Dustpan Alley (OLD)

2009-02-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

Seriously, are you looking for me? Really? Because I've been waiting for you. I really have. But hey, you need to update your readers with my new location:

Dustpan Alley

I understand if you don't want to actually subscribe to my blog. I know it's hard to commit to things. So if you want to see puppies, spice, mental illness, and everything not nice, come visit me at my new location:

Dustpanalley.com

and I promise not to pressure you to commit.

It just isn't a party without you.

2009-01-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

I just want to remind everyone to update your rss feeds and readers because my blog has a new location and I miss you.

dustpanalley.com

2009-01-01T19:37:00.000-08:00

This site has been moved to:

Dustpan Alley.Com

Please come visit the new digs!!!

2009-01-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

The Best Event Of 2008

My dad's wedding

My brother Ezekiel.

My sister Tara.

Me.

These are my three favorite pictures from 2008. The picture of my sister is only a tiny little lie, the one of her that is my all time favorite is one she would not love and so I've picked one here that I think she'll be happier about. We all met up in Scotland this year to see our dad get married to our wicked step mother.* Each of us came full of our own deeply complicated feelings and memories and crutches and it was awesome!

I loved bickering lightly with them on the Isle of Arron. And in Ayre. And then in Glasgow.

Seriously- I love these two so much it hurts. I'm sure they can tell by the way I am so relaxed and easy going all the time around them. I'm sure they are both wishing I was around to boss them all the time. Yeah.

I see in them so much gorgeousness, capability, creativity, individuality, and forgiveness.

It was an honor, an education, and a relief to spend so much concentrated time with Tara and Zeke. I'd like to think that as the eldest I imbued us all with a calm demeanor and great wisdom.

Unfortunately I think it more likely that I made them happy to get home in the end.

Lovely lovely time. I'm so happy I got to see my dad get married.

*Yeah, so wicked with her soft Scottish brogue that I'm practically in love with her myself.

2008-12-31T23:31:00.000-08:00

Twenty Years Ago I Pissed And Got Off The Pot

Happy New Year!

I have spoken of many dark things this week. I've looked at things that need to change in myself. I've come up with a plan for the new year to achieve what I absolutely cannot fail at achieving in order to walk into my fortieth birthday next year feeling strong, healthy, and gorgeous. I think it might be a little funny how much faith I put into the changing of one year for the next. Life doesn't always show us the best place to begin change but the new year is an obvious annual starting gate. It feels good because January is so quiet and serious. January is when the weak get killed off by hunger, the elements, or frustrated sufferers of SAD.

I believe in mostly simple things. You know how some people get in a car accident and suddenly they get feverish about Jesus and how the light came and grabbed them out of the jaws of death and so now they're not going to beat their loved ones any more or have affairs, or cheat the tax man or take drugs? An accident creates this concise juncture at which point you can take off in a whole new direction. I'm not sure why so many people find Jesus at these moments...I mean, why not just realize that being drunk sucks shit and kills people and feels like hell on the bones and everyone ends up hating you? Why shouldn't that be enough reason to change?

For me the new year is a great starting point. Birthdays are too. My birthday happens to be six days after the new year.

When I was 17 years old I was still cutting myself and I was slowly coming out of an intense nervous breakdown that I'm not actually sure anyone knew about and going out with really stupid boys who mistook me completely for a dolt who follows and worships and pines and all the time I had no respect for them but used them for a very rich fantasy life. I never put out so they all left me pretty quick anyway. I remember sitting at some diner with this guy who was my boyfriend but who was screwing around on me and treating me like trash and I had him (and everyone) thinking I was so smitten that I was really going to marry him. I think my friend Carrie has always been onto my every facade and stupid crap.

I looked at the people I was with in the diner, late into the sleazy night, and realized that the worst thing was that I treated myself worse than any boyfriend ever had. I felt indignation that boys didn't respect me, truly want me, or actually particularly care about me. I suddenly saw that the indignation was because I actually thought I was worth their respect. I realized that in spite of myself I felt I was worth more than their cheap compliments and lack of chivalry. I realized I was better than them but treating myself worse than they were by carving into myself all the time.

I was going to turn 18 years old in a couple of weeks of that realization. I asked myself what the hell I was doing? I told myself, in my usual habit of having long involved conversations with myself, that if I was going to spend the rest of my life cutting into my own flesh then I was no better than the worst human and I may as well just kill myself. Because if torturing myself was the only way I knew how to deal with myself and my life then it wasn't really worth my investment of love and care.

It was your classic piss or get off the pot moment in life. A completely transformative moment in which I asked myself the one question that mattered more than all the other ones because even though I hadn't jumped off the cliffs like I had planned on doing almost three years prior I had continued to completely fixate on the theme of killing myself and in the meantime I opened myself up with every sharp instrument I could find.

So I asked myself to decide: are you going to live or die by your own hand? Because if you are not going to kill yourself you need to treat yourself like you matter, you old slag!

No, I didn't really call myself a slag, seeing as I never put out for boys.

I took a hard look at myself. I imagined what life would be like if I decided I wasn't going to hurt myself or commit suicide. How would life look if I had just enough optimism to assertively progress forward? How does one deal with the pain and the impossible frantic toxic self loathing that is the other side of my inevitable coin? How does one, as crazy as me, calm that awful threatening in my own spirit?

The most important thing was that I had seen that I really did care about myself and that my need to hurt myself was an irrational and desperate response to disturbing stimulation in my life and to traumatic past experiences that I had not been able to process because I was not able to look at them without wanting to die a little every time I did. Getting that glimpse of self love made me feel that I was worth the effort to attempt to heal.

Epiphanies often seem sudden and finite. You see the light and have all the answers because God handed them to you in a moment of clarity. I don't think that's really what happens. No one gets all the answers at once. The real epiphany is the grand opening of previously closed mental paths that allow something new to be learned. Obviously it's never going to be God with me because I see in terms of nature; human nature; wild nature; natural organization of an enormous universe representing a very well tuned and designed working order.

As I approached my eighteenth birthday I lost the dubious boyfriend (he may have dumped me, I'm not sure, it is irrelevant since he was already fooling around on me and I couldn't care less) and I tried figuring out what my path of mental recovery was going to be. I really couldn't figure it all out. I think I sensed at the time that the path itself wasn't nearly as important as the intention and all the things I was learning in consequence.

So I made a deal with myself: stop hurting yourself. It won't be accomplished immediately. All I promised was to stop cutting my own skin. Stop forcing myself to physically bleed to prove life. To prove pain. To prove that I was broken: message received! All I promised was that I would stop cutting and I would take one step at a time to try and find ways to heal myself. I agreed with myself that it would take time. That it might take a lifetime.

I promised myself that I was choosing to live.

And all that that entails.

For a suicidally obsessed person that is a huge promise. I think there's always a part of myself that still recognizes the risk.

That new year was one in which I was crossing the thresh hold of a new year with a really fresh step. I made that solemn promise to myself and I kept it. Even to this day. I can't tell you how often I have had to fight off the urge to lapse back into the thought of death, the comfort of oblivion. It isn't that I've ever really wanted to kill myself since then, but I've had to fight my mind from seeking comfort in those old grooves of thought.

I have kept that promise to myself ever since. It is the hugest piece of optimism I have ever indulged in: to be alive for another year and happy to be here to celebrate it even when the going has been intense.

That was over twenty years ago.

So when people talk about how they hate New Year's resolutions because they never keep them I can't commiserate. I think that when it really matters you can keep them. But you have to recognize a serious need. Needing to lose five pounds is not serious. Hoping to like your boss a little more isn't particularly pressing. But when you realize that change needs to happen or you may as well be dead-it feels a little more urgent.

The new year is a great stepping off point.

The diving board for reaching yourself. For reaching others.

I wrote my own epitaph and the main thing is that I want people to remember of me that I never gave up. I never stopped trying. I just kept hoping and let that carry me through it all.

I allow myself to hope, always. Without it the human spirit sickens and dies.

I think that's what the new year is really all about. It's about allowing ourselves to keep hoping, through the dark months of winter, that we'll still be alive in the spring time. That the flowers will bloom again and bear fruit that we can eat. We close one chapter so that we can begin a new one.

I nearly lost all my sense of hope this year. The most dangerous thing a person can do. Especially anyone who has lost all hope before and sought solace in dreams of the grave.

So I am one hour into the new year and I feel the changing of the guard like it is meant to be felt: that the new guard brings with it more alertness, determination, and discipline.

We just sat on our "front" porch in the cold and drank champagne and felt our good fortune to be in a house we love, have a healthy kid we love, and to live in a state we love. Life is good.

So right now I am giving a little call out to all my mentally ill brethren who have been where I've been- come with me into the new year, alive, and brimming with regenerative hope for change and for healing. All change takes time. No change happens over night but our intentions of change can take us deep into new terrain. Our intentions to heal can lead us to the answers we need. Don't be afraid to hope again. Don't be afraid to let yourself dream of a better year. Don't be afraid to look to yourself for some strength. Everyone needs others to lean on but we must all, in the end, depend on ourselves to start our own engines.

We can do it!

Happy new year everyone!!!

2008-12-30T22:01:00.000-08:00

Stripped Down When Dressed Up

Hello long hour. I'm listening to the timber of a smoke at twilight, the way it coils itself into the light like liquid air. I want to go back only for the smoke. I remember this day, when I sat for pictures. Devastated, because it seemed like the fiber of the universe had become brittle and dry with age, and had begun falling through my fingers into piles of dust telling time. I was twenty eight years old. It was the first time I had a nervous breakdown in almost ten years. But I never called it that the second time around. There was so much more at stake. Entrenched deeper into the tangle of love and family.

I remember how I cried at some point while we were busy pretending I wasn't going to cry in front of the camera. I don't cry. I'm not a crying female. I am strong. When I hurt I have places to tuck it all out of view. I might never forgive you for seeing me cry.

In this picture I have been betrayed in some way by every parent and grandparent I have and I am declaring myself an orphan. I've been disowned and disregarded and sent spinning with this awful mangled heart that leaks fluid mostly for my brother and my sister because I would do almost anything to keep them more whole than myself. And then, at last, it is for myself.

I could have decided not to do the pictures. But I remember knowing at the time that I would regret not doing it. That I would feel it far into the future. That I would later need these pictures for something. I am not a vain female. But I am a piece of work. A real piece of work. I think I knew that other change was coming. Change I couldn't know yet. Change that would cause me to need a physical point of reference. Change that would require me to remember who I was in order to finally become the woman I've been turning into since I was born.

I have never considered myself beautiful. I speak out of the side of my mouth. With or without cigarettes I always talk like an old school Hollywood gangster. My face is lopsided and I am not an elegant person. There is something clumbsy and clod-hopping about the way I push forward in the world.

But I have always been photogenic. In person I am awkward and halting. I will break your finest wine glasses and have to stick my foot in my mouth a hundred times a night, but if I am silent and I let you photograph me you will catch something else. Even when I'm fat. It isn't beauty, I think, but that queer drive to make others feel alive. It makes me wonder if photographs really do have the power to steal a person's soul.

I have no urge to act. I can't deliver a line to save my life and I'm eternally grateful that my life threatening experience doing improvisational acting in a Dicken's Faire workshop wasn't video taped. With a couple of notable exceptions I generally dislike actors and dancers. I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

Yet, how different is posing for a photograph? I think the silence of it and the simultaneous contradictory noise of it appeal to me. Here is an image reflecting something quietly or loudly- but always without words. Not unlike so many vignettes we reel across the silver screen of the subconscious memory. Is it vain? I think it tells the story of who we really are. Stripped down when we're dressed up. It's about the medium. I like to find myself in photographs while some people need to find themselves in dance, theater, or maybe abstract art. We all seek to see ourselves. I am no different than every other Tom, Dick, and Harry.

Except that my name is Angelina. Patron saint of all Mad Housewives. A collection of contradictions. Now grown fat.

What I especially love about this picture is that it's the one that showed me my own nose. I don't care for little button noses. Nor skinny noses. Nor ski jump noses. You know that nose that nearly all American delusional women aspire to? The nose that drives so many women to the nose knife? I hate that nose. It's insipid. It's an offense. It smells nothing. It is pinched and crippled. I want a nose to be a thing of beauty- chiseled from bone and made to smell life! What I love best in a woman's nose is a bump in the middle of a nose that appears to be modeled from a Roman Goddess. Those babes did not have stupid tiny turned up noses- they had gorgeous shapely ones that can smell the feet in the wine!

In this picture you can see the smallest hint of a bump forming. No, really, look closer! It has grown a little more significant with time. But this picture was the very first hint that my nose was not done shaping itself. I am proud of this shadow of character. I have earned it.

Life is like a series of photographs glued together on a cork board. Little stretches of isolated soul to commemorate the diversity of life's offerings. We revisit with joy, with ambivalance, and wtih sorrows inexpressable.

2008-12-30T18:37:00.000-08:00

Change Is Under Way

Right now.

A whole lot of work was done today by my good friend Angela on my blog move to Movable Type. I've been planning on moving Dustpan Alley to it's own domain for a long time and being more idiot than savant when it comes to this kind of stuff I am leaning heavily on Angela to help me with all the technical stuff.

