This entry was written on my Palm. I’m waiting and it looks like I’ll be waiting for a lot longer. As far as strokes go, there will be less waiting than usual. That doesn’t make me feel any better, though.

The hardest part is not helping. The occupational therapist comes in and her job is to reteach Kristen how to dress herself. I just want to jump in and help her get that right arm in the sleeve. It’s like biting my tongue, except there’s no tongue to bite.

The physical therapist comes into the room and his job is to help her learn how to walk again. Her balance is off, so I see her leaning to her left. I want to rush to her side to set her right, but she needs to learn how to balance again. It’s a journey that I can’t spare her. I can’t help her. I can only watch in agony as she learns what standing upright feels like again.

This must be what it’s like to be a parent. My legs work. I want to spare her the pain of learning to walk again. Just use my legs, but that’s not an option. Only she can learn to walk again. Only she can travel down that road. I have to stand by and watch. The only good that I can do is give encouragement and even that feels hollow and empty.

A gag order has been issued and because Kristen is Mike’s sister, I will comply. She has a long road in front of her. The doctors are predicting two weeks in rehab and continued therapy at home. That’s incredibly fast for someone who couldn’t move the right half of her body two days ago. For her sake, I hope they are right.

The doctors and therapists are hopeful. She has regained a lot of movement in her right arm and leg. She was able to walk down the hall with some help. We are still holding vigil.

Final Kristen Update

I’m still not comfortable in the locker room at the gym. Something about it just makes me think about Janean Hunt looking at me undress and asking me, “Why would you wear those pants?” Adults aren’t as vicious as teenagers, I’ve heard, but that doesn’t stop me from cringing when I have to change clothes. I’m torn. Should I hide in the changing room and make everyone think that I’m so self-conscious that I can’t let another woman see my body? Should I just change in front of everyone, subjecting myself to potential comments?

I decided to fake it until I got it. I will pretend that I’m beautiful. I will pretend that I have nothing to hide. I will keep pretending until it’s true. So, I go to the gym. I change into my jogging bra in front of all the other women. In some respects, I would rather change in front of men. They would be appreciative. Women can be ferocious. Every day, I take that leap of faith and hope no one will attack me or my pants.

Two months ago, she spoke to me. I had seen her before. She’s tiny. She wears a dark layer of mascara and eyeliner in the blackest of blacks. She has that perfect hair that never gets frizzy when she sweats. She spoke to me.

I like your hair.

I waited for the insult to follow it for only a second before I added my own.

It can be unruly. It took me so long to learn not to comb it.

It’s so thick and curly. You’re really lucky.

That was how quickly the conversation went. I was coming in while she was leaving. Over the last couple of months, I have seen her many times and greeted her cordially. I say hi. She says hi. That’s the extent of the relationship. I don’t even know her name. Last Tuesday, that all changed.

Hello.

Hi. You’re breathing kind of heavy.

I am training for a 5K and today was a hard run.

I used to run a 5K, but they didn’t have it last year.

We talked about running and racing. I don’t have much time on my lunch hour, so I had to change clothes. I had to change clothes in front of her. I saved the jogging bra for last. It’s a compression bra that makes me look substantially smaller. Taking it off feels like releasing the innards of a Jimmy Dean sausage. I kept thinking that if I just did everything else, maybe she would go away before I had to release “the twins.” She kept talking to me, so I finally just took the leap of faith and changed right in front of her. I cringed, expecting some sort of catty response. Instead, the locker room became a confessional.

If the doctor knew that I was at the gym right now, he’d be angry.

Why?

I just had two biopsies taken from my left breast. That’s why I’m all bound up over here.

She indicated under her shirt. I couldn’t see the bandage, but I know that biopsies can be incredibly painful when the anesthesia wears off.

What are you doing here?

I just worked my legs. I didn’t do any upper body. I just have to exercise. It is such a stress reliever for me and I’m pretty stressed. They could have taken just one biopsy, but there were so many in there that they said they better take samples for both. They ended up giving me a hematoma, so they bound me up really tight.

You should go home and rest.

Yeah, I think I will.

I still don’t even know her name?

They were unsure yesterday, but last night, they knew. She definitely had a stroke. There is a blockage in her carotid artery. The CAT scan was useless yesterday, but the MRI showed the blockage. She is going in this morning for another MRI. Waiting sucks…

Kristen Update

Hugh Elliot is back and Standing Room Only has reminded me that I lived at a very momentous time in our history: that dawning of the computer age. I saw so many things come and go during this time.

It was eighth grade and I was saving my program on a tape recorder with an Atari 800. I thought that I had forgotten that joy. If you listened to your program on a normal tape recorder, it sounded like beeps and screeches. The tape machine could play music, though. I’ll never forget the sound of Weird Al Yankovic blaring while we programmed in Basic. Back then, the programs were fun. They were games. We made the screen change colors. We made it say the phrase, “Ataris are cool” over and over until it filled the screen.

Back then, I never thought about programming something useful. I didn’t have a computer at home and I was only allowed a couple of hours after school once a week. What good would a useful program do me? Sure, I could program the computer to tell me what day Easter would be on each year, but why would that help me?

When we were first married there was a window of time when it was more practical to program it ourselves than to wait for an application to take care of the problem. By then, I had relegated the programming to Mike. He had written the BBS from scratch. Mike, could you program the BBS to have another room just for me? Sure, but right now I’m programming it to give a different quote every time you press return without typing something?

And that was it. That was the mythical gleam in Mike’s eye. It was an Easter Egg in his BBS program. Now, the idea of a bulletin board system is just as archaic as saving one’s program written in Basic on magnetic tape. The BBS has been replaced by chat rooms and text messaging on cell phones. No more calling the BBS in the middle of the night, only to get a busy signal. We can all be on it at once.

What are you doing? Have you slept at all? No, I’ve been typing in quotations for the BBS. That was the first wave of the collection. Mike’s sarcastic collection of quotations was growing. All I could see was that he had to go to work on no sleep. My vision was a little myopic. I didn’t know about the Internet and back then it was still lurking quietly at the universities and government institutions. It was waiting.

It was waiting for Mike’s quotations. It was waiting for Hugh Elliot’s thoughts and ideas. It was waiting for Real Live Preacher‘s inspiration. It was waiting for me. I have seen so many changes in the computer industry pass over the years. Things changed so often and so quickly that I thought it would always be like that. Over the last four years, the industry has stabilized. The changes are slower. Sure, the processor speeds are doubling every year, but the computers are so fast now that it’s hard to notice. From the ground, the speed of light and the speed of sound look the same.

They call the old times the “Good Old Days.” I don’t subscribe to that. I would call those times good, but by no means were they better than right now. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to programming on an Atari 800. My telephone has more processor power than that old monster (we still have it, sitting in the basement alongside the Atari 2600). I lived at a momentous time in history. I am grateful to have experienced those times, but there is no place I’d rather be than right here right now.

Mike’s sister, Kristen, had a stroke this morning. I have some prewritten entries that will show up like clockwork. I will keep you posted as soon as I know anything.

Kristen Update

They say that if you plug your nose and cover your eyes, you can’t tell the difference between an apple and a potato. I’ve never tried this. I’ve eaten raw potatoes many times. I eat raw apples every day. Their texture is identical, so I guess I buy it. I can believe that they are the same if you can’t taste or see what you’re eating.

I was sitting at my seat before the Weight Watchers meeting started. I never eat before I weigh in, so I’m always ravenous when I get to my seat. I had brought an Asian pear and a cheese stick to eat while I waited.  I don’t usually choose Asian pears at the grocery store. The Bartletts always tempt me away from the Asian variety. I had gotten this pear in a fruit basket for Christmas. As you can tell, I had already eaten my favorites and I was down to the dregs. My choice Saturday morning was the Asian pear or one of two grapefruits. I took the more portable option and ran.

The first bite was the most interesting. I bit it gently, expecting it to be soft like an old Bartlett. Instead, it was crisp and cold from the refrigerator. Crisp, cold and tasting exactly like a potato. The texture and flavor were the same. It was a surprise and brought to mind the apple and potato taste test. I just finished that bite, thinking of all the times that I’ve eaten raw potatoes.

I usually eat a bite of cheese with each bite of apple. I had no apples, so I thought the cheese would go better with the pear than the grapefruit. Taking bites of that pear and cheese together was interesting. It made me think that maybe I should be eating more raw potatoes. It didn’t make me want to eat another Asian pear, however. I’m sure I just got a bad one, but it wasn’t good enough to ever risk choosing over a Bartlett.

I always feel self-conscious when I eat at a Weight Watchers meeting. It’s morning. It’s breakfast time and I’ve delayed my breakfast until after I weigh in. Right after the meeting, I have an hour to exercise at the gym and then I immediately go to my meditation class. There isn’t much eating time scheduled in there, so I fit it in right before the meeting starts. I never see anyone else eat. I see some diet sodas and coffee mugs, but it’s rare that I ever see another apple being devoured, much less a potato-flavored pear.

What is it about eating in public places? I know it’s considered rude to eat in front of other people, but there are times when I have to eat. Logically, I realize that I don’t register in the consciousness of any of the other members, but emotionally, I feel their eyes on me. I think that they must be appalled at my eating in a Weight Watchers class, even though I’m eating healthy food. Do they think that I have no control over my eating? Do they covet my pear? Maybe I can convince them all to shut their eyes while I eat. Then they wouldn’t be able to tell whether I was eating a pear or a potato.

Mike and I really get along with Stacey and Dan. Everything we do, we think, “Hey, let’s call Stacey and Dan and see if they want to come along.”

That’s what Darrin and I call a 2 X 2 Matrix. It’s very rare to find another couple that the both of you can like. You should be grateful.

I sat there, feeling ungrateful for not noticing that we had such a good friendship. Penny seemed almost jealous of it, but there was nothing I could do. I think she left her last 2 X 2 Matrix in Arizona. She was obviously missing them.

