he did. I moved around as best I could without losing track of my breasts, delicately trapped in their black satin bustier.

It was one of those things that you've always wanted to witness, tongue in cheek, voyeuristic as hell; but when you get there, and the other people are dead serious, its a little creepy. But the music was great.

job fog

I am supposed to be working. The tv drones behind me, background noise, something about the entire Viking football team doing live sex shows on some boat. Go team! Now it is the weather report, a non-event. It is raining. It rains. I, personally, would like to see weather reporting limited to the surprising and unexpected. If there is a tornado in Portland, bring on the broadcasters -- front and center in their little yellow Northface jackets, horizontal, hanging onto light poles with blue fingertips, screaming the obvious. That would be worth the time and effort to watch. As it stands, if we can know with some level of certainty, the exact temperature at 8,12,4,6, and 8, I think we have taken the fun out of weather. I've said this before. I'm repeating myself.

I am supposed to be working. I don't like my job anymore. I don't want my job anymore. I'm going to actually quit my job. The moment of clarity snuck up on me in the dark, on my way through Tigard at six in the morning. It is foggy from Tigard to Sherwood sometimes. I don't know the area well enough to know what body of water is contributing to the moisture. I love fog. I love to be invisible -- wish I was -- and gliding through fog, well, I like the way I feel. Cradled in mist, each moment entering the unknown. And all this in Tigard. How often do you get a surreal experience there? I take it where I can.

But I digress.

I am quitting my job. There I was in the fog, thinking: I don't think I want to do this anymore. And then... I don't think I will do this anymore. And then. Fuck this job. I'm outta there. So the process begins again. I stay at jobs, I always have. This may be a mid-life crisis, but shit. I will find something to do. I will be a rich poet. I will publish that damned book. But what I will probably be is a consultant. The most ethereal of all jobs: a non-job. You dont' do anything. Just talk about stuff you know, tell people what they should be doing, and leave. They can do or not do what you tell them, and you don't care. You're off to the next place, telling somebody else what to do or not do. And they will or won't, and so on. I would wear expensive clothing and matching accessories.

Naw.

Oh, I'll find something to do. Just not this.

yet to be named

It is Sunday morning and this new family of mine is rising, one by one, from the basement and the upstairs. We are collectively embarking on a home-demolition project soon, staring at the wall that will come down to make room for the new, improved staircase. (I shouldn't say new family. It all seems very normal, finally-- the girls adjusted to me and me to them. I should post pictures. They are beautiful. And they, like my son, are a part of the woodwork, invisible, expected, loved. The rest of them: the inlaws, the outlaws, are more than enough, and when family expectations consume an entire weekend, aaarrggghhh. I am anxious for time alone with K and the comfortable silence of busy weekends spent together.)

Anyway, we bought a chop-saw, (unlike chawksaw, or chawktaw, or is it chickasaw? of Ode to Bille Jo-fame) and have now gathered most of the tools needed to take apart the current stairwell (exactly as wide as my ass) that originates in the center of the house, rising from first floor to second somewhat like an afterthought-- as though the second floor was an occasionally used treefort, needing only a thin ladder for access -- and build a four foot wide stairway that takes off from the foyer like it should. Foyer is a bit formal, really, it is just that the front door opens and you are in. The plan is to create a master-bedroom upstairs with a walk-in closet for all my crap. What I need is a room I can toss my clothing and close the door. On the rare occasions when I clean it, it is like christmas... finding all those lost items.

I want red boots from Born. Two dots above the o, I think. Like Bjorn Borg.

indian stories

First, before I get into my typical retrospective, let me list the things that have happened today:

1. I got my ship picture home, framed and beautiful. It is hanging on the wall next to me.

2. I found the bike I want: a pure black Marin 24 speed road bike. sweet.

3. Clamming opened today, and we are headed over there in the morning. Butt-crack of dawn. Which is not something that happened today, but it is true today.