Why do it? The main motivation is that I already own my own domain and since it's no longer a store it makes sense to use it for my own blog. I want to be able to have categories in which to archive my articles so that anyone coming along randomly can pick and choose what they wish to read. I don't know if anyone else has tried to find recipes I've posted in the past but I find it frustrating. I don't want people to feel frustrated coming here.

The front page will have whatever is current, just as it does here. But when you want to find all the posts that deal with mental illness you can go right to them and if you don't want to feel like killing yourself after visiting my site you can ignore them.

It feels like Dustpan Alley is about to come of age. I have written 817 posts. I've been writing here for 2.5 years. This blog has evolved a great deal as my writing has improved, my photographs have improved, and I finally got rid of that dark green background with the light type. It must have been such a relief to your eyes when I finally chucked that one.

What's weird to me is that I always have about the exact same amount of readers every day and for the most part- you're the same people who have been coming along for the ride from the beginning. A few people have dropped off, a few new ones come to join us. But mostly I have a small group of loyal readers. You might not know how gratifying it is for me to be able to say that I have "readers" at all. The thought of people looking forward to reading my work keeps me warm on very cold nights.

I have nearly killed off this blog several times. Yet when my finger crawls close to the red complete delete button I swear I stop breathing. Coming here every day, to this little piece of imaginary real estate, is grounding. It is where I look at everything I'm up to and enjoy it again. Through pictures and through retelling.

In addition to moving the blog to a new address, Angela is going to begin working on the Roost template. Philip is going to work on the design and Angela is going to build the site and teach me how to be its keeper. All this change will mean a learning curve for me, but not too bad I think.

The content here will remain exactly as it is now because this blog is a reflection of my personal life. I'm just telling you, in case you were worried that I'm going to change things too much. There will be just as much swearing, frustration, enlightenment (I hope!!), humor, and exploration of everything I love and am passionate about.

It is a fitting way to close the year- by building new templates and getting everything cleaner and clearer.

So if things are a little wonky around here for the next few days...hang in there. I will probably post one more post to this old format since tomorrow is the last day of the year. One during which I generally do a lot of writing.

So I'll see you around. I hope to see what everyone is up to tomorrow. Why do so many people abandon their posts just as it's getting exciting? I want to see your corks popping tomorrow!

Is that also a euphemism for something dirty?

Please don't call your Champagne "champers". I really hate that. I really do. It sounds too much like "chompers" which is really inelegant.

Well, it's time to wind down the night with a little "Will and Grace".

Good night.

2008-12-29T18:18:00.000-08:00

Nothing Left To Say But Thanks
(for not killing me off yet)

There are only a couple more days before this year comes to a close. The year is heavy in my left hand as I hold it up to the light for just a little longer and turn the last few pages. I will not be sorry to see this year shuffle itself behind me. Yet I don't say that with bitterness. I have let go of all those tough days when I wanted to pull all of my hair out. Letting go of bitterness is a big step in personal growth, but there is a flip side to it as well. I don't generally like to get all Mary Poppins on people but if we aren't willing to see what good can come out of bad then we really don't get it. Any of it. And we get stuck in the perpetual replay moment.

So you have to pick yourself up by your boot strings and see everything that has been good. This happens to be a real Maria moment as well, isn't it?* This is where I go all kittens and ribbons on the world and spread all kinds of fuzzy feelings around. Gross, I feel kind of sticky already.

I had reason for gratitude this year:

I got five jobs this year and every single one of them was offered to me by friends: Your life can't be all bad if you know five people willing to bail your sorry ass out of the coals and hire you. My headline editor job that I LOVE was offered to me through my friend Laura who has never even met me in person- yet she completely went to bat for me. I can't possibly be thankful enough for that.

Penny and Pippa coming into our lives: right when we were feeling so blue for our old cranky cat Ozark who died in February these two half dead kittens came into our lives and have been the perfect silly remedy for so much personal pain. Just looking at Pippa makes me start laughing because she's so bite-ably cute. Penny is more aloof during the day but then she curls up between Philip and I at night and is such a little velvet baby.

Support from my blog friends: Much of the strength I borrowed to get through the hardest moments I got from all of my blog friendships which are fully as rewarding as the friends you meet at the coffee shop. Just when I think I'm going to shove a lemon in my eye I read a comment from someone that makes me remember that I hate pain and lemons are best squeezed into hot tea.

My Philip: I often wonder how I can be so lucky-to have a man who loves me even when I'm at my fattest and meanest...but we've just about been married for sixteen years and many times this year I have realized how unfair it is to everyone that they can't have Philip for a spouse. He treats our life like an adventure and is willing to take risks as long as they're with me. I am no fool and treasure my marriage even when Philip makes me want to whack him with a frying pan.

The Health of my boy: Bloody noses are a bitch, a real messy bitch. But compared to all the problems a kid can have I feel deeply thankful that he's been healthy this year and growing like a weed. He may be hell to feed and a challenge to groom but this year he had no breaks, no serious illnesses, and he's still in one piece. There are few things more devastating to a parent than to see their kids hurt or decline in any way, so any day/wee/month/year that my kid is in good health is occasion for gratitude.

The "new" house: Our old house depressed me. It was not a great financial move for us but every morning I wake up in my funky farmhouse I feel so happy that I'm here. I love this house and I need to love where I'm living. I've lived in a lot of places and I know that it has a huge effect on my overall outlook. I'm so happy to have found this place. My old doorknobs feel so good in my palms. The porch from which I can watch the rain come down is the best perch!

I was published in a book: REMEMBER THAT? REMEMBER HOW COOL I WAS ABOUT IT AND NOT OVER EXCITED LIKE A GIANT CHIHUAHUA?! REMEMBER HOW I DIDN'T FORGET MY FRIENDS WITH MY DISH OF FAME? Yeah, I remember too.

Our visit to old friends in California: As stressful as travel is to me with a kid in tow, it has to be admitted that we had a fantastic time visiting our old friends. It felt so good to let all the breath out and drape myself all over their furniture unceremoniously while drinking copious amounts of excellent beer and wine and eating the best food in the world. I was completely at home and it was such a great break in the miserable year. Max got to play with his best friend and didn't want to come home. It was sweet.

I learned to grind and cut metal: Although I am not going to pursue a job in metalworking because (as I disclosed a few posts ago) I am a writer I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn about metal working. If I didn't have the path I already do I would seriously consider becoming a welder. It was fun, satisfying, and gritty work.

It snowed 2 feet in my garden: No, I'm not happy or relieved to see the snow gone. However, I'm not going to sit around being bummed about it either. What an amazing delightful way to end a difficult year. How did the Universe know that it would bring the glitter back to me, that it would help me unload the heavy to see the ground luminescent in the dark. It was wonderful- the cold, the storms, the flurries, and even having to get intimate with my own water pipes was like getting to know your spouse when the honeymoon is over. An adventure! Thank you. Thank you for the snow!

*Oh for Christ's sake- it's Julie Andrews...it's all about Julie and her perky self with that goody goody persona, she's got us all wrapped around her pinky. Wouldn't I just love to read her diaries and find out she was a gin swigging ho! No, don't throw your icky winter tomatoes at me- I LOVE Julie. Julie in a dirndl is what I worship.

2008-12-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

Up My Arsenal
The power of food

I have made a decision for my upcoming herculean effort to whittle away the 80 lb weight off my body: I have given myself permission to buy whatever produce I need to until I at least get to the halfway mark in my goal. Why? What do I mean? Don't I already buy whatever I want?

No. Remember the whole local food challenge I took on last year? Remember how I said I was doing it to make permanent changes in how I shop for food and how I eat? I have continued to buy 80% of my produce and food from local sources. This is not something I take lightly. It isn't sustainable to eat mostly produce that has been imported from hundreds of miles away. That continues to be a passion of mine. It will continue to be my objective for the rest of my life. I have committed myself to not buying oranges or other citrus fruit except as rare treats. No avocados, bananas, pineapples, or apples from out of state. Except as rare treats. I believe in rare treats from abroad.

However, in trying to map out my strategy for this extremely important goal of losing weight I have come to the conclusion that I need to make some quick progress- it is daunting to think about how much I have to lose and easy to become discouraged. I must not let that happen. So I need to be sure that I am strictest in the beginning because it will get easier for me once I'm on a roll (this was the case when I was losing the baby weight before). If I don't make good swift progress early on then I will risk ditching this whole plan and will spiral downwards. Not good. Must plan a way to block downward spirals.

So I have decided that I need the freedom to buy as many oranges, cucumbers (not in season), lettuce, broccoli, and possibly even zucchini as I want. I know how to cook for myself with California food: Mediterranean produce, citrus, avocado, year round lettuce, olives, etc. I will need to eat a lot of salad. And a lot of steamed vegetables.

Portion control is the biggest factor in my weight loss routine but when I'm feeling really low and I want to snack on crappy crap, an orange is very satisfying and feels good. I need to be able to eat them whenever I want. I have given myself the power of food.

I have finally got a place in the best local CSA which will begin in February so I will be getting lots of great produce from Oakhill Organics. I'm really excited about that! They always have a waiting list because their produce is so amazing and also because they are a great couple who both have really nice teeth. I'm sure that's got to be a factor. Hahahaha.

So while I am going to still be eating mostly local produce I have complete permission from myself to do what I need to do to get where I need to go. When I have made enough progress it will be a lot easier to see the end goal in sight and to stretch my imagination to make more dishes that rely almost solely on what is locally available.

My Christmas present this year is these Le Creuset stoneware petite casserole dishes. They are 8 ounces. This is approximately an appropriate portion of pasta in a healthy diet. When you see how small these are you will probably agree with me when I say it's hard to believe how much I eat compared to what is recommended.

I love these dishes. They make me giddy happy! I have the dreaded DSM (Diminutive Stuff Mania) and get really excited by the idea of making little tiny individual casseroles for dinner. I've been imagining what I'll make with them for weeks now. But now that they're on my counter I'm in that stage where I just stare at them and smile like an idiot.

DSM is the reason I will probably raise quails eventually just so I can fry tiny eggs and serve them to unsuspecting guests for breakfast on tiny toast. Oh, see, I just made myself chuckle out loud. You see how much tiny food amuses me? Which is what makes my huge dinner portions so ironic. I also (apparently) have a real affinity for birds.

2008-12-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

Stress Relief Manual

In order to reach a goal that has eluded me for three years I think an important step is to list out as many stress reducing activities as possible ahead of time and promise myself to look at the list every time I am feeling stressed, like a restaurant menu, to see which stress relieving activity might work to get me through that moment. All these posts I've been posting this week will be printed out and put in a notebook for reference. To be read frequently as a reminder and to strengthen my resolve. It will be like my personal manual. Incidentally- I'm also going to be writing a family manual for the three of us kooky people. We need rules and regulations and to have strict schedules just like employees. I've also thought of putting helpful labels all over the house like:

"This cabinet is for condiments only" mostly for my own amusement. I think it's seriously funny that me and Philip and Max would actually benefit from such labeling.

So, here is the Stress Release Manual:

Quick Change Tactic: If feeling really stressed out about something I'm doing- do something else for a while. Doesn't matter what. It's about changing the immediate energy. It works for dogs. It works for people too.

Take Deep Breaths: Every part of my metaphysical cosmic upbringing says this is important and the little rebellious punk in me wants to say "hyperventilate instead!!". However, this really does help. Sit down for a few minutes and just concentrate of breathing deeply.

The British Method: Tea. I'm not allowed to drink much caffeine on account of my "delicate" heart condition (I love to make fun of the palpitations) but I can drink as much herbal tea as I want. Best bet for me: Yogi brand "calming" tea. No, it doesn't fix the whole world or turn me into Mother Theresa, but the British have the right idea in taking a tea break whenever the going gets tough, awkward, dull, stressful, or anyone has just said something truly stupid.

Stretch Muscle Matter: stretching does help relax the body. It is harder to maintain a deep level of stress when your body is feeling mellow. Even if it doesn't release any endorphins- your body will listen to you better when it's stretched well. It also distracts the mind temporarily.

The Roman Method: take a hot bath. Preferably (if you're not Pam) with lots of herbs, salts, and essential oils. Light a candle too. Hot baths with home made herbal infusions dumped in with oils help make my skin feel smoother and less dry which always makes me feel happy. I don't take long baths because I like them hot and if I sit too long in any heat I will pass out. Bathing with additives is a luxury and one that has always had a tremendous ability to make me feel calm and pampered.

Work on an art project: I used to calm myself by making collages. I haven't done this is years because all of my art efforts have been for business rather than strictly for pleasure. Now I have the freedom to sit down in my room and make whatever I feel like just because I feel like it and it doesn't have to be cost effective in the production end. Because there will be no production end. I can glue and lacquer, sew and bind to my heart's content. I may not always have time but I have whittled things down quite a bit so there should be room for more spontaneous creating.

Write myself a good old fashioned pep talk: I write every single day no matter what. But writing for my blog (I consider a professional effort in spite of not being paid) and writing to relieve stress aren't always exactly the same thing. I got through a lot of really crazy bad times without alcohol or much cheese by writing the crazies away. I have notebooks filled with pep talks to self. They aren't masterpieces. They are silly and sound like cheerleader type crap- "yay! You're so special! Woohoo! You can get through this little peanut!" OK, I have never called myself sweet little names. More like "Alright old bag, you are strong and you can get through this!" Whatever works. I am alive today because of these little self-talk sessions and it's time to implement them again.