We invoked the rights of our 2 X 2 Matrix last Saturday and fun was had by all. We met after my meditation class. We didn’t have much planned. Mike and I wanted to take them to The Melting Pot and I had found a store that I was sure that they were going to like. That was it. Our reservation was for 6:05 pm and we got together at lunchtime, about noon. I was feeling under the pressure because I didn’t have any thing in particular planned to keep us busy until The Melting Pot would let us in the door.

I guess I shouldn’t have worried. We found lots of things to do. We were going to check out the Chroma Gallery over by our house, but it wasn’t open at its appointed time, so we blew it off. Someday we’ll get to go there and enjoy more than just the paintings that we can see from the front window.

Instead of the gallery, we looked at an antiques store and I came this close to buying a Fisher Price Record Player. It had plastic records and wound up. It worked like a music box and each record would pluck different parts of the music box. It was only $28, but I realized that the only reason that I wanted it is because I would want my unborn children to have something like that to play with. I realized that if I ever do have children, they probably would be unimpressed with the Fisher Price Record Player. It was more a gift for my inner child and she really would prefer colored pencils or another canvas.

We also went to Experienced Books. Ok, we tried to go there, but there was a friggin’ oxygen bar in its place. I literally started swearing like a carpenter with a throbbing thumb when I saw the oxygen bar. Never fear, Experienced Books is still there, they just have sized down considerably. It didn’t stop me from finding three Somerset Maugham books and Mike found a couple of mysteries. B.Daltons all over the city are closing, but we still have Experienced Books, thank goodness.

I found a place for Stacey and Dan. Last week, Mike and I drove past it going forty miles an hour. I only got a glimpse of The Light Spot, but I was able to see enough to know that Stacey and Dan would love it. We don’t have IKEA here in Salt Lake, so we poor souls rely on local modern furniture shops like Manhattan Loft and San Francisco Design. I found a new place called The Light Spot.  They loved it and I fell in love with the Punk Rock Futon. All I would have to do to replicate it is take a black sharpie to my comforter. Cool…

All of this and it was only two in the afternoon. We had four hours to burn before The Melting Pot, so Stacey and Dan took us to the Dutch Shop and Europa, which are two ethnic markets right by our house that we didn’t even know about. We got lots of Russian and Dutch candy. Mike bought four flavors of licorice and two flavors of pfeffernusse. Dan got some really cool caviar (By the way, you left it in my fridge, man).

After the candy-buying binge, we all went back to my house to eat the candy until someone wisely mentioned that we were going to The Melting Pot in three hours and we needed to “save our appetites.” We all nodded knowingly and each snuck one more bite of exotic foreign candy that tasted exactly the same as the home grown variety with different packaging.

Instead of bingeing, we planned our next family vacation. We chose the dates, reserved the cabin within a few miles of the Yellowstone border and decided on the type of vehicle we are renting that can hold all of us and our crap on the trip up to Idaho. The most surprising thing is how easy it all was. Mike and I had thought that we were going to go to Yellowstone and we should just ask Stacey and Dan if they wanted to go. Within an hour of asking them, everything was decided and we were going to take my mom and Reed too. A whole family vacation to Jellystone! Yeah!

When six o’clock rolled around, I was so hungry that I was ready to order the full four course meal at The Melting Pot. They were looking at having oil instead of broth, sure go ahead. I was starving. We ordered drinks and ate tiny bits of food on long forks for three hours. We even were able to decide what we were going to fight about on the Yellowstone trip.

Nine hours together and a good time was had by all. Just chillin’ and hangin’ out. That’s what a 2 X 2 Matrix is. The four of us were able to enjoy each other, plan for more good times and make fun of Russian television. What more could we have wanted? Ok, there was one thing missing from our evening. Next time we go to The Melting Pot, we’re going to smuggle in a bag of ‘Nilla Wafers.

When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win. – Ed Macauley

The temptation was so great. I am having a little bit of muscle soreness in my left leg. I worked myself a little too hard on Saturday on my hill workout. I found a treadmill at the gym that goes up to 15% incline, which is the highest I’ve ever seen and way too steep for me right now. I didn’t think it was but my inner thigh and hamstring have the final say.

I’m tempted to take it easy until my leg feels completely better. There are many options for me at the gym. I could do those elliptical trainer things or maybe a stair stepper. Neither one of those would put any stress on the sore muscle, yet I was tempted this morning to just not go to the gym at lunch today. I’ll practice for the 5K tomorrow.

When I read The Runner’s Book of Daily Inspiration, it told me how great it was to run in the rain at this time of the year. Whoever wrote that entry has never run in Salt Lake City, Utah in January. It is very rare when we have rain in January and snowy egrets are such a rarity that I’ve only seen one once in my whole life. Yes, this morning it was very tempting to just blow off my workout today.

I was tempted until I got the Motivational Quotes email. That Ed Macauley is right. Some bitch is going to be at the gym working out today and I might be running alongside her in the SLC 5K. I can’t let her get the jump on me. I have to keep going. I’ll work on the elliptical trainer today. I’ll baby my sore muscle, but I’ll keep working on my endurance and strength.

It’s strange where motivation can come from. I get the Motivational Quotes email so that I can make sure that the quotations have been typed in correctly. I signed up for my own quotations so that I could catch my mistakes. Every quote is something I’ve seen before and personally typed in myself. Every quote was one that I personally found inspirational. I forget that when I’m typing for hours or going through books in which I’ve underlined all the quotes that need to be put into the website. That website was originally something that I created because I wanted it to exist. It was something that I created for myself. I only remembered that this morning, when I really needed it.

I just realized that the Demon of Perfection has resurfaced in my life. He is not affecting my writing this time. No, I am writing every day like clockwork. It might not be perfect, but it certainly is consistent. I’ve been told that writing is really the art of editing, but I know that it’s possible to edit your work to its death. No, the Demon of Perfection is leaving my writing alone this time. It’s like he ran away because I noticed him.

For the last year, I have maintained my current weight. I have lost the same five pounds about three or four times over the last year. It has been rather frustrating. Before that, my weight loss was steady. I joined Weight Watchers on January 17, 2001 and I lost fifty pounds that first year: steady and healthy weight loss progress. Last year, this progress stagnated. I’ve been at this weight for a year and I’m sick of it. I’m ready to finish the job I started two years ago.

It wasn’t until just now that I realized that part of the reason it has stagnated is the Demon of Perfection. It was so important that I just had to write to tell you about it. I’ll tell you now that I can be perfect. It wouldn’t be an attraction or menace if I had zero chances of being perfect. I can follow the Weight Watchers plan perfectly for one day. I can follow it perfectly for two days in a row. I can follow it perfectly for months at a time, but there are always things that interfere.

No matter what month it is, there is always a celebration looming. There are decidedly more celebrations in the winter, but every month has something to celebrate, even if it’s just the beauty (or oppression, depending on the year) of summer in August. I let these celebrations scare me. It’s possible to be perfect on these celebrations, but I don’t necessarily want to. I want to jump into life fully with two feet. I’ll get out and dry myself off afterward, but an open plunge into life is what living is about.

So, I allow myself to be perfect for days or weeks at a time and then chastise myself for one full-figured celebration. Then the Demon steps in. If you can’t be perfect every day, what’s the point of trying at all? If you’re not going to be perfect on Halloween, why should you bother being perfect the week beforehand? Or the week afterward? If you can’t be perfect all the time, you might as well not even try?

What would have been one day of celebration turns into weeks of bingeing. I’m like a slow motion bulimic. Instead of bingeing in the morning and purging in the late hours when no one can see, I binge in January and purge in February. All in the name of Perfection. To Hell with Perfection. I hereby cast ye out! Instead of Perfection, I now strive for Adequate! I don’t know how Adequate I need to be to keep losing weight, but it is my new goal.

They say the Eskimos have a large number of words for snow. I think that’s baloney. Two, maybe three, words tops is all I’m willing to believe from them. It’s not that I think that Eskimos don’t have the creativity to name all the different types of snow, it just that every thing that I have ever been told about another culture has been a lie. I’m reluctant to take this one at face value.

According to The AFU and Urban Legends Archive, it’s all bogus, so I guess my instincts were right. Well, if Eskimos don’t have a million words for snow, we Utahans should make some up. When I started writing, we had that tiny and  fine snow that reminds me of dandruff. It’s just enough to muck up your windshield, but not enough to clean the dirt from the street. Sometimes it just fools you and you think that the fog is really thick, but when you look closely, it’s snow.

When I was researching the Intuit words for snow, the flakes got bigger. They were only about half the size of Christmas Snow. It was the size and quantity of snow that sent my mom into a terror-induced trance one evening. It wasn’t the year of the horrible snow. It was before that and it was before the divorce, so I was younger than eleven years.

We had gone to Valley Fair Mall. You know how things are at the mall. They are warm. You take off your coat and carry it around with you, wishing you had just left it in the car. Eventually, you forget about the outside world and get lost in your errands. That’s what happened to us that night. It was a wonderful evening with my mom and Stacey when we stepped outside. She froze. The most vivid part of this memory is watching my mom just look straight up at the sky at those snow flakes.

Whenever I tell this story, careful listeners always interrupt me. “Isn’t your mom from Wisconsin?” I can see their minds click. It’s like a little cartoon balloon is above their heads. “Wisconsin gets major snow. Why would she be scared of snow?” I remember the day when I asked her those exact questions. “I grew up in Wisconsin, but I learned to drive in Virginia.”

Ah, yes. Virginia. My father was stationed in Portsmouth, Virginia during part of the Vietnam War. I was born in Virginia. I always imagine my young mother on the bus when she realizes that she could just learn how to drive my dad’s car. I can see her on a  bus in 1969 with a baby, trying to bring home groceries. It was so much easier to shop for groceries before the baby came. Here she was suffering, when she could just learn how to drive that car that just sits dormant while he’s away at sea. Easy decision. It’s a time of revolution. Women can drive cars now.