Went to Eastside Sunrise this morning, then out to breakfast with the indians. We often go out to breakfast with the gang, but mostly Ronald. He's some kind of Alaskan Indian, maybe Athabaskan. Shall I capitalize Indian? Anyway, I call them Indians, they call themselves Indians, and that is what they are, so I hope that's okay with both of you. My readership. So there we were, sitting at Grandma Lucy's on 51st and Division, a wonderful greasy spoon with more decorations in the bathroom than any place I've been in a long time. Hugh came with Ronald, a Karuk Indian with something like 25 years sober. Both with that demeanor that is so appealing, so calm and quiet, absent the whiskey. And I was thinking of myself as they were war-storying. They like my husband. He has a similar demeanor, very calm and quiet, and they seem to want to get to know him, and that is something he doesn't allow too often. But he seems to like them, and so there we were. And the stories started flying around the table: "That gal Maureen that I went with for eight years who was such a good shot," and blah blah blah. And you know I have my stories. You know I do. And for so many years I have told them and told them and told them, and today, I didn't. Didn't need to. And there were spaces where they would have fit, spaces where the Indians looked over at me, as if to include the blonde, asking, "Ya know?" And I just nodded yes. And I do know. But they have no idea of my stories, of all that is behind me. And sometimes I want to wear that dark and heavy coat, memories on the sleeves, and sometimes it stays folded, mothballed, perhaps where it belongs. I have been Maureen. I am Maureen. And sometimes I love to tell my stories, but more and more they feel private and past. I wonder if telling them is a way not to forget them. I will never forget them. They live in my body like scars.

And Nicole was at the meeting (not my stepdaugher) speaking about her impending success, and after I wished her well, and commented that success was the scariest thing, she said yes. And that she keeps thinking of herself as this wild street kid and she is no longer either a kid or wild, but the wildness is in her, as it is in us, and won't be denied. I know mine won't. I guess it, like so many things, is a matter of care and feeding. Occasionally I have to do something wrong: walk on grass, refuse to take back the shopping cart, or the wild girl feels left out. So I throw her a bone from time to time. But I think its like that story about the two dogs fighting. Or you can make it wolves. Whatever. One dog is light and one dog is dark. Which one will win? The one you feed. So, that's the thought for the day. I just don't think you can starve out the dark one, and you can't make it light. And the light one can get bloated and drink too much of it's own bathwater. But I mix metaphors. I could be wrong. I so often am.

Today is raining off and on. Beautiful. My ship in the storm a perfect winter beginning.

home

I want to blog the letter I got today, and since Lorretta is effectively shut down until the new home scene can support a computer hook up, I thought this deserved mention:

She writes:
"...So here I am. I keep waking up in this house -- am starting to believe I live here. Yesterday I came home and played a little basketball with Adrian. It was so great to be doing this in our own driveway, shooting hoops above our own garage after I'd just come out our own back door into our own fenced backyard, rather than the driveway of some other house we were stalking -- wanting, not having -- like squatters, basketball playing squatters...."

I have always had such a strong sense of place, that when my friend is settled, I am settled for her. This is a home. And such a long time coming.

As for me, my house is not mine anymore. I signed the papers and the money is on the way. The realtor sent me a fruit basket from Harry and David, thinking the pears would remind me of home... and they did. So far away now, this girl that grew up in orchards, picking, packing, pruning, running from the lilting foreign voices of brown men, hidden in the trees on spike ladders, hands quick as birds, fluttering branch to branch, filling Mr. Peebler's canvas bags. Mr. Peebler, with leather skin and tobacco-stained chin, who drove his fucking tractor down the dirt road outside my bedroom window at five o'clock every morning, went to Klan meetings at the grange in the evening, and was always old, but died young. His daughters all went crazy. I'm sure he was guilty of something.

And now I am a Portland girl. It rained today, all day, and the commute was over two hours. It was comical, really, as I listened to the traffic reports, sitting in the clusterfuck of Dundee, knowing it would be a long slow road home.

But home I am. The weekend cometh.

Trying Times

Because I am a writer, it keeps mattering to me that I am not writing as much as I think I should. And around here, the potential is monumental. I mean, there's my honey, selling his wares out on the street, and along comes this girl, for the 4th or 5th time, looking for a cheap enough bike, and she has a digital camera in one hand and the hunchback walks by dressed pretty much like Elvis. And she starts snapping pictures and he starts posing, turning this way and that with his shopping cart full of rattling cans. And I wonder: to think that I might have missed all this but for throwing caution to the wind. What sheer bliss to the lazy imagination. I see these things and i jot them down here, but only here, and I wonder if the book I'm not writing will have a hunchback character. Or the bike girl. She skipped away, delighted to have found the 80$ Schwinn road bike.

Nicole's hair. That's what my weekend has been all about. Blonde and blonder. Cut and colored and bleached. She'd look great with a shaved head, and with all that bleach, that's about what happened.

Anyway, I'm trying to write. I am trying. And you know what they say: tryin' is dyin. Just write. So, we will be accountable to one another, my literate friend and I. This thought freezes my pen. But it will thaw with use, and I will finish the story one day.

basketball dogs

Sid finally acted like a pitbull. I'm bummed. He charged a dog at the dog park. Unprovoked. No harm done, but because he looks like Satan when he's running at you, it unnerves people in a way a lab or shepherd does not. And labs are atrocious. Labs and shepherds are notoriously aggressive at our park, but Sid is Sid. He is so visible. So, I am sad, and will have to watch him closely and bring him when fewer other dogs are around.