Trim The Roses: Going out in the garden has been a great method of relieving stress in the past. Due to all this crazy job hunting and then having five jobs...I have gotten out of the habit of weeding for pleasure and mental pain relief. Deadheading my roses is relaxing and meditative for me. Weeding is like picking off the parasites of life one at a time with violence and satisfaction. Picking flower arrangements is like bringing new life into the house. It's also like art.

Review my inspiration binders: I have binders full of fashion pages I've saved for the past twenty years. They are the best of the best of what I've seen that I like. Clothes, jewelry, gardens, and layouts that inspire me over and over again. It's important to remind myself why I'm going to work so hard to lose weight. So I can use that inspiration on myself.

Listen to the chickens: Chickens make the best noises. They scuffle, they squawk, they coo like babies, and they chuckle. Plus they're curious and pretty. So, go out in the run and squat down on their level and talk to them. They love it- I love it. We all feel better!

Do some hand stitching: Hand stitching is meditative. You get into a minute rhythm with it. The added bonus that my Capricorn soul loves is that all this meditation results in something useful and pretty like a quilt. I could embroider too. A newish skill of mine that is wonderfully relaxing as well.

Knit to untangle: knitting isn't something I want to become a master at. It scares me to think of it on that level. However, just making a knitted scarf is very relaxing. Easy and repetitive. I have dreams of knitting a blanket too. I also have dreams of crocheting and if I start to learn to do that too it may turn out to be just as relaxing.

That is a pretty good list. I can add more to it as I think of all of the things I do that make me feel refreshed. The trick is to promise myself that I will review this list every time I find myself so stressed I want to grab something like a hunk of cheddar to gnaw on. If you all have things that help you, don't hesitate to tell me about it. I'd love to hear what things you all do to turn your mind from stress.

2008-12-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

The 80 Pound Weight

I put it on, I can take it off

There is the most enormous task left to outline for this coming year. It is one that needs to be accomplished within the year. It needs to be attended to with the utmost degree of seriousness and concentration. Last year I told myself I was going to lose a lot of weight and I didn't. I wimped out fast. When I look back at the year I can see that I was immediately thwarted by bucket-loads of stress, money issues, moving, two mortgages and then the job hunt. I was deeply depressed and worse than that I lost all sense of self control and hope.

I didn't have good stress relieving tools worked out and available. It's easy to see why it didn't work. It's easy to also say "Well, you look fine. Don't worry so much about it." But don't. Don't give voice to any excuses for me. I don't need more excuses for how I got here.

The reason it's important that I lose 80 lbs this year is because carrying so much weight is hard on my feet, my joints, and most dangerous of all: my hips. My back hurts a lot and I am now prone to embarrassing skin conditions that no woman should ever have to admit to. I get out of breath easily. My feet hurt. I can't see my hoo-ha. All clothes are uncomfortable. Bending over to tie my shoes is becoming quite a comic act in which I fall over like a fat bear. I can't wear my own aprons and I only have about three pairs of pants that kind of fit which I wear all week and which are looking quite shabby. I can't afford to buy more clothes and it depresses me to consider making clothes for myself.

My self esteem is like a little tiny raisin that has been stepped on in the kitchen and is currently squished into the sole of my shoe where it makes little sticky sounds every time I take a step.

I have lost 40 lbs before and I didn't do it by using: diet pills, special diets, gizmos, supplements, substitute sugars, diet drinks, or giving up alcohol and cheese.

I achieved it by: exercising vigorously 3-4 times a week for an hour, not eating seconds, counting calories periodically, eating smaller portions, not snacking, not eating late, controlled amounts of cheese (measured to keep myself modest), and not drinking 4 out of 7 days of the week. Basically it was a simple equation of ENERGY IN/ ENERGY OUT.

I weigh 245 lbs right now. An all time high. I need to lose 80 lbs because I feel healthy and good about myself at 165 lbs. C'mon, you can all agree that that is hardly a skinny goal. 165 is a reasonable weight at which I can fit between a size 14 and 16 size which is reasonable to me. I couldn't give a rat's ass about being in the single digits. It isn't about being able to compare my size to anyone else's. It' s my own meter I am comparing myself to. I know what I felt like at 165.

I felt like I could probably stand to lose 10 lbs but I didn't feel a great deal of motivation. because I felt good. I enjoyed that I could find clothes that fit pretty easily and that my stomach didn't create it's own shadow. I could wear lots of stripes. And did. I could enjoy getting dressed up which makes it so much easier to boost my confidence when it's running low.

If I give myself one year to do it I will need to lose 1.55 lbs per week which is not out of the range doctors consider safe.

Here is my outline:

Lose 1.55 lbs a week for a year.

Drink alcohol only 3 out of 7 days of the week.

Consume no more than 2,300 calories a week to start off with. The number can be lowered as progress is made.

Exercise at least 20 minutes a day. Make it longer as stamina increases.

No eating after 7 pm. Not because Oprah says so. The reason is because if I'm eating after 7pm it is almost guaranteed to be a cheesy item that I don't need.

One day each week is a splurge day. Mostly for use when visiting and eating dinner with friends so that I don't have to be the obnoxious one asking if they could please make a less delicious and indulgent meal.

Drink plenty of water. (4 pints is sufficient)

Only weigh self one day a week. No obsessive checking please. Pick a day and stick to it.

I know I can do it. There are some finer details I will outline for myself later. Tomorrow I work all day so I will probably sit down on Sunday and outline for myself a list of ways I can reduce stress instead of drinking beer or grabbing my Tillamook. As I mentioned before I am going to be getting a tub that is deep enough to take relaxing soaks in and hopefully we'll have it and have it installed within the first month of January. I have a lot of other ideas but this is one I know will make a huge difference for me.

There is so much more wrapped up in this "diet" I need to be engaged in. I hate how much I've become a snacker when I didn't used to snack much at all. I love it when I'm comfortable enough in my own skin and body that I can put clothes on in the morning and not think about what I'm wearing again all day. Now I feel my clothes cutting into me and it bothers me- all-day-long. It's symbolic of getting a lot more under control than just my weight. A certain amount of self discipline has been gone for so long- self discipline is so important for caring for your mind. Having the strength to do things for yourself that will help maintain balance.

When I feel that my drinking and eating are reasonable and comfortable I feel so much more capable in general.

Don't encourage me to not tackle this one fiercely. Don't encourage me to downplay how important this is. I am not a person who has ever had an eating disorder. I don't have body dysmorphic issues. You don't have to worry about me developing crazy obsessions about food or thin-ness. So please don't, in trying to be helpful, tell me I'm just fine the way I am. I don't want to have to get a hip replacement before I'm 50 years old.

I want to walk into my 40th year a much lighter person who is ready for whatever is next. I want to get to 40 and have reclaimed the strong person I know I am. I want to arrive at January 6th 2010 wearing my Peace apron and knowing that I never have to stop wearing cherries and pom poms again.

I have always looked forward to developing my style as I age and I've spent the last four years becoming a person I don't recognize and whose dreary clothes have made me cry a whole lot. I imagine myself aging like Lauren Bacall, but in technicolor. I want to wear capes when I'm fifty and pencil skirts with work boots. I will enjoy getting older if I can enjoy seeing what new sartorial boundary I can stretch next. Clothes give me flight and they make me happy.

It's time to set the stage for a great new chapter. So I consider this year my dressing room year. I'm changing for a different role. I'm redressing and changing out of this body into the one I left behind.

Except the slightly gimpy hip. Nothing to do about that.

I enjoy getting to commiserate with old ladies about my hip trouble. They always think I don't know what it's like to feel the change in weather in their hip. Ha. I love messing with them!

This is something I am perfectly capable of achieving and I will do it.

2008-12-25T23:48:00.000-08:00

The Last Apology

We always knew this was gonna be like clawing our way out of tombs. Nails breaking on the weather scrubbed stone. Skin scraping into the light; streaked with blood and the cold of our own breath. We could tell it was going to be a shit time long before we got here to the present.

I know you're pissed at me. Please don't look at me as though I was already dead.

There is no way to apologize to myself without sounding like I have lost my mind. Who cares? Self talk has always been a slightly unhinged affair and is, ironically, the main thing that has preserved my sanity the most over the years.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that whenever it gets especially tough I make things worse by eating more cheese and drinking more beer. I'm sorry that I have let myself drink so much beer for so long that I can drink any Russian under the table without losing my shit for a second. I'm sorry that for the last three years I have let all my self discipline degrade under the weight of this stress and this never ending crisis our life has been. I know that it has led us here to where we are today. To this point of awful self loathing.

I'm sorry that I have let us gain over 75 pounds in the past three years. I know that it was natural to gain weight after breaking the hip and not walking for months. But I could have exerted more self control to prevent the mental damage this weight gain has created. I could have prevented this amount of weight gain.

I'm sorry that I have spent so much time telling everyone I'm sorry for things that couldn't possibly be my fault and all this time I have neglected myself.

I'm sorry I couldn't protect myself without also breaking myself. I'm sorry for so much.

I slip uncomfortably between the "me"s and the "us"s and the "you"s, all me, all the time. Plurals and singulars weaving in and out with no order.

I can't change what has already passed.

Things are closer than they appear in the rear view mirror.

Can you forgive me and allow us to move ahead? Will you let this awful neglect become the past that we have overcome?

Please believe that I wish I'd saved up all my inappropriate apologies and put them by like a dowry for your spirit. I wish I'd taken each one and layered them with ivory silk in a cedar trunk so that you could see that each one of those apologies I let slip into the air between me and other people were really for you because you deserved more apologies than you ever got. I wish I'd caught them like butterflies and pinned them to your hair because I know that you were too afraid to ask for them yourself.

There is only one left and you can ask for it now. Ask.

Take this apology and pin it to your throat like the jewel it is. Let it be your winter compass, snowbird- let it lead you into spring.

I am so sorry that I couldn't be our own parent, our own friend, our own knight in shining armor, or even our own comedienne. I'm sorry that I was too young to know how to be anything but a frightened child. I'm sorry that I was never able to grow up fast enough. I've never caught up. I'm still breathless from the ride.

But you see what love motivated me? It always looked like self loathing when really I just wanted some way to deflect the real danger from our flesh, from our spirit, because I felt love for this corporeal nightmare, this little light our spirit always had. It got so hard to keep the night light lit. We wanted to die anyway. But you see that it was love and care that made me try so hard? I just didn't know how to be the person we needed.

Looking through the telescoping past you can see that it was always love we wrote.

Come, let's light the path, others follow in the dark behind us.

Note: Next up is the plan to recover my body and bring it back into a healthy fold and it may take more than one post to lay that one out. This is all coming out fast and furious but not panicked or stressed. I want to string the path out before I cross into the new year. I want to uncover as many obstacles that I may find ahead before I get to them.

I think I have passed the darkest point now and I think anyone who keeps reading will find that I am excited and also in the middle of forgiving myself. I've already forgiven everyone needing forgiving for the abuse part of my past. I truly did that a very long time ago. I've been angry with myself though and I'm feeling it slip away now.

I hope that everyone else who has been through similar experiences as I have can do the same for themselves. And any time you see words from Blaize- pay attention! She is a wise lady. So, are you ready to start feeling the warmth and light that are stirring under the snow and ice? Winter protects life by holding it still until it is time for the sap to run. People are not much different.

2008-12-25T21:51:00.000-08:00

I'm Sorry For Every Punch You Threw

I am always apologizing. To friends, to family, to the helpless for not being able to help them, to the abusive for not being good enough, to the weak for running over them, to the plants for starving them.

I have let the longest streams of apology trail behind me and they get longer and heavier every day. I apologize to people who have hurt me as though I deserved it, asked for it, or somehow brought it all on myself. And maybe there are times when this is just. We all invoke trouble on ourselves sometimes. But all the time? No. I am hearing my commenter Kim's words now- her suggestion that my anxiety stems from anger, from rage.

I disputed it hotly. I will hold to much of what I said in response, but I think she got a piece of me right. She got the anger right, but the subject of it wrong. I am not angry at the world or at social convention or at constrictions that make me uncomfortable. I am angry with myself. Me. I hear myself saying I'm sorry for causing others trouble, for making a commotion, for making someone else uncomfortable...I am so sorry to have gotten in your space, for not being perfect, for disappointing your endless expectations. I'm sorry I'm fat, I'm sorry I'm insecure, I'm sorry I have mental illness, I'm sorry I didn't make your spotlight brighter.

Each time I say I'm sorry for someone else's disappointment in me or for someone else's bad trip I see myself prostrate at every one's feet like an inconsequential piece of shit wearing a posture of constant shame. It pisses me off that everyone lets me do it when I think maybe, maybe if someone really loved me or valued me they would tell me to shut the hell up and stop apologizing and maybe they would step up to the plate and offer their own. But really? That's so secondary to the real issue.

The person I'm most pissed off at is myself. Just as it isn't up to my friends and family to pick up my pieces every time I lose a few on the floor of my freak outs, it isn't up to anyone else to tell me to stand up for myself and stop apologizing for the sun setting every day, for lady bugs being crushed under the feet of careless gardeners, or for babies passing away in the night across the world. It is enough to feel those events and to carry them with me everywhere I go.

