Traveling

Ran for a couple of hours this morning (10 miles), now packing up and getting ready to hit the road. D will stay here and work, and it'll be a girls' getaway week. I expect to read a lot, write, lie in the sun, swim, and get caught up with friends and family.

I'm so grateful that I can do this--have the job, the car, and my health--to travel, take a break from routine, be with loved ones who live far away.

How is this vacation different from others? I am settling more into understanding and accepting who I am, and being okay with it. Or even better than okay. I did not push myself to get packed and get out the door. We'll go when we go, and get there when we get there. It's all fine. It's the journey.

Vacation!

Tomorrow, S and I are off to the southern part of the state to see my mother and sister and catch up with R, who flew down alone Tuesday. And then after that, to Phoenix to see Clare! And, if it's possible, to get together with my half-sister and her family. I'm late in contacting & confirming all this with folks, so if you're one of the aforementioned people and would like to confirm plans, please call my cell number.

I will finish getting ready and packing in the morning, after a run.

I can't promise that I'll be able to blog from the road. I'll try very hard to do so.

Just finished reading

The Archivist, by Martha Cooley. (Thanks to Lisa for the loan.)

This is a book that combines an archivist (even better than a librarian,in some ways!), poets, and insanity. My kind of read. I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in any of these three things. I guess it was a best seller, and too. I like it in spite of that.

I went to the writer's group meeting tonight (hooray! we're back!) thinking and saying that I had nothing to write, let alone nothing important to write. At all. Like, ever again.

But I came home feeling that I do have things to say, and therefore things to write, and it doesn't even matter who reads those things. Just that I record them.

No, wait. It does of course matter to me that someone else read most of what I write, and that they like it. I'm not that far along the path of enlightenment yet.

Or, in the words of Gir from Invader Zim: "Praise me! PRAISE ME!"

Not that I have ever seen a single Invader Zim episode, mind you. I've just heard that's what he says.

The funny thing about habits

They really don't leave easily. Take this, for instance. This is me, sitting at my computer in pj's, blogging before bed. In spite of having lost my will to go on last Monday. I think I've gotten too old and tired to even have a proper emotional meltdown. So I'm back to the blog.

Besides, how many other things does one do daily that start with "bl-" and end in "og"

I mean, if you hike too much, you might get a blisterog on your foot, and if it's bad enough, it could even be bleedogging. But how often do you hike too much? If your friend sneezes, you could say "blessog you," or at night if you're cold, you can get an extra blanketog. But those are not daily occurrences. They're more once in a blueog moon things. Ok. I don't want to be blatantogly silly. You can fill in the blankogs yourself.

Last night D had one of those really good, respectful, productive 4 hour relationship evaluation/conversations that are what keep a marriage intact. This was after I'd worked a full day then driven R to the airport to fly down and see Grandma. Someone asked me today how I had the energy to have that kind of talk. I said, "I just had it. The talk had to happen." He and I both feel soooo much better for it.

Today, I saw the dentist. For a couple of hours afterwards, I could do a pretty good Elvis snarl, and the novocaine also seemed to affect my ability to open my right eye fully. My nostrils were numb, too, so picking my nose was right out. Stop saying, "Ewww." I'm just stating the facts.

In the evening, I saw my counselor. Tomorrow I'll see the eye dr. I feel like all I need now is a pap smear and I'll be living the modern woman's equivalent of Dorothy Gale in the Emerald City getting her manicure-plus-shoe polish.

"Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown? Jolly old town!"

Better, thanks

Sleep helped my state of mind only very slightly.

What helped me much more was listening to a CD of Tolle on the way in to work this morning.
I mean, I had been so full of depression that when I said goodbye to my sleeping kids and husband, I was thinking that something might happen to me (besides a comet hitting earth) and I might not see them again.
And I didn't care.
About myself, mostly. But even, also, about them.
Pretty bad, huh?

Now, I'm just trying to figure out what is triggering all this. I don't think it's so much the post-party letdown as the fact that without the distractions of preparing for the party, finishing D's dad's book, and prepping for the Kenwood 10k, I'm faced with looking at other situations in my life that generate a huge level of fear and resentment and (as Tolle) would put it "awaken the pain body" - or awaken a whole ugly mess of psychological pain in me.

As Homer Simpson would say, "STOOPID psychological pain." (Or maybe he wouldn't say that. But you get my point.)