On our way to the park there is a pitbull owner who is an idiot. He has two remaining puppies, spawn of a giant male, who are barely fenced in his backyard by a thin layer of hogwire. They pound the fence as we go by, and I know they'll come through it one bloody day and tear my legs out from under me. I have started walking on the other side of the street. Day before yesterday two basketballs were sitting in the corner where Dumb and Dumber used to lie in wait, and I was thinking maybe my fairy godmother had finally taken my side and turned them into something similar to pumpkins, but they were back the next day. Maybe they turn into basketballs at night. I don't claim to know.

It is a gray afternoon, almost evening.

later same day

Sunday. I like to take trips and get back on Saturday so I have Sunday to myself. I'm sure I've said before how much I resent and despise Winco. I try to pronounce it Winko so it sounds more benign, but it is what it is: a big box store with no soul. I know that Freddies has no more soul, I know that Hagen and Zupan's and the shiny new yuppie store down on 20th and Division... New Seasons, that's it, I know they also are without soul, but they appear to be better. The prices are so much higher and I struggle with the ultimate good of where to shop and why I care. I am seduced by the shiny aisles of well polished merchandise. My favorite Winko moment so far: we are walking down the canned meat aisle (scary, eh?) and these two guys are handling small cans of tuna, the single-serving size cans, and one guy says to the other, "Hey, just like in prison!" The delight in his voice unnerved me. I am better than no one, though my tendency toward self congratulation really shines in the big W stores. I went grocery shopping today.

The house is as clean as I intend to make it today, and there are a few hours before the emmy's begin. I hope House gets something. I like that show. I liked it last year, anyway. I am a TV watcher, sue me. But, like most good programs, they took what was good about it last year (Dr. House's sarcasm), expanded it, and ruined the show. Hopefully just the first show is so over-the-top and we can return to the ordinary level of wit. We have to have dinner with a couple of friends who got married a year ago monday. They intend to eat the top of their cake today. AFter spaghetti. The cake was beautiful. It looked like it had been draped with white chocolate, but it was actually kind of a terrible, white chocolate-flavored taffy substance that had been sort of folded around the layers. It did not taste good. And I guess it was really expensive. I'd rather have a homemade cake that tasted great.

I don't want to go. They don't want to be married anymore already. She doesn't.

I do. My husband is out with his bicycles, trying to sell them in the waning sun of early autumn. He won't be able to do it much longer except on craigslist. You can see the bikes there if you want to.

I'm going to transplant daylilies.

bicycle trip

Marky went to an estate sale and bought us 4 bikes for 60.00: 2 old schwinns and 2 matched old peugeots. So we went to see him and to get the bikes. It was wonderful to get my hands on that kid, to hug him and tell him how much I miss him. I'd have driven down there to get 4 used shoes, that's how bad I wanted to see him. And I hate used shoes. that's one thing about garage sales-- Other people shoes and underwear. Why would you sell that? Although, I have to admit to taking a free new pair from a yard sale here on Clinton street. Almost new red tennis shoes. I guess it depends. If I want something, I can overlook most anything.

So, we got the bikes, loaded them up and off we went. I had cleaned my closets and donated the rest to Jolene, my friend down south, and gave away about 2000$ worth of stuff I haven't worn for the longest time. It is so hard to do. But I must make room. Not for more, but to be able to see what I have. Thus my favorite sign: You Can't Have Everything... Where Would You Put It? Truly.

I didn't get to see Lorretta, but she has a new house, and there has never been a woman more deserving of a yard than Lorretta. It is a sweet blue house on a quiet street and the yard is enviable. The potential is huge. My first of many bits of advice: have those boys pull the blackberries to the root and pour kerosene on them. (Not on the boys. And... Do not light the kerosene when finished.) I know this is probably terrible advice from an eco-standpoint. But so are blackberries. I think one of the oddest things I ever heard was the man who moved to the Rogue Valley and planted blackberries in his yard. Why, God, why??? You gotta stay on top of blackberries or they'll take your shit. They consume houses and roads. At the end of the human race blackberries and cockroaches will be the only living things. And I love blackberries. I make the best pie. No spices. Just berries and sugar and butter and flour and a tiny pinch of salt. So, lose the berries. I wanted to bring Lorretta a start of my yellow "Chicago Star" daylily, but our escape from the city was a bit dashed, and forgot at the last minute. I'll get it next time. I have high hopes for that home. It has been more than a long time coming in so many ways.