I have only one person to whom I owe a real apology: myself.

I have let myself down. Not because I am less than perfect. I expect to always be less than perfect. I have let myself down because I kiss other people's shoes when I ought to be standing tall next to them without words. Let uncomfortable silences hang. Let conversation shred into meaningless confetti rather than offer up apologies just to fill the silence. Just to evade the fear I might otherwise have to feel in seeing a difficult moment come to pass.

I am so afraid of being hurt all the time I would rather admit that I must be wrong rather than let someone accuse me of it and then have to refute them and defend myself. I put myself in the losing position before anyone else can.

I wasn't really going to say this tonight, but I see that to get to the next step in redesigning my intentions this year I am going to have to face this and it scares the fucking shit out of me. Here is my boogie man. The bones buried in my back yard. Here is what I have been running from as well as trying to protect.

I am used to disappointing people. I have known what it is to be beat down, beat down, and beat down again. The mark of an abused person is to cower at a suddenly raised arm. It is also the mark of an abused mind that it profusely apologize for any transgressions that may be made later...sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry...I will fail you so I will proffer my apologies now and I will lay on my own head all the curses you may be inspired to slug me with so that you won't have to.

I don't know how to say this. I've never tried to say this before. I have, since I was impossibly young, learned that if I anticipate the pain that will inevitably be inflicted on me by others and instead of letting them do it to me I inflict the pain on myself...it doesn't hurt as much because I'll know what evil is coming.

You want to tell me I'm not good enough? I'll tell myself that right now, I will beat the crap out of my own hope and pride until it hurts so bad that if you come along and actually do tell me I'm not good enough you will have no power because I will have already turned it on myself.

It is such a dangerous way to protect oneself. Extreme and crippling. Sometimes the cure can be as dangerous as the disease.

I have always had a hard time explaining the cutting until this year when I found the words to go along with the instinct that motivated me to saw at my own skin with steak knives. What blow to my solar plexus delivered by someone I trust could be so bad if I have already hurt myself worse? It is a form of controlled pain. It makes the sting of unexpected blows dull by comparison. I can't control you if you want to split my lip with your fist but I can see my own razor draw my life up out of my veins and if I can see that, if I can live through that, what else could possibly be worse?

I am endlessly frightened of how you are going to turn against me. You, strangers, anyone. The world is a dangerous place for me; it has abused my body and my head. I have never had anywhere to go but inward. I have never had anyone to protect me but myself. When I first remember needing protection I was only six years old and my stomach still feels the blows.

I have only ever done the best I could for myself. But it wasn't enough.

I am so much older now. I am middle aged and the only person I haven't apologized to is myself.

As though I don't deserve it.

Before I take a step forward I must acknowledge that my habit of trying to take every one's ability to hurt me away I rob them of a genuine right to express their own grievances to me. If I always anticipate what is wrong with me and tell everyone how I will disappoint, or see that someone is gathering themselves up to deliver a complaint and I try to diffuse the moment by apologizing for everything under the sun- I am stealing other people's rights. I am taking something from them that I have no right to take. I never let them tell me off because I'm afraid that if I hear it I will have to shrivel up into myself until I disappear completely.

It doesn't really protect me the way I think it will. It's a subversive way conduct relationships. I would rather die than face conflict with people.

I don't know if anyone will understand what I've just said. These are very steep crags in a troubled personal landscape. I've said more tonight than I ever thought I could, out loud.

I'm not six years old any more.

My fear of people is extreme. To grow up emotionally I am going to have to learn to take other people's blows like an adult. I'll have to learn to let people say what they need to say to me without trying to beat them to the punch and then I need to not apologize immediately. I need to learn to recognize when I've truly done something worthy of apology. I have the right to withhold them and sometimes I deserve them from other people. And I'm going to have to face the fact that I will not always get them.

My heart is pounding right now. In case you wondered what it feels like to write this stuff out. I feel feral right now. I might bite you. I feel like biting you because you're there on the other side of these words.

It's time for that apology to myself.

2008-12-25T11:48:00.000-08:00

Chameleon Made Of Words

The big question for me in this very minute at which I am seated at my desk in my recently rehabilitated writing room is: can music fix rifts between the body and the spirit?

Funny writer girl wears underwear made of words- sits at her desk which is nothing less than a 500 pound piece of laminate stripped and shipped from a British correctional institution or some kind of animal house where having unmovable furniture is a major bonus to the staff. Seems entirely fitting. This animal girl is stripped down to her skivvies now- a chain of letters on letters lost in unseemly layers and undulating rolls.

I was calling this room my sewing room but now that the giant drifts of self-propelling trash have been tamed it has drawn me in and seduced me with it's window high above the monastery garden like an Erie, a perch for an imagination. I have yet to sew in it but I write in it every day. I have always wanted and needed a room of my own, a quiet place of observation. A place in which to change my colors without an audience. A place to set down my own rules for living.

I don't know why it is so hard to do anything as simple as saying what one is with a single word. I have spent so much time trying to be so many things and there's only one thing I've ever been in my entire life:

Writer.

I have so many interests and adventures because I have to feed the words, they don't thrive without care. But I've only ever been one single thing:

Writer.

I'm a writer who became a wife. A writer who became a mother. A writer who took fencing. A writer who designed costumes.

I will be 39 years old in almost exactly three weeks. In all this time I have fought what is, I have tried to reshape what is, deny what is, wish for something that isn't, and it has wasted time. It has created obstacles and I have to wonder if any one's restart button is as worn down as mine?

When I was 23 years old I admitted to myself that I was first, before anything else, a poet. I realized that saying it wasn't arrogance because I am not a brilliant poet and never will be- but it is how my spirit sees the world. My head sees prose, my spirit sees a more distilled, succinct version caped with boundaries of time and urgency. That was a big moment for me. I was already a wife but I realized that being a wife was a role while being a poet was my skin.

Women have worked hard to bring the pride back into mothering- to make people respect mothering as a life choice and ever since I have become a mother I have tried hard to put "mother" first in the line of my personal descriptors. Because it felt as though putting it second to anything else was belittling the role I played as Max's mom. Maybe for some women being a mother is who they are, the threshold to their spirit, their heart, and the ultimate expression of who they are.

But not for me. Being a mother is another role. It is another mantle of responsibility I took on. Another layer of life I added. But it isn't who I am and every time I put "mother" first on my list of things I am it kicks me down a notch. It belittles what came with me into this world. It belittles my calling, my skin, my soul, and my heart of words.

Writer.

From today forward I will call myself the one thing I truly am: writer.

Not: "writer and wife and mother and urban homesteader....and the whole miserable etc."

No more milling around with half truths. You, those readers of mine who comment, have often commended me on my honesty, my willingness to tell the truth- mine at least, if not yours. Yet I have not been honest. I have not told you all the truth because I feel scared to have one calling. I am scared to name it because I will probably fail. I can't fail in life if I have ten callings, surely I'll succeed at something if I increase the odds? But all I do by dividing my energy into a thousand fractions is dilute the power I was given for this one thing.

What's funny is that I knew what I had to do when I was sixteen and fresh from not killing myself. It was suddenly so clear to me, making friends cry with clumsy emotional poetry, that there was something living through my pen, however clumsy it was; living and shedding something tangible for others to grab at; like a life raft in the middle of the ocean. I felt it inside like something with a dangerously sharp edge it cut through the summer of dread and didn't hurt til later the way razors cut skin noiselessly first and hurt almost as an afterthought. I felt this blade reflecting light and I knew that it was the words that kept me from jumping off the cliffs. From impaling myself on the alter of my family's collective despair.

What I've found out is that what you are will never not be what you are. So you can bury it under a whole lot of snow and ice, under the dark cover of other lives, and you can run, but you cannot shake it. Maybe you never get famous, maybe you never win awards, maybe you never get a record deal-book deal- studio show-movie role-or even make money at it. That's immaterial. So you do what you have to do to pay the bills but you still are what you are and if you don't own it, do it, and honor it, you dishonor yourself worse than any other person on earth is capable of.

I believe, with my whole self, that we each know what we are without thinking about it. The answer has always been there. It doesn't have to be glamorous, heroic, exciting, or even original. But you know what it is and if you're still running from it or trying to change it- stop. I promise you that you can't. No power on this earth can change your alchemy.

This week I am redesigning my intentions. I have one week until the new year. One week to tell myself how it's going to be this year. I have one year until I'm forty and it seems as good a time as any to step into my own god damn shoes and embrace what I already am and slough off the dead weight I carry.

Everything I do in my life feeds the words. Everything comes second to writing and it isn't something I can change nor is it a choice to make. The only choice I have to make is to use what I have or trash it. I have a choice in how I balance my life so that the writing doesn't hurt my husband and child. But the writing cannot come last ever again. It's the whole reason for breathing.

It is my breathing.

So this week is about redesigning the minutiae of my life. It's about finding ways to recover self discipline. To recover my physical self respect. It's about redrawing boundaries for the three of us so that we will all feel more fulfilled and happy. We are all crazy creative beings in need of daily exercise, better nutrition, and more daily structure. I'm not sure if it's more funny or more sad that we are a wee family of completely obsessive compulsive people. We all thrash against our own restraints when there is achievable order for us.

But today is the second step. The first was to let go of disappointments and sorrows. To let go of what didn't work out, what wasn't meant to be, so that I can move forward with new intention. Today is the second step; to admit what I am and accept the single word that is my everything:

Writer.

I am a writer.

Period.

***********

If you, like me, have experienced similar struggles then I implore you to do as I did and first write out all of your disappointments and sorrows- then do what you need to to let them go. You can print them out and burn them or, if you're afraid of fire, you can bury them, or if just writing them allows you to let go- do it. DO IT.

Then acknowledge who/what you are. You know what it is. Maybe you are a healer and you work as an RN but keep looking for some other answer because you want more glamour- just say it "I am a healer" I am a nurse. And then make yourself into a glamorous one. But don't look away. Look at yourself: say it. Say it. Say it again. Set your course of intention to honor who you are. No more excuses. Are you a singer? Don't worry if you're already 65 and there's no sexy life on stage for you (though, who knows?): you must say it- "I am a singer." And embrace that, honor it, and do it. Even if you only do it every single day in your favorite room. Give it the honor it deserves. Who and what we are isn't about recognition from others, it's about recognizing ourselves and if we use these gifts of ours, whatever they are, it will flood into the lives all around you and the people you love. You will only become more powerful in everything.

So do it with me if you need to and feel free to tell me about it in the comments because I DO want to hear. I want to know.

But don't worry, if all is silent out there, I won't mind either. I move forward regardless of the world of people around me.

2008-12-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

You Can't Get Off This Train Without A Rope

Before true hideosity set in.

A girl in her element.

Chickens moult, people do too.

Time for a 100% overhaul.

For those of you who read the post I wrote and then deleted yesterday, I am sorry. I am sorry if I hurt friends and would-be friends. I cannot take back the sentiments because they were raw and true. I can only say that if I had the money for a therapist I would have saved that one for the couch and not put it here. A lot of things end up here because I don't have anyone appropriate to tell my most troubling and grief inducing feelings and experiences to.

I missed the chance to symbolically acknowledge the solstice and to go through the ritual of writing my troubles and disappointments down and then burning them. Which I now realize is what I need to do. So I'm going to do it late. There's still the less mystical more Roman approach of the New Year coming up and it's just as good a time for a personal overhaul and a release of past disappointments, of which I have quite a few.

The disappointments that need burning are these:

The infamous incident of the Needle Junkie t-shirts which marked the complete collapse of all trust I had left in the universe and in myself: It had to be. This whole year was about scouring out the last of my faith. Down to the funky-ass crumbs.

That when I hit rock bottom my support system turned out to be somewhat absent: It isn't the responsibility of friends and family to pick up the goddamn pieces of me that cracked up and fell all over the floor. The bulk of comfort garnered during the toughest moments came from people I've never met in real life. Thank you for that.

The therapist who made me more angry and lost: Well, there's no excuse. I can't put that one on my own shoulders. But there's nothing anyone can do about the fact that chemistry rules our lives. Her chemistry and mine- OIL AND WATER.

The teacher who made my kid's school year complete torture: She sucked. I've since found out that mine was not the only kid whose year was completely rotten for the same reason. We never liked her. She didn't like us. That's the way it goes.

Friends not liking my kid: It's a fact of life that not everyone you meet is going to like you or your kid. There's nothing to be done about it. I don't like every one's kids either.

Not getting a job with the city: They're still the big time losers. As bad as it made me feel that my own city wouldn't hire me for work I would have given 150% to, if they were ever to get a glimpse of what they missed out on? They would feel way worse than me.

Death of a business: Lesson learned. The Etsy shop goes next.

My inability to apply proper strength of will to weight loss goals: Disappointment in myself is much worse than disappointment in others because I have to live with myself until I die. I not only didn't make any progress in this department this year, I actually got bigger to my limitless shame. The black hole of shame threatens to devour me and I can hear voices out there saying "just do it". I'll get on that right after I amputate my own foot.

