Sewing Room Crime Scene
Chapter One: The Saboteur

This is the saboteur. Hire her for weddings, funerals, and Bat Mitzvahs...she makes chaos out of order faster than you can do it yourself! An added bonus: she sucks at business so you can get her to create chaos for FREE!

What you are about to see is shocking. I have hidden nothing behind the flash photography.

Sadly, my income doesn't allow me to buy a proper lens for my crime scene photography so it is difficult to appreciate the true scope of the crime here. For that I would need a lens that is a little more panoramic. This is my drafting table. What is on the surface of this table:

glue gun, ribbon pins no one bought, pom pom reams, hand made cards, paper labels for other products no one bought, old patterns, thread rack, iron, fabric, purple fleece that makes my skin crawl, unfinished knitting project, many rulers, at least three pairs of scissors, boxes of sewing accessories, box of ribbon, oilcloth bag, weird crafts I made but didn't like and are now shaming me, unused zippers, stencil, one battery, tape measure, calling cards, beer bottle caps, pattern pieces to who-knows-what patterns, a strange beaded thing a kid neighbor left at my house three years ago that I keep meaning to send back to her before she goes to college (she's about 12 now), the stapler I was looking for for months, old sewing machine parts to sewing machines I no longer own, printer ink, tape dispenser, hangers, and various lids to lidless bins.

These boxes contain a lot of crap. When I say a lot of crap I'm not being modest. I'm scared of them. I've eliminated one but the other two are currently attempting to strangle me. The various types of contents found include:

Shirts that don't fit me, folded fabric scraps, folders, envelopes, paper, binders, paper, catalogs from my business, receipts, more envelopes, random lengths of bias tape, curtains, bubble wrap (?!), magazines, scrap stuff, a cheap clock, a cheap phone, address stamp from over ten years ago, misc. store display stuff, tissue paper (which is currently coming out of my ears), ribbon, zip lock bags full of miscellaneous stuff I have avoided going through for fully ten years now.

The Floor, which looks like a craft store exploded on it, has the following items on it:

Bits of fabric, labels, packages of craft scissors, cards, shamelessly ruined oilcloth, manila envelopes of every description, bit of paper, shreds of tissue paper, stacks of tissue paper the kitties peed on at some point without me noticing until now, random lengths of ribbon, Max's school projects, pattern pieces, plastic bags, paper, bags, bolts of fabric, paper bags I'm afraid to investigate, old letters, corrugated cardboard, books, plastic bins full of crap that is able to multiply itself.

What do you get when you are a writer, a generally crafty person, a pattern collector, an urban homesteader, and a failed business?

You get an unbelievable amount of crap that can never be reckoned with nor tamed nor stuffed into a ten foot by ten foot room. It spills out like a sea of locusts into the basement and the garage. I think my heart is made of pattern paper, rick rack, and weird miniatures.

This is my weight to bear, apparently. No matter what I do I keep landing in this same coliseum full of chaos with teeth. It's now been almost an entire year since I officially ended my business yet I have not been capable of dealing with all my stuff. I bring this up on my blog just about once a month. There is so much money tied to this crap. I wasted so much money trying to be a success and now it is just a pile of unwanted stuff collecting dust. I have been giving some of it to friends but frankly, they don't seem all that crazy-interested in taking it off of my hands.

Part of the problem is that they seem to feel guilty taking something from me that I bought for my store and failed to sell. Part of the problem is that there is only so much Mrs. Meyers a person can go through in a year.

I know what has to be done but it's like having to come to terms with who I am and that's not such a pretty activity. I just love a double edged sword: the longer I keep the stuff the longer I live with the reality of my failure and risk the ghost of my store rising up from the garage, the basement, and from my sewing room to come strangle me while I sleep.

Some people don't want me to get rid of it all. Some people think I should try a lot harder to sell the crap, not realizing that every day I fail to sell the crap is another day I have to feel like a stupid piece of shit business person. Another day I have to understand all too well how I landed us in such a deep financial quagmire. Every time someone suggests I keep trying is just another day I get to deliver the same message to my very tired head: you suck you suck you suck.

I tried to explain to my dad why the magazine is not about making money. I tried to explain how I am saving up for printing costs because it's just about realizing a dream but I'm not allowed to invest in ventures ever again. He had excellent suggestions for how I could do it as a real viable venture, starting off doing an online magazine and telling subscribers that their subscription will go towards a printed version after the first few issues. But that means trying to do something successfully.

I don't do that anymore.

It doesn't matter what I do or how hard I try. I am not a businessperson. I am a writer. In the end it is the only thing I consistently do well and isn't something I will ever make money doing.

Yet...yet...how do I describe how hard it is to let go of all this crap because it could be useful, could be made into cool stuff, could be sold somewhere? But my head is ready to combust. I am in here, instead of doing anything else right now because this room is like a disease eating away at my life. I can't do my living room project until this room is cleaned up and out because right now I can't find my sewing machine feet in the mess nor the space to sew the chair covers. I cannot move forward until I shed the past.

So I have begun the process. I am going to give myself one whole month, the month of December, to get rid of every last vestige of my failed venture. To clean out the stench of what I'm not meant to be, the person I can't be.

****Continued In Next Post****

Starlings In The Chimney

On Thanksgiving day we had an incredible interruption to a quiet morning when two Starlings came swooping into the office with the dog following in hasty pursuit. I shrieked and yelled for someone else in the house to come and help as the cats started circling the poor confused birds who kept attempting to exit the room through the glass window. No one came and I quickly checked the two front doors (yes, we have two!) and they were both closed which required me to wonder how the hell this tangle could have begun?

Finally my boys came in to help and all of us kept trying to catch the birds before the cats and dog. Some people might have let the carnivores have the birds since they are not a greatly loved species of bird, but I couldn't. Not because I think it would be wrong but because I am one of those few people who love Starlings. I love their calls and how they change their feathers over the course of the season. The come back to the same places to nest every year.

We finally succeeded in catching them by throwing a sweater over one like a net and a dishcloth over the other. One immediately escaped when taken outside but this one I managed to hold onto long enough to tell it how sorry I was for the fright and to tell it how I love its kind and, of course, to snap a couple of pictures.

It then eased out of my grasp like silk and flew off.

The only way it could have entered my house was through the chimney.

I have heard people say that Starlings are aggressively pushing out other native North American bird species and are therefore considered to be nasty little pieces of bird work. When I have expressed my love of them I have received horrified looks in return. Apparently brought here by humans from Europe we are held in account for this invasion and are supposed to find a way to limit their spread to preserve the habitat for the native species.

I can't help but see the parallels between these birds and the Europeans who came to North America on their scourgey boats bringing with them their syphilis and other diseases and killing off with virus and sword nearly all the native North Americans.

So are we suddenly mad for protecting native species of flora and fauna because we realize what awful vermin we, ourselves, are? I can't help but see two sides of this. One is that nature itself sometimes delivers new aggressive species onto the shores of quiet unspoiled lands without the help of human interference. Sometimes in nature it takes aggressiveness and adaptability to survive and if the Starling has it, but some other native birds don't, things shift accordingly in a completely natural way.

Perhaps the same can be said of humans. Perhaps in the natural order of things the humans shift and adjust also. Perhaps it is savage truth that the Europeans who landed here on North American shores have the right of might.

But it can't go both ways. Either Starlings are stronger and more aggressive and therefore have a right to their new habitat, stolen from other weaker species, or they are invasive and need controlling. And whatever the answer is, it must be the same answer for humans. So which is it?

Perhaps through my love of Starlings I can be kinder to my fellow human kind. Perhaps I can see the early European settlers in a less negative light and also rejoice in the fact that in the coming years they will be out bred by the African Americans who settled here not long after the Europeans (against their will for the most part!!) and by the Hispanic people who have shaped and worked so much of this land and gotten so little credit for it.

The point being that everything shifts and adjusts on earth and I need to remember this. I am kinder to Starlings than to humans. Yet I have almost always taken the side of the Native Americans to the early European settlers.

Perhaps I should not be so concerned with humans out-breeding every other animal on earth because what always happens when a species of animal becomes too abundant for the resources at hand who has no natural predators is that they begin to die of starvation, disease and thirst. These laws are not limited to the animals we consider wild life. We are a part of the wild life. These laws apply to us too. It isn't something we can avoid. It isn't something that we can prevent from happening in a lab or by praying. No God and no science can miraculously increase the natural resources of our planet, it can only convert what is already here.

I find this calming. Here is the key to not caring about all the billions of babies being born to take my water and my food, to compete with my one child for all that he'll need for survival. We will all inevitably pay the price and eventually there will be fewer of us and a lot fewer of all other animals because the earth can only support a certain amount of animal life and it is bigger than us, there is order, there is this incontrovertible order to life. I take comfort there.

I would like to not contribute to any more of the using of resources than is strictly necessary and that is what I strive to become: a person mindful of everything I consume and use and I would like to become lighter and lighter in every way possible. I am not perfect, but I strive to improve all the time.

But I cannot ask the Starling to stop nesting. I cannot ask the Starling to go back to where it came from. It is here now. A part of our North American Melting pot. Like all the other people , animals, plants, and insects who come here from around the world.

Welcome little birds. You are beautiful and I hope you did not get too injured by my house!

An Unfinished Long List Of The Little Things
that make me glad I'm not dead yet

If anyone wants to know what my sense of humor really is...watch The Flight Of The Concords and you will have it all right there. I think the first person to tell me about it was my friend Chelsea. We share some movie and show watching taste in common, but she also loves The Office which is a show that makes me want to stab myself with a Bic pen or staple my head to the wall. There's something mean about The Office and depressing so that if there's any humor there it's completely lost in translation. Probably because of everyone loving The Office and assuming I would love it and being SO WRONG I took a brief hiatus from listening to any one's recommendations for movie and show watching.

Then my friend Laura sent me a YouTube clip of The Flight Of The Concords and without remembering that this was the duo that was recommended to me I watched the clip. Not without trepidation, actually, because most video clips people want me to be amused by are stupid. Sorry, but that's true. I watched anyway, preparing to tell Laura a lie "Oh- that was...amusing." Instead it made me laugh out loud against my will.

Fast forward...I found the first season of their show at my video store and figured why not check it out. Last night we watched the first four episodes and I haven't laughed so hard at entertainment in a very long time.

I am now convinced that Jemaine is my alter ego.

The lyrics constantly catch me off guard, I think I know what's coming next and then it takes a second for what they really said to sink in and it's just...

I'm being ridiculous. I love that show. I am extremely jealous of the writing, of the acting. If I could be reborn to be that brilliant and funny I would. Deadpan, dry, banal, human, dorky rather than sad and mean, humor that reveals foibles without vitriol. Seeing work like that makes me want to give everything I've worked for up. Why bother writing? I'm just an un-fun person who doesn't like games or jokes or riddles* and especially puns and plays on words which are usually just juvenile attempts to appear clever- I'm feeling more and more like a bitter old Bukowski writing about fat drunk people being left naked in broke-down motels.

So, today is the big turkey day. Not a great day for actual turkeys. It's 9am and right now, all across America people are greasing up those big birds to start cooking them because supposedly they take just about all day to cook. Martyred mothers are cursing under their breath at tradition and sighing loudly for everyone in the family to hear. I've always wondered how come people don't buy birds that haven't been unnaturally over-fed for six months, a leaner bird would surely cook in much less time (with the added benefit of being healthier)?

Another tradition I've never quite understood is why people feel they have to eat Thanksgiving dinner at 3 or 4 pm. What's the deal with that? Is that so everyone can nap a little before dessert? Other than sounding kind of depressing, I guess a nap isn't a bad thing after over eating to the point of discomfort as many Americans pride themselves on doing for this Holiday.

Me? I rarely over-stuff myself on Thanksgiving. I certainly eat more than normal, but since being overstuffed can make one want to vomit (just ask the ancient Romans) and I'm emetaphobic, I prefer to be more circumspect.

So about this whole being thankful thing...

I'm thankful for a lot of things lately and I don't need a special day to recognize this but I do love that we have one holiday that is centered around thankfulness for not starving to death, that is not about shopping, that is all about gathering around the dinner table with whatever we can afford to put on it. I do wish that everyone was lucky enough to have something, anything, to put on theirs. While some families are engorging themselves on over-fat birds others will be lucky if they each get a bowl of boxed macaroni and cheese. For those families I wish better fortune in this coming year and that they may experience the kindness of community to get them through.

• I am thankful for our credit cards that have allowed us to live a decent life for a whole year of making not even enough money for the mortgage. Without those cards we would have lost everything a long time ago and not had beer to soothe our very knotted and frayed nerves. Although credit cards are the devil to pay back and we have a very long hard road ahead of us, we have been fortunate to have had them when we had no cash for food.

• I am thankful to have such a great husband. I don't take him for granted** because I know that there is no one else on earth who could love me as much as he loves me and although we get annoyed with each other and sometimes want to hit each other with heavy objects, he is my very best friend in life, he is handsome, he is kind, he is a great father (in fact- before I married him I was 100% sure I would never want to have children), a weird character, a genius artist, and I just love him. We have been married almost sixteen years and I still love being married. That says it all right there.