Let's see.... the trip. Sid rode in the front seat because we had to take my truck, so the front is covered in little white hairs. Stinky. We stayed at Marky's house and he was such a great host. He cleaned the house (and from the layers of dust elsewhere, not a frequent event), bought a stupid movie that wasn't available for rent: Hitchhiker's Guide... stupid. We had asked him to rent it and didnt' even watch it. He bought milk and cookies for me. Mom's favorite, he remembered. He forgot the part about diabetes. But it was so sweet of him to try to recreate our comfort, our home. I know he is uncomfortable with my new husband, even though he knows him a little, and trying so hard to make a good impression. That he wants to make a good impression impresses the shit outta me. He is doing so well, such a man now. So handsome and capable of doing life. He told fish stories, and they told fish stories, and it will take time for them to know each other. The men in my life. And for them to know and like each other is so important to me.

We headed out of town through Ruch, and ran into Bob and Patricia at the Fireman's Yard Sale. It was a clusterfuck of activity, donated crap, and rain. The early rain was welcome in the dustbowl of a southern Oregon September, but it did not bode well for sales: it poured. There were tents set up, but to little avail. Books were soaked, piles of baskets and cloth furniture dripping. I found a bowl. One. And off we went to the biker show at Provolt. Provolt used to be a narrow bridge in the road, but now it is a wide bridge, modern and sleek, and not nearly so beautiful or dangerous. The bikers were old, the bikes: okay. Nice, black, ordinary. And the cheap biker crap for sale was no different than ever. My least favorite T-shirt: "50,000 battered women and I'm still eating mine plain" Ah, bikers. So low on the food chain. They all looked alike: gray beards and handlebar moustaches, big bellies and bad taste. The old women in poorly fitting black leathers on a hot day. We looked better back in the day.

And it was north to Portland, gas 3.00 a gallon and Sid tired of the front seat and me tired of Sid. It is good to be home.

disaster birthdays

I was watching the news, as I do, gasping from time to time at the boob who is in charge of the friggin' world, and I wonder what kind of party he intends to throw this year for the tragedy of 911. This should be a big day for him. I doubt he can recoup his image quite this quickly, an image which is body-bagged at this point. But I have no doubt that they'll spin out of the mire though. They're good at that.

I am so sick of political responses to human tragedy, for the irreparably slow response to the hurricane in the absence of political gain, or the perception of gain. I mean, if I was president, I think it would look good to give a shit. I wonder if we, sedated nation, will ever find a way to punish this administration. I am all about the assignation of blame, but not quite so quickly. When democrats start throwing shit balls before the rain stops, when they should be way down south in dixie humping bags of sand into the yawning gap of Lake Ponchartrain -- it makes me sad and certain that we have lost our way. Maybe we lost it a long long time ago. Maybe we haven't found it yet. Bush is an idiot. Yes. But while he golfs, the nation sleeps. Who is more to blame? I sit on high ground and do nothing but vote and feel the impotence of the despotic regime.

On the news last night was a child who's birthday falls on September 11th. Not 2001, but just the same, her parents are tortured, as people who have too much time on their hands can be, over whether or not to throw her a party on this dark day. She lives in NY, afterall.

Fuck that. Party on. There is more to life than the parade of tragedies. If this were to be the gold standard, think how many days would be omitted from the birthday calendar: Hiroshima, the sunami, the earthquake in India, or do we not weight those non-white tragedies with the same depth of concern.

It is a cool day in portland. I am delighted by the weather change. Victims of the hurricane have elected not to come here. I'm not sure why. Oregon City asked nervously whether they would be allowed to move freely in their community. White welcome mat, eh? And in the wake of it all, the Red Cross is marketing "to-go bags" little red totes with everything you need in the event of your own personal Katrina. I wonder if it includes mace for the rapists.

solitude

...as we flew around Sauvie Island, 90 miles an hour, he stopped: 5 roses for 5 bucks, and we stuffed them in the knapsack, and now, in my living room, they are opening perfectly, the color of sunset, this Labor day-evening -- a sweet smelling reminder of my deep contentment in this life. I was reading, am reading, a book by Sue Miller. It is the one thing I have not completed this weekend that I intended to. The main character was accused of being boring because she settled for contentment. Clearly, she had not lived my life. Contentment is the highest form of praise I can assign to any moment, or series of moments. Absence of chaos. Bliss.

We ate breakfast out two mornings in a row.