Me not being enough of an advocate for my son: I let him get stepped on by too many people, made unnecessary excuses for him, and let my concern for other people's opinions of him matter too much. Fuck everyone else's opinion of him. I'm lucky to have a kid with such a strong sense of self. It's time to get him the support he both deserves and needs.

Guilt for getting us into a deeper financial pickle: Shed the guilt lady! Buying this house has done me a world of good and we'll get out of this mess this coming year. This house was one of the actions that helped me restore some faith. It was worth the pickle.

That I have continued to tell people "It's alright" to make them feel better about something when it isn't alright with me and won't be until they make amends: An old habit that is as tenacious as a cockroach in a nuclear meltdown. There are a lot of things people have said to me, or done to me that aren't cool and I continually excuse them from having to say they're sorry. Probably because I know they won't and I don't want to find out that people I care about aren't sorry for hurting me. Time to stop excusing the behaviors of others and if they don't excuse themselves? Let 'em loose.

It's been a rough year times 100. I obviously have a huge load of crap to unload into the fires in order to grow something fresh from the nutrient rich ashes. I was thinking that I might erase this entire blog. Kill all trace of Dustpan Alley. But that comes only from a place of frustration. Instead of killing off what has been a conduit of strength and support from strangers, I should let go of last year completely now. Start fresh inside. Like an engine overhaul. I have sooty engine and I won't go anywhere until I clean out the gunk. We had to do that with our Volkswagen a few years ago. It was really expensive and sucked big time.

I don't have a lot of money to rework my engine. The one last real extravagance we are going to purchase for our anniversary present which comes up in a couple of weeks is a new bathtub. One that is great for soaking in. That will be my meditation center and my detox unit. Whatever else happens this coming year- I'll be damned if I go another year without one of the most significant methods of de-stressing that I have ever known that didn't come out of some form of bottle.

Now it's time to go downtown in the snow. With snowshoes on. And be mellow. And free of this sooty stupid crap I've been wearing in a thousand pound locket around my neck.

May you also let go of all the crap that's holding you back. Let's move forward together and see what we can make of 2009!

2008-12-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

This Is My Point Of Origin

A snowbird wakes up to snow.

Today is my only day off each week. I got to sleep in. When I went to bed the sky was very busy with itself. When I woke up the sun was shining on three or four inches of fluffy crunchy snow! I had to run outside in my pyjamas to investigate before cars, kids, dogs, and industrious snow shovelers came out to muck up the painting the night drew for me. Yes, for me. But I'll share with you too.

This is my very much loved Japanese snowball tree actually covered in snow! I adore these little trees and laugh when it is dripping in white happy pom poms.

All the light here is blue. Hard to get good pictures. Here's the "front" of our house. Sun shining on my little kingdom.

It piled enough that today is all about watching accumulated snow drifts drop randomly from branches as the sun warms them just enough to loosen the grip. Wonderful!

This metal gate leads to our funny little enclosed garden area which I plan to cultivate much this year. I love that it is entirely closed in. I want wild flowers in there this year. I think I'll dig up parts of the lawn in a couple of weeks when it's less frozen and sprinkle some wild flower seeds. You need to do this in the fall or winter so that they'll get frozen or cold enough to bloom well in the spring.

Chick loves the snow. My Internet will be temporarily turned off today while we get fiber-optic wire connected so I'm going to do two things: make real snow cones with strawberry syrup I froze from the summer and I'm going to throw snowballs for Chick to catch.

We are wondering if I can buy chains for the Vespa. If I could, I'd totally learn to put them on. How awesome to go for a slow ride in the snow to the store on my sweet little Vespa! Without chains, riding this thing would be like asking to die today. That would be a lot less fun than, say, enjoying a Friday with hot PG Tips tea and real snow-cones. Yes, I'm going to invoke Laura Ingalls Wilder's spirit!

One thing that makes me sad is not being able to dress like her anymore. One of the reasons I get so angry at myself for not being capable (so far) of having a little self control and losing some weight. I used to dress like her all the time.

Ah well.

In spite of the spiritual lows of yesterday- I am enjoying every minute of this perfect winter because it's the winter I always dream of having. The last two years here we've gotten a little snow, enough to make me laugh and run around in it and feel so glad not to live where it never snows! But it is so fleeting usually. Melts fast and stops too soon. We've been getting this snow for days now and just when I think it's all over, it starts again. It was almost all gone yesterday (perhaps a little part of my low ebb) and then like magic it starts up in the late afternoon in huge dry flakes sticking to everything and piling up so fast I couldn't believe it.

Winter is my literal point of origin. It's when I was born. It is the season that wakes me up, turns my mind on, and I am generally less depressed in the cold, dark, rainy, (and snowy!) days of winter than I am at any other time of year. Although gardening has allowed me to come to appreciate all the seasons, winter will always be mine. Something I cherish and think of as my personal, I don't know, there really aren't a lot of words to tell it. It's mine.

I have a lot of friends who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and I totally respect how so many people feel the opposite of me about this season. The dark short days, the low temperatures, the lack of sunshine, the low clouds, the winds, the storms, the bleak dying off of everything that used to be growing and sprouting and flowering.

I am sorry that the season that makes me feel the most alive and happy has the opposite affect on others. But it doesn't diminish my own joy and I can't help but take my smiles out in the world with me. I've learned to commiserate with those who don't share my excitement at 40 mile an hour wind and rain storms because when the heat of summer comes and everyone around me is glowing and smiling and reveling in it I will be moaning and hiding and breaking out in heat rashes. I always appreciate it when a sun lover stops to acknowledge my discomfort. So I try to return the generosity.

Though I never expect them to apologize for it. Why should anyone apologize for loving any kind of weather? We all have our season, the one that brings us the closest to nature, and therefore to ourselves.

Mine is now.

When is yours?

2008-12-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

Anxious Bloom

A continuing discussion about anxiety

I sometimes think that no matter how often or how carefully I try to explain what anxiety is for the clinically anxious, there are always people who cannot accept that anxiety doesn't follow rules of reason nor rely on cause and effect to furrow itself deep into a nervous system. There are so many people who still, no matter how much we learn about it to the contrary, believe in their hearts that it's a choice we are making; to be depressed, or anxious.

Am I deficient in vitamins? Am I not getting enough sunshine? Have I not squared my shoulders and faced it all? Could it be that I need more meat in my diet? Do I just not assert myself enough? Do I just need to look on the bright side? If I was a stronger person would all the dark disappear? Would the emotional roller coaster ride turn out to be just a gentle bicycle ride? Is it possible that it's not anxiety I feel, but rage? Is it possible I've almost made it 39 years without being able to tell the difference? Am I angry rather than panicky? Could warm milk before bed take away the incessant buzzing in my head? Did the St. John's Wort not work because I didn't believe in it enough? Have I been choosing to hear the world around me fall apart in my head because I LIKE being crazy?

No. I spent 19 years looking for answers. All the while my anxiety growing, my depression obscuring the mushrooming panic. 19 years without help from anyone. 19 years without therapy, medication, or a diagnosis; knowing all those years that what I was going through was like "normal" on steroids. In other words: not normal. I knew when I started cutting myself that it was not a normal expression of anger or depression or anxiety. It worked, it helped, it ameliorated a terrible splintering in my head and then brought me back from complete physical numbness. It soothed when no one else had the power to sooth or even noticed the need in me.

I have tried every herbal concoction said to aid in all that ails me. Every tea. Every supplement. Multivitamins for months and months. Herb pillows, warm milk, Valerian drops, tinctures of every description, meditation, yoga, exercise, healthy food, positive visualization, creative outlets, writing, writing the brutally boring minutiae of my head just to release a valve, just to get it the hell out, talking with friends, pep talks, hot baths, discussing my problems with cockroaches that lived with me (not my choice), walking, deep breathing, spa treatments, shopping, educating myself.

And those are just the healthy things I tried.

I knew that what was wrong with me wasn't something a cup of tea could fix. The tea might help incrementally, but not nearly enough to keep me from wanting to smash my hand through a window just to distract myself from myself.

You know how when you fall down and you hear a big crack and you suddenly can't use your arm anymore and it hurts so bad you think you're going to vomit and you just know that you broke your arm, even before you get to the doctor? When you're broken in the head or nervous system you know it in the same way. You just feel it. Maybe you spend a long time denying it, but you know.

People- lots of people- probably you (because there are very few people who haven't thrown this one out there) are fond of asking "What's normal anyway?" or "No one is really normal." Or "Aren't we all a little crazy?" or "Everyone is fucked up in one way or another." Not all these statements are true, but the more important thing is that none of them are remotely helpful and when I hear people say them I feel like I've just been told that I don't know myself, that my discomfort, that the danger inherent in being me, is bogus.

It throws doubt on all the experiences I've had. It makes me question my carefully honed and honestly earned judgements. It takes all hope of help away from me. If we're all crazy then what could I possibly complain about? What could I possibly need more than what I've got? That my problems don't matter. Don't count. Aren't worth talking about. Are nothing. I'm a big baby. I'm a whining idiot. I'm not taking responsibility for myself. I'm choosing to be miserable. I'm choosing this hell for myself!

But when someone complains about having heart problems do people say "Well, don't we all?". Lots of people do have heart problems. Sometimes from their diet, sometimes from their lack of exercise...but for a lot of people with heart disease, they inherited the tendency from their family genes. Regardless, when people discuss their heart problems others don't fall into the same kind of talk that they do around people with mental illness. They don't say things like "Well, if you just exercise more it will be fine." Because, if they're wrong, a person could die.

If a thyroid stops regulating itself and a person is suffering and tells friends that they're all messed up and miserable and are going to have to take medicine to regulate it for the rest of their lives, do you hear friends saying "Well, maybe if you just meditate it will start regulating itself again!" or "Why don't you just stop eating wheat, you're probably just allergic to wheat." or "Everyone has some kind of medical condition..."? No, because if anyone talked like that to someone with a physiological condition only a complete ass would talk like that.

But when it comes to the brain and the nervous system people always want something else to be the reason a person is wanting to die, or to never leave their room again, or to pick at the skin on their heads until their scalps bleed. It must be curable and there must be some simple remedy.

But there's not. There are a lot of things a person can do to support their mental health but even if they do everything known to help, they are not ever going to be fixed. And nothing is going to change the fact that their brains don't regulate the chemical messages sent to the nervous system, or make enough of the right ones. It is what it is.

And one thing it's not: normal.

My anxiety isn't unrecognized anger. There are plenty of things I feel angry about. I know the difference. The anxiety I feel is caused by my body not making enough of the chemicals I need in order to be more balanced, or my body is making enough of the chemicals but my brain (for whatever reason) is unable to use those chemicals properly.

Basically, when I feel panicky at the sight of carolers my brain is sending my nervous system a false message, or too strong of a message. What might ordinarily be annoyance at having to deal with an uncomfortable experience and hear music I hate becomes something I would much rather run from than face just to ease the racing heart and the blipping fritzing mind. It isn't rational, or reasonable, and what's really going on isn't a thought out response to a situation but a physical reaction brought on by a physical malfunction.

Mental illness is a physiological problem.

Which explains why getting exercise, a balanced diet, plenty of sleep, and sunshine all help ease depression and anxiety. But until we understand exactly how all these chemicals work, until we can map out exactly how the brain doles out the chemical messages to the nervous system and what precise function has gone wrong when things aren't working well, nothing will really fix it.

Medications such as the one I take help a great deal. They help people like me come back to near-normal brain function. If I wasn't on Paxil I would be obsessing about imminent earthquakes*, serial killers, death of my child, wood rot, my friends not being my friends, slipping and falling again, and meteor showers destroying my house. I would not be getting any sleep. I would be worried all day long about everything I've said in the last week having caused someone offense and wondering how I might have said things differently; replaying every conversation in my head over and over until I get it just right. I would be yelling at my kid and my husband all the time just because of the crazy amount of noise that three people living together makes and constantly dreaming of floating away on a boat by myself to a little cabin where no one can find me and I can scream the primal scream on the top of my lungs until my throat bleeds.

Is this how you are without medication? Because if you find yourself saying "That's exactly how I am." then I have news for you: YOU ARE NOT NORMAL EITHER.

So today I am on the low ebb. I am feeling lonely even though there's people all around me. The snow is falling which I love, but part of me is riding around an old groove with old songs and messages and I have a hunger for something that doesn't exist. I keep reaching out and feel disconnected anyway. Maybe Internet life is unhealthy for me. Maybe constantly throwing words out there hoping it hits something or someone is like casting a net of fragile thread across the milky way.

The kid has been home for six days straight and I'm tired of the noise and filling needs and not being good enough and soothing frustrations, wiping away tears, brushing off everything I can't fix. But it's all still in my lap. I am not good at this game. I need an empty house. Empty of everyone. Of dog. Of boy. Of man. I need to not be needed all the time. Tomorrow will most likely be another school day, followed by a two week vacation from school. I feel shredded already.

But this is just how it is. There is always going to be low ebb. Like low tide. Everyone feels that rhythm in life, that part of my experience is normal. Off days and good days. It's just that they're amplified for me and people like me. I get tired faster and for longer.

There may be no Christmas cards sent out again this year.

Even as I speak the kid is combusting with his own imperiousness which is stressing out the man and they bicker and the dog is whining for something I can't give her. I need a safe empty place to curl up and not be.