• I am thankful to have my mom live close by to us. We have had many ups and downs over the years and I've said unkind things to her, I've nagged her about things, I've enjoyed her generosity, and she always still loves me. When she was in California and we were up here in Oregon, I really missed her. She and I have both come a long way as people and whereas I was horrified the first time I realized how much I'm like my mom (many many years ago) I have come to feel incredible pride to have been on the receiving end of so many of her good qualities. Sorry mom, I still sometimes roll my eyes at your crazy like I did as a teen- but there is no woman in the world I would rather have as my mom and having you close by makes me feel very happy!

• I am thankful for both herbal and modern medicine. Maybe it seems silly to be thankful for my medication, but if you were me trying to be a mom and a wife and remain a live person you would understand how important it is that I have the help of medication to trick you all into thinking I'm a relatively sane and normal person. I am also thankful that Philip just received his free three month supply of asthma meds (you have to be poor enough to qualify) and now he can start to actually breath comfortably. We haven't been able to afford them and it scares me to hear Philip breathing without their help. Though we both depend on modern medicine, I am also thankful for herbal medicine which I plan to re-incorporate into my life more than ever this year. It's a way of life I grew up on and have tremendous respect for. This year I found out that the anti-fungal salve my mom and I made works well for athlete's foot, but not on jock itch. (Oh, should I have kept that to myself?)

• I am thankful that Max has been having fewer and fewer bloody noses. I am specifically thankful for it today because last night he had a really persistent gusher and left bloody trails all over my floors, was freaked out and therefor difficult to help, and later, seeing the dried blood crusted underneath all my nails I remembered that this used to sometimes be a daily event. Sometimes even more frequent than that. Last night's gusher tired me out so much that I understand the weariness of the last few years more sharply. On top of being thankful that he has been having so many fewer bloody noses, I'm thankful that this is one of the very few medical issues he has. So many children have worse problems than that and if I had enough of my own heart left over to spare some I would give their mothers some of mine to help them get through the awful pain they must go through.

• I am thankful to have all the pets I do. They make every day of my life richer, funnier, and cozier. Some of them even give me eggs to eat and manure for the garden! The dog has given me a deep appreciation for her kind that I could only have gotten from loving an actual dog of my own. My cats are the sweetest, cutest girls and it gives me joy everyday to look at them and know that without us they probably would not be alive today at all. We loved our Ozark a lot and still remember him and talk about him, but the truth is- he was such a difficult cat and it's so nice that this time around we have two that get along, don't go far from the house, aren't mean to the dog, don't bite our toes every morning at 5am, are very snugly, and don't fight other cats or wild animals. I will never understand people who don't like having animals in their homes to share their life with.

Lastly, I am thankful for all the little things that make life worth living. Living a good life isn't about one big triumph. It isn't about being a movie star or a superhero, though those sound like fine things to be. It isn't about your job promotion or necessarily at all about how you make the money everyone has to make in order to have a comfortable place to live. So to end this already incredibly long post, I will list the little things that I believe are what make my life so good in spite of not having my paycheck yet and being hounded by my banks all week:

Get ready, this is a very long list...

Good coffee every morning, weird fake food to make me laugh, my son's cheeks which is all that's left of his babyhood, the smell of onions sauteing, soup bubbling on the stove, my cookware which was a huge extravagance when I got it but which has given me pleasure every single day I've used them for the past eight years, my Pilivuyt dish wear,

Nope, not done yet. I think you might find your list just as full....

my weird ghetto door, a brand new Razor Point pen, a fresh notebook, being awake before everyone else, watching snow fall, watching rain fall, picking vegetables in my garden, picking them at my favorite local farm, beer, toast with butter and jam, my great grandmother's china (what's left of it after the fire), my other random pieces of old china, a new bar of soap, kitchen scrub sponges, doing dishes on a very cold day, a freshly cleaned house, clean sheet night, hot baths filled with herbal or salty additions, cats purring,

Tired yet? I warned you. Seriously. Life is full of little pleasures if you just notice them.

my dog curling up against my legs when we go to sleep, PG Tips tea with cream and sugar (I don't indulge often because of the caffeine and my heart palpitations), Agatha Christie books, making excellent tarts, babies smiling at me in the grocery store, grocery shopping, people watching, learning to make new things, canning, drying my own herbs, shelling dried beans, growing things, cut flowers and branches all over my house, colorful painted walls, curtains, dinner with friends,

Dudes, there's more and you should know that when you've come to the end of this extensive laundry list of what makes my life good- I have only scratched the surface of the "little things"!

random wonderfully strange conversations with Max, medical TV shows, television, plaid, polka dots, roses, picking nettles with my good friend Nicole, reading Riana's blog, magazines, cookbooks, garden books, oh hell- ALL BOOKS, NOT reading Posy Gets Cozy, my grey hairs, walking by myself with headphones on, writing, pubs full of weird taxidermy, writing poetry however bad it might be, kitty chins, dog muzzles, lemon trees, old friends who love me even though I exasperate them, avocados, playing old 78's, old movies,


From now on, when I hear that someone is depressed beyond belief and asks me what the point of living is, this will be their first assignment- to make a list of the little things that they enjoy. If the list is smaller than 2o I will recommend therapy and medication.


touching herbs, seeing pretty teeth, the sounds my hens make, coming home, winter, bare trees, rose hips (for many reasons), taking trains, the sound of trains passing through town, frost, hats, the incredible scarf Emma knit for me, conversations with myself, mail, thunder storms, writing letters to Kelly, visiting the library, hanging out with my brother and sister, hanging with my brother and sister kvetching at a pub on the Isle of Skye escaping from the adults,


You have to open your eyes. You have to turn off your BIG expectations of life. Because as it turns out, they don't matter a whole lot.


hanging out in pubs with Philip, climbing the dunes with my kid dog and husband, dry champagne, eggs for breakfast, looking at all my jars of home canned food, sour cherries, foraged food, collecting nuts, making potions, mixing bowls, reading garden catalogs, choosing roses to plant, noticing and naming roadside plants, writing anything, finding out other people's little life details, staying home on New Year's Eve, lying on the floor, spring bulbs popping up through snow, cabbages growing in the garden, the smell of jasmine on summer evening air, digging up potatoes,


There is literally no end to this list. It has become my reason for being. When you've stopped noticing these little details, you need to make changes in your life. Life often sucks and there is enough sorrow in the world to suffocate all of us. Some of us get suffocated by the sorrow out there that isn't our own and need extra help quieting the noise out of our heads. There is always going to be starvation, fighting, death, taxes, abuse, crimes of fashion, and loss. So it's important to enjoy and relish these very small details of joy, satisfaction, and pleasure.

If I believed in God I would say that he gave us the senses to enjoy these details as a way of getting through the other nasty crap he seems to think his "children" deserve. I would believe that life isn't about working towards heaven or hell but about reflecting in ourselves what either of those places might be in our spirits, in the present, on this earth.

But I don't believe like that. I believe what matters is what we do with our lives right now, not because of some strange promise of things to come after death, but because now is what we have. It's really all we have. Ever. Right now.

So go be with your family and friends, and if you don't have any of them, go to a shelter or church where others are gathered to dish out kindness and sustenance. Enjoy the camaraderie of the moment and whatever small pleasures you can. It absolutely 100% matters. If you enjoy those little things now you will find yourself with more pleasant memories to temper the bitterness that life inevitably dishes out than you thought possible.

Lots of love to all of you out there. I'm glad you're alive with me.








*My kid is really into riddles right now, it's killing me slowly.

**This might not be his story.

It Isn't Thanksgiving Without A Wax Turkey

Martha herself is not as talented as me, a fact made clear by my brilliant use of a scented wax turkey that I just happened to have lying around as a holiday centerpiece. If I actually ate meat I might have baked my turkey with these grapes. Because I am a genius in the kitchen.

I know you want to touch it.

I generally try to shield people from the torture of having to compare themselves to me because I know how hard it is to be an ordinary person who doesn't have any fake grapes or wax turkeys. I won't even shake my finger at you and point out that you too could have had this wonderfully scented* wax turkey if only you had bought less fabric for a year. Some of us (like me) really know how to waste money in style.

So please don't be too hard on yourself just because my Thanksgiving centerpiece kicks yours to the gutter. I can't help it, I was born this way.

For dinner tomorrow I will be making:

Brussels sprout mushroom pot pies
Caramelized onions with sauteed spinach
My family's favorite yam dish
Salad that I will coerce my mother into making

Vanilla custard tart topped with sour cherry preserves


What? No gluten turkey? No stuffing? No cranberries? Are we secretly Muslim terrorists posing as wholesome American freaks? It breaks all Thanksgiving laws, I know. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the entire year but that doesn't mean I have to have a weird green bean casserole that basically comes out of a can, or a big over-fed fat bird oozing juices, or that I have to have gravy on something.

Not that there's anything wrong with those things. Except for the oozing over-fed fat bird part and the weird green bean casserole. The pilgrims did NOT eat green bean casserole at the end of November because they would have been limited to what was in season.

As a little side note: until I married my husband I didn't know that yams could come in a can. It explains why so many people "hate" them. Gross!

I also didn't know until I was seventeen years old that you could buy pureed pumpkin in a can. My mom always baked a real pumpkin, often one she grew herself.

The hour is late. Now that I have deflated you with my brilliance I will leave you to drink your sorrows into the deepening night.

Good luck with that.





*They were going for a roasted meat smell but someone who sniffed it just today said it reminded her of the smell of dissected frogs in science class. Nice, huh?

Mustard Lentil Salad

One of the biggest staples of my fridge is a ready batch of mustard lentil salad. It's good by itself but is even better scooped onto a large bed of lettuce with some feta, croutons, and a hard boiled egg. One of the biggest blessings of this recipe, aside from being very easy, is that it is high in protein and reasonably low in fat. Fresh parsley is an amazing accompaniment to lentils for flavor and for it's vitamins, minerals, and the digestive qualities it offers. I always keep fresh parsley growing in my yard just for this recipe.


Mustard Lentil Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups dry lentils, rinsed
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 carrots, sliced med/thin

Dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup of favorite mustard (I used a spicy brown mustard)
1/4 cup (or more) fresh parsley
1 1/2 tsp salt (or more, to taste)
Hell of a bunch of grinds of black pepper


Method:

In a pot big enough to cook two cups dried lentils heat up the olive oil on med/high heat. Add the onions, saute until they start turning transparent, then add the celery and carrot. Saute all the vegetables for five minutes before adding the lentils and covering with water to about an inch above the lentils. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for as long as it takes for the lentils to be cooked through perfectly, usually between 2o minutes to a half an hour. If there is any water left at the bottom of the pan, drain the lentils in a colander and return to the pot, but not to the stove.

To make the dressing for the lentils: In a container that will accommodate an immersion blender add all of the dressing ingredients. Then pulverize it until it is thick. Add to the lentils and stir well.

You can eat the lentils at room temperature, hot, or cold. I nearly always eat it cold as a salad. If you are eating it by itself it obviously needs no dressing, but when I put it on a bed of lettuce I add some dressing to the greens. You can cut down on fat by not doing this but I like a well oiled salad. Plus I like fat.

How I serve it: I put a big bed of lettuce on a dinner plate. I put about a cup of the lentils scooped onto the top. I add a sliced boiled egg, about a half a cup of croutons (when I'm being conscious, or about a cup when I'm not minding my manners and my waist), and about an ounce and a half of feta cheese.

This is a filling and very wholesome lunch or dinner. It includes protein, dairy, legumes, greens, grains, and a whole heck of a lot of vitamins and minerals. As far as calories are concerned I know that eating it as I often do will land you around 700 calories. If the rest of the food you eat in the day is leaner and smart I think the calories here are very well spent.



Note: If you have one cup of the lentils on one cup of lettuce with one ounce of feta cheese and 1 tbsp dressing for the greens it has only 470 calories. That's also a good way to eat it and not spend so much of your daily calorie intake in one meal. I did the math on this quite a while ago as I eat it a lot and it was a staple when I managed to lose weight the first time (after having a baby. Now I have it all to lose again after breaking my hip!)

I'm Not A Racist, I'm A Species-ist

Chick, who is part lab, part pit, and part bull mastiff.

I have recently gotten into two discussions about pit bulls with friends. Apparently I can't possibly have any opinion that doesn't champion the underdog. Is it possible that I am mistaken in thinking that this "breed" has been maligned unfairly? Doesn't it seem a little unfair that the Pomeranian that killed an infant hasn't given Pomeranians more bad press than it did?

I think Pomeranians are scary little dogs. But, whatever.

The pit bull is the devil-du-jour and I don't think any information I can dig up or any debating on my part is going to change anyone's opinion.

The more I talk with people the less I like them (I really like the friends I was talking about pit bulls with though, so I'm now speaking more in general terms in case anyone was feeling singled out). The more I hang out with animals the more I like them and think they are better than us.