Ah, yes. Virginia. There are bugs the size of rodents and rodents the size of small dogs in Virginia. The reason the bugs can get to the size of rodents in Virginia is because it never gets cold enough to kill them. It doesn’t snow there. I had a friend who went to school in Virginia and she said that the one time it snowed while she was there, the entire city shut down. She said that there wasn’t even an inch on the ground.

Plus, there was that horrible frozen 7^th East incident. When my mom first moved to Salt Lake City, she got a job at Grand Central on 7^th East and 21^st South. Ironically, I live within walking distance of the store in question, except it’s a Circuit City now. After closing, one snowy evening, my mom spent hours trying to get to my grandmother’s house on 17^th South and Windsor Street: a three mile drive, tops. She spent several hours trying to drive a couple of miles back home on a “sheet of ice.” Every time she would use the gas, the car would slide. Don’t get her started on this story. The length of time it took her to get home gets longer every time she tells it.

So, my mom was scared of snow. She was scared of the ice. She was scared of getting stuck. She was scared of getting the girls home safely. She was frozen in a trance, looking at the snowflakes coming down from the sky. All of that fear faced her at that moment. I remember suggesting that we just call Dad and have him pick us up, but I saw something change in her for a moment. It’s a time of revolution. Women can drive cars now. She got into the car and drove us home that night.

They say that there can be no courage without fear. Unlike most things that “they” say, I know that this one is true because I saw the courage fill my mother’s body that evening. If I were given the chance to name the kind of snow that’s about half the size of Christmas Snow and falls quickly, covering the ground thickly within a few hours, I would call it Mother’s Snow. Eskimos might not have a million words for snow, but I do.

As drove home from work on Wednesday, the fog was so thick that I could look directly at the sun: no sunglasses needed. The massive red disk was just starting to dip into the mountains. If I had left for work five minutes later, I would have missed it. It looked spectacularly huge when it slipped right behind the Chevron refinery. It became part of the refinery and snapped out of the distance into the foreground. The sun looked like it was part of the refinery process, like some huge, red carefully controlled burn.

A child could have drawn this sun. It was perfectly round. There were none of those pesky sun beams flying off it, blinding me. It was just a huge crimson circle in the sky. I half expected to see a smiley face to appear on it.  I have been complaining about this fog, but I had forgotten how beautiful it can be. I had forgotten how it can obscure the sun enough to give me the opportunity to look straight at it.

The first time I remember being able to look straight at the sun, I must have been about six years old. It was after I went to first grade, but it was before my grandma moved to Billings. I was out in the backyard of her home on Windsor Street. Attached to her back porch was a trellis and there were large and orange honeysuckle blooms clinging to it. It was a hot evening and I was surprised that I could actually hear the wings of the hummingbirds, feeding on the honeysuckle.

I was just sitting in the backyard listening to the insect noises of the hummingbirds, when I noticed the sun. There were clouds obscuring it on the horizon, so I could look straight at the sun. I remembered a biblical story in which someone was blinded by the sun. I had accepted that story literally, not realizing that the sun can “get in your eyes.” I stared at the sun, trying to see if it would make me blind. It made a round burn mark that floated in my line of sight. I didn’t really consider that blindness. I stared at the sun until it went behind the Oquirrh mountains.

After it was gone, I ran inside to tell my mom and grandma what had happened. “I stared right at the sun and it didn’t blind me.” My mom dismissed what I said, “You couldn’t have stared directly at the sun. It would blind you.” I argued with her for about five minutes and I regretted that I hadn’t brought her outside to see the sun sink. She probably doesn’t remember that day.

Many times I have seen the sun look like this. It’s usually on a foggy day like Wednesday, but I have looked directly at that yellow disk through thin clouds. Sunsets, sunrises and daytime I have observed this phenomenon. It’s like I feel like I need to keep looking to prove to myself that it really happened because someone didn’t believe me once.

As I write this, it is 19 degrees and foggy outside. One of my engineers just came back from a site visit and he said that his toes felt like they were going to break off before he would be able to get back into the car. I wonder how the surveyors feel out there. I have gone into hibernation.

I’m usually an outdoors person. I walk to the local restaurants from my home. I walk to the local stores from my home. I walk for fun to the park. I sit outside in my backyard just to enjoy the outdoors. Since Old Cowboy Winter hit us this year, I have been hiding in the house. It’s just too cold to enjoy a walk outside.

Of course, when I say it’s too cold to take a walk, I think about the New Yorkers. They walk everywhere. They walk to the Subway. They walk to their local stores and restaurants. They do it in humid cold, which is way worse than our dry cold. When it’s 19 degrees outside and 19% humidity, it actually feels like 19 degrees outside. When the humidity is up to 40%, it feels much colder. If they can walk to their restaurants in the freezing cold, what’s the matter with me?

Well, for starters, I’m not a New Yorker. I’m not forced to walk everywhere; I choose to. I have a perfectly functioning car that can keep me warm while I go out and about. I guess I just miss walking everywhere. It feels good to be outside in the sunshine and I miss it. When my engineer came back from his visit, I wished that there was a reason for me to freeze my toes outside and get paid for it.

I just need to get out there. Next time I feel like leaving the house for a local restaurant, I need to just put on my heavy coat and boots and walk there. The feeling of the cold air on my cheeks is invigorating and it feels even better when I finally get to my destination. Winter evenings are so quiet compared to the summer. It’s like the snow dampens the sound and keeps it from bombarding me. This brown bear is leaving the cave, no matter how cold it gets.

Yeah, I know. Believe it or not, I’m not a depressed person. My mouth and vocal chords aren’t depressed. Anyone who talked to me would be happy and jovial and laughing at my rapier wit. Maybe just my fingers are depressed. So much of my writing is automatic. So much of my writing is a physical activity. I’ve decided to blame my fingers.

There’s a dark side to each and every human soul. We wish we were Obi-Wan Kenobi, and for the most part we are, but there’s a little Darth Vadar in all of us. Thing is, this ain’t no either or proposition. We’re talking about dialectics, the good and the bad merging into us. You can run but you can’t hide. My experience? Face the darkness, stare it down. Own it. As brother Nietzsche said, being human is a complicated gig. Give that old dark night of the soul a hug! Howl the eternal yes!  – Stuart Stevens, Northern Exposure, Jules et Joel, 1991

Who knows? Maybe I’m not a depressed person because I get all of this depressing stuff out of me every day. I write two pages of personal journal every day and from that, glean the good stuff for a weblog entry. I guess “good stuff” might be a misnomer if you find this weblog depressing. Still, I realize that this stuff isn’t funny or inspirational. If I found this weblog, I would stop reading it.

It’s cabin fever season people, that time of year when four walls feel like they’re going to come in here and choke the spirit right out of you. Time to lock away those firearms and hang tough. No way through it except to do it.  – Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Una Volta in L’Inverno, 1994

Yet, you are still reading it. I know you are out there. I see you log onto my site every day. I don’t know your names, but most of you are from the United States. Some of you are reading this entry on your PDAs. I must have scared away my reader from toro.com, but there are lots of you out there reading my entries on your lunch hours and late in the night while I sleep. I see you. Thank you for reading my site, even if you find it depressing.

Life’s dirty. Life’s unclean you know. It’s birth, it’s sex, it’s the intestinal tract. One big squishy, unsanitary mess. It never gets any cleaner either. You know, dust to dust, worms crawl in, worms crawl out, right? Even though we know that, we still walk the walk, we still live the life. We’re like a bunch of little kids. Little kids, you know, we jump in this big old pond of mud and we’re slapping it all over our face, rubbing our hair all down our backs and we’re making these glorious, gooey, mud pies. That’s us.  – Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Mite Makes Right, 1994

By the way, to the person who found my weblog with the search string, “Southern Exposure Wendover.” I’m sorry. I didn’t actually go into the club, so I can’t tell you what it’s like at all, just that it exists. It is located in the strip mall to the west of the Smith’s grocery store. I just found it ironic that Wendover didn’t have a Wal-Mart, but they had a strip joint. I guess people go to Nevada for two things and they aren’t relaxation and isolation.

Continuous unremitting darkness has been known to send some people into an emotional tailspin, so the management here at KBHR radio suggests locking away the firearms. The desire to stick that 45 between the teeth can get pretty strong at times, so why invite temptation.  – Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Northern Lights, 1993

I can’t promise that I’ll be funny. I’ve got to save all my wit and charm for conversation, I guess. Believe me. Most of my humor is of the slapstick variety and taking a pratfall just doesn’t translate well in the written world. I used to have a really funny weblog to recommend to people who thought I was depressing, but he hasn’t written for two months straight, so you’re on your own. If you find someone funny, send me a recommendation.

I don’t know which book store we were in. We go to so many that it could have been anywhere. It could even have been a music store, for all I know. I was drawn to the book because it brought to mind a very personal memory for me. The cover looked like a Mead Spiral Notebook. It could have been my journal.

Michael held it up and said that if he ever became famous, that I need to find all the notebooks that look like this and destroy them. I wonder how Kurt would feel if he knew that his personal journals are reproduced in full for the world to see. I wonder what he would think about the legal wrangling that went on for ten years after his death. Would he have written a concise and notarized will to prevent those problems or do you think he would have relished the drama?

What about my journals? I have boxes of them. Should I dispose of them? They aren’t flattering sometimes. My journals aren’t polished and shiny and clean. They look more like that Mead notebook of Kurt’s. Since the first time I put pencil to paper in fifth grade, I find that my old journals are embarrassing and trite. That first little journal was a small blue thing with a lock. Looking back on the entries is painful. I only turned to it when I was in pain and fifth grade pain is so simple and petty.