Anyone have a padded cell I could borrow?

*I've been known to go on six hour crying jags over earthquakes that haven't happened yet. I've also been known to not sleep for three weeks after experiencing small ones.

2008-12-17T16:03:00.000-08:00

Scurvy Chaser Tea
(Ginger Rose-hip Tea)

As much as I'd like to claim that beer cures all that ails me and can provide all the cheer I could want on a cold slushy day, my body disagrees and so I must listen. Sometimes when it's snowing and icy out and you've been mostly cooped up with your child who is home from school because no one knows how to drive in snow in your state...you really need something that can give your system a little support, warmth, and enough calm to keep yourself from putting the kid in the dungeon.

This is the tea that can do all that. Ginger is warming to the body and will induce a sweat which makes it useful for feverish infections, colds, flu, and sore throats. It will ease digestion and muscle spasms as well. But what I love best about it is that it has the effect of lifting my mood as well. Rose hips are higher in vitamin C than Oranges and so are a useful fruit to have around in areas where citrus fruits don't grow. Rose hips are also anti-inflammatory making them good for joints.

Ingredients:

1.5" piece of ginger, finely minced
15 whole dried rosehips, or 1 Tbsp dried chopped rose hips
1 tsp honey per cup
1/4 of a lemon per cup (optional)

Method:

Put a kettle of water on to boil. Meanwhile put your ginger and rose hips in a cheerful teapot. Get out a small strainer and line it with several layers of butter muslin*. When the water boils add it to the teapot and close the lid, letting it steep for ten or fifteen minutes. When done steeping, pour yourself out a cup, add the teaspoon of honey, and squeeze some lemon into it. Stir it. Now drink it. If it's not hot enough you may (of course) reheat it.

To get the most out of your dried whole rose hips you may wish to gently boil them for 8 to 10 minutes and then add that decoction to your teapot with the ginger in it. However, it is not necessary to do this to get benefit from them.

I like this without honey or lemon but if I'm feeling under the weather I add honey and lemon because it gives me even more of a boost.

*This is only necessary if you have whole rose hips with the interior hairs still in them. These can cause serious scratchiness and have been used in the manufacture of itching powder! If you are using dried pieces of rose hips then you may skip the muslin completely.

2008-12-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

Conversations With 1998, A Shaky Vintage

(What I wrote in 1998)

I am most afraid of myself when others are afraid of me.

I want to say that I am uncomfortable with the fact that in general I dislike people tremendously, but I find that it isn't at all true: I should be uncomfortable with this fact, but I am not. Most people are pretty obnoxious.

I am myself no butterfly, it should not please me to wear a dead one on my breast.

***

Would that I could be the amber, luminescent, hoarding the soft beams of twilight collecting in the contours of someone Else's throat. Holding inside of me the body of life and light and all the warmth of remembering, being, and pulse bright, hold all the wonders of suspended flight, remembered wings inside of me, and yet be- myself- still free.

***

The human mind is a formidable instrument. Actually, I was just going to say that the human mind is a terrible thing, period. But the first line sounds so much loftier.

***

I get lost for a fractional moment in notes and sound and numbers and vibrations and I float ; somewhere beyond the reach of mortal hands, body gone, nothing but air celebrating the mathematical arrangement of life.

***

I live and thrive in the landscape of the dead. I surprise myself with bursts of brilliant color cutting through grey blankets of air, set against a backdrop of leafless branches. It was all a dream, then, that I floated amongst people unseen. For I was seen. And even heard. I'm just uncertain of what it was they all saw and heard. What sounds did my life emit? I know it matters not, but is merely the curiosity of the voyeur, myself.

***

Shedding selves with the memory of hours. I am one person who lives and cries in the unpeopled shadows, laughs in rooms full of faces, breathes in new languages and exhales exhausted wasted knowledge, old language. And then I am another person walking, as in a dream, seeing a sea of faces approach, recede. Separated by some barrier of heart and experience. I watch myself watching others. Two parallel people whose points may never meet the full length of forever.

***************

In the present moment I would like to become a Leonard Cohen song. Right now I need to become "Halleluja" or else I need to ingest it a thousand times in order that it become mine.

Also contemplating how much it might hurt me to ask everyone in my life who's known me what they thought/think of me. I want to get in their heads to see if what I saw/thought matches what they saw/thought. Yet this is such a dangerous road. I'm wondering if what I thought of myself is what everyone else thought of me too but am afraid this may cause me much more reason to repent than I am prepared to accept. Looking through these old passages makes me hungry for dangerous truth.

There are no pews deep enough to take the depressions of my knees' spiritual regress.

2008-12-15T19:03:00.000-08:00

What To Eat On The Coldest Day Of The Year

First you must eat- nothing. Drink a lot of excellent hot coffee before the sun comes up and watch your windows like a child looking for fairies and when you don't see any snow yet, for the hundredth look...keep looking. You're only getting older and who cares?

When twelve pm rolls around and there is a) no snow yet and b) you find your stomach gnawing on your intestines: eat a bowl of Tenement stew which will put the piss back in your bladder and steam in your lungs. It won't make the snow come but you'll start to feel like snow isn't all there is to love in life.

Later in the day, when you have become crazy from the nagging of your child and are really wishing to feel the chill on your cheeks, head to the nearest ice cream shop. If you need something to do, this is really something to do! Ice cream tastes great and on a freezing day it will make you feel like you just skied a mountain even if you live in a valley. Your whole body will shiver and you will feel awake with the sugar and the cold!

It will also make the snow come.

Be sure to walk in it-breath it-grab it-shake it-and drink in it!

But most of all, when the snow comes, you must eat it. Big fistfuls of it!

I know I must be raising my kid right because as we were walking to a friend's house yesterday it began to snow, lightly first, and then in flurries, almost like a blizzard and we had been hoping for it all day long. Wistfully snatching glances through icy windows. He begins to play with the light pile-up and writes a few choice words: poop, butt, pop, and soap. Boys have a way of artfully avoiding prissy language. Later when we were walking to our other friends' house for dinner the snow had piled up nicely and my kid tells me we must eat some right now!

I taught him that when it snows fresh you must always eat some. Always! Because it is the best, crisp, metallic, silver, sharp, clean, and delightful food the earth sends us in the winter. We ate fresh fistfuls of it until our hands were too cold to scoop it up anymore.

Later we were warm and happy hanging out at our friends Jim and Ericka's house. Watching stupid kid Christmas movies and enjoying how much the low humor made Max bust up laughing hard, enjoying the mushroom pasta Jim made, and imbibing many tasty beverages. We kept looking out the window and wondering how Philip was doing driving home. Wishing he could be here with us. Wrapped up in all the very best a person can hope for in life.

At some point, after we noticed in awe how deep the snow had gotten in an area not known for getting much snow, we decided that a romp in the snow was necessary. We bundled up and with Jim and Ericka's dogs we played in the front yard. We: threw snowballs at each other, threw snowballs for the dogs to catch, we ATE more snow, we chased each other, we laughed, one of us got express permission to create some "yellow snow", we poked at frozen pools of water, and we stomped our cold wet feet.

As we were going back inside Max said how he wished his dad had been there because he would have had so much fun with us.

He also said about his dad being away for two days that nothing was right without him.

How fucking sweet is that kid?

2008-12-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

Letting Go Of A Perfect Day

Flight is what I think of when I see my dog galloping through the carpet of of fallen leaves in the hazelnut orchard near our house. Like I'm seeing a spirit nearly take off, leave all connection to earth behind in pursuit of heavenly scents. Her muscles are so fine, so dense, and when she leaps she shimmers with beautiful design.

This is the end of a perfect day. You have no idea how many superstitions I am braving by saying that out loud. There is not a single second of it that I would change. I hope to god that the people who have diligently kept track of this life log have observed the change in tenor that it has taken over the past few months? For people like me there will always be an element of dark in the days, a generous portion of agony and rock throwing. Fact of my life. Yet it is most decidedly true that the last few years have been colored by deep obscurity of rhythm, of light, and of path.

So I am in a position to particularly notice when a day is perfect.

I am falling into pace.

This morning started with a family snuggle. We all woke up late for getting the kid to school but we still took the time to snuggle up and have a good morning. Then I settled into reading my messages, checking my flickr friends out (a morning ritual), and then getting happily stuck in facebook land connecting with old friends.

Philip is going to visit with a lot of loved old friends of his tonight- flying to California (paid for by these same friends because he couldn't afford to go- how unbelievably sweet is that?!) and I am so happy he is getting a chance to cut loose and take a little breather from us people who need him and love him so much. He gets few breaks and deserves so much. Normally, I would not count a day as perfect with my love flying away from me- it's just that I am so happy he is getting to do something just for himself- it counts as perfect.

Then there's the storms. Weather is here! All day it has been raining hard, then completely clearing up for five minutes- with blue sky and brief appearance of bright sun- then turning black again with some gusts of wind. Not the extreme wind that was predicted, but enough to push a little at these old windows. Talk of snow on Sunday...feel like a school kid anticipating the excitement of having to stay inside next to the kitchen stove or wrap up in a thousand layers of pungent wool to keep the frost from biting skin.

I put things away. I paid some bills. We've been receiving a lot of final notices lately. I have put quite a few to rest. I actually saw the bottom of my laundry hamper. I swear to you that it has been three years since I have gotten completely to the bottom of it!

I ate soup. I vacuumed. I folded (and put away) clothes. Last Friday I did some cleaning too. It's starting to feel like there's sense to this life, order, and consistence. My house feels warm, it feels calmer, it feels almost functional: where everything has a place and is in it. It's starting to feel like I don't need to apologize for the state of chaos as people enter into it.

My kid came home soaked but, like me, doesn't mind being soaked if it means entering into a cozy home with light, warmth, and dry clothes. He watched Pokemon while I worked on my sewing room.

Sewing room, writing room, crafting room, thinking room...my room. How lucky is it in this life to have one's own room? I realize how fortunate I am and today, taming the frightening mess, I was able to value it fresh. This is a room in which I can bat the demons back to hell. In which I can write whatever it is that needs writing. Make what needs making. Here is my magic lair, like Merlin's crystal cave.

Today I can see the floor in here. I haven't seen it for a couple months. You saw the pictures, you know I'm not lying! I made enough progress today that I almost feel myself unfolding again. I can almost feel my hands fashioning curtains out of all this fabric I have. Curtains for the windows of this old house, through which I watch storms unfurl themselves. Through which I will one day see roses opening and vegetables reaching obscene height.

I am an active participant in my own healing, but it cannot be denied that in life there is a lot that is out of our control. I have been trying to heal for so long and it has felt like trying to push out of a grave of dirt.

I am a spiritual person, though I do not believe in God or Jesus (is there anyone left who doesn't know this?) but those of us who find our spirituality in the stars, in the soil, and in the design of nature are not exempt from our own kind of prayer.

Let it be this. Let it be now.

My season is here.

Four old friends have suddenly buoyed me up and they need to know how much it makes me happy! I am afraid for all of you to see me now. I feel some shame. But I am coming to know that it isn't my body or my face that you find friendship in, but in my spirit. My spirit is ever the same. Thank you for coming back to me Chelsea, Sharon, Carrie, and Autumn. Again, and again. Somehow it makes me feel like all is right with the world when I hear from you. When you count me among your own.

Winter is a time of rebirth and joy for me. It is, in fact, when I was born. It is the hour when I shine the most, like a snow bird. Perhaps that is the real reason I am covered so thoroughly in my own down*. I become completely alert and alive in the cold, the hail, rain, dark, close days. It's why I travel almost exclusively in winter. I want the icicles, the frigid air, the pelting rain. I think I see into the soul of the world in winter.

Now it is time to let go of a perfect day.

I know that the universe can drop bombs on us at any time. I'm used to that. But I think it's alright to enjoy this minute without asking for the evil eye to perch itself in my mirror? I don't know what tomorrow will bring, which is why it's so hard to move on from here. The temptation to believe that if I write from here to eternity that nothing will change is strong.

I think one of my innermost beliefs is that if I keep writing I can make magic last forever.

I hope you all had a perfect day too.

*Unpoetic reference to my hairy self.

2008-12-11T13:34:00.000-08:00

Trouble Spots

Today is Philip's 40th birthday. I keep asking him if he's going to sell our kid to get a red sports car and a nubile blond girlfriend with giant fake boobs. While I am obviously joking, I'm not really because these are the classic things men acquire in their mid-life awakening. What separates men like that from mine?

So then I was walking through the hazelnut orchard feeling kind of depressed because I recently saw some pictures of old friends who are only slightly less close to forty than I am and look about twenty. Then I was feeling my face, like I do sometimes suddenly when I realize I'm a person in a body that's currently in motion and it surprises me every time. I feel the way I'm wearing my face, which I normally don't and there it is: me frowning. I've been doing it my whole life. The only difference between my look of deep serious concentration between now and when I was a kid is that I no longer allow my tongue to hang out like a cartoon kid.

Max asks me all the time "How come you're so mad mama?" and I come out of whatever hole my thoughts have been accumulating in and with surprise say "But I'm not mad at all Max! Why would you think I'm mad?" And he points out that it was my mad expression that gave me away. I tell him how I don't realize I'm frowning and I try not to but it's just the face I wear when I'm not thinking about what face I should be wearing. He informs me that I should change that face. So true.