I did always spend a lot of time in the chicken coop as a kid.

I was not kidding when I said that I don't believe humans are superior to other animals. You can look at all my beliefs and see that that is always the guiding principle.

The reason I argue with people so much over things is that not very many people share my point of view. I see all beings as having qualities that make them equally valuable on this earth and I don't see any beings as having anything that sets them apart as superior. Supposedly us humans are better because we can think and discern good from evil. I really haven't seen a whole lot of discernment between good and evil amongst people.

So all my arguments start off with the belief that dogs are equal in worth to humans on this planet as far as "right to live here on earth" is concerned. Or as far as "right to be treated with respect" is concerned.

I concede, for anyone who cares, that pit bulls are a more dangerous dog than many other breeds because of their tendency not to let go when fighting. Statistics support that pit bulls are responsible for a large percentage of the fatal dog attacks in our country. I've just had my head sunk in all kinds of statistics and this much can be supported. When a pit bull attacks, it is a more dangerous animal than a Pomeranian. Except for when Pomeranians suddenly need to sacrifice an infant to the tiny-dog altar.

What was also made clear from information gathered from a couple of different sources is that a lot of people don't actually know what a pit bull is and the people reporting attacks (who didn't die, obviously) can't be reliably counted on to recognize a pit bull. I just took a little quiz and I failed it. Can you pass?

People mostly focus on the fatal dog attacks. Less attention is given to nonfatal bites. After all, who cares, right? Who's going to get outraged at a little scratch? (Unless it's a scratch from a pit bull of course because while people will make excuses for a lab they will not make any excuses for a pit).

I'm not sitting here trying to convince anyone to love pit bulls because I know I won't succeed unless I spend about four days glued to reading material and then spit it out very carefully and simply for every one's reading displeasure. Even then, it's not like they're my favorite dog, I merely find myself defending a group of dogs who deserve some defense.

I'm just saying what's on my mind as it comes to me after reading a bunch about dog attacks and breed information. I thought it was interesting that in temperament tests amongst dog breeds at certain facilities**, pit bulls passed the tests at a higher rate than Labrador retrievers. But people, does this surprise me? No. Because in all the years that I was afraid of dogs it wasn't pit bulls chasing me down the street or Dobermans gnashing their teeth at me or Rottweilers who lunged and nipped me. It was black labs. And I was bit by an Australian Shepherd mix once too.

Someone isn't going to believe that information so I'm going to have to dig it up again when I have more time. It was on an SPCA site, possibly in the Bay Area.

One of the sites also compared the number of children killed by dogs every year to the number of children killed by parents every year. You want to know who kills more precious babies?

Well it isn't the pit bulls winning that contest.

Human parents kill more of their own babies a year than any dogs do.

I consider humans much less predictable than dogs and in fact, a lot more dangerous. In spite of the fact that I spent the first twenty five years of my life horribly frightened of ALL dogs, I haven't ever had nightmares about them whereas I am haunted in my sleep by the tremendous violence of man.

Humans suck.

There, I've said it.

A couple hundred thousand Iraqis were killed in an unprovoked attack from my people. How can I feel that there is any argument that can put humans in a beneficial light? We blacken everything we touch. We breed ourselves so extensively that the only places we aren't exhausting natural resources are places where we haven't figured out how to survive in yet. We kill off other species, we suck up the viscous bones of the earth's previous species to use to fuel a revolution of pollution and then we have the gall to turn around and decide that we have the right to snuff out a species of animal because it kills some people every year.

You know, I think that if I was ever to turn suicidal it would not be out of depression or anxiety like it would have been if I'd killed myself as a teen. It would be from shame for my species. It would be from shame for humans and the darkness we've brought to the planet.

I guess that's also a kind of sorrow. I suppose it's a constant solace to me that no matter how much we learn from science, none of us will ever figure out how to really cheat death.

I think I liked us better when we weren't quite walking upright and we had to have more respect for our landscape and other beasts because we were a lot more vulnerable then and had no reason to develop arrogance. We got killed by other animals a lot more often. We blended in with our atmosphere, with the other species on earth.

Humans suck.

I do think it's funny that here I am aching for dog rights, wishing that people would stop mistreating animals in general and dogs in specific, and stop trying to put the problem on the dogs instead of on ourselves.

If you dare say that there is one breed of dog that is just plain bad, are you also a person who looks at an entire race of people and believes them to be just plain bad? In my book it's the same thing. It's the same crime.

Don't worry, I realize that I am almost alone in this tiny universe of mine. I know you don't agree. Neither of us are going to change though are we? No.

It's funny that I used to be so damn scared of dogs and I have, over the last fifteen years, become more and more educated about them, more involved with them, more interested, less scared, more amazed, more enamored, more compassionate, more understanding...resulting at last, in having my own dog for the first time in my life three years ago. Since then I have only become more experienced at handling and getting to know canines and this has increased my respect for them in general.

I will still cross a street or turn a corner to avoid coming close to a dog wandering around without an owner. I haven't grown stupidly complacent. Dogs are still animals with bigger teeth and claws than mine. I think being cautious with ALL DOGS is smart. I think being careful is smart.

I've come to realize that I prefer animals to people for the most part. I respect them more. The honest truth is that if all humans, including myself, were to die today, the earth would be a much better place for it.

I already hear the little voices out there calling me melodramatic, irrational, and emotional. Some things never change. I've been hearing it all my life. I'm used to it. It's stupid to dismiss someone because they are emotional, but it's an easy target. I'm an easy target.

I will just turn my attention to the other life forms all around us, I will listen to the sound of the rain chinking through my kale leaves, or hear the blanket of mist muffle the noises everywhere else in the early morning, and I will listen to the frog who calls out to sexy frog girls through the cold while hidden from my view by arum italicum leaves, and to my hens who shuffle and scuffle and live small lives in hay and who tell me they really don't like that weird bean dish I made and could I please give them some more fruit scraps? I will sit here and wish I was a beetle trenching deep into the hummus.

I'm not a racist but it becomes clear that I am a species-ist.

Note: I keep trying to temper things by saying that I don't love pit bulls, but the truth is I happen to be incredibly enamored of bull dogs as a general group and I can't help but be mesmerized by the beauty of many different dogs I've met who were pit bull mixes. So, let me just say that there's something about most bull dogs that I find magnetic.

*"pit bull" is a description used for a variety of separate breeds that may or may not have the same danger level. I have found out that even I don't really know what a real "pit bull" is. The real pit bull is the American Pit Bull Terrier. Because these breeds share general physical characteristics amongst them it is easy to confuse them. But I think you all know that I'm referring to your average pit bull-style dog here.

**I found larger breed temperament study at this site and pit bulls do not pass at a higher rate than Labs, but they still pass at a high percentage.

How Much Is That Girl In The Window?

If I told you what just flew into my mind it would be "What if we could buy back who we used to be?". What a completely useless what if question. As so many of them are. One of the concepts heavily covered in Cognitive Behavior Therapy is the idea of core beliefs. Core beliefs are the underpinnings of everything that motivates us whether negatively or positively. Core beliefs are the underwear our spirits have on. You can hem and haw about a thousand things but ultimately you believe a few things almost incontrovertibly. To change those beliefs is like moving mountains or reshaping flesh like a plastic surgeon's knife.

I spent some time examining mine a few years ago. I don't think I was able, at the time, to recognize them all. You almost have to turn out your lights to find them because you take them so much for granted you can't see them with your conscious mind. Your subconscious knows all about them. You have to peel away at all your skin, all your rationalizations, all your behaviors, and all of your words to find them. Any thought you have, any comment you make can be traced back to some original basic belief. The foundation of everything that comes out of your life.

That's pretty big stuff. You'd think it would be easier to get at.

Exposing those beliefs can be raw. Frightening. Revealing. A relief. A revelation.

I will show you some of mine, but I can't ever show them all. This is elemental stuff. You scratch at this stuff and I could flake into a pile of ash like ancient silk.

• People are not superior to other animals, just different.

• People cannot be trusted, cause pain, and are savage.

• Sex is a violation of a woman's body.*

• Every action counts.

• We are each responsible for the experience we have in life.

I am so out of shape that riding my bicycle anywhere is quite a heaving experience. I am trying to do more of my errands on my bicycle. I went downtown to the grocery store the other day when it was cold out, crisp like icicles, misty in that soft way fall can be, and it felt so good to feel my blood moving to warm my skin. There's something so exhilarating about feeling cold air hit warm cheeks. I had my bicycle baskets full of Brussels sprout stalks and other local produce and my bike was weighted not only with my considerable heft but with the bags of groceries. I felt so pretty. It seems like the most ridiculous thing to say. But I did. Riding down the street on my old bicycle with the blood in my cheeks and the air in my lungs, I felt pretty.

I think the worst thing about being me is knowing that I used to inspire so much more chivalry in the world and now it is so much rarer. Perhaps that is not important to some people but to me it means a lot. I'm not a feminist in the modern sense of the word. I like to feel feminine, perhaps because I hated it so much when I was a teen, I like to feel pretty and I like to feel that others see that I'm not the clod-hopping old man I sometimes act like. I like to feel evidence of that.

That's another core belief but I can't actually put it to real words lest I freak myself out and cause deep and everlasting pain to myself. Interpret that how you will.

I'm a strong person but I want to be valued as a fine piece of glass.

I used to feel pretty as I walked alone on the streets of San Francisco. Not beautiful, not sexy. But pretty like a peach blossom you admire just before it drifts away from the branch into a breeze, floating like a paper lantern to some spot you haven't yet reached. I feel pretty when my body is in motion, being used like a machine, when I am pushing it towards the horizon with the wind in my sails. When my body feels flight.

I also feel pretty when no one is looking. I believe my magic fades under scrutiny.

It may be a shade of my crazy. Doesn't really matter.

I want to be in the air more often. I need to fit that in.

I want doors to open. I want protection.

It's what my dreams are of when they aren't extremely violent and dark. They are full of chivalry. Not sex, which means so little in the big scheme of life, but that protection, kindness, thoughtfulness, and --

I can't really talk about it anymore. It is too ridiculous. Something I am incredibly uncomfortable about. The fact that when I have fantasies it isn't about sex but about chivalry. Chaste chivalry. I'm not sure what it says about me but I am so uncomfortable with it.

What I do know is that this has been such a great autumn and things are falling into place. Good things. I am not how I wish to be remembered right now. I have not reclaimed myself in all the ways I need to but something is opening up that was closed before. Clamped shut with blood held back, bruising. I feel the winter coming like a mother calling to its child. I walk to winter with every happiness and a little excitement too. Coming home never felt so good.

Change takes time. To change you have to know what underwear your spirit has on. Don't fool yourself. Know what's under there before you rip the scaffolding down.




*Not a healthy or comfortable core belief.













I smell like the damned. (Totally random thought I didn't want to forget I had.)

Eight Years Old Today

What you should know about my extraordinary kid:

He knows when you are lying.

He will kick you in the balls if you try to do anything inappropriate with him like steal him.

He is feisty.

He's a warrior dude.

He will not eat your food. Especially pizza, pasta, or rice.

He hates leaving one place to get to another.

He's tenacious.

He's a ball of fire streaming through the world.

He hates George Bush.

He loves sugar.

He thinks about things on a molecular level.

He believes his belongings have feelings.

He doesn't believe in God.

But he does believe in Santa. (a surprise to me)

He's smart as a whip but doesn't think so.

He wants to have lots of friends.

He's not always easy to be friends with.

The nicknames his parents have used on him: Little Napoleon, The General, The Little Dictator, Bug, Sweetie, Funny Monkey, Lieberschleben.

He will not go quietly.

He doesn't like movie theaters because of all the people in the dark.

He has a stunning vocabulary.

When he really laughs the crust of the earth swallows some bugs.

Today my child is eight years old. A visitor to this blog recently wondered if Max was an "accidental" pregnancy. Ever since I've been wondering how many of you out there also thought this? This answer is no. It took me seven years to decide to have a baby and we planned when we would start trying, what we would do if we couldn't conceive, and we were fortunate enough to not have to wait long.

I don't think I love being a mother in general, but I can honestly say I love being Max's mother specifically. I don't think anyone else could handle parenting him. Most of the time I can't either. Being a parent has exhausted me beyond belief. Every day I'm amazed I get to the end of the day. Since having Max I have often wondered why I thought I could do this whole parenting thing when clearly I can't. But then I look at my kid and I realize something important:

I had to be a mother so that I could mother him. Why? His spirit needed me, not someone else. Me and Philip. Together. Why? Because if he had come to you (whoever you are) you would have already ruined him. I don't mean you are a bad parent...I only mean that you probably would have tried to force him to eat whatever you eat and you would have crushed his spirit. and made him hate all food. I only mean that you would probably have given up on him because of his negative downward spirals and not understood where they come from and that he can't entirely help himself. I just mean that you wouldn't have known how to get him to his eighth birthday believing in the magic that makes sense to him and not trying to force him to believe in things that don't make sense to him. Parenting a warrior is a tricky business.