It wasn’t until high school that I faithfully started writing every single day, whether I was happy, sad or indifferent. Those entries feel just as simple and petty, though. I documented what I wore to school, who talked to me and how I felt about my favorite crush. As with all my journals, my words were censored somewhat. I always assume that someone will read my journal. That’s why it wasn’t so hard for me to go online. So what if the world reads my journal? My paranoia had me believing that I had no privacy long ago.

A strange side of me wants to digitize them. It wants to go back to the small blue book and start typing them in: misspellings and all. Why would I do that? Why would I waste time in the real world to document my thoughts of the past? Most people believe that journal writing is a huge waste of time anyway. Why would I waste it twice?

Some of those journals I haven’t even read in years. They have been moved from the apartment to the condo to West Jordan to Sugarhouse. The box is opened to verify what they are and then closed again until the next move. What a painful way to spend an afternoon, reading my old journals. If I’m not going to read them, why do I keep them? Why don’t I destroy them so they don’t end up like the Kurt Cobain Journals?

Maybe they are the only proof that I was there. Yes, I was in West Valley, Utah. I went to Academy Park Elementary School. They moved us to Hunter Elementary in sixth grade. Then I went to Kennedy Junior High. Then I went to Kearns High. Then I went to Westminster College. Then I went out into the world. Here I am. There I was. Here’s the proof.

If I destroy them, do I destroy myself? Would my past be destroyed as surely as the pages? Maybe that’s it. I’m planning on being senile. I’m planning on forgetting my past, so I have documented how I felt and what I did so that I won’t forget it. The only glitch in that theory is that some of my best and worst memories aren’t documented in my journals. You see, I assumed the world (or my mom) would read them, so I couldn’t write about the party that got out of control. I couldn’t write about the time that Calvin failed me. It wasn’t until over fifteen years later that I felt safe enough to tell those stories. In fact, there are other stories that I don’t even feel safe enough to tell right now.

So, they don’t truly document the past any more than a photograph could. I don’t plan on reading them, even if I become senile. They are too painful to even look at, much less read. So, why do I keep them? Is it for posterity? No, after I’m gone, I’m not going to worry about that. I’ll be dead. Is it for my unborn children? God, no! Don’t let them see those things! Why don’t I just throw them on the fire? I guess it’s just like Mother Nature said in that episode of Northern Exposure, “One of the things that keeps you from dropping them in the nearest volcano is that you had to work too hard to get them.”

The heater vent has turned off and I think both the washer and the dryer have stopped downstairs. I should get up and help get the laundry finished. I should hop in the shower and get ready for work. I should do a lot of things, but I’m still here, writing.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.  – Leo Rosten (1908 – )

It feels good to let the words leave my hands and splash onto the paper. Sometimes writing feels like an entirely physical activity. I tried to explain this to Mike the other night, but he didn’t understand.

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.  – Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990)

Sometimes writing doesn’t feel intellectual. Instead of racking my brain trying to find the correct words, the words flow too quickly. They are trying to escape my head, but my hand is too slow to let them all flow freely. Even the spoken word is too slow sometimes. When my words flow like water, writing is entirely a physical act.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.  – W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)

Write quickly. Write fast enough to capture them all on paper. Oops! There goes another one. And yet another. So many profound thoughts are lost because my hand is too slow. That’s what writing feels like to me sometimes.

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything.  – John Irving (1942 – )

It is times like these when I feel like I should practice. I should be in training for writing the same way I am in training to run the 5K. I should just teach my hand to write faster. I should teach my fingers to type faster. Type faster than speech. Type faster than thought. If only I could type that fast, then writing would feel like an intellectual activity when my mind is racing.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.  – Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784), from Boswell’s Life of Johnson

Of course, the real intellectual work comes after the words are on the paper. Read. Edit. Reword. Add some quotes to make it seem like I’m well-read. That is the true intellectual work of writing. After the idea is on paper, I need to train my mind to communicate clearly, but when the idea comes to me, I need to train my fingers to type faster. When the idea is flowing in my mind, I need the fingers of a sprinter.

One of my favorite bloggers called it quits in a dramatic way. It was very Cartman. Her last post reads:

“I don’t want to write on my blog anymore. I think I’m going to take up personal correspondence instead. If you really want to know what’s going on with me, email me and ask. Or call. Or visit. I don’t like feeling like a product of mass consumption, and I don’t like being typecast, and I don’t like being analyzed, generalized, harped-upon and ignored. No more.”

Screw you guys. I’m going home.  – Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park

She has been writing off and on for about three years. When I mentioned it to Mike, we was very cavalier about it, “Yeah, all bloggers do that.” This surprised me. I’ve been writing every day of my life for almost as long as I can remember. My journals are boring outpourings of emotions and silliness, but they are consistent. Never once have I felt like a product of mass consumption.

Am I an afternoon’s pastime?
a thing on a string
to be thrown and retrieved
like a phone call received
on somebody’s birthday
to tease and delight
and then say goodnight
and then just say goodbye?  – Suzanne Vega, Machine Ballerina, 2001

Will it be different because I am online? Will it be different because my journal is available to the world? Will it be different because I now have an audience? There are fifty of you out there now. What if there were fifty-thousand people reading my site every day? Would it make me feel like I was a product instead of a writer? What causes this? If it happens to every popular blogger, I need to head it off at the pass. I need a plan for this contingency.

Am I a toy on a tray ?
a soft piece of clay
queen or clown for the day
machine ballerina
soldier of tin
standing so loyal
while you sit so royal
then I’m put away?  – Suzanne Vega, Machine Ballerina, 2001

What about the other arts? They Might Be Giants post a new song every single day on their answering machine. They call it Dial-A-Song (718-387-6962) and they consistently create every day. Did they ever have a meltdown? Was there ever a message saying, “We quit. You won’t have us to kick around anymore.” Somehow I doubt it. There might have been days when the message didn’t change. There might have been days when the message informed the callers that they were on tour. I just doubt that they ever told their audience to bug off. It doesn’t seem like their style.

Am I your Mad Magazine?
skin trampoline
pin-up pinball machine
your fantasy girl
of puzzling parts
but none fits or starts
we match wits but not hearts
I’m heard but never seen?  – Suzanne Vega, Machine Ballerina, 2001

What about Johann Sebastian Bach? I don’t remember ever hearing the “Sod Off Concerto.” He wrote a new concerto every Sunday. His church needed new and inspirational music every week and he provided it time and time again. I’m sure there were a few weeks when they just performed an older piece or maybe the choir sang a chorale. I just doubt that Bach ever wrote the “I Hate You Ungrateful Bastards Cantata.” It doesn’t seem like his style.

For your approval,
perusal,
and your possible
refusal,
I’m amusing,
I’m a puppet for your play.  – Suzanne Vega, Machine Ballerina, 2001

Guess what. It’s not my style either. If I’m going to quit, I’ll quit with grace. If I’m tired and need a rest, I’ll tell you that I’m tired and need a rest. The fact of the matter is: I AM A PRODUCT OF MASS CONSUMPTION. I’m quite proud of it, actually. Feel free to consume me. Unlike other commodities, I grow larger with mass consumption. Bring it on, baby!

01-09-04 12:45 pm: By the time this entry posts, I will be home. I probably won’t be unpacked. I might even still be waiting for Mike to bring Sid home from the kennel. When this posts, I’ll be home, but right now, I’m in Wendover.

For the first time in over 24 hours, we left the hotel. We hurriedly showered and dressed so that we could make the 10:30 am deadline for McDonald’s breakfast. Yesterday, we didn’t even let the staff clean the room. That’s what it’s like to hibernate. We hide in the room, leaving for food and rarely even leaving the hotel. Today, we actually let them service the room.

We allowed ourselves to explore all that West Wendover had to offer us. After McDonald’s, our first stop was the discount liquor store. Nevada has the amazing liquor concept called “the mini-bottle.” You may have heard of it. We can’t buy mini-bottles in Utah. They make us buy a huge bottle of the stuff. If we hate it, tough. We always buy lots of mini-bottles when we come to Nevada. It allows us to try new alcohol without committing to a whole bottle of the stuff.

We drove past the local strip club, Southern Exposure, and the dildo shop, the Blue Boutique. Same names as back home. It’s nice to see local businesses grow and branch out to other cities, don’t you think?

We drove through the small residential area here in Wendover. The mobile homes seem to outnumber the houses, condos and apartments all together. I can’t believe the mobile homes are sturdy enough to keep out the bitter desert cold. Some of them look so neglected that I’m amazed that they are still standing. The rust molecules must be holding hands.

If living conditions are poor, it doesn’t seem to affect the morale of the locals here. I am a people watcher. I watch them when they think that I can’t see. I see the locals working here. They talk to each other happily. The shop keepers were surprised at our presence, but not bitter. They seem happy. It’s nothing like Las Vegas. In Vegas it feels like the locals hate me. They want me gone. Don’t shop here. Don’t eat here. Just get out of my sight. No, Wendover is totally different. These people are actually happy here.

The visit to Wendover accomplished exactly what I needed. I needed to rest. I needed to hide. I needed to immerse myself in a town so wholly different from my own. How can I thank an entire town?

The first time I ever saw a dehumidifier, we were in North Dakota. Bobka, my great-grandmother, used to live in her own house in Pembina, North Dakota. It was right at the Canadian border. It was also the first time that I ever saw The Flintstones in French. I wasn’t bothered that Fred was speaking French so much that it was a different voice coming out of his mouth.

Anyway, there was a strange machine in her basement. Maybe it was an air filter. Maybe it was a furnace or something. I didn’t know what it was, but Bobka emptied a bucket of water out of it twice a day. Twice a day, this machine made water. Cool?