We went for a bicycle ride Saturday morning, and this morning, but it was Saturday when we drove by the Road Kill Table. I spied it: a semi-mission style table, a weathered top (maybe a door nailed to the supports) that crumbled away with the slightest pressure. In my neighborhood, people just set stuff they don't want on the curb, and someone generally takes it away. My husband, hoping I'd forget about it, drove on past, but I could not forget it. That's how I know I want something: I keep thinking about it. So, we circled back around, made sure the owners were indeed letting the table go, and once again, I have a new treasure. We brought it home (I did) and Kurt made a new top for it. It is beautiful, and will be a perfect replacement for the too-frilly table I have used for about five years, that I HAD to have, that I searched far and wide and paid too much for at an antique store in Bandon. I am now rewarded with a free table. Buying wood for the top was not exactly free. Makes me glad I am not building a house.

We watched old movies: The Old Man and the Sea and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. I remembered The Old Man... as a better movie, Spencer Tracy a better actor. I didn't like the narration, and Hemingway's writing seemed (sue me) self-conscious and repetitious. We also watched Megalodon and Monster in Law, just to keep things even.

I'll never be published. I have sinned against literature.

labor

I am resisting social obligations on this Labor Day. I don't think it is going to work. Resistance is futile. What's new?

My husband is in a white chocolate and pecan pancake coma on the couch and I am, after a crabcake benedict, feeling invigorated and accepting of diabetes as my lot in life. What a trooper, eh? Give me the inevitable, the unavoidable, and I will, upon pain of death, wander toward acceptance. Shit.

It is a beautiful weekend, and I am so fortunate to be alive, dry and with adequate housing. I hear that one of the abandoned (de-funded) schools is going to serve as housing for the people who have been displaced by the hurricane. I keep hoping this next thing, this next travesty, and the failure of big government to respond except for photo-ops, will result in impeachment. I mean, this is the south. This is his home. This should matter. I wonder. I will try to offer something to the people who land in Oregon, for however long.

We took down the pool and re-seeded the perfect circle in our back yard. I pounded stakes and strung caution tape around them in the hopes that Sid will take the hint. He is a little thick when it comes to relieving himself. Any ol' place will do.

In today's paper was a picture of a small parade down the main street of New Orleans. Now, that is heart.

perennials

Its that time of year. Pruning, edging, cutting back. It always feels destructive, and I like that feeling, but it is a time to be brave: they always come back better than they were.

I played hooky today. God that feels good. I drove over to SW Portland, a place I have been to but have never driven in, and found my way home. I purchased a perfectly brand new old set of matched Peugeot bikes. His and hers. Purchased in Paris some 20-30 years ago. I wonder what Peugeot means? They are beautiful, tires like razor-blades. Thin bikes. Road bikes. So fast you'll never need a kickstand bikes. I guess people with those bikes never stop because they never seem to have kickstands. What is that about? I mean, if the weight of a kickstand is going to break you, shit, do a few more push-ups, Lance. Anyway, I got the bikes cheap, and drove off to find a frame for my ship painting. I am having one made. It seems silly to spend 60.00 on a frame for a 5.00 road kill picture, but I love it. It is treasure.

Once home again, it was hard to get off the couch, but the Kaiser hospital commercials resonated in my mind: the couch is a carb the couch is a carb the couch is a carb. And I've always called it a vortex.

So I made some more coffee (which is also bad, but hell, you be perfect) and set off with the pruners. At a yard sale, we found a really tall, long handled limb-pruner which is really slick to use. Whoever figured that one out was smart. But today, I just needed the little ones. I cut back the Spanish lavendar, the roses, the slug-munched violets from springtime, and left the front bed with a bad haircut and two full bins of clippings. I still need to get to the lemon cucumbers and the roses out back. My hydrangea is blooming. It is my first. I've always loved them: single, ready-made bouquets, irridescent blue, more beautiful dry than fresh. And I guess that since I planted mine late, it is blooming late. I figured if it is a spring flowering plant and you plant it in the fall, it will bloom in the spring anyway; like fish -- they know what season it is. They don't get confused and spawn in the winter. But maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges. Probably. Everything seems a little too connected to me on the days I play hooky. The whole world makes sense.

So my flower is blooming. And it is all mine. There was a blossom on it when I planted it, but that was a hot-house flower. I can't take credit for it. I didn't kill it -- I can take credit for that.

So, it is Labor Day Weekend. We have nothing planned. That is, we PLAN TO DO NOTHING. We just want to yard sale, fix bikes, and make peach cobbler. (I am pretending not to be diabetic.) I want to read a whole book (Sue Miller, "The World Below"), put away my summer clothes, get out my sweaters, gather yard sale stuff for a weekend when other people aren't selling all their cool shit, and relax with my husband. ALONE.