All I'm trying to say is that Philip and I got Max because we are just the people to figure out how to raise him, just as you are the perfect people to be raising your own children.

In spite of how challenging it is to parent my child, knowing Max is such a pleasure, such an excavation into the human spirit, and sometimes it's incredibly fun. He's extraordinary. He's strong. He's everything I could want him to be. He's funny. He's curious. He's warm. He's honest. He's passionate.

I love him. I will continue to complain, to drop my parenting troubles onto the table, but in the end, what matters the most is that I love him.

And I'm fiercely proud of who he is.

Just Say NO

(because "no" is the new "yes")

I got to hang out with my friend Lisa B. and our mutual friend Angeleen for a while yesterday and aside from the fun of talking about pubic hair lasering, religion, and the importance of personal preferences in body products (an excellent argument for making one's own!) I was reminded by Angeleen about something I already knew but had forgotten in this crazy shuffle that my life has been:

That saying "no" is one of the greatest gifts I can give to myself in order to create the life I actually want to be living.

Apparently I managed to inspire Angeleen to make some choices for herself that have led to a greater fulfillment in her domestic pursuits. She has let some things in her life fall by the wayside so that when she's not working she is doing things around the house for herself and her family which have been making her a lot happier than she was.

It reminded me of the happiest time in my life when I was thirty four years old, finally medicated and through some therapy, living in a house I loved, with my kid and my husband, not working outside the home but toying with starting a part time business called "Dustpan Alley" and spending lots of time gardening, cooking, hanging out with neighbors and friends, and doing projects around the house. Although we weren't at all rich, we weren't financially struggling at that time. We were comfortable. I was in love with my life. So much so that right before everything fell apart I actually knew I was living the life I wanted, that made me happy, that made me feel useful loved and excited.


What I loved the most was not having a lot of obligations outside of cooking almost every day, taking care of the kid, and the house.

So what's standing in the way of having the perfect life right now?

Me and my inability to say no. No to offering to teach people things, no to taking on jobs I don't want, no to volunteer work, and no to activities I don't want to be doing. In fact, I think I may have a compulsive problem with offering up my services all over the place. I don't even realize I'm doing it until the words are out of my mouth and a retraction would be not just impolite but kind of dishonorable.

I haven't been getting far on the magazine this week because of all the time I've spent cooking. I'm cooking a lot more and better food than I have in a long time. Trying to provide Philip with food to take to work so he doesn't buy it out. Trying to make sure there are good healthy choices for me to grab instead of cheesy quesadillas every time I'm hungry. Not working on the magazine stresses me out because I really want to do it. Back when I was picking a name out with all of you and trying to come up with a time line for it I thought I would be able to just sit down and figure the program out. Which has turned out not to be true. I also didn't count on suddenly having four jobs instead of one.

Just as soon as I was down one job I volunteered my ass for another one like a real verbal incontinent. Afterwords I wanted to take it back. But the person I offered to do freelance work for has really beautiful teeth.

So after hanging out with Angeleen I've been asking myself how I could be so close to getting back to the ideal life yet be so far?

It's because I keep putting new projects on the roster that take me away from my home and what really matters to me.

It's because I don't know how to shut up.

It's because I keep putting pressure on myself to do projects for others out of a sense of duty.

I just realized, while making split pea soup and lentil salad that the magazine isn't going to suddenly become irrelevant to those of us who would be interested in it. I'm still getting articles in from my friends. I have just gotten my copy of the book that will hopefully tell me how to use the program I have acquired to make this magazine in. What's up with the asinine rush? Why do I always have my thumb shoved into my own jugular?

I've decided to not worry about it. I'm still doing it. But I've realized it's going to take time. And I want to give it time. Because I want to do it right. Plus I need to save up money to print it. It won't go bad if it comes out in late winter or spring. Everything going into it is still going to be exciting and relevant.

But worrying about doing it right now is making me unhappy. I am happy when my life isn't rushed. I am happy when I can take my time to do things. When I can go at my own pace which, everyone who knows me well is already aware of the fact that- it's SLOW.

My life is slowing down finally and I both love and need it to.

Which means I better start saying no to everything.

Want to join a committee for underprivileged goth teens Angelina?

NO.

Could I pay you to make me some clothes Angelina?

NO.

Wanna do some grave digging Angelina? I can pay you $3 per hour!

Yeeee.....NO!

Wanna join my weekly coffee Klatch Angelina?

NO.

Wanna give a talk at the local art school about eating locally?

NO.

How would you like to attend a boring local function with people who don't give a crap about you and your little problems?

NO.


The biggest lie most of us tell ourselves every day is that we have no choice but to do everything we're doing, even when we really wish we weren't doing so much. We make excuses. We say we have to do it "for the kids". Or we think that if we let go of so much outside activity in our lives we will internally combust.

The truth is, we are all a lot better off when there's room in our lives for things like spontaneous naps, unexpected visits with friends, and sudden silly games with our kids or long talks with our spouses. The truth is, life is a lot better when we have time.

Since there's only 24 hours in the day, something has to give.

Practice saying NO to everything non-essential which means anything that doesn't pay your bills or make you and your family happy.

Time is the best medicine and the only way to get time is to stop wasting it.

NONONONONONONONO.

NO is a beautiful but elusive word.

Go ahead...ask me something.

The Winter Garden

I didn't get my fall beets planted until August 1st which is a little bit late. Never the less one of the two beet beds I planted has lots of healthy greens growing in it and even some bulbing ones. The other bed must not get enough sun because the leaves are small and I haven't seen any bulbs forming yet.

I'm scared to let my beets overwinter because what if frost and snow kill them? If I wait and they make it they may get bigger in the spring and that would be a nice reward for patience I only pretend to have. These are the kinds of things it takes quite a bit of trial and error to find out about one's climate. I had just been getting my nose into the real rhythm of my old climate when we moved. After six years of gardening in it I finally knew what I could get away with planting late in the summer and early in the spring. I have only been gardening in my current climate for two and a half years. So much yet to learn.

I don't think my lettuces are actively growing anymore which means we should eat it all before it gets tough and bitter as the cold continues to creep in.

Today I rode my bicycle to the grocery store downtown. The air is frigid and the trees are getting increasingly bare. I could hear people's snow tires everywhere. I love the sound of a town anticipating storms and snowfall. Though we don't get much here, it's a lot more than we got in California and I'm grateful for every quarter inch of it.

I'd really like to work on making my house and my garden look less like a ghetto. Mostly this just entails some regular cleanup and not leaving cardboard boxes everywhere. Getting my Monastery style garden finished and filled so that lumber isn't lying around getting uselessly warped from neglect. These are things that I am not good at taking care of. Routine maintenance. Even before everything fell apart I wasn't good at it. But three years of just clawing my way through each day, being happy if all I got done was to do the dishes or make one phone call have driven us much further from taking care of the little chores that make houses seem loved and pretty.

I don't really care what anyone else thinks of my house. I'll never keep up with our crumbs and dust. It isn't about impressing anyone. No, that's wrong. It's about impressing my house. It's about my house knowing it's getting the degree of polishing it deserves.

We are so happy with our house. Every day we look around at the walls here and we tell each other how relieved we are to have moved here from the other house. It certainly complicated our plans to rise from the ashes of our entrepreneurial disaster, but only for a while. This house has a lot of funkiness. Some that we love. Some...not at all.

A house knows a lot. So does a garden. Mine will have to practice patience with us as we are notorious for moving at an extraordinarily slow pace. I should show my house and garden the before and after pictures of my two California houses. I think they would feel reassured.

Time to get in my Pyjamas and watch some season 4 Grey's Anatomy and get pissed off at Meredith and Derek being so stupid and in case anyone wants to know- I think Cally is one of the best characters and has been given such a short straw on the show that she really deserves to kick everyone else's asses.

Good night house. Goodnight garden.

Life Owes Us Nothing

I almost forgot about my notes to a suicidal friend who asked "But what meaning is there to life?" all the time. An urgent question she needed an answer to in order to grope her way through her suffocating head to where the air was clear. She was certain that life had no meaning and without meaning it is better to be dead. I heard her and I understood what she was asking. We go through so much pain in life, maybe some more than others, and we look back and ask "What was all of that for?". It feels like the only way we can pick up our feet again to move forward away from pain is if pain has a reason, a purpose.

We make up reasons all the time. But I don't believe that the big picture has reason. I believe in karma only because it is so completely obvious that we get what we give. I believe it makes a difference how we act and how we think. But I don't think that there is some grand plan for each of us in life. I don't think there is one purpose for us or one path. I don't believe that life is about purpose. Unless you think living as long as possible is purpose.

We live because we are alive. We stay alive until we die because we are built with an instinct to survive. I think it's that breathtakingly simple.

Maybe life feels better when we have focus, when we have a plan, and when we use the gifts we were given with our corporeal equipment. Achievement is admirable, but sometimes it gets in the way of everything that really counts. Like breathing. Sleeping. Noticing the texture of the soil underneath our feet and caking under black fingernails.

In the past three years of struggling to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, what path I'm supposed to be taking, and what I'm supposed to achieve in this life I forgot about the letters. I forgot what I used to tell ailing spirits. I forgot the words I used to say.

I'm remembering it now because I have been listening to so many other people like me struggle in the same way and the old reassurance comes tumbling out of my mouth without over thinking.

Stop beating against the glass like a trapped moth. This is life. This is what it is. Right here, right now. There's no such thing as "supposed to" or "should". Our job is to breath. Life isn't complicated. We make it complicated because the hardest thing of all is to accept simplicity. We have no right to expect to live for any specific amount of time. We have no right to expect no sorrow. We have no rights. All we have a right to is this millisecond. The one we're having right now.

Everything else is just extra.

Why bother living life? Because one second of pure air, pure love, pure happiness is worth all the pain we humans inevitably inflict upon each other and on ourselves. Why bother living life? Because coffee at 5:30 in the morning is the best experience in the world. Because one great night spent eating home made food with friends while drinking beer or wine and talking politics passionately is worth all the rest of the time when life sucks.

Just living, and living well, is enough reward for being alive. A life in which no awards are won, no publicly recognized achievements are made, or in which nothing remarkable has apparently happened is still a tremendous achievement in itself if it was lived with senses awake and memory sponging up the liquid light of every morning.

I said so many times that there is no grand purpose but to enjoy pinching the leaves off of herbs to put in an omelet. There is no greater reason for living than to love another being. To notice the shifting precipitation in the air and to watch the lightening from a perch. This is what it's about: the minutiae.

Mothers in my age group are obsessed with advising new mothers to "Enjoy every minute of your baby's early years because they go so fast". What kind of pressure is that? What a huge burden to put on someone. You don't have to enjoy every minute of it and you won't. What's important is to take care of the person you brought here. What's important is to enjoy those impossibly tiny minutes in which you are both laughing so hard you pee your pants and not chastise yourself for all the times your baby made you want to die of exhaustion. Stop worrying about whole lifetimes and just try to be present right now.

What I told my friend who wanted to know why she should bother living is that it doesn't matter what her life looks like to anyone when she gets to the end of it. There is no neon sign that says "Congratulations! You did what you were supposed to! You may now die with pride!" What you see when you look back is not how you should be moving forward. Out of pain. What you see when you look back has already been. Cannot be changed. Cannot give greater meaning to this moment we are in. Right now.

When you stop asking what life is "supposed" to be you will realize that it already is what it's supposed to be. Full of pain, love, laughter, shame, propellant, flight, stagnation, hunger, danger, abuse, kindness, creation, all of it.

Oxygen. Life is about oxygen in our lungs. Blood in our veins with a pump to keep it fresh. That's all it is. We can live it or lose it. It owes us nothing. It gave us everything already.

So stop breaking your feathers against the dank glass. Stop thrashing yourself against this wall of your own making.

Sit still.

Breath.

That's all there is and it's a gift because none of us did anything to deserve it.

Strength Between The Pages

Max and I made a horrible discovery today. We saw something no human should ever have to see. Especially humans who rarely come in contact with meat-type items. I got flea medicine for the animals today and the one for the dog now comes in a chewable tablet form. My dog will generally eat anything and when I say that I mean to say that an open litter box is her candy store. However, for some reason she was suspicious of these tablets so I got out those meaty soft chewy thingies you can put dog pills into so that they will take nasty medicine. I pulled one out. But it looked wrong.

It looked wrong somehow. So I looked in the bag and almost hurled right there and then.

Oh god.

So I made some kind of choking noise and held the bag away from me and Max asked what the noise was about and I told him there were worms in the dog treat bag. So he had to see.

Maggots.

Maggots.

He decided not to eat any more food until someone invents a brainwashing machine so he could get that image of the maggots out of his head. I totally understood. I am squeamish about them too. I would have made a terrible sailor in the age of salt pork and maggoty bread.