The more I thought about the machine the more confused I got. If Bobka wanted a machine that would make water, why would she just dump it down the drain twice a day. Why didn’t she drink it? Why didn’t she use it to water her lawn? Why did she just dump it out? I finally asked my grandma what the strange machine did and she laughed at me. I was an item of amusement to her with my weird little thoughts. It was a dehumidifier. It didn’t make water, it took water out of the air so it would be less humid in the house.

My desert eyes were amazed. There are machines that can take water out of the air? This could solve everything. I had just come to North Dakota from one of the worst droughts in Utah’s history. Why didn’t we have one of these machines in Utah? We could take the water out of the air and use it to water our dying grass. I had just lived through a summer in which I was not allowed to run through the sprinklers because of the drought. Our grass had turned dry and brittle. This machine could fix everything.

After I got back to Salt Lake, once again I became the subject of amusement. I told my mom about the magic machine that Bobka had that could take water out of the air. We should get one for the grass. My mother was a native of Millwaukee. She knew the machine of which I spoke. It wouldn’t work in Utah. There’s no water in the air to remove. That’s why we’re a desert. That’s why our grass is dying.

Last week, Mike and I bought a humidifier for our house. With the humidity at 19%, all of our plants were dying and the static electricity was threatening to mess up our electronics. After an hour of operation, the humidity was up to desert levels (25%). I wonder what a child from North Dakota would think about my magic machine that actually puts water into the air. Probably just be bugged because Fred Flintstone speaks in English with a different voice.

After the sewer fiasco, we decided to go to Wendover. It is the place that the locals go to run away. Slimy and small, Wendover, Nevada is a two-hour drive from Salt Lake. They have a few casinos and hotels for reasonable prices. It’s a gambling town. Its sole attraction is gambling, which is outlawed in Utah. We don’t even have a lottery. We have to drive to Idaho for the lottery and Wyoming for the beer. There’s plenty of Jesus here, though, just in case you were worried that we didn’t have anything to turn to.

Being a mathematician, I’m inherently not a gambler. Every time I put a dollar in a machine, I can calculate the return on my investment. I’m always so surprised when the casinos announce their payback rate and it’s something like 95% or 97.3%. That’s like telling me that I’m losing 5% every time I play. Why the hell should I play? Plus, I’ve doctored enough numbers myself to know that those machines don’t payback 95% all the time. The only way I can win is if I don’t play.

I’d much rather pump my quarters into that Dance Dance Revolution game, anyway. That’s the machine I’m hoping the casino has. I love that game. I could play it all night and not feel like I got ripped off. It cheers for me when I do well. It boos at me when I dance poorly. I work up a little sweat and I love it. I could never do aerobics because they don’t have little arrows on the floor to tell me where to put my feet. This thing is better than any dance class I’ve ever taken.

I’m bringing books and my afghan that I’m crocheting. I’m going to sit in the jetted tub in the room and just relax. I’ll be far enough away from Salt Lake to not care about it anymore. I took time off work and I’m going to enjoy myself. I just feel like I need to get out of Dodge. Pray for good weather for me so the drive only takes two hours.

If you want some ideas on where you can “get out of Dodge,” check out Starling Travel:

• Starling Travel – Travel, recreation, hiking, camping, off-roading writings daily

There is a point when I am waking up in the middle of a dream in which I don’t know what is the dream and what is my imagination. My eyes are still closed and suddenly, I can control the events within my dream. I must be awake and imagining a finale to the dream so that I’m not left feeling like I left the movie theater before the climax.

They say dreams are the windows of the soul–take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts.  – Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

Last weekend, I had a dream about a teacher and some students in detention. I have no idea where the dream ends and my imagination begins. I guess it doesn’t matter. The memory from both were both wholly created within my mind. For some reason, I feel like I’m not responsible or even own my dreams, whereas my imagination is my own. It is a source of pride and shame, whereas my dreams are merely interesting fodder for talk

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.  – George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

When I was a teenager, we shared the bathroom. My mom, Stacey and I would all be together in the bathroom getting ready. The schedule for the showers went as follows: Me, Mom, Stacey. I would shower first, then move on to the makeup vanity. Mom would shower next and by the time she was done, it was time for me to do my hair while she put on her makeup. Stacey would stagger out of our bedroom right before Mom’s shower, but she needed food before she could be civil, so she ate breakfast before finally coming back upstairs to shower while I did my hair and Mom put on her makeup.

A schedule defends from chaos and whim.  – Annie Dillard

We were three women in a bathroom every school morning. Every morning we talked about our dreams. If we didn’t remember our dreams, we wouldn’t talk about them, of course, but almost every day one of the three of us remembered a dream. Stacey’s dreams were long rambling and incredibly detailed. I remember once she started telling her dream, I stepped downstairs for just a minute that turned into thirty minutes and when I came back, she was still talking about the same damn dream. We didn’t get to analyze her dreams. There wasn’t time. We just listened.

Dreams are postcards from our subconscious, inner self to outer self, right brain trying to cross that moat to the left. Too often they come back unread: “return to sender, addressee unknown.” That’s a shame because it’s a whole other world out there–or in here depending on your point of view.  – Dennis Koenig and Jordan Budde, Northern Exposure, Roots, 1991

Most of the time, we were able to analyze. It was like a game to play every morning. “What do you think this dream means?” We didn’t base important life decisions on the analysis. It was all for fun. It was like a parlor game for the bathroom and we played it every morning. With three active minds, there was always a dream to play with.

Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.  – John Updike (1932 – )

I miss that game. Mike can’t play it. Sometimes he tries to play it with me, but he doesn’t have ten years practice like I do. He takes the analysis too seriously. It’s like he’s worried that I’ll make a life changing decision based on the random firing of neurons. I don’t even know how to teach him to play the game correctly. After thirteen years of marriage, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Maybe I should just call my sister every morning so we can go through our dreams together. Of course then, the phone call would be two hours every time she wants to tell me one of her dreams?

That’s all I needed. If I straighten my hair and wear a pair of Lisa Loeb glasses, I look like a hippie chick just as much as I ever did with the long curly hair. I don’t know why I had forgotten about Lisa Loeb. I have the same haircut as she does when it’s straight. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

Now, I just need to go to Hot Topic and buy three or four different pairs of nerdy girl glasses. Wow! An excuse to go shopping! I think that I’ll get some with rhinestones. It has been so long since I’ve indulged in rhinestones. I’m totally stoked. This haircut is so me if I wear Lisa Loeb glasses. I can be a hippy chick and have short hair. Just in case you were worried about my style dilemma, I’ve got it all worked out.

Really, I don’t care because my toilet flushes and my drains drain. The rest is just frosting.

Alina cut four inches off. I told her to, so it wasn’t a surprise when she turned me toward the mirror. Two years ago, there was a failed experiment with bangs and another hair dresser. Ever since I found Alina, we have been growing out the bangs and this weekend, they were finally long enough to make the big cut. All my hair is the same length again. It’s all really short.

When you look at the hair magazines, it’s classified as “medium.” I guess it’s not short according to society’s standards, but compared to what I’m used to, it’s really short. It reminds me of myself in the 80’s. My hair was this length and cut when I was obsessed with living Molly Ringwald’s life. Now, you couldn’t pay me enough to trade places with her.

I look at my picture, here on the weblog, and I realize that I look nothing like it anymore. That’s the difference a radical haircut can make. Instead of the relaxed and casual woman with the hippy hair, I look like Sigorney Weaver in Working Girl. I look like Elizabeth Perkins in Big. I look straight out of 1986. I’m a determined business woman on the way up the corporate ladder.

There is the alternative. I could straighten my hair. It takes about thirty minutes every day and it is incredibly damaging, but I could wake up a little early and actually work on my hair instead of just washing it and allowing it to air dry. I could blow it out with a round brush and work it over with the flat iron. It takes some doing, but it’s entirely possible.

Of course, then I’m yet another person. When it’s straight with this cut, I’m still not the relaxed and casual woman with the hippy hair. I am the frigid bitch. I am Selma Blair in Legally Blonde. I’m Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions. I have a stick up my butt and I’m a successful business woman at the top of the corporate ladder.

The only way out of this is through. My personal style is long and curly. I needed to go short to fix my previous indiscretion. This is the penance that I have to pay in order to get back to my true nature. I will live through this short hairstyle. Within the year, it will be longer and closer to my favorite length. Until then, it will look good, it just won’t look like me.

In the end, I don’t really care about my hair. I’m happy as a clam because my toilet flushes and my drains drain. It’s absolutely amazing what I take for granted and how grateful I feel when I realize it.

It’s a lucky thing that I write these entries ahead of time. If not, I would have just disappeared off the face of the earth a couple of days ago and my weblog would have been silent. Here’s a sample of what my personal journal entry looked like a couple of days ago�

01-02-04 10:32pm

This year has come in like a lion, so I’m hoping it goes out like a lamb. If it holds for March, maybe it will hold for the year. We noticed that the drains were slow a week ago. Yesterday, they became impassable. When I took my shower late in the day, the tub took thirty minutes to drain. The toilet caused an overflow downstairs, so we called a roto-rooter-type place called The Drain Doctor.

Drain Butcher was more like it. It was all downhill from there. He came at five this morning and ran the roto-thing down the toilet drain. The drains seemed the same, but he said it would take couple of hours to fully drain. With trepidation, we paid him and let him leave. We hoped, rather than believed, that he was right.

By 10:30 am, we knew he was wrong. We called the Drain Doctor again and asked them to send him back. By the time 12:30 pm rolled around, we gave up on his coming and called them again. The plumber finally called at 1:30 pm with a lame excuse about just barely getting our page and would be there in 45 minutes.

He finally showed up, put the camera down the drain a mere ten feet and found water. Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t draining. Just like we had said on the phone (and knew before we even let him leave), the clog hadn’t gotten any better, so he went to get the super jet-rutter thing and a helper. They tried the small jet-rutter, then they tried the huge jet-rutter, which they ended up getting stuck in our pipes.