And once I can get clear on what's triggering all the nastiness, I hope to address it in the most positive, present way possible, or to let it go of it completely. If I can.

Arrrg.

Excuse a bit more of what must sound like psycho-babble mumbo jumbo jargon, but in spite of the level of depression I'm feeling, I'm now (after the drive to work) much more confident in the transformative power of being positive and doing things through love instead of fear.

Doesn't mean any of this is easy, but it means I think I can find a place, here and now, where it will *be* easy. Or where "easy/difficult" will be just two more labels my brain wants to give to situations that don't, in the great cosmic scheme of things, matter at all.

If a comet were to hit the planet

So the Nasa impactor hit the Tempel 1 comet.

D and I were joking that it hit just as planned, except that now the comet is going to collide with the earth in less than 48 hours.

Right now, I feel so depressed and defeated, I don't think it would matter if the comet hit the earth.

I don't care.

I feel like giving up.


***
Ahem.

This little episode of angst and despondency was (probably) brought to you by the post-party let down, exhaustion, sunburn and the after effects of the early morning's 10k race. It might also have been brought to you by a couple other things in my life that are so not okay, I don't know where to begin to fix them.

I don't know whether I'll keep up the blogging daily. Screw the sushi.

Sleep might help much of the above stuff go away and return my usually functional coping skills. Or it may just be that I am developing (or already have?) some bipolar issues.

Whatever.

Like I said, I don't care.

Post-party

People came. They met one another, chatted, ate, drank, chatted some more, then left. I guess that made it a successful party. No one got hurt. No one cried, except at 9pm when one 5 year old girl was sad about having to go home. Of course, maybe my expectations are too low? Maybe one judges the success of the party based on more the above criteria.

Anyway, I want to do fuller justice to the experience, but I also want to sleep more than 7 hours before tomorrow's 10k run. So I'll stop now.

For those of you who are reading this and were here today, thanks.

Transforming the property

Yes, there's nothing like knowing you'll have company to inspire one to work on the house and grounds.

The end result will be far from perfect, but much better than if we'd done nothing and wonderful to enjoy after the get-together.

It did add a twist to the preparations that D brought home another truckload of wood today. But we'll have a very cozy winter!

Only a few [dozen] things to do in the morning, and then we will relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Not that I haven't been enjoying this, actually. Every moment, on its own, has been good.

I plan to release the edited memoir tomorrow and be free to work on MY OWN words on a page instead. I also expect the quality of the blogs to improve as a result, too.

Asleep at the wheel

Actually, just asleep at the keyboard, My productivity has plummeted.
It's taken me 5 minutes to write two sentences, waking myself up between the two.
Plus the DSL is still having problems.

So this is short but short (not even sweet).

All for now.
g'night

Nearly officially Friday

It's close enough to Friday again as makes no difference. Let the weekend mode begin! Still much cleaning and little projects around the house, and shopping, to be done before we have a get together here Sunday. But I have hope that we'll make it.

With the exception of me finishing my father-in-law's book.

Bleak, bleak stuff. How the Communists tortured the Legionnaires like the author after WWII. The author is a nationalist, and anti-Semitic, and given to philosophical rants that last for paragraphs. Changing most (but not all) sentences from present to a real narrative past has been especially difficult.

...back to it!

Sometimes you just need a day

Honoring the thought that no one dies wishing they'd spent more time at work, I took a personal day today. It was sorely needed.

I caught up a tiny bit on my sleep and worked very hard on editing the book.
D generally lets me do whatever I want in life, but he has now instructed me to say "NO!" if asked to copy edit a full manuscript again. Unless it is my own.

Now there's an idea...

Carry wood, chop water

I moved about a cord of split oak and bay to a wood pile behind the house yesterday and today, in between digging in the adobe, supervising kids, editing the book, blah blah blah.

I've looked back on June and it's been a whole month of me doing too much, passive-aggressively complaining or reflecting about it but still doing too much with some kind of "this is just short-term, folks" lip service to any members of the reading audience who are still there but rolling their eyes in exasperation at me.

I could just have written today "more of the same" or "see above" and added to that Ibid. Don't ya love "Ibid"? I remember reading books of quotations and Welsh reference stuff and seeing little ibids all over the place. It's like Anon. I think there's a poem in there, somewhere. Or a children's story - about Ibid and Anon and their trip to the seaside, maybe.