Our computer caught itself a nasty little virus that could have (but didn't) result in us having to shut down all of our credit card accounts. Watch out for any insistent button that shows up on your computer suddenly claiming you need to buy the windows 2009 version of the spyware that will get rid of the virus your computer has supposedly just caught. That is the virus. Don't buy the spyware. We didn't. Because it seemed suspicious. Because it was.

Magic has happened that I think cancels out the maggots and the virus... my kid has said he loves reading. MY KID. The one who resisted it for so long. The one who's main passion is video games and playing spies. He treated reading like a chore until this past summer when he was staying up to read his TinTin comics. He got into Calvin and Hobbs too. And then Bone. And then he and Philip read a chapter book together. Of course, most of the books he loves the best are comics and graphic novels. I don't care. That's not what matters. What matters is that he'll bury his restless head in them and get lost. Like I did when I was his age.

In so many ways parenting hasn't been what I expected. Things I thought were going to be easy have nearly wasted me and other things I thought would be hard have turned out to be nothing. My kid is who he is and nothing I can do is really going to shape his most decided spirit. Yet I can see the influence of love and care in him. I can see him finding his way but also finding ours. I can see that he is discovering the magic of books and it's something that gives me a great deal of reassurance. If the kid loves to read, is there really anything he might not be capable of? Or anything he can't get himself through?

It reminds me of all the time I spent reading while I lived by myself in the upper tenderloin with a brick view. I worked hard all week and then, lacking a social life, I would read all week-end. I would get so engrossed in books that I would put off peeing until it nearly became a medical emergency. I would drink about a billion cups of coffee (before I got old and developed delicate problems like heart palpitations) and not eat much food. Reading got me through loneliness and fuelled my imagination so that I had a very rich life just on my own.

I was still trying to write fiction back then too. I try to be kind to myself. Every writer starts off thinking that the only way to legitimize their calling and prove themselves is to write the great American novel. At that time I didn't realize I could write creative non-fiction. So I typed out really bad fiction after reading books that set me on fire. I knew I had the language in me, I just didn't realize I lacked the stories. Self and words are same. I can't write a character who isn't me or someone I know.

What is still fresh for me is the urgent need to always be writing. All the time. I would be thinking of what I could be writing if I wasn't at work while I worked. Poetry would sift through my brain as I packed boxes full of funky lycra garments. For some reason heavy manual labor sparks my need to write more than most other things. That's the only way I can explain why I seemed to drift into words whenever I used the industrial steam iron to the point where I couldn't really hear whatever else was going on around me.

I also wore boots. I think work boots are magic and maybe that's what's been wrong with me for the last few years- I haven't worn work boots in a long time.

I haven't been reading much. My reading life has been mostly limited to non-fiction and mysteries in the last few years. If and when I actually read. You might say I'm stuck in a desert. Or maybe for the first time since I was a kid it's important not to pollute my head with too much influence from other writers. Maybe this is the moment when I really find my way, my reason (if there is one), why I come here every single day, sometimes two or three times, to write.

I long for more conversation with other writers. I want to get into their heads and know what moves them, stops them, and what kind of an island they've built for themselves. I wish I could ask some of my favorite authors questions. Questions that interviewers either never ask or ask but then don't pursue in detail. I want to have dinner with a room full of writers.

Who are writers? Anyone who writes? Anyone who keeps a journal?

Anyone who has to write or else burn up like onion skin and float away into the atmosphere. A writer is someone who, above all other things, must write.

A person who coughs words.

I've learned not to take anything for granted in parenthood. It is often a dark place for me but seeing my kid devour new words, understand irony, and forget I'm in the room because he's so absorbed in a printed story is like seeing him get baptized. For a lot of people out there God is the direction you turn to in tough times, but for me it has always been the public library. It has always been to books. Books and the buildings that house them. So hearing my kid say he loves reading is like watching him find something greater than himself, that he can turn to for his whole adult life.

It's in moments like this that being a parent is exciting. I can relax for a brief while and watch my kid find his words and his feet. It's at these rare junctions that I feel like it all might turn out alright after all.

Choosing Fabrics And Colors
plus some lip balm math

I have been going through my fabric for reupholstering choices. I don't have enough of any wool besides this pretty orange to recover my couch. This (as some of you may remember) was supposed to be my new winter coat. That never got made. Sometimes you have to make some hard choices like- do I pay my electricity bill so it doesn't get turned off today or do I pay my mortgage...do I recover my couch in my winter coat fabric so I won't be depressed sitting in my living room or get depressed making a cute coat that I'm too big to look cute in?

Seems impossible to decide sometimes. However, I can probably make a winter coat out of some of the other wool I found. The flower fabric is what I'm thinking about using for the arm chair. It does occur to me that it may give a slightly British chintzy look to my living room but it matches the orange for the couch perfectly. I will have to investigate my stores of fabric just a little more. Most of the fabric I buy is suitable for aprons and quilts and cute projects and not really for a big armchair.

If I use the orange for the couch I think I'll be using the "fern shoot" green for the walls as we did in our last living room. I had finally decided on an antique yellow color but I don't want lots of orange with yellow. Orange with green is much nicer I think. Mixing cool with warm. Balance.

Meanwhile our main computer has a virus. So I'm doing everything on the laptop. Not particularly ideal. But it makes one terribly thankful to have a laptop at all at a time like this. I'm wondering if I should have Philip install InDesign on this dinky machine and work on the magazine from it or wait until the main computer is cleaned up? I'm afraid my magazine launch keeps getting pushed to later and later. I hope you'll all still be interested if it takes another couple of months to get the first one out. I bet most of you don't even think I'll do it. I don't blame you. Personally I think it was a little over enthusiastic to think I could produce something in one month using a program I don't understand.

I have today off. Having at least one day a week off from work is pretty nice. I could get used to this. I can do whatever I want!

What I'm working on right now is making lip balm. I am also preparing oils for using in solid deodorant. If you want to learn how to make both I'm definitely going to tell you here eventually. What you should be doing is saving your used up lip balm tubes and tins, clean them out using the tip of a knife, then a q-tip and/or a paper towel. If you feel more comfortable disinfecting them before using again- wipe them down with rubbing alcohol. For the deodorant, save your tubes because you can use them for your home made version, clean out the residue in the same way you do with the lip balm tubes. This way you don't have to buy containers for this project and you keep some plastic out of the landfill a little longer.

I've been saving up lip balm tubes for a while. I think I've mentioned here before that I go into a full panic attack if I go anywhere without a tube of it. I have a tube of lip balm on me at all times. And OF COURSE I'm very picky about what lip balm I use. I don't like it to be too slick. I don't like the slick sensation (which is why I hate it when magazines say punchy little things like "...with a slick of lipstick on her lips..." Dude. Gross.) The perfect lip balm is the regular Burt's Bees lip balm. It's usually $2.79 a tube around here. I buy lip balm fairly often. I mean every couple of months I buy a couple of tubes. That may not seem like much but think about it: I spend about $16.74 a year on lip balm. That means I also toss out at least six tubes of it a year.

I know what you're thinking: that is so insignificant it doesn't matter.

You're wrong. (if that's what you were actually thinking)

Just think: If only half of the US population uses lip balm (150 million people) and each of them only used and tossed out one tube of lip balm a year, that means that every year 150 million plastic lip balm tubes get tossed onto the landfills every year. But then you have to multiply that number by the probable number of years we're all tossing empty lip balm containers in the garbage, most of us are lucky and get to be adults for at least twenty years. Twenty years have already gone by that I have been using up lip balm and throwing the empties away.

That means that I have already thrown away 120 tubes of lip balm and spent approximately $334 dollars on that product. See how such a tiny little thing can add up?

So if even half of the adults who use lip balm in this country live as long as I have so far there have been about 180 million plastic tubes of lip balm tossed onto the landfills.

I'm being conservative on purpose. Most people who use lip balm probably use more than one tube a year. Can you imagine what 150 million tubes of used up plastic lip balm containers looks like in one heap? Huge. That's how the little things add up. Fast. It's not just you in this country doing whatever you're doing. There are about 305 million people in the United States. So whatever you're using up is being used up by millions of other people too.

But I can't control what other people do. Maybe my desire to reuse lip balm and deodorant containers and make my own sounds insignificant, but every tube of lip balm I don't throw on the heap is one less thing that will take a million years to decompose.

The thing is, it's cheap and easy to make your own lip balm. Obviously that's what I'm going to show you. It's not complicated and doesn't take much time. Plus, you get to have complete control of what goes into it and what it tastes like. It's also cheaper than buying it. I promise, it's cheaper.

Math is so cool.

I Am The New Birth Control

I've been thinking about teen pregnancy and how it seems so difficult for people to find a way to dissuade young people from getting knocked up. We seem, as a society to want everyone to wait to have babies until our sperm and eggs are arthritic because then we will have the emotional stability to handle having a baby. (Although it's my personal view that you can live to be a wise old bat and still have the emotional maturity of a fourteen year old.)

So how do we discourage teens from having sex unprotected sex? I've come up with a plan: send them to me. I think I can tell them stories that will make their breasts and balls shrivel up into raisin sized sacks of fear. The real problem is that they're not scared enough yet. We've made such a big worshipful ideal out of babies and children in our country that all the celebrities are doing it. That tells teens that having babies, even if you have the first one by "accident", is cool and makes life complete.

I know that there are plenty of women out there who had blushingly wonderful pregnancies and deliveries who are still wearing their rosy glasses that allow them to forget some of the less savory details of the business of having babies. I hate you. I am not one of you. My brain won't let me wear rosy glasses no matter how much I have pleaded my case. Many other women, it turns out, didn't get rose colored glasses either.

So here's the dark side of the coin:

• Nine months my ASS! Pregnancy really lasts forever. You think it will go by fast and before you know it you'll be drinking cokes in your bikini by the beach while a nanny watches your angel sleep. Nine months is a long time to: not drink caffeine, not eat trash, not drink alcohol, not smoke cigarettes, not be in control of your bladder, not get in bitch slapping fights, and to be lonely because your non-pregnant friends are busy doing non-pregnant things.

• Your sex drive will spike. This might seem totally cool at first. Because who doesn't want to be horny every hour of the day that you're not napping like a grandma? But for many it burns strong and bright right before petering out FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

• You will never be able to do whatever you want again. You will be beholden to a little despot who needs you all hours of the day and are very vocal about it. You will never spend another moment of your life without listening for cries. Even when you finally have a little time to yourself you will not be able to turn off your mommy radar.

• You may think you only have to get through the first few months of not sleeping. It is perhaps true for a parent or two out there, but for the rest of us? It's more like five years of no sleep. By the time your kid is letting you get sleep they start doing things like staying up later than you and getting up earlier. Five years is a long time to not get a proper night of sleep. Not getting sleep because you're partying is a lot more fun than not getting sleep because your kid won't let you.

• Having a baby will rip your vagina up. That's right, it will stretch it out and if it doesn't tear you may have to have it snipped and I can tell you from personal experience that either way TOTALLY SUCKS. You think a baby's head is so small when you're holding one in your arms...but when you are having to push it out of your cervix it feels like you're pushing out a Zeppelin. You will fear going to the bathroom for weeks, possibly for months.

• It's expensive. Having babies is more expensive than having a twenty year drug habit, which, by the way, you'll want to start in on right after giving birth if you didn't already have one before. You can have babies and be terribly poor but I promise you that it will be the most dismal ride ever.

• You will never want to have sex again. After all the hormones finish wreaking their havoc, (IF THEY EVER DO), and your vagina has been ripped and stretched, leaked for weeks, and has finally returned to some semblance of normal, you will be so tired from taking care of your Zeppelin baby that you will much prefer to get close to pints of ice cream every night rather than have yet another pair of needy hands grope your body.

• No matter how much time passes you will not forget how painful giving birth was. You will have nightmares about being pregnant again. You will wake up in cold sweats and want to cut off your partner's penis to prevent another pregnancy. You will have dark circles under your eyes from the memory of that awful tearing and all the blood...so much blood! Now look, I think it's important that I remind you all that I broke my hip and while that was so painful I cried every time I had to go to the bathroom for the first month (and I didn't take any pain pills besides Advil), giving birth was worse. I had an epidural near the end but even so, it was worse. And if you think I have a low thresh hold for pain let me just repeat what my doctor said to me after she saw my hip x-rays "You must be one hell of a stoic person!".

I think that should do the trick, don't you? With everyone always talking about babies like they're some dreamy easy accessory to life it's no wonder so many teens are careless. Send them to horrible Aunt Angelina! You just wait and see if your darling budding sexual babies don't come begging you for a chastity belt.

That conclude the public service portion of my day. Next up? Something light and fluffy.

Tenement Stew
(cabbage alphabet soup)

Tenement housing is a big building with little cramped apartments that rent for cheap to people with poverty level incomes. (In San Francisco these were known as "The Projects", which is an interesting name for them since the only projects going on in them was an ever increasing collection of bullet casings.) Think of thin walls, no heating, no laundry facilities, and kids trudging off to work with their parents to local factories.