By 8:00 pm, they just cut off the jet-rutter hose and said they’d call us back tomorrow to get it out. Mike and I hadn’t used a rest room for nine hours. Additionally, Mike hadn’t slept at all the night before, so he had been up for over 24 hours straight. We were ready to freak out.

Thank God for Mom and Reed. They are letting us stay overnight in their Taylorsville condo. There is a bed and a washing machine. Most importantly, there is a toilet that can flush. We can shower here and do the laundry. We brought Sid and I am so grateful to them. I’m sure really good karma is coming their way as we speak.

I forgot to mention the most spectacular part of the whole thing. When they were using the smaller jet-rutter, they forgot to put a plug on the hole in the bathroom where the toilet had been, so a huge geyser of water sprayed our entire bathroom. Water that had been through the sewer pipes, mind you. I’m amazed that I didn’t break down and lose it right there. It is still unclean and lying open as we speak. Mike and I just left the cats at home, grabbed Sid and our laundry and drove to the condo.

Ironically, I think I asked for this. I sometimes feel like I control the universe because I am here, living what I asked for. Two weeks ago, Mike and I were going to run away. We were going to take a couple of extra days and go to Vegas or Boise for a quiet getaway. I told him that I wanted to relax and do nothing, so we decided to stay home. We were going to clean the house from top to bottom and then I was going to stay at home and just write and read and crochet. I was going to unplug and hide. No TV, no shopping, just a clean house, writing in my journal, reading a good book, crocheting the afghan, and listening to music.

As we speak, that is exactly where we are. We are hiding and isolated at Reed’s condo. No TV. Just my MP3 player, my book that I got from Stacey for Christmas, this journal and the dog at my feet. I am sitting next to the heater vent and I am unplugged. This is exactly the escape I was hoping for. I was planning on getting it at my house, but here, there is no choice. I have to unplug because there is nothing here to plug in. I’m doing laundry, which falls right into my cleaning house gig. Once we get this drain problem solved, that house is going to receive a cleaning like it has never seen before. That damn geyser hit the fucking ceiling.

I feel totally contaminated. I should take a shower as soon as I have some clean, dry clothes to change into. It is 10:45 pm and I vow to finish the laundry before I go to bed. While we waited for the plumber to come, I napped, so I can work a little extra right now. I also crocheted an entire skein on the afghan while I waited for them to get their shit together.

So, I’m vacationing in a strange house. Just me, Mike and Sid. Mike is finally sleeping. Sid, uneasy, scared, and feigning sleep, is at my feet. I am writing because that is what I do when I’m upset. I write. I put pen to paper and let all the frustration flow out of my mind, out of my heart, down my right arm and right into the paper. I just took a deep, cleansing breath. I can feel the stress leaving me. Tomorrow, we will meet the Drain Doctor at our damaged and abused home. They will correct the drainage problem. They will remove their damaged and abused equipment from the pipes of our home. All will be right with the world tomorrow. I just have to get through tonight.

The entire house has experienced the joy of Clorox. It only took $488 to get the damn thing out of our pipes. Our drains drain. Our toilet flushes. Our water flows. For now� The ominous prediction of future problems looms. It’s an 80 year-old house, and I’m still writing.

It means a lot of things. It’s the size of diamond that Jennifer Lopez got from Ben Affleck after his stripper indiscretion. It’s the down payment and closing costs on a reasonably priced home in the Salt Lake Valley. It’s also the distance of a race. In particular, a race I registered for last week.

Of course, the 5K is far overshadowed by the marathon. There is a $100,000 purse for the marathon and a $500 gift certificate for the 5K. I guess a marathon is over eight times longer in distance. If things were fair, the purse for the 5K would be $12,000. I wouldn’t be bothered, but I know I’ll be just as tired at the end of my race as those marathoners will be at the end of theirs. I’ll train for just as long, too. I’m just not as advanced in the world of running as they are, but I’ll be there soon.

ROXANNE: Oh, the marathon is great, isn’t it? JERRY: Oh, yes. Particularly if your not in it. – Peter Mehlman, Seinfeld, The Apartment, 1991

So, I will be training for the next few months to get ready for this race. The last time I ran a 5K, I was twenty pounds heavier and finished in 40:02. That’s a horrible time for a 5K. When the winners were crossing the finish line, I was only halfway through the course. Not this time. This time, I’m thinner and I have more time to train. I will be at the front of the pack. I’ve paid my $25 entry fee. There’s no turning back. I’m going to win for my age category at least.

Make way! I’ve got-I’ve got a runner here! Get outta the way! Make way! Make way! Make way, it’s a contender! – Gregg Kavet & Andy Robin, Seinfeld, The Hot Tub, 1995

I don’t know the time that the 5K will start compared to the marathon. I suspect that we’ll be long finished before the marathoners are even halfway done. When I look at their course, I realize just how long a marathon is. They start in the mountains, run through all our beautiful parks and end up at our biggest shopping center. They’ll probably finish right in front of the Virgin Superstore that our city is so proud of.

ROXANNE: I wish we had a view of the finish line. JERRY: What’s to see? A woman from Norway, a guy from Kenya, and twenty thousand losers. – Peter Mehlman, Seinfeld, The Apartment, 1991

For the next few months, I’ll probably will be talking about running a lot. Whether I’m training outside or at the gym, I’ll be thinking about it quite a bit. It will naturally show up here. Wish me luck!

About a month ago, I got a new mouse at work. It has four buttons and a scrolling button. It totally screwed me up. I’ve talked before about tactile learning, and this is another example of that. All of a sudden, I had a different mouse at work than I had at home and I couldn’t use my mouse at home.

It’s such a strange feeling to reach for something that you intellectually know is not there. When I used my mouse at home, my thumb would reach for the “back” button on my mouse, but it wasn’t there. No, damn it, that was my mouse at work. “I need a five button mouse at home!”

So I got one. Mike, the ever-vigilant husband that he is, bought me a five button mouse for Christmas. It’s a Logitech and my, it’s spiffy. It actually has a sixth button right on the top under the scrolling button. I have no idea what it does, but it has a little folder on it. Maybe it organizes my folders for me. Nah, only secretaries do that. I just tried it and all it does is switch between programs. I can do that with Alt+Tab anytime I want to.

Unfortunately, the problem is not solved. In fact, it’s even worse now. Now, I know that my mouse at home has a back button. My thumb instinctively reaches for it in the same place as my mouse from work and it misses every time. This mouse’s back button is in a different spot than the one from work. My poor thumb is as confused as ever.

It’s like when I suddenly find myself on one of those ergonomic split keyboard. They are totally out of fashion now, but Mike still uses one. It’s one of the reasons that I shun his totally cool computer in favor of my own. When my fingers are on the keys of his split keyboard, they are suddenly lost. They are at a different angle and the keys are ever so slightly off-kilter. Typing is impossible for me and my speed goes from 65 wpm down to about 20 wpm. Typing isn’t an intellectual activity: it’s a tactile one.

What will happen? Will I get to the point that my little thumb will learn where the back button is on both mice? Will I learn both of them and switch without even noticing or will my thumb forever revert to the buttons for the work mouse because I use that one for eight hours a day? Maybe I should just buy myself a Logitech mouse for work. Then I could have the magical folder button at work and at home. Then I wouldn’t have to Alt+Tab to switch between programs anymore.

I’m not big on resolutions. I tend to change my life during Lent instead of at the first of the year. By the time I choose my life changing behavior, everyone else has given up on theirs. I’m a pretty consistent person, so I’m the one that notices that things are a hell of a lot busier at my gym at this time of the year. I just grit my teeth and hold on until mid-February when things get back to normal.

I am constantly in a state of resolution. I don’t sit down and think about how to change my life at the first of the year because I do that every day. I am constantly monitoring myself and trying to correct my foibles. New Year’s Day has no hold on me. It’s just like all the other days of the year.

I’m wondering if that habit is healthy for me. I am ever-critical of my behavior. Instead of looking for the good in my personality and actions, I am always looking for the evil to stamp it out. The thought of looking for the good within myself and reinforcing it, doesn’t sound right to me. Sure, if I were perfect, I could look for the good and keep it up, but that sounds like a maintenance activity instead of an advancing one. I want to make myself a better person every day. Isn’t looking for the evil within the way to do that?

All over the nation, people are shunning cigarettes and Twinkies. A lock went on the liquor cabinet and last night was the last one night stand, really. Maybe we should be looking at it differently. Maybe we should be deciding the positive things we want to do instead of the negative things that we don’t.

“I will chew sugarless gum and find friends who have healthy habits.”

“I will eat healthy food at regular intervals throughout the day so that I won’t starve myself.”

“I will write in my journal every time I feel the need for a drink. I will work through my emotions.”

“I will treat myself as a holy temple. Only those who are worthy are allowed into my life.”

Some of these resolutions were mine long ago and have become second nature to me. I no longer crave cigarettes. Others came naturally to me. I’ve never had a one night stand. I am a goddess worthy of only the best. I don’t know when I decided that, but it happened sometime in high school before I ever got a chance to test it. Others, I’m still working on. Eating healthy may be a lifelong struggle for me, but I work on it every day. New Year’s is just another day in a long line of days spent working on making my life better.

I was going to try to do it. I was going to try to flow and just let whatever happens happen, but I can’t. I need to know what you’re bringing tonight.

I’m bringing a cheese, beef stick, cracker, bread, cheese ball-thing.

Oh good, we don’t have anything like that. What about a dessert?

We’re bring a Victorian Lace cake. It’s really pretty.

Victorian Lei cake?

Lace.

Oh, it sounds really good. Did you make it?

No, we just bought it.