So this face above is one of my serious faces that I constantly wear. The other one I got pictures of but they made me look much worse than I really look and if I really look that way I hardly want to acknowledge it so this one will do. Then I had fun in photoshop using tools I have no inkling how to use well and pointed out why I'm not supposed to be wearing this face.

I'm not actually concerned with the wrinkles much. What DOES concern me quite a lot is the sudden development of a couple of dark mustache hairs. I have never in my life had a dark mustache hair in spite of being liberally covered in dark-ish hair everywhere else. What's up with that? Thank god they aren't stiff and wiry like my chin hairs which could seriously put someone in critical condition if I didn't stay on top of plucking them!

Philip says he's not worried about being forty years old. This is why I married him. I'm not really worried about turning forty either. I turn thirty nine in a little less than a month and that doesn't phase me any more than turning thirty did which was not at all.

I have a resolution for the new year that I don't think I'm going to tell anyone about.

I do hate my hair again. Having bad hair is much worse than having wrinkles. You can quote me on that if you want.

Well, I better go do some cooking and preparing for the kid to get home. We're going to go celebrate at Hotel Oregon. Where there will hopefully be no carolers. It's hard to get up when I have a sweet cat purring in my lap.

I'm feeling frustrated with my photography efforts. All of a sudden I can't seem to take any sharply focused pictures. I really want to be a better photographer. Taking good pictures is so satisfying that once you've taken one or two it makes all the mediocre ones intolerable.

Oh well.

I'll be posting again today so I better stop playing around here. Hope you're all having a great Thursday.

Happy Birthday Philip!!!!

2008-12-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

Panicked Mother Flees From Carolers!

(later found drooling under her own bed)

About this time last year I confessed to my deep aversion of Christmas Carolers. What's great about this aversion is that it only comes around once a year and I can, in the meantime completely forget I have it. I don't have to worry about them popping up unexpectedly on the boiling summer streets making my soul shrink into a black speck of fear.

To say that I'm terrified of them implies that I have some kind of reasonable fear, that I actually think they will do me harm, or that they are scary. I must clarify that what they do is bring on swift potent panic attacks in me based on absolutely no rational explanation other than the fact that they come at me singing sprightly songs about fat men in red suits* and their "fa-la-la"s and expect me to be ecstatic that they have taken the trouble to assault me with their noise and then...

...what am I supposed to do? I would like to ignore them and keep on doing what I'm doing but that would seem rude when they clearly have an expectation that I will listen to them in rapt adoring silence. I hate people I don't know expecting me to think they're fabulous. So if I politely pretend to enjoy their Christmas tunes do I have to also offer them hot cocoa? Do I tip them? Can I spit on them?

I hate not knowing what is expected of me in social and/or public situations. Is there a polite way of waving them on to other people without telling them that their music makes my ears bleed and causes my skin to crawl? Would it help to explain to them that years in retail service jobs have forever ruined any magic I might otherwise have felt about jolly tunes being hurled at me from quaintly dressed people who wish it was a hundred and fifty years before now when half the population was dying of TB?

It would be so different if a group of mourners came to my restaurant table to sing beautiful laments or solemn funereal tunes. When I hear funereal music my heart stops and I feel like something beautiful is speaking and I must listen. Like the sweet haunting whistling funeral band that woke me up in Glasgow one morning which I would have followed through the whole city if only I could have found my clothes and shoes fast enough.

When a group of carolers began making the rounds of dining tables at Hotel Oregon the other night where we were having dinner with my mom, I felt the panic immediately rise in my chest. They paused at each table to sing joyously and await applause. My family was still talking but I couldn't hear them anymore because all I could think about was leaving. It was agony seeing them get closer and closer to our table. Just when they got to our section I shoved my coat on in a rush and cutting off my family's conversation- jetted out of there as though my head were on fire.

As I left I looked back for a moment through the window and very quickly snapped this picture.

Anxiety is a queer creature that lives in your bones and invests itself richly in your blood. The most annoying thing is trying to explain to others the inexplicable. "Why?" they want to know. Sometimes I can grasp at the why because most anxiety is based on rational fear but is then warped and magnified by an irrational reaction to it, but sometimes I can't even offer that. There must be origin, right? There must be cause. Sometimes there just isn't.

When the carolers come- I will run. While this is an easy anxiety for me to make fun of, the panic is very real. Do not underestimate my discomfort in this. Do not marginalize what is, for me, a strong enough discomfort that I will leave my happy little family at a table and go home to avoid having to come in direct contact with the subject of it. You can laugh with me, but only if you promise never to come to my house to sing me a bunch of Christmas songs.

*The exception to my overwhelming hatred** of Christmas music is: classical music such as "Pachelbel's Canon", "The Nutcracker Suite", and (of course) Handel's "Messiah".

**I do try to use this word sparingly and YES I do use it most sincerely in this instance.

2008-12-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

2008-12-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

What She Wrote

In spite of my urge to destroy all of my journals because I believe they possess spirits of their own and are haunting me, I cannot set them aflame. Tonight I decided to open one up and see what bits of wisdom might be gleaned from its pages. I was twenty seven years old. I was in an agony trying to quit smoking. Endlessly. I would not figure out for another several years that the only thing I could do to quit smoking was to medicate my brain properly. My poetry, though never excellent, was experiencing a growth of maturity. Some years I go through several journals, but in 1997 there was just this one.

I used this journal like an oracle. I stole phrases, scraps, and thoughts and pasted them here like answers to questions I haven't yet asked. Maybe some of your questions will be answered too.

What She Wrote:

Each Day tomorrow loomed like a big fresh scar on the tissue of life, not healing, glowing in the lamplight of today.

I saw death in the mirror at seventeen. Ten years later I look back with compassion at the girl who was not afraid to see god in the devil. To see her own soul pass through the light of the sun.

I will let my hands absorb the cold. I will let my fingers numb in the coming frost. I will let my nose gather the whole winter into its round planes, for the sake of another cigarette. It's the smoking that matters.

I learned that to be blameless you must be perfect and only other people are perfect.

How do I know that other people are better at judging my capabilities or my faults than I am? Don't I know myself better than all? And if I am good enough to say that I am bad at anything, aren't I also good enough, and fair enough, to say that I am good at some things?

In my own cage I have forgotten that I am remembered outside of it.

I want to find all those threads that bind human beings together. I want to find those common factors that transcend race, creed, and background. I want to explore people's differences to find our sameness.

I want to study the people who study people.

And it reminds me of the French tragedies where every one dies beautifully, clutching at heaving breasts, bruised in black and white.

Is there a pit yet dug for me at the edge of this moment?

If I knew repent for living perhaps I would fall to my knees. With exhaustion, I would gladly do so. But I know not repent. I told someone once that I was on a ship that had no stops. How true I cry! The lesson here is to live each moment for the sake of each moment.

Self self self. Sick of self. Sick of sick self.

They were, I think, afraid of being afraid of me and for me.

Did you forget I wrote the winter? In weeds of faded black. It's almost time, my love, to ask the springtime back. Did you forget I wrote the springtime? In the lightest whitest lawn. It's almost time, my love, for the springtime to be gone. Did you forget I wrote the summer? In the shade of the old plum tree. It's almost time, my love, for your return to me. Did you forget I wrote the autumn? In wool lit with setting golden sun. It's almost time, my love...for winter has begun.

2008-12-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

Kitchen Scraps Can Save You Money

(start composting today!)

In my household at least 1/3 of all the contents of my garbage are compostable matter. In our last yard we had a compost pile but since moving we still have no dedicated spot. Compost bins should be located close enough to your kitchen that you will actually use them and in our case they must be built to keep the dog out. I have finally figured out where to put our new compost site but we have yet to build it. In the meantime I have all this waste going into the landfill that could be adding humus to my own patch of clay. It bothers me to see so much good matter being wasted.

So I finally resolved to make the extra effort to begin composting right now. Where to put all this good stuff? In my master gardening course we got an instructional talk about lasagna gardening. This is a method by which you prepare a bed for planting at least six months before you need it by layering brown and green organic materials into a bed and let nature break down the materials in her own slow way. As the beds are moistened by rain (or in dry climates -by you) the plant matter breaks down and its nutrients become available in the soil. Over time the first layer will break down and become soil.

This is a "no till" method of gardening. The important thing to remember with both composting and lasagna gardening is that you need to add both "green" and "brown" matter to the pile (or the beds).

I realized that I have two garden beds that are built, half filled with dirt, and not planted out. If I decide to reserve these beds for next year's fall/winter garden then I have plenty of time to use a lasagna method of composting in them. My first step is to begin putting my vegetable trimmings in them. Because this is an unfenced area and I don't want neighborhood dogs digging around in my beds I decided to dig my compost in a bit. I may end up adding some soil on top of each layer of straw as well because these beds are one foot deep and it would probably take more than a year to build them up completely with compost.

I have heard a lot of gardeners argue about the cost of growing your own vegetables versus just buying them in the store. There are many people who claim that it isn't cheaper to grow your own and list all of the costs of gardening. I get frustrated with this argument because a lot of the costs of gardening disappear once you have the right tools on hand (and you don't need many) and once you've put in your structure. The biggest costs for me have been compost (because in every garden I've had the soil has needed a huge amount of amendments to make it grow anything) and lumber for beds which I consistently choose to build because I always end up with very difficult soil.

(I can make a case for growing your own being cost effective but I don't even think that's the best reason to grow your own food.)

If you develop good homesteading habits you shouldn't need to buy compost. Yes, it takes time to make it, but once you get going and KEEP it going you will always have compost to add to your beds every year. Compost is an expense of gardening that anyone with a yard can cut back on or cut out altogether. Other benefits of composting are that you send less waste to the landfill, you are getting more out of the money you spend on your groceries, and you participate more fully in the cycle of life mirrored in your own patch of dirt.

Your compost should include two types of organic matter:

Green matter: plant materials such as weeds from the garden, kitchen fruit and vegetable scraps, green leaves, coffee grounds* and tea bags, egg shells, fresh horse/cow/chicken manure.

Brown matter: dry and dead plant materials such as straw, dry brown weeds, autumn leaves, wood chips, or sawdust. If you have access to newspapers that use soy or other nontoxic ink they can also be used in the compost but if it is going in the pile-shred it first. If being added to a lasagna bed it can be added in a layer without shredding it first.

You should supply roughly equal amounts of both to your pile to feed the microbes that will break your compost down.

What should NOT go in your compost pile: human waste, pet waste, diseased plants (unless you have a consistently hot compost pile), chemically treated plants or wood products, meat, bones, fatty food wastes, pernicious weeds (unless completely dead and dry!).

Some people like to put all their kitchen waste in their compost. You can do this but some things (listed above) will break down more slowly and in the meantime will attract pests you don't want in your garden or near your house such as rats. So cheese, bread, meat, or bones are best left to either the garbage or given as rare treats to your hens or dog. Egg shells are a very good addition to compost but not eggs themselves.

A great benefit of having hens in your backyard is that you will have a consistent excellent source of both green and brown matter to add to your compost. I just cleaned out my chicken run and now have a giant pile of semi-broken down hay caked in chicken waste which may seem gross but is an absolutely fantastic addition to your soil. One thing you have to be careful about is not adding fresh chicken waste directly into the garden. Either it needs to age for six months in your compost bin or it should be used in lasagna gardening where it will age for months as you layer it before being planted out. Chicken manure is very "hot" and can burn the roots of plants until it has mellowed. This is true of all manure but especially true for chicken waste.

I look forward to having compost bins near my kitchen but in the meantime I'm happy to finally be making better use of my kitchen waste. I give scraps to my hens but they won't eat quite a few things and now I will be sure to be getting better value out of all of the produce that I buy and grow.

*If you have clay soil you should not use coffee grounds in your compost because your soil is already acidic and the grounds will add more acidity. You can save them to put around the specific plants that like acidity such as roses, rhododendrons, camellias, blueberries, etc. Egg shells are an especially good addition to your compost pile if you have acidic soils because it will add calcium to the soil which helps to neutralize the ph.

2008-12-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

Another Example Of My Genius

(Please don't forget to take the Roost poll at the bottom of the blog)

My kid is just as materialistic as the next one but one thing I've noticed about him is that if I indulge him in things like holiday decorating, drives through town to look at all the tacky lights, and spend time on the little things then he never really notices that he gets fewer presents than most of his friends.

OK, well, he notices that some of them end up with an entire toy store in their bedroom, but Christmas for him is about the anticipation. What better way to anticipate Christmas than with an Advent calendar? Max is pleased with simple things like a little piece of candy and I am happy to indulge him (up to a point) because once he's eaten the candy it doesn't live in my garage in mildewy boxes with hungry wolf spiders.

Now that I am finally getting some time to do things like sweep my floors regularly and the brain-space to think about creative projects just for us (as opposed to creative projects for commerce) my head has been spinning with ideas. While I'm dying to get on with my living room re-do, as stated before- the sewing room must be tamed first. That's a slow project. I have a month to get it in order.