One of the things that distinguishes the middle class and poor people of the present from those of the past is that even when we have very little money we are always running to the store for packages of whatever we decide is necessary for our recipe today. In the past you relied a lot more on what was in your root cellar, or what you had in your pantry. Not a lot was available at the grocers in terms of vegetables. Bananas? Forget it! Did my grandmother even taste them as a child? If she was alive I would run to the phone and ask her. My Grandfather grew up in Michigan. It's cold there in the winter. If they didn't have anything stored from their own garden what do you suppose was available to them to eat in the winter?

Cabbage. Carrots (maybe). Potatoes. Onions.

I took this opportunity to make a soup that required no extra purchases and made use of at least three things from my pantry/freezer. Those three things are: home made stock, home grown and dried thyme, and 1 quart jar of diced tomatoes. I froze the stock months ago. I don't plan ahead well so taking things out to "thaw" in the fridge never happens. If I remember to thaw something ahead of time then I inevitably change my mind about what I was going to make and the thawed thing develops interesting molds.

It worked out just fine to put my solid block of stock in the pot and let it melt there. With the heat on pretty high it didn't take long. Can this stew be made more cheaply than going out to eat a fast food meal? It turns out that the reason why poor people eat so much soup is because it's a damn cheap and nutritious way to feed your family. I priced out my ingredients (bearing in mind that my stock was free since I made it from my own vegetable scraps, and my thyme was almost free because I grew it and dried it myself) this soup cost .53 per serving.

That's for a cup and a half of nutritious and very tasty soup. Can you get a nutritious meal at McDonald's for .53 cents? That's a trick question. You can't actually get a nutritious meal there. This is why it pisses me off when people say they don't cook for themselves much because it's cheaper to just eat out. * Try my tenement stew. It won't break your pocketbook. It will hardly make a dent in it.

One last note before I present you with the recipe- I have always wondered if it really makes a difference to use stock instead of water. The last time I made this soup I used water and this time I used stock. I made absolutely no other changes to it but Philip says this version was better. So I'm feeling more inspired to get in the stock making habit.


Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 large carrots, chopped
1 large russet potato, cut into 1/2" cubes
1.5 pounds of chopped cabbage
3 cloves garlic, minced fine or pressed
1 quart diced tomatoes (with its juice)
1 quart of stock (or water)
1/4 cup alphabet pasta (or orzo, or rice)
1 tbsp dried thyme
2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
a shake of cayenne pepper for heat


Method:

Heat oil in a soup pot. Add the onion, carrots, and potatoes and stir frequently until the onions turn transparent. Add the stock and tomatoes. If the stock is still frozen just dump it in there and close the lid for a while, checking to keep vegetables from sticking. Now turn the heat down to medium and add the cabbage, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick, add some water to it. When all the vegetables are cooked through, add the pasta and a shake of cayenne pepper. Cook for an additional ten minutes. When the pasta is done the soup is done.

This soup serves 6-8

Whether or not you need to economize right now, this is an excellent stew to eat when the wind outside is cutting through your wool coat and the rain is sheeting against your face. Eat it with a decent sized hunk of wheat bread with butter if you need to be out in that weather for long. The cayenne will help warm your blood, the garlic will help fend off the plague.

*Although I think my cooking is generally better than I can get at any restaurant, I very much enjoy the experience of letting someone else serve me booze and unhealthy food. So it's not like I'm saying I never eat out. We are still eating out once a week and keep putting it on the credit card because we can't afford it. It is a bad habit. But I really made this footnote to point out how costly it is to eat out. If I didn't like people-watching so much I probably would be a complete hermit. Anyway, probably time to end this lengthy footnote.

Good Night Rain

It's been raining all day and I've enjoyed it from beginning to end. I woke up at 5:30 am to hear it dropping loudly on the weird plexi-glass awning we have over our basement door in the "front"* of the house. I lost my joy for it briefly between 5:45 am and 6 am when my computer was freaking out on me and the keyboard wouldn't work and my whole world came crashing down on me since our only chance of survival right now is this great job I have that I love and CAN'T LOSE.

But then I got settled in on the laptop which is a cheap one I have never particularly liked until today. The rain came back into my hearing like a wonderful tapping at the temple of my sentient spirit.

Right now it's just after 7pm. I'm tired. It's been a full day. The kid had yesterday and today off from school and mostly played computer games but took time out to get all excited about the fact that his birthday is two weeks away and we played Bionicles. Then I watched him do stunts. I have to say his stunts are pretty fantastic. After he got tired of that I built him a new Lego fortress.

I also made soup for which a recipe will follow in a day or two. I'm tentatively naming it "tenement soup". It has cabbage in it. I think it might be capable of warding off tuberculosis. Possibly even the plague. Perfect for a rainy afternoon.

I harvested plantain from my yard. Plaintain is a "weed" which also happens to have some (apparently) strong medicinal value and I plan to make my very first stick deodorant using an oil infused with plantain, thyme, comfrey, and calendula. I will be telling you all about plantain very soon.

But right now I must head off to bed. I just wanted to sit down here where you all come to say hello. I wanted to feel a part of something social before closing down for the night.

I also wanted to share a wonderful conversation between myself and Max today. He rushed off from our Lego playing to pee. He came back a moment later:

"Mom, I kind of peed my pants."

I stared at him with very little surprise. He decides to elaborate.

"Well, I didn't really pee in my pants but when I took my wiener out to pee I didn't do it fast enough and some of my pee got on my pants."

"That's alright." I said. "Sometimes it must be very hard to have a penis."

He thinks for a moment as he removes the offending garment.

"Yeah, but it must be hard to have a vagina too sometimes because you can't just pull your pants down and aim your pee because it will just go straight down."



Wow, it sure is good to appreciate the blessings of one's genitals, isn't it?

*The front of our house being really the side of the house.

Confessions of a Toothpaste Addict

Normally I don't show anyone my toothbrush. A toothbrush is a very private item. Like a bra. Mine needs replacing now and I don't dare tell you how often I replace my toothbrushes because then I will be forced into a life of hangdog shame. Clearly none of you use very much toothpaste.

This is how much toothpaste I use every time I brush my teeth which is twice a day. Once in the morning IMMEDIATELY upon rising. Before coffee. The idea of coffee on top of morning breath makes me want to pass out with disgust. Don't tell me if you drink your coffee first. Please don't tell me because you can tell me almost anything but that.

Here's an ever so slightly different view. In case you didn't believe the first one. This is exactly how much toothpaste I use. EVERY. TIME. I. BRUSH.

But I know how photography can fool the eye and I want you to know how much toothpaste I use so that we will be sure to understand each other. This is very important for me. I feel like I'm having that argument with my old boyfriend over the meaning of monogamy. Are you sure that what you think is "a lot" of toothpaste is really a lot? See, I think this is just average. Half this amount would constitute a dismally inadequate amount, but more would be too much ("a lot").

You still think I'm a toothpaste addict. I can sense it.

I can see that I'm going to have to come to terms with you and your wrongness.

I'm going to pretend I don't know that you think I use an excessive amount of toothpaste for the moment and attend to a little meme that my friend Angeline doesn't think I'll participate in. However, I will not tag anyone else because I don't believe in chain letters. The trail stops here. I love it when people post random things about themselves. I always learn something and often I learn something that someone wouldn't have otherwise told me because it's rare that someone says "Hey, want to know something totally random about me?" for fear of being thought egocentric. I'm nosy, let it be understood that I want to know EVERYTHING random about you.

Here are six random things about me just for Angeline:

• My babyhood best friend with whom I lived in The One World Family Commune in Berkeley until I was five years old was molested by one of the members of the commune. I didn't find this out until I was an adult and reconnecting with some of the commune members. His life was dramatically altered by this molestation and I still feel rage that all the adults were so careless of who they let into their little cult of drugs and sexual gratification that I almost want to vomit every time some young idealistic person asks me if I don't think it would be great if we all lived more "communally"? I'm told that I wasn't a victim of this molester but I have always felt a tremendous darkness about that time in my early life and in fact have only one actual memory of it. I have only visceral gut reactions in place of memory.

• When I was a teenager I was so uncomfortable with myself and being female that I wished I was a boy. I was absolutely 100% unhappy to have breasts (in spite of the fact that they have always been quite small anyway) and would just about die every time my mom would take me bra shopping. Or talk about bras. Or when my friends would talk about bras or breasts or periods or hoo-has. This may have been partially brought on by being mistaken for a boy in the girls' locker room when I was thirteen which was mortifying. Or possibly because my dad so desperately wanted at least one sports-fan for a child that I felt it would be a lot better if I was just a boy. Or it might be because boys thought I was scum.

• I have an incredibly low sex drive which is a constant point of chagrin, shame, dishonor, and irritation to me. I realize it's not my fault but that doesn't comfort my spouse during long dry spells. This is something I mention no more than glibly and in passing (infrequently) because I don't really want to find out that everyone else is always in the mood. That would just make me want to say "fuck you!" which isn't nice. If I didn't have a spouse I loved so much I wouldn't care at all that I have a low sex drive.

• Sometimes I feel like an electric ball spazzing, fitzing, and spluttering through the world dropping sparks everywhere like neon dandruff. I feel like I'm going to explode with energy and I want to rip my chest open to let out some of the pressure and heat which is in extreme contrast to all the times I feel like a grain of dirt buried deep underneath a rock during the freeze of winter in Minnesota.

• I can remember the exact moment at the age of thirteen when I realized that I was a person full of rage and the following moment when I pressed it deeper and deepest into myself so that I could ignore it until eventually it rose to my throat where it is still waiting to be expressed.

• Getting older has freed me from feeling guilty about never eating my pizza crust. I also don't feel guilty about not eating the rind of Camembert cheese or the bitter spines of romaine lettuce. I see this kind of guilt as a waste of time and I am already so fat that I really think that any calories I consume should either be giving me nutrients or pleasure, hopefully both.

Now I want to mention a word that I really am quite tired of lately:

yummy - I remember when this word came back into fashion with the over five year old crowd, it was not a good day, though I have resorted to it myself. It's time to shelve it for a while.

Some alternatives to "yummy":

delicious, tasty, heavenly, gastro-turbo!*, piquant, succulent, deeply satisfying, delightful, very pleasing, appealing, delectable. Even plain old "yum" would be good.

Can we work on using some of these in place of yummy?

I have a lot to say politically but I've just been letting it all sink in and have been grinning and feeling proud.

But about that toothpaste. I've shown you mine, now I want to see yours.

Show me your toothpaste usage.

Show me.





*I just made this up. I want to put it on a T-shirt. I should probably trademark it first.

Soap Whore Comes Clean

Warning: This Post Contains WAY Too Much Information
If you weren't uncomfortable before, you will be now.

So many people are sick right now with this month long extravaganza of phlegm and headaches and sore throats that I thought I'd send out a little hot pepper, ginger, and garlic love. Philip can't seem to get rid of it. Just when it seems to be easing up and going away he gets a fresh sore throat and I sleep in the guest bedroom. (Because I don't want to get sick and he always sleeps facing me.) I still haven't caught it but I haven't been feeling 100% either.

I've been thinking lately that I might have some slight (really slight) issues that I didn't see as issues before. With germs, for example. And the use of soaps and toothpaste. According to all of you I use an extraordinary amount of soap and toothpaste. I think I was wrong about having to buy it every two weeks but definitely I buy toothpaste once a month. Maybe every three weeks. The tubes I buy aren't very big, but never the less, at least two of my friends expressed astonishment at me going through toothpaste so quickly, indicating that perhaps I suffered from some life altering toothpaste incident as a child resulting in adult on-set toothpaste abuse.

When they revealed how little they use, my first thought was "Your mouth isn't very clean, is it?" even though neither one of them has ever given me mouth qualms. If I don't use enough toothpaste then my mouth doesn't feel fresh afterwords. Although I dislike a lot of thick foam in my mouth*, I need my mouth to feel fresh after I've cleaned it. Minty. I need minty mouth.

My toothpaste is running low right now and it has come time to make up a batch of nasty baking soda toothpaste. I will only do this in conjunction with making a super minty mouthwash for me and a super cinnamon-y mouthwash for Philip.

Then there's soap. Apparently I'm obsessed with using obscene amounts of soap. Who knew that my soap usage would ever cause eyebrows to rise? I go through a bar of soap a week. I share that bar with Philip. We both shower every single day. We both use that soap every single day. Does that really seem obsessive? I could choose (I guess) to just rinse myself down every morning, or take showers every other day. I'm starting to feel self conscious like I might be a lot more OCD than previously determined.

Body odor is not my favorite scent experience. Which is why I would have been shoved in an asylum in the fifteen hundreds when the whole world smelled funky all the time.

It isn't that I think all body odor is terrible, but I find it distracting. (Here comes another choice view into a madwoman's head). I really hate underarm odor when it's sharp and thin. I can't think when my own pits smell that way and when others smell that way I can't stop fantasizing about shoving that person into a hot soapy bath. Hair oil smell also bothers me which is why I can't let anyone else use the pillow I sleep on. It isn't a bad odor exactly but it's kind of animal and personal and if I'm right next to it I can't concentrate on anything else like getting to sleep.