The party is at Stacey’s house. The only way my mom would agree to have it at her house was if we agreed to sleep over because her new place is “so far out there.” That ain’t gonna happen, so we’ll party at my sister’s house instead. I’m supposed to be there at eight and she was panicked about the food. She’s not so willing to allow Chaos to take care of her parties as I am.

I always feel like I should write an entry that has something to do with the major holidays, but I write them in advance. I’m not writing this entry on New Year’s Eve, so I feel a little like a hypocrite writing about a holiday that hasn’t arrived yet. I know it’s totally illogical, but here I am.

I really don’t even know what I’m going to be doing on New Year’s Eve. I think that my family might have something planned at my mother’s home (which of her homes, I don’t know, but that’s a completely different story).  Who is going to be there? What are we going to do? Where is it going to be? When are we supposed to arrive? How are we supposed to know? None of this has been communicated to me and I’m still in the dark…

So, I may or may not have a party to go to. I am totally in the dark about the holiday and, actually, it’s alright. I’m not willing to plan a New Year’s Eve party on my own, so I’ve left it up to Chaos. I may find myself celebrating with my family. I may find myself celebrating privately with Mike. I may find myself in the middle of a crowd and in the middle of the cold. I may ask myself, “Well, how did I get here?” Whatever happens will be fun and a little bit random. 

CNN won’t tell you this, but we got a buttload of snow on the 26^th. It’s not like there is a conspiracy going on and CNN is hiding the truth about Utah snow. It’s just that there’s that huge earthquake in Iran and all the hoopla about Saddam. Almost three feet of snow in Salt Lake City and the corresponding power outages isn’t enough news to hit CNN’s radar unless they are talking about the ski resorts in fluff pieces.

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.  – Ben Hecht (1893 – 1964)

I live on a small street in Sugarhouse, which is very last on the list of streets to be plowed. On my drive home on the 26^th, I got stuck twice just trying to get into the driveway. Once the Beetle was safely in the driveway, it stayed there for two days. We knew it would get stuck again if we tried to leave, so we stayed. The plow finally came the afternoon of the 28^th, so we dug out our driveway again and ventured out into the city.   Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.  – Emo Phillips

You’d think with two days at home, I would have written lots of blog entries. You see, I work like a newspaper. I write my entries a couple of days in advance. While the snow was falling like crazy and I was trapped at work watching it cover the trees, the sidewalk and my car, I wrote Saturday and Sunday’s entries. But while I was held captive in my home, I didn’t write a single word.

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything.  – John Irving (1942 – )

It’s not like we were suffering. Our power wasn’t out for two days like it was in some parts of the city. The power was out just down the street. Gandolfo’s was running on generator power. Walgreen’s and Smiths had backup power only. We were the lucky ones. We only had a couple of brown outs and three feet of snow blocking our exit.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.  – Helen Keller (1880 – 1968)

After all the shoveling, I just wanted to sleep and rest. Even typing on the computer sounded like too much work to me. I couldn’t go to the gym either, but all of that physical labor gave me a better workout than I’ve had in weeks.

Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells? To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men.  – Marcus Valerius Martialis (40 AD – 103 AD)

Well, I’m back. The driveway is clear and the Beetle is able to go anywhere again. I am free to go anywhere and do anything and I’m at home writing a blog entry. Maybe I can only write when it’s something that I choose to do. Maybe being stuck in the house without external input gave me little to write about. Maybe I just finally caught up on sleep enough to recover from all of that shoveling. Whatever it is, I’m glad to be back.

There is some learning that is entirely by touch. This last month, I learned this first hand. About a month ago, I spilled soap onto the counter in the women’s bathroom. I reached over and my thumb barely hit the button and my hand was in the wrong position to catch it, so the soap hit the counter in a messy glob.

Before you start scolding me, I assure you that I cleaned it up. There are only three women working in my office. It’s not like I could tell Prim that Oksana did it. They would know that it was me who made the mess, so I cleaned up after myself. That’s all beside the point, anyway.

The point is: there is some learning that is entirely tactile. Unbeknownst to me, the old soap dispenser was removed from the wall and a new one was put in its place. There is a mark on the wall where the old one used to be. The paint is a different color and a bit of the wall came off with the old dispenser, leaving the brown paper from the drywall. Well, because the new one is shaped differently, it isn’t exactly in the place of the old one. It’s ever so slightly higher and it is slimmer in form. Thus, my thumb almost missed the button and my hand wasn’t correctly placed to catch the soap.

I didn’t know that I knew where the soap dispenser was solely by touch. I never go “feeling around” for the soap. I just put my hand there and caught it every time. There must have been a time when I was a new employee and I didn’t know where the soap was and had to “look” for it, but that time was long ago. Now, my hand reaches for it and I don’t even notice when the dispenser changes unless it is so drastic that I end up missing the globule. I believe that they could put a huge sign on the dispenser saying, “Do Not Use! Acid!” and I would still unconsciously squirt the acid into my hand. No matter how large or red the letters were, I wouldn’t see them because I get my soap with my sense of touch instead of sight.

It’s a month later. I use the women’s room without any soap mishaps. Just the other day, I noticed that my hand reached to the exactly correct spot to dispense the soap and I caught it without spilling a drop. I guess it takes about a month to learn something by touch. I didn’t even know I could learn things that way. How long until I know everything about myself? Will I ever?

Yesterday we had a snow storm. After years of drought, I realized that I had gotten forgetful. On the drive to work, it didn’t take long to for the instincts to kick in: don’t use your brakes, coast slowly to a stop, take your foot off the gas when you start to slide, turn into the slide. It took me an extra twenty minutes to get to work. That’s how time used to be measured in the winter. I remember now. In the winter, you need to wake up twenty minutes earlier, just in case it snows.

I dream of wayward gulls and all landless lovers, rare moments of winter sun, peace, privacy, for everyone.  – William F. Claire

It didn’t stop snowing, either. I was assigned to work the day after Christmas: we needed someone to man the phones. It was me and one engineer. The rest of them took the day off, knowing that they would want to celebrate the holiday and thanking themselves for that planning when they woke up to a foot of snow. The longer I stayed, the more nervous I got for the drive home. The plow came twice to clear the parking lot.

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms. – William Bradford   I don’t know why, but we usually get a drafter to shovel the sidewalks. There were no drafters yesterday, so I bundled up and shoveled the heavy, wet white stuff. I enjoyed being outside in the bright. My body heated up with the physical exertion and my hair became damp with the wet flakes.   The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.  – John Burroughs

The red trees that separate our parking lot from the neighboring business lost their leaves long ago. Yesterday, their branches were weighed heavily with the snow that clung to their limbs. I am still worried that their branches will break under the weight and there will be fewer branches for my sparrows when they return from wherever they are hiding. Some of the limbs hung all the way to the ground.

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.  – Christina G. Rossetti

Welcome back, Old Cowboy Winter. You have been a dry and brittle visitor for the last few years. It’s nice to see that you still have a snowy side. I’d love to talk, but I’ve got a driveway to shovel.

When Mike and I were teenagers, Mike worked as a bag boy at the Albertson’s on 5600 West and 3300 South in West Valley. I worked at the K-Mart next door. Sometimes he would visit me on his lunch hour, but that was before we were in love. We were just friends then. The two of us know what Christmas can do to a store. K-Mart would have every register open and lines snaking back into the aisles every Christmas. Mike only had to deal with typical Super Bowl Sunday type of crowds that consisted of lots of people with only a case of beer and some chips in line.

Wednesday, Christmas Eve, I was waiting in line at the Albertson’s in Sandy. They were snaking back into aisles. This was not your typical Christmas Eve at the local Albertson’s. Something was different. Every single register was open and full of people. They had carts filled with food. I was a typical Super Bowl Sunday shopper, with a tray of deviled eggs and a few other snack items, but I was the exception. I was surprised at the crowds, but I had dealt with crazy crowds at stores throughout my teen years, so I calmly got in line and asked Mike to go to the store next door to get the wrapping paper that Albertson’s had run out of long ago.

He was behind me in line: a friendly guy, the type that talks to people when there is a long wait ahead. I heard him talking about sports to the man behind him. I had pulled out my Palm and was playing a game. My turn came to unload my deviled eggs and cookies onto the belt. I finished quickly and motioned to him so he could start loading his purchases as well. That opened the door.

“Can you believe these lines?”

I could, actually. Nothing surprises me in the retail industry. I could have just as easily believed it if I had been the only customer in the store. “Yeah, they’re crazy. They have every register open, though, so I’m not going to complain.”

“Any other day of the year, everybody would be screaming their heads off at these lines.”

“Yeah, but it’s Christmas. Everyone seems to be in a really good mood.”

He nodded and it was my turn to talk to the frazzled employee. She was tired and the bag boy was telling her that he hadn’t had a lunch yet, even though he had been there since nine that morning. My purchases were rung up and paid for with very little interaction from her, but I didn’t need interaction. I just needed to get out of there so that I could wrap some presents. The confession with the Christmas Shopper hung with me, though. I talked to Mike about it.

“Those lines were crazy.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t typical Christmas Eve busy. That was crazy Thanksgiving busy.”

“I think people want to celebrate. Maybe it’s because we caught Saddam.”

The second I said it, I knew it was true. At least it was true for me. Sure, I didn’t want to go to war. Sure, I’m not pleased with what my president is doing. Sure, I feel shame at the bully attitude that my country is expressing in the world. But, damn it, I’m glad we found Saddam. We found him cowering in a hole looking like the smelly guy who willing takes half of my burrito when I’m too full to finish it. Not only that, the vision of Saddam, captured and degraded, has convinced Gadhafi to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction in Libya. Peace on Earth, Good Will To Men. We took one step closer to that ideal this year. I felt like celebrating it and so did every other person in that grocery store Christmas Eve.

I’m at lunch. I should be at the gym, but I’m sitting in my car at the park. I feel like I need to rest. I would like to say that I’m resting at the park, but I’m not. I’m writing tomorrow’s entry.