That doesn't mean I can't do some little projects in the mean time. So I used Monica as my inspiration and was going to make an advent calendar out of fabric (so it could be used again and again) but fabric projects have to wait so I used her general idea and made them out of paper. By the way, she made those Pennie Pockets into a free PDF pattern if you'd like to download it. They're so cute I think you should go over there right now and do it!

I wanted there to be something else suspenseful than just getting to watch the days go by and get little surprise candies so I concealed a message inside the pockets which get revealed as the fronts get folded down. Max loves it! These are the things that give him lasting impressions of his mom as something other than the ogre who screams at him that she is not a wrestling donkey!!!

You all may be surprised to know this, but I love Christmas. I used to hate it. Perhaps I'll tell you all about it another time but today is so wonderful I don't feel like telling those tales. I will make sure you all realize that I love presents though and my newfound appreciation for this holiday has little to do with hot cocoa and sitting before an open fire with mealy chestnuts. I love how excited kids get. I love how Max said this morning "Mama, I love your Advent calendar!" I love christmas trees and opening my stocking. Especially on Christmases when it isn't filled with Lychee soda and Chinese salty plum candies. I love opening presents and I love giving them.

But I should say here that I am fortunate to have a very small family. We don't have a lot of money but we have always been able to buy Max whatever he's wanted for Christmas and the rest of my family and us mostly exchange cards or little tokens of love. So for us the shopping part of Christmas is minimal at best. I give my family things I've canned during the year or things I've sewn. This year my dad is sending me a bottle of his own olive oil!!

I don't (and never will) enjoy suffocating my house in holiday decorations but I derive a great deal of pleasure from slowly making and collecting pretty things to put on my mantel and on my tree. The next project I am going to show you is my weird branch thing about which Max also commented this morning "...and I also like your branch thing."

In the meantime I am going to make a short list of what's making me really happy right now:

I got my first paycheck from my new job which means I can now pay last month's mortgage!!

It was 30 degrees out this morning. LOVE COLD MORNINGS!! I only wish it will get lots colder this year.

I already folded two loads of laundry and it's only 12:18 pm.

I have today off from all my jobs.

I swept four of my downstairs rooms out and am going to vacuum right after I call the bank to make a payment.

I talked to my close friend Chelsea this morning about how our dogs (who are sisters) are the best dogs in the entire world and how we feel sorry for everyone who didn't get one of Sandy's* "oops" litter.

Pearl is still alive and not moaning. I'm concerned about her feathers still being ruffled but I'm keeping an eye on it. Not that that will do any good. Chickens often just fall over dead. But they love their clean run and hen house.

I'm playing Ziggy Stardust really loud. I hope the neighbors are enjoying it too.

*Sandy is Chick's mom, a pure bred black lab who was supposed to be bred with another pure bred black lab stud. Instead she had love puppies with her pit bull/bull mastiff boyfriend Lucky.

2008-12-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

Roost Poll

(magazine or book?)

I have an important question for everyone who is interested in Roost: are you excited specifically because it is going to be in magazine form or is it just the content you're excited about? I ask because two possibilities present themselves to me:

ONE: Roost can be published solely as a seasonal magazine as I originally planned. This means it will come out whenever I can get it together to do it well. It might only come out four times a year, provided I don't get discouraged with it and just do one copy. The benefit is that when it comes out and you get a copy all of the articles will be completely fresh having not appeared anywhere else first. There's the anticipation factor as well- few things can rival the excitement of opening a new magazine!

TWO: Roost could be a website dedicated to high quality articles and tutorials to help everyone become better urban homesteaders with a possible book published at the end of the first year to serve as a permanent tangible resource on your bookshelf that includes all the best projects and information published on the website through the year. I would be the curator and editor of this website but I would use the talents of other writers and urban homesteaders to contribute material in addition to mine. It wouldn't have any of my personal writing on it- that would remain at Dustpan Alley. One of the benefits of doing it this way is that I would have a much longer period of time in which to learn layout for publishing and in the meantime I could get the website up and running with fantastic content within a couple of weeks.

What would you be more excited about? I tend to think a website with a book in twelve months is the way to go but I'm going to let you all decide. I've always wanted to do a magazine but I've also wanted to do a book so either way I'm going to be producing something I'm excited about and that I feel is missing from every one's home reference library. I'm making a poll and I would like you all to participate! There is an actual poll at the bottom of my blog.

2008-12-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

This Week At My Urban Homestead

Before I go muck out the chicken run (a very dirty job during the wet season) I wanted to get a few things out of my head and into yours.

I have officially accepted the truth that I am a person who breaks glasses. Philip has been accusing me of it for years and while I never wanted to accept that this is a part of who I am...dammit...it's true. I just broke one of my two liqueur glasses a couple of days ago. There are four glasses in my life that I have treasured: these two that my dad gave to Philip and I for an anniversary, and two gorgeous red antique glasses my sister gave us for the same occasion. The ones my sister gave us got broken on our move to Oregon. Now I have but one of these. So, I'm sad. But as Bonnie* advised the other day: "just get over it!" (Advice referring to my need to move on from the failed business crap and blah blah blah...)

I hope Bonnie isn't in the mental health business. I think she'd be better off as some kind of high school sports coach.

Or maybe she should become a self-help guru!

Because I seriously never considered "Just Get Over It" as a strategy for dealing with my life until she just said it the other day. If only someone had been clever enough to tell me to "just get over" my mental illness. Jesus! Think of all the years of agony and pain I could have avoided!!

Seriously, I know you meant well Bonnie, but that's not a very helpful thing to say to anyone.

Except maybe teenage boys.

Maybe.

Remember that weird thing above (and attached) to the mantel? I took it down last night. It is such a relief to me to take that first step to redoing the living room . Have a look for yourself:

Yes, that is a new hole in the wall. I put it there. By accident. Apparently I am the ruiner of many things besides beautiful glass ware. Oh crap- that almost sounds like self loathing. Sorry!

I made a weird branch thingy yesterday which will miraculously turn into a gorgeous holiday decoration that you will be jealous of when I'm done and I show it to you. It required screws, wood, more wood, scraps, a saw, a hammer, clippers, two cats, and a dog's help to make. Very impressive. (I don't understand why everyone is always lecturing me about how mean I am to myself when I obviously have so much self-admiration. Are you all HIGH?!)

I would like to entreat all of you to refrain from using the word "musings" for an entire year. Yes, please do. It doesn't sound how you think it sounds and it's a word that needs a little break from circulation.

Another little thing...low-riding aprons are not pretty. Do not wear them around your hips no matter how thin you are. Half aprons (cocktail aprons) should ALWAYS be worn around the waist. If you are entirely too stout to wear anything around your waist, then opt for an full apron. This is sound advice if only you will take it. Which you probably won't, so I will be forced to silently ridicule your slouchy schlumpy style.

Does anyone else believe that word verification is sending them secret messages?

Might be time to save up money for another visit to a psychiatrist. (Right after I pay off the last bill for which I am about to be sent to collections.)

Using the word "delight" in a recipe name should not be encouraged. I discourage everyone from doing so.

Another thing I need to release from my head is my yearly objection to the existence of eggnog. Not a good idea. I have tasted eggnog exactly once and nearly hurled on the hopeful friend who served it to me. The idea of a beverage of milk and eggs is repulsive to me. Eggs and milk is something that should be made into breakfast, on the stove, or in the oven. Viscous milky beverages have always made me queasy (milkshakes, for example) or kiefer (the kind that is like runny yogurt). Add alcohol to it and I just think all you eggnog fans have gone over the edge with regards to your stomach. So let's make a deal right now: I will not make immature faces at your beloved beverage as you drink it if you promise not to offer me any. Deal?

I have come to the decision to end my extremely shallow brief affair with Facebook and have also made the executive decision not to join up with twitter. I have been tempted to do so by friends with whom I am sure I would love to twitter with all day long, but I have realized that not having two more places to divide my attention from other things is important. I remain steadfast in my love of blogs and flickr. My computer social life will end there. I decide this in order that I may keep my life from becoming more complicated than it already is.

Another thing: I came very close to offering myself up to help with something because I always do that without thinking- but kept my mouth shut. I did it. What's better than having to say "no" to someone? Not having to say anything at all. So you just try getting me to do a favor right now- you might be surprised at how strongly I am withholding them!

I have some great posts coming up: one about how I have finally started composting at the new house and a suggestion for those without compost bins (like me). I will also be showing off my holiday decoration. There will also be a post about how long you can keep food before it goes bad.

Now it's time to pick up the sturdy rake and remove every last scrap of chicken poop/hay bits and replace it with fluffy clean hay for my girls. This time of year is tough on chickens in the Pacific Northwest. I am wearing dirty clothes to start with and this is most certainly a job for boots.

Have a great Wednesday at your own urban homesteads!!

*Someone who commented here the other day.

2008-12-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

Homemade Cherry Liqueur

I have been on a cherry liqueur making quest of Arthurian proportions. It started eight years ago in the first home we owned where my homesteading passion was first ignited. Cherries were in "season" and I somehow ended up with an abundance of them. I had this really cool book whose title I no longer recall**that had lots of recipes for staples of a Mediterranean pantry. Among those recipes was one for cherry liqueur. I'm not generally a huge fan of liqueurs but the picture was so pretty, the color so shiny and attractive I knew it was something I needed to have in my own pantry.

It is suggested that you use Morello cherries or another sour cherry variety for best flavor. I had only dark Bing cherries and figured- why not? Because there is nowhere in Sonoma County where you can find or buy sour cherries. A huge oversight on everyone's part there. Another suggestion is that you use 100 proof vodka or some kind of Everclear. I could not locate 100 proof to save my life.

I went ahead and made the liqueur using the Bings and 80 proof vodka. My friend Sharon was inspired by this recipe too and made some as well. Fast forward a few months of letting the cherries steep drunkenly in my kid's dark closet. I pulled it out and admired the rich red color which appeared just as it should. The moment of truth turned out to be a huge let down. It tasted like stewed overly sweet fruit. That's not a taste I like having in my mouth. Sharon's actually did turn out to be very good but she didn't follow the directions exactly and failed to take notes on what she did so none of us will ever know the secret to making good liqueur with sweet cherries.

I tried again the next year and had another spectacular disappointment. Then I did it one more time two years after that and still ended up feeling deflated. Most people would have given up. Instead of giving up I decided that I was going to make a good cherry liqueur if it killed me.

This year was the first time since moving to Oregon that I returned to my old quest for cherry truth. It's not impossible to find sour cherries here which is a huge bonus and one of the reasons why I love Oregon. It is also not difficult to find 100 proof vodka though you have to go to a state liquor store and can't buy it on Sundays. After years of running the gauntlet only to crash and burn I could finally reasonably hope for success. It has seemed to become clear to me that there was a reason for the suggestions that book made.

And there are. Although I long ago got rid of that book because it seemed to have failed me so miserably and set me on this ridiculous path, the recipe I followed this year is nearly identical if you ignore all the things I did. You will need these ingredients:

1.5 pounds sour red cherries, cut in half with the pit left in one side
1.5 cups granulated sugar
2.5 cups 100 proof vodka
small piece of cinnamon

You put a third of the cherries in a half gallon sized jar, then pour a third of the sugar in. Do the next third of the cherries and the next third of the sugar. Then do the last third of both. So it is layered in the jar. If you want to use the cinnamon add it now. Then pour the vodka in. I guess the layering is just for fun because then you stir it all up. Every recipe I've read always calls for layering the ingredients in the jar first. Stir it up, cap it, and then put it in a cool, dry, dark place.

For the first two weeks shake the jar up at least once every day. This makes sure that the sugar completely dissolves. After that let it age for 3 months.

Strain out the cherries and pour the liqueur into bottles.

I have finally made a cherry liqueur worth drinking. It's worth talking about. I have more to say about it but I must post this right now because I have to attend to some business. Please consider making this one next year!

If you do decide to make it but choose not to do it EXACTLY as I've told you- you have only yourself to blame for the results. You should realize that eight years of doing it wrong has really paid off for you because you can go ahead and do it right the first time.

*They really haven't been grown commercially in Sonoma County for many years so they aren't ever technically in season there. But I digress...return to the meat of the story now.

**Because the only recipe I ever tried in it sucked I ended up getting rid of it, now I wish I had it back.

2008-12-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

My Sick Chicken Pearl

My lovely Pearl apparently has some kind of respiratory infection and is moaning and has "ruffled" feathers (not nearly as pretty as it sounds). I have put them all on an antibacterial that will hopefully do the trick. John the sometimes-surly chicken expert at our local farm store didn't think there was much to worry about. I trust him. Chickens are not the most robust animals on earth so there's certainly a chance she could die. I love my flock and really hope she gets better fast. When I got home from walking the dog I listened in on her and it didn't sound like she was still wheezing (which sounds like a low moan to me).

I have so much to post, a new survey to hound you with, and all kinds of fresh pictures and post-canning season reports to make but I must be off for my afternoon hours at the toy store.

I'll be back tomorrow!

Pearl Update: Her breathing has improved but she still has ruffled feathers. Tomorrow I do the most thorough muck out of their run to make it extra dry and "clean" for them. Hopefully Pearl will continue to improve!

2008-11-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

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****

2008-11-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-26T17:47:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-11-25T18:34:00.000-08:00

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!)

2008-11-24T13:52:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

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.)

2008-11-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-14T19:28:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

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.