But personally, what I find really distressing is the way an unwashed hoo-ha develops a riper and riper scent the longer it goes unwashed. This is also not exactly a bad scent so much as it's very personal and something I'm not keen to waft at everyone I know. I have smelt it on others (none of my friends though, so don't worry) and it's familiar yet individual. If I don't shower for one day I can smell myself when I use the bathroom. All my skin, my pits, my hoo-ha all converge into body odor that I find irritating and distracting. It is probably only me smelling me, but since I can smell everyone else too, I don't really think it's just me.

What I love best in the world is lathering up in lots of wonderful herby smelling soaps and hot water and stepping out of my shower or bath with a feeling of starting fresh and smelling like lavender rather than musky animal. I love herbal scents, natural oils, even bath products with perfume. That is my dirty secret- I actually really love perfumes. I restrict myself to all natural scents now but secretly love it when I pass by a woman wearing Clinique.

Am I a soap whore?

Don't you all feel EXACTLY the same way?

But here's what's going to shock you: I don't wash my hands every time I go to the bathroom.

So I can't be completely worried about germs. If I washed my hands every time I peed I wouldn't have any skin left on my hands. I get red flaky hands that hurt when they come in contact with water too much. I do so many dishes all day that I figure my hands are pretty flippin' squeaky. And since I shower with (apparently) profuse amounts of soap every day I really don't feel scared of my hoo-ha being particularly dirty. So there. I also never EVER use antibacterial soap. NOT EVER. It's truly evil.

So see? I'm perfectly normal. Say it with me now: Angelina is PERFECTLY NORMAL.

Thank you.

*The main reason I have been using Tom's of Maine for the last twenty years is that it isn't as grossly foamy as more conventional toothpaste. Conventional toothpaste feels like dental goo in my mouth, the kind they form molds of teeth with for fitting retainers. It makes me instantly gag which is a sensation I like to avoid at all costs.

Poorhouse Pies

When most of my bills are a month over due, my husband has developed a tubercular quality cough and we can't afford his asthma medication* or flea medicine for the animals or new pants for the kid it feels a little Irish around here.

It puts me in the mood for cabbage. It makes me want to get earthy and reminds me that the answer to all my problems comes from the same source I did and if I embrace this experience and stop fighting it I will find something soul satisfying in it. Perhaps I'm feeling philosophical because I know that some significant relief will be on its way by the end of the month (in the form of a first pay check from my new job). But I think there's more to it.

Although my family was pretty solidly middle class by the time I came along, my maternal grandparents both grew up very poor. My grandfather was one of thirteen children and as he tells it his home life was pretty dreary and he left home at the age of fourteen to go work. My grandmother (pictured here with my mother) came from very poor people who were (as my grandfather liked to remind us) largely illiterate.

I feel my roots tug at my limbs like hungry children rising from an empty table. I feel it when I dig my own potatoes out of the ground. I feel it when I knife a cabbage into quarters. I feel it when every meal begins with the humble familiar aroma of sauteing onions. I remember reading somewhere a condemnation of the smell of cabbage and onions being the smell of poverty.

To me it's like raw memory. I am the culmination of all the people who came before me in my family and I have their taste in my veins, their scent memories in my cells, their hollering in my head. I love the taste of butter and soil, the smell of damp compost, and the noise of chickens outside my door.

I remember the afternoon when I realized that my grandfather had the soul of a peasant too. I remember drinking wine with him while he read Homer to me and we inhaled the smell of evening coming on. We are simple in our love for books, food, and drink. Perhaps to our detriment.

Then let it be to our detriment.

I've had this idea in my mind for a couple of days. Poorhouse pies. It kept creeping into my mind. Poorhouse pies. The kind of food that you can make for cheap and send with your man to the mines or the fields for later. The kind of food that is rustic and simple but nourishing. Cabbage has 34 mg of calcium per cup. It has 33 mg of vitamin C which isn't bad when you consider that an orange has 54. Cabbage also has 160 mg of potassium. There's good reason why this vegetable has been valued for so long, by common people if not restauranteurs.

Poorhouse Pies pair cabbage and mushrooms together with marjoram, feta, and mustard. It's like a Russian style calzone. It is tangy and satisfying. I used a batch of pita dough because it's what I had ready when I finally decided to make these. I recommend using a calzone dough or making them like empanadas using a pie dough. Though depending on what dough you use your yield will vary.

Is a Poorhouse pie really actually cheap to make? I hear people say all the time that it's cheaper for them to go out to eat (such as at fast food places) than it is to cook at home. This is rubbish. So I costed my ingredients. While prices for things do vary from place to place I rounded up on everything to cover inconsistencies and I came up with a price of $1.66 per pie. These are enough for a light meal on their own or paired with roasted vegetables or salad would make a filling dinner. I think that price puts them at the same price level as fast food.

Except That it will have a lot less sodium, fat, and crap. It has better nutrients to offer and the quality is unsurpassed.

The biggest difference is that you actually have to make them yourself. I made my dough the night before and then put it in the fridge over night. I punched it down in the morning and kept it in the fridge until about an hour before I needed to use it. So these were quick to put together today.

I recommend using a calzone dough because my pita dough was too tender and after the pies sat for a while the juices from the filling made the bottoms a little soft. Otherwise it tasted great. I used feta cheese because it's what I had on hand. My original thought was to use yogurt cheese but I didn't have any prepared. Using yogurt cheese would have cut close to two dollars off the price of making them.

The filling is enough for 8 regular sized calzones.

Ingredients:

Enough calzone dough for 8 calzones

1.5 lbs of cabbage, shredded or diced big
1.5 lbs of button (or any other) mushrooms, sliced
1 yellow onion, diced
2 tbsp olive oil (or butter if you prefer)
2 tsp salt
many grinds of pepper
1 tbsp dried marjoram

8 tbsp stone ground mustard
8 ounces feta cheese (or other cheese of your choice)

Method:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

In a large saute pan heat up the olive oil on med/high heat; then add the onion and cook until it begins to sweat. Add the mushrooms and cook for about five minutes. Add the cabbage, salt, pepper, and marjoram. Cook until the cabbage is cooked all the way through. About ten minutes.

Cut your dough into 8 pieces. Roll each one out and on one half of it spread out a table spoon of the mustard. Add the cheese on top of the mustard. Then heap about a half a cup of the cabbage mushroom mixture on top of the cheese. Now pull the other half of the dough over the filing and seal the edges of the dough together. You may need to slightly wet the edges of the dough to make it stick well. Take the edges and tuck them up so that the filling won't ooze out during cooking. Place on a baking sheet and proceed the same way to fill the rest.

Sprinkle some cornmeal on the baking sheet if you have some handy. It helps to keep the dough from sticking. Cook the pies for ten minutes (if you use a pita dough like I did, if not, cook for as long as your calzone dough recipe calls for).

If anyone actually makes these, would you mind telling me what you think?


*If it weren't for credit cards it would have been Angela's Ashes for us a long time ago. Philip is waiting to get free asthma supplies from the companies that make them. If you're poor enough they'll sometimes give them out.

Room By Room
my new approach to fixing up my house

Remember back when we lived in the other house and after two years of being unhappy with our living room we we finally redid it? Do you remember what a HUGE difference it made? Since getting my new job I have slowly been picking up the pieces of mess that we have let accumulate for the last three years. This is an enormous task. One that I find daunting. It means going through things that I have put off, piles of junk; dusting furniture that hasn't been dusted for months at a time; sweeping and cleaning more often than whenever I don't feel like complete lethargic crap which is never...

The job is daunting. Today, maybe because my spirits are so high from the (for us) happy results of the election*, I had a break through thought: why do I keep trying to tackle ALL of the problems in my life at one time? Why do I keep putting every room in my house on the desperate to do list? The best progress is generally made one step at a time. Small steps. Little bites. Meaningful victories. I realized that I should pick one room to concentrate on at a time.

We've already lived in our farmhouse for seven months and although we've mostly unpacked everything, we have yet to find places for everything. We've painted nothing. And there isn't a single room in which I've really figured out where everything should go or done what I really want with them. Partly that's because every room in this house needs a lot of help.

So I'm starting here: the living room. It is a wonderfully open room with good light (thought not good enough for picture taking) and a nice hardwood floor. So what needs doing? For starters it needs to be repainted. I'm tired of painting rooms. I've painted so many now and I'm just tired of starting over but Philip isn't so I'm going to pick the color (with his help obviously, he's not hen pecked for crying out loud!) and he'll do the painting. What will I do?

For starters I need to tear down that ridiculous curly-cue mantel piece. The fireplace (sadly 100% non-functioning) is quite pretty actually with nice blue tiles. Or it would be if it wasn't for that weird woody growth on top. I'm going to rip it off. I truly hate it. I might be able to do something cool with it later on.

Here's a front view in case you want to keep looking at that strange detail.

The next thing I need to do is tear these blinds down. I'm about to say something really opinionated and five of you are probably going to feel like pummeling me for what I'm going to say...but try to keep in mind that what you do for your own house decorations is not for me to question....

I loathe vinyl and metal blinds. I really LOATHE them. They make bile rise in my throat. They are dark and the vertical ones are the very worst of the lot. They aren't nice covered in fabric either. They really depress me. My window is my view of the outside world. Like my eyes. I want them to be pretty. Or at least fun. Or stylish. Or all three of those things.

Then there's the furniture which must be redone. This is what scares me the most. I've never recovered furniture and I'm afraid of botching it. However, I can't afford to get them professionally done so I can either keep them as they are, which is depressing, or attempt it. The bones of my furniture are good. So it's worth trying.

This was the chair we read to max in ever since he was a baby. We romped on this chair, ate in this chair, and watched movies in this chair. This chair is wearing a lot of drool (not mine), spit up, yogurt, smooshed crackers, and even some kid pee. Wanna sit in it?

It's shredded.

Lastly, there's our very real Art Deco couch. It's been recovered before by the previous owners. We've had this couch for several years and the dog has done a real number on it. Now the cats are doing a number on it too.

The dog did this. She likes to root under the cushion for scraps of rawhide that she's buried in it for later. She has ripped it up good.

Here's the challenge: I don't have a lot of money to spend on anything. So any fabrics are going to have to come from my current stash. Some curtain or shade hardware can be purchased. The fabric for the chair and couch must also come from my stash.

I'm going to go hunting for fabric possibilities and paint chips in my treasure chest and come back here with the possibilities I find. Wish me luck!!!

*Although I'm really bummed that prop 8 passed. In better news we have the first ever half black president and also the first two muslim Americans were elected into governmental positions. All in all I'd say some great progress has been made.

Perched

On the edge of my seat. Is watching the Election map fill in on NPR likely to cause a brain aneurysm? I update it every few seconds to see the numbers add up. The suspense is killing me. I can't concentrate on anything else. Transfixed. Feel like the results of this election will be very revealing concerning which states I could never comfortably live in. Yes, politics are very important to me. At some point I'm going to have to tear myself away from this and pretend to do something else.

And not think about all those weird comments I happened to read on different forums about the candidates. I broke my rule of not reading news and as a consequence I was swiftly caught up in reading all of the sites. Yes, ALL OF THEM. CNN, NPR, FOX (totally lame), The Washington Post, etc. etc. There are threads of conversations that I don't even believe can be real where people are accusing Obama of being Islamic and preparing to take over the world. Dudes, that's what I think about Mormons. Except that I don't really think that. I don't feel that threatened by Mormons. I don't feel threatened at all by Islam. There are plenty of American citizens who are practicing Muslims and are patriotic and good people.

I'm so embarrassed for all the people who are questioning Obamas place of birth as though it's the easiest thing in the world to pretend to be born in the states when really you were born in Africa. For Christ's sake!!! I'm amazed by people who question his ability to run this country based on the fact that he hasn't gone to war and killed people. Killing people in a military operation doesn't make you more qualified to run a country. Sometimes I think it twists people up more than it makes them wise or strong or a hero. Whatever.

This is stream of consciousness writing, not an organized post. I'm just writing what comes to mind.

The truth is, I've hardly given any thought to the fact that he's half black. It just dawned on me today, fully, what a victory it would be for our country's civil rights movement of the 1960's to finally see an African American become president. It's not that I haven't noticed, because that would mean I need a whole different banquet of medications than I do...it's just that in my mind it's just a descriptor, not a fact with any moral value attached to it. His skin is darker than mine. Jennifer Aniston's skin is darker than mine too. George Hamilton's skin absolutely defies description. Definitely darker than mine. What does it signify?

Well, naturally dark skinned people obviously possess qualities that light skinned people covet. At least Obama's skin is his own natural pigmentation. Poor George has kind of left the charts in the orange skin category.

I can't access the Interactive Election Map on NPR and it's making me crazy. Did they cut me off on purpose?

It must be a conspiracy. I can't even get to the news articles on NPR now.