They are sitting under the pavilion on the metal picnic table. He is wearing a red trucker hat. She is wearing a jacket that is several sizes too big. It looks like it could have been a letterman’s jacket in another life. It has a black body with brown arms. What team has black and brown for their colors? None, I guess. She probably bought it at K-Mart.

She was hanging on to him like he was a raft.
We both agreed, we’d never be the couple on the street.  – Jill Sobule, The Couple On The Street, 1995

Her hair is brown and French-braided. It is bound at the nape of her neck with a white Scunci. They are both wearing jeans. He is straddling the bench and she is between his legs. I catch them looking into my car at me. “Is she watching us?” “No, baby. Come closer.”

Like a still life of our worst fears. I love you so much. Won’t you tell me please
We’ll never be the couple on the street. – Jill Sobule, The Couple On The Street, 1995

They are in love. The way they are talking and looking at each other, I can taste their love from twenty feet away. I feel a guilty pleasure watching them out of the corner of my eye. The tree above my car keeps dropping snow onto my windshield, obscuring my view. If I use the wipers to remove it, they’ll know that I am spying.

[I]t’s one year later I still don’t have an ending.
The inspiration left. I guess we’ll never be the couple on the street. – Jill Sobule, The Couple On The Street, 1995

He kissed her. I can see the scruffiness on his chin and almost feel the scratching on my own face. They stand and she gives him the coat. Oh, I should have know. It was his coat. He lent it to her because she was cold. “I swear she’s looking at us.” “No, she’s just on her lunch or something.” He takes her in his arms and the two of them are wrapped in his black and brown coat while they walk away from me.

In the original series Star Trek, you could tell when a woman was supposed to be beautiful because the screen would get all soft and fuzzy.  I’m talking the Star Trek with Captain Kirk and his many amours. Our views of beauty have changed so much since then that I can only tell that a woman is supposed to be beautiful when that filter is on the screen and the romantic music starts playing.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may – light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.  – John Constable (1776 – 1837)

That is how my city felt on Saturday. There was a soft and fuzzy filter all about it. It made me feel romantic toward the mountains, the leafless trees and even the traffic. All the cars that passed had that same soft and fuzzy grime all over them from the salt on the road. I know it should make me think that they need to be cleaned, but I could hear the romantic music when I saw them. They were beautiful.

Today is the third entry in my Senses series in our meditation class, but I never told you how last week’s class went. Last week we concentrated on our sense of touch. I brought many interesting things to place in your hand while meditating. Stacey brought some pine cones and cornstarch. I brought some crocheted test swatches, an interesting carved rock, modeling clay, lentils and horse chestnuts. Mike was nice enough to go out in the cold and the dark to gather the horse chestnuts from the snowy ground for me. He also brought back some chestnuts that didn’t reach maturity.

Age is no guarantee of maturity.  – Lawana Blackwell, The Courtship of the Vicar’s Daughter, 1998

Before chestnuts reach maturity, they are housed in a spiky shell. It looks like the end of a mace or spiked flail. Nature’s battle axe against hungry birds, the shell over the horse chestnut is quite sharp. I brought them to the meditation just for fun. I didn’t think that anyone would choose them for their meditation item.

Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.  – Lord Chesterfield (1694 – 1773)

Eddie did. She could have cuddled with a little square of crocheted yarn. Let a magic pine cone take her on a journey. She could have rested her hand in a bowl of lentils and felt their slick skins slide past her skin and yet somehow still support it. Instead, she chose the spiky and painful little balls of the undeveloped horse chestnut. I was eager to hear her speak after the meditation. She did not disappoint.   When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.  – Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)

After a while holding the sharp ball, she realized that it was like the painful times in our lives. If she was careful and held it gently, the ball didn’t hurt her, it merely kept its presence known in her hand. During the painful times of our lives, we need to hold ourselves and our loved ones gently. If we treat ourselves with kindness and care during these times, life will be less painful. Thank you, Eddie.

The swarm of starlings was resting on the Bud Light/Jazz Billboard last night during my commute home. They looked like thick black lines under the picture and along the top. I saw a couple of small flocks of starlings join them. The black line was upset for a second, but room was made for them and the line was reestablished, thicker and fuller than before. “They must live there,” I thought to myself.

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!  – William Blake

The traffic was stopped cold. We were merging onto I-80 from I-15 North. Others were merging onto I-80 from I-15 South. Even more were coming from the 201. Of all those cars and all those faces, I didn’t see one looking at the birds. A huge flock of at least one thousand birds was less than 50 yards away from them and they were oblivious. In every car I looked, I saw quiet and neutral faces looking ahead.

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.  – George Carlin (1937 – )

Am I alone in this world? It seems that so many people around me are not present. They are not in the room with me. They are in the past, thinking about what happened yesterday or fifteen years ago. They are in the future, thinking about what will happen on Christmas or when they finally meet the right person. They are five hundred miles away, thinking about power lines that don’t even exist yet. They are anywhere but here, with me.

I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.  – Herb Caen

I must admit that I’m the same. I think about yesterday, tomorrow and far away. It’s when I’m completely here and now that I realize how far away everyone else is. Is it possible to be here and now all the time? When I’m writing this, am I here? Am I across the world in Denmark and Australia, where you are, reading this? Why is it that I’m only here and now when I see birds swarming?

My cell phone rang at the restaurant, but I answered it because it was from my dad. He hadn’t called me in at least six months.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Laura, this is your father. Do you have Stacey’s phone number?”

I gave him my sister’s cell number. It matched the one he had. I also gave him Dan’s cell number just in case she didn’t answer hers. Her husband is much better about answering his phone than she is.

“Ok, thanks. Goodbye.”

That was it.

Two days later, after meditation class with Stacey:

“Dan lost his job.”

“Oh geez, I have been so worried about that happening. When did it happen?”

“Last week.”

“Why? Did they go out of business?”

“No… he was fired.”

“Fired? Why would they fire him?”

“OSHA violation.”

“OSHA violation? How could he break any OSHA rules?”

“He worked on a hot machine.”

“Hot machine? What the… Oh, you said DAD was fired. I thought you said DAN was fired. I’ve been so worried about that web company he works for…”

“No, they’re doing great! Dan’s just fine. DAD got fired for not locking out a machine before working on it.”

“I guess I should have known. He called me out of the blue to ask for your number. He hadn’t called me for six months. He just asked for your number and said goodbye.”

“He wanted to go over his resume.”

“Yeah, I guess he would.”

Considering that he could have been killed or maimed, getting fired is a best case scenario for working on a hot machine. I can’t help him get a job. I can’t make him be more responsible. I can’t give him the logic facilities that he seems to be lacking. I can be grateful that his lack of common sense didn’t kill him, though. Thank you, Providence, for sparing my father.

I’ve had some really good friends in my life. When I was a child, I assumed that I would be friends with them forever. I still cling to them. I have their addresses. I know where they are and what they are going through in their lives. I try to see them every once and awhile. I try calling. I try emailing them. All of this never quite feels like it did when we were friends.

Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.  – Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986)

I feel guilty that I don’t really need to see them anymore. I’m not in their lives as much as I used to be. Thinking about the daunting task of Christmas cards, brings to mind how many people used to be in my life that I haven’t heard from. Do I send them a card? Did they send me one last year? Do they even care? Do I?

There isn’t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren’t really living without it.  – Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, August 27, 2003

Last week, when I was driving home, I decided that it’s ok. It’s ok that they’re not in my life anymore. It’s ok that I don’t need them anymore. It’s ok that they don’t need me anymore. We were friends for awhile, but now we are separate. We have no shared experiences beyond that brief moment in the past and not being friends anymore is just fine. I don’t have to send them a Christmas card. I don’t have to expend energy to try to rekindle what we once had.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.  – Joseph Addison (1672 – 1719), The Spectator, March 17, 1911

I’m getting only enough Christmas cards this year to send to the people who are still actively in my life. If I don’t hurry, they will be New Year’s cards. To all the others, I still miss what we once had. Have a wonderful life and if you miss me, drop me a line.

I-80 has blessed me with many experiences this week. I have another to share with you, but I need to set up the story by saying, once again, that traffic is slow. I know it’s a freeway and there are supposed to be freeway speeds, but I-80 slows to a crawl when I’m trying to get home in the evenings. It’s bad in the mornings, too but I haven’t had any amusing experiences in the morning to relate to you. Maybe I’m too tired to be mindful of what is happening around me in the morning.

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.  – Thich Nhat Hanh

Last week, I was driving home on I-80 when a white Toyota beeped at me. Many people will do this when they need to move over, so I waved at him, slowed down and made room for him to get into my lane. He didn’t move over. I shrugged and pulled forward again.

Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving.  – David Letterman (1947 – )

He beeped again and waved at me. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “He thinks he knows me.” You see, I drive a bright green Volkswagen Beetle. He must know someone who also drives a bright green Volkswagen Beetle and is under the mistaken impression that there is only one. This also happens to me quite often, so I treat it like a taste of good karma. I wave back and move on with my life.

Never refuse any advance of friendship, for if nine out of ten bring you nothing, one alone may repay you.  – Madame de Tencin

He beeped again and signaled for me to roll down my window. “Shit,” I thought to myself, “Something’s the matter with my car.” I rolled down my window. My lane was so slow that I could talk to him and keep an eye on the road quite easily. His lane, however was moving faster, but he kept at my pace. “You’re cute!” he screamed at me. I responded as I always do, “Thanks, but I’m married.” The cars behind him were beeping and flashing their lights for him to get a move on, but he responded, “Lucky man! Merry Christmas!” Only then did he finally speed off, catching up with the rest of his lane.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.  – Carl Jung (1875 – 1961)

That was a first for me. I’ve never been hit on in traffic before. At least there’s nothing the matter with my car.