I have to rip myself away.

Shaving For A Change

(barking with my dog)

Chick is waiting. I am waiting. We're all waiting. This is a pretty tense day. I just finished work and am showered and I've even shaved, for a change. I think a day like this deserves a smooth leg and armpit. I haven't shaved in a while because a) I'm lazy b) the last time I shaved I missed huge patches and looked like a spotted pig and d) I forgot to.

So when will election results be clear? (I mean, presuming there isn't more election fraud this time which take weeks to get sorted out.)

No matter what the outcome is, there will be one thing worth celebrating:

BUSH WILL BE OUT OF OFFICE IN TWO MONTHS!

And he can't come back.

!!!Quick!!! What Bush boys are left who could conceivably run for office? The old man is out for good. Can Jeb run for President? What about Neil? Or Marvin? Are we free of the Bush clan now? Will the twins run for president?

Well, ultimately it doesn't matter because we've got McCain to replace him and there's a thousand more Bush's with different last names just waiting in the wings to fuck everything up even worse than it is now.

Hey, that doesn't sound optimistic.

I didn't shave my legs so I could sit around thinking the worst. I have laundry to do, food to cook, hail to enjoy which is so much like snow...only hard...like golf balls. I have InDesign to struggle with because no president is going to bring us the amount of hope we all need. We are going to have to generate a lot of it for ourselves. I plan to do my part by helping people to empower themselves. (But InDesign is still kicking my tookus good)

I feel the overwhelming urge to make mini pitas so that I can have mini-pita-pizzas for dinner. Doesn't that sound good? With home made tomato sauce (from locally grown tomatoes...aren't I insufferable?!) and slow cooked caramelized onions.

The one good thing our political jerkfest has forced us all to do is look inward, trust ourselves more than our government, to reassess our moral compasses. * So many people are suddenly thinking more about the car they're driving, the trash they're making, and the power they're using than they were before. You can scream and scream at people to make better choices but until the economy forces them to their knees they really don't see why they should be inconvenienced.

So that's going to be my strategy for keeping hope alive: thinking about how if Obama wins at least someone in the White house will try to lift a finger to end the war and maybe make strides in a more progressive direction. But if he doesn't? There could be a good side to that.

Because if Obama gets elected and really manages to make positive changes then Americans will once more be lulled into inactivity, obscene disregard for their responsibility to the environment, and to our local economy. But if he doesn't get elected and the economy continues to worsen (which it will if we continue our war abroad) then perhaps some good change will come from a newly more deeply chastened people.

Looking at it that way, it doesn't seem so horrifying to watch my country go to hell. Maybe that's just what we need to kick our asses into gear.

Anyway. My legs are smooth. Come what may.

There's been lots of jokes about moving out of the country from people on both sides of the great political dividing line but it's so sad to reflect that our country has let its standards and honor slide so far that no one will welcome us over their borders. Canada doesn't want us. My own father is a Canadian citizen and at one point in time I had hoped to move there and be sponsored by him. But he didn't feel that losing my US citizenship was worth anything in the world. I have always found it so curious how much he seems to value my citizenship here though he never saw fit to become a US citizen himself. In fact, even though he's been living in Israel for over 30 years he's still both a citizen of Canada and of Norway.

Back then I might have been able to sneak my way into a citizenship even without the aid of my father, but now? Nobody is going to welcome us into their fold. Which could amount to being stuck in a country I am increasingly ashamed of.

There's going to be a lot of flag waving either way today. I hate flag waving. I hate all the two-bit patriotic heart swelling and swaggering that every election seems to inspire.

That's just more proof that I'm not a fun person.

UN-FUN ANGELINA.

I'm going to go put some music on and try not to panic. Maybe I'll just sit in the purple chair with Chick and bark at the guy next door who comes outside to smoke cigarettes.

Remember that I don't have TV so if anyone gets any juicy bits of news about the election, would you please let me know? Also, although I'm terrified to listen to NPR right now, if someone local can tell me what radio channel they are? Maybe I'll give it a brief listen.

I feel like we're all falling.





*It's so ironic that both parties would ardently nod their heads in agreement to this statement even though they each cherish such different interpretations of what that really means.

Great Blog Names

unsolicited advice about naming your blog

I have been reading a lot of new (to me) blogs lately and it has become clear to me that someone needs to offer a seminar on how to name a blog. There are a lot of blog names out there that are super self conscious, are trying too hard, sound ugly, make me think Elmo is in the room, are not wearing any underwear, induce a coma, are so cute I want to throw up*, or make me want to close my curtains to the world immediately.

Cut out the sugar, the cheese, and the dimples! Because I am ultimately a kind hearted person, I am not going to point my fingers to anyone who's blog names have violated my sensibilities. Instead I'm going to point out some great blog names (with links in case you actually want to visit them) with a brief explanation of why I think the name is great. Then I'm going to share with you what names I might have chosen for my blog if I hadn't named it after my company (which is now defunct) and if you want to use any of them you can, and you better do it before I trademark them or use them myself in an anonymous capacity.

Her Able Hands - This is one of my first favorite blogs and I was attracted to it, as I am so often, first by the name. I think it says a lot about who she is, isn't being too cute, and sounds strong. She's not writing much right now but maybe if everyone pressured her she's start feeding us her thoughts again.

Milk Money Or Not, Here I Come - It's original, smart, vulnerable, funny, and hopeful, all in the one name. It grabbed my attention and best of all, the writing is as good as the title. Schmutzie doesn't know it but we're probably going to be good friends some day.

Pam Kitty Morning - One of the reasons so many people love Pam's site is that it sounds cheerful. I couldn't really explain to you what the hell the name of her blog means but it emits the happy, sunny, bright, and sharply focused feeling of a good cup of coffee. I love that it is cute without the sugar. Like Pam herself, the genuine article.

No Appropriate Behavior - I don't remember where I found this blog but I laughed my ass off when I did. She is funny and true to her blog name. She's tough, she uses very foul language, she's crafty, and often unexpected. I think her blog title sums up what parenthood often feels like to me.

Mom O Matic - This blog name has a good ring to it. It's evocative of the reality of motherhood without any schmaltz. It's funny without trying to actually be more funny than it is, it's got a vintage feel to it which is in keeping with the writer's aesthetic, and it's acerbic. The writing is poignant and funny, often at the same time. I'm always jealous of her skill and if it weren't for her generosity of spirit I'd be tempted to put gum in her hair.

If I didn't include you don't assume it's because I don't like your blog name. I don't generally follow blogs whose names I find stupid. If I follow your blog the chances are pretty good I like the name of it. Words are potent to me and I'm careful which ones I keep in my life. This extends to the plants I buy too. I won't buy a plant called "Sexy Rexy"** because I would HATE to ever have to say it or think it. People are always quoting Shakespeare on this and I think they are very wrong to do so. What's in a name? Well, what's in your name? Would you feel as good about yourself if your name was "The Little Crapper" instead of Louise?

If I was to write another blog I would probably write an anonymous one so I could say ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that's on my mind. Everyone would hate me, but I'd probably become famous for being hated, and I'd make lots of money and have no friends. However, I'm too busy with the ones I have now to do any more but you might enjoy some of the blog names I personally would love to use.

I haven't checked to see if any of these are already in use. It would be very amusing to find out that some of them are.

My Stick In Your Eye
Camel-toed Ho***
Wearing My Helmet To Bed (this one's my favorite!)
Retarded Muse
Botched Lobotomy
Shackin' Up With Jesus
Old Man's Crossing

My last recommendation is to remember that my opinion is only important if you think it's important. The best rule of thumb is to be true to yourself.

*This is saying a lot for someone who is emetaphobic.

**Sadly, this name HAS NOT been changed.

***I've never worn my pants tight enough to achieve a camel toe but I think it's funny to say and sometimes I think I'm trashy enough to live in a trailer. So why not?

My Ghetto Door

My Ghetto door keeps out: people soliciting, proselytizers, neighbors, bill collectors, and trick or treaters.

Have I mentioned how stressful I find Halloween? It's been a long slow journey into hell with this one. When I was a kid it was one of my favorite holidays. I loved dressing up and made most of my own costumes. Since I lived in a very whole-grain unprocessed food household I also relished the big bag of candy at the end of the night.

I keep thinking about the time I dressed up as Ruth from the bible which reminds me uncomfortably of the year I tried Jesus on for size. I was reading the bible back then and I got all the way through genesis before I just couldn't read any more of it because it's not actually a very good read (too many begats) and since there was no mention of the dinosaurs (whose bones I'd seen in the science museum) I decided I would have to reconcile the bones with the book before I went any further. They have yet to be reconciled.

Anyway, I loved Halloween and I remember loving my Ruth costume which I made myself and of course no one knew who I was.

Then before I had a kid, when we got our first house I got excited about handing out candy to kids but no kids came because we lived at the very dark last block of our entire neighborhood where only very brave souls venture at night, and bums.

As a parent I'm supposed to be very excited about Halloween. I get to make creative costumes for my kid, watch him have a blast, and basically do the gushing mom thing. How adorable to see millions of little kids come begging for candy at my door for two hours, then teenagers packing real knives, and then hookers... no, not really.

Unfortunately, having a kid messed me up bad (physiologically speaking). It made my already serious anxieties reach a fever pitch and they haven't backed down or eased up since*. Halloween offers me a multitude of platforms on which to sit my awful anxiety.

• First of all, I don't have your average kid who wants to be Spiderman. Up until he was four he refused to dress up. Which was fine with me. Then he wanted to be some esoteric thing I couldn't buy or make and it provided an opportunity for much disappointment and chagrin. The next year and every year since has been the same.

• Second of all, Halloween night is noisy, crowded, and people are roaming the streets in groups like little scary gangs all expecting candy. My doorbell rings, and rings, and rings. It turns out that I don't like opening my door to people I don't know. Especially people in masks and stupid costumes expecting me to give them candy.

• The adults dressed up almost freak me out more than the kids. Especially full grown women in outfits they think are really "cute". The mimes and clowns are the worst though. I know it's supposed to be "fun" for everyone and I shouldn't mind so many people having a good time, but I'm not a fun person. I am the antithesis of fun. I'm an incredibly un-fun person and I don't mind if others want to have fun as long as they don't drag me into it.

• Then there's the candy. You think I mean "Damn the candy everywhere that I must eat!" but I don't. The cheese and beer is why I'm fat, not the Halloween candy. I discovered that trying to estimate how much candy to buy fills me with new fodder for obsessive worry. Since I won't go out trick or treating with my kid (too much negative stimulation like that makes me want to chew on my own foot) I have been the candy dish for the last several years. I spend two hours not sure if I'm giving too much to each kid/teen/adult and will run out, or if I'm being too stingy and will wake up to an egged house because I was the mean lady who gave only one piece to each person.

One year I couldn't handle more than an hour of such suspense and put out an "out of candy" sign, turned off all the lights in my house and hid in my bedroom. It's amazing how many people can't read because the doorbell kept ringing in spite of the sign.

This year I made Max a Gengar costume which turned out surprisingly well. He loved it. Until he had to spend time in it downtown. He hates having face paint on, wearing masks, having things on his head (like hats) or having anything stiff touching his body. Apparently the seam in the top of the costume hurt his head and the whole thing wouldn't stay in place so after they came back from joining the madness downtown they planned to do a little trick or treating in the neighborhood. Max wanted to ditch the costume I spent hours making and just wear last year's costume without all the stuff that made it a costume. Basically without the weapons or sunglasses it was just a black outfit.

I told him he had to wear a costume. A huge family fight ensued.

We were all miserable until I sent Max and Philip to the store to just buy some fucking candy and be done with it. That's all Max cares about anyway. (Not actually true, he really liked his costume provided he didn't have to wear it. I think he loves the IDEA of costumes but just doesn't enjoy the reality of wearing them.)

Peace was restored.

But back to my ghetto door... I have decided that my ghetto door is brilliant. No one ever knocks (because they can't) so I NEVER get bothered by strangers at my door. If my ghetto door itself doesn't worry them, the black barking dog jumping at them from behind the metal definitely does the trick. She is a marvellous deterrent.

I was thinking that I should eventually put something really pretty in but I'm realizing now that only very good friends and the most determined trick or treaters** or evangelists will dare to attempt to enter. If my dog knows you well I know for a fact that she won't hurt you if you open the gate but if she doesn't? I honestly can't say what she'd do.

So it is with great pleasure that I wake up today with that whole bit of crazy behind me. The kid had a miserable day yesterday but is full of good spirits today and is busy drawing medieval characters while waiting for me to get off this computer to go to work so he can play video games. The husband is sleeping still.

I work all day at the toy store. It will probably be busy and speed by fast. I hope you all have a great Saturday!

*And this is where I can truly thank modern medicine for helping me out. I'd probably be dead from no sleep if it weren't for the Paxil which made my brain a little bit quieter.

**One kid attempted to breach the fortress and I'm amazed that our high pitched family yell fest wasn't a clue to that kid to scram. Some people really will do anything for candy.