Or even, with their friends (like a gang of super heroes) "The Continuing Adventures of Ibid & Anon, et al."

Or maybe, eg., something even more cryptic, ie. more mysterious: "The Misc. Etc. Ibid, Anon, et. al."

Ok. Enough of that silliness.

Monday night wipe out

Have been editing, folding laundry, doing dishes, editing more, slapping myself awake, etc. for the past 45 minutes. Before that was the hour-long getting the kids to bed thang, and before that, lots of household chores like 3 HOURS cleaning S's room with her "helping."

"Helping" when you're almost six years old usually means saying, "Oh I remember that!" and playing with whatever item has just been pulled out of the dusty under-the-bed lair where it had been hiding until retrieved by a mom who didn't realize, until just then, that it is possible to crawl on one's head under furniture.

Amd a mom who can't even stay awake at the keyboard long enough to edit a web log post!

Pathetic.
Did I spell that right?

Post while you can!

Once again, our router or DHL connection or something (we have yet to troubleshoot & fix) is acting up, and the result is that the web connection is not guaranteed.

So this is a quick post to say "I was here."

The front yard is starting to come together even more, thanks to D's back-breaking dedication to moving the dirt.

I can't take credit for doing much of anything to help him this weekend except emptying his truck bed of about a cord of dried oak (already split) that his coworker's grandfather was getting rid of.

But there was a long run this morning, and wine tasting in a Lima in between the run and the wood moving; so it's been a full day, a full weekend, and a full week to come.

Digging In The Dirt.

Well, I've little all day but drive kids around and run errands while D practically broke himself moving adobe. He did get smart and hire a neighbor teen and his two friends to help.

It was an amazing sight. These boys are not much more than stark white skin and bones, with artificially blackened hair, piercings and an assortment of tattoos. At first I was afraid that they wouldn't be strong enough to lift a shovel, individually or collectively, but apparently they've built up quite a bit of muscle (or at least endurance) by slinking about, playing in their garage band and suffering from profound bouts of angst.

They did a great job nearly filling the dumpster in the driveway, and D worked further on clearing the area that will be a pathway to the courtyard.

R has a friend over, S had a playdate earlier, and tomorrow, I'll get to play for a bit myself. After an 8 mile run and a few chores. I'm concentrating on a delayed pre-race training schedule so I don't have to stop and lie down on the road somewhere between Napa and Sonoma.


And by the way, I just don't know why the posts are doing this great space between title and body. If you have suggestions, I'll welcome them.

And thank God for the Blogspot recover post option. It just saved me from rewriting this little postling!

TGIF

Nine thirty Friday but it feels like midnight.

I just realized that the version of the Romanian memoir I've been painstakingly copy editing is not the full draft. This at least explains what I had thought was a very abrupt ending. But it also means that although I figured I had about 30 more pages to edit, I actually have over 130.

Words fail me.

The Dumpster

We've ordered a dumpster. It will arrive tomorrow.
Into it we will put many, many shovelfulls of adobe dirt from the piles in our front yard.

I am really looking forward to the dumpster. I mean, really. I'm giddy like a schoolgirl. Even though I was never actually giddy as a schoolgirl. The thing is, when that dirt goes away, it's not coming back. It's gone, gone, gone baby! Whoo-eeee!! See, I'm just all a flutter with excitement. Bye-bye nasty dirt that nothing grows in. Ta-ta! See ya...never again!

It makes me think of a poem I've been messing with for years. The latest incarnation goes like this:

***

Rain on Fresh Concrete

The sound draws us to the window like the circus come to town.
All that we had left outside is now initiated by rain. It’s true that much
had been well on the road to molds and rust, anyhow. But the concrete,
newly poured, was not yet set in its ways. We rush the storm:
wheel in the mixer, toss empty bags, fling tarps over the new path.
The rain never pauses for breath. We are alone in our remorse.

We, who celebrate every square inch of adobe we bury with bricks and cement:
that much less mud the next time it pours. Cover it in lining, rebar, gravel, concrete. Planter boxes on top filled with dirt.
Dirt in boxes over concrete over dirt.
The strata we make of our lives.


***


Okay, but that's way to somber for my Getting-a-Dumpster-Eve mood. So how about this:


Adobe is sticky, adobe is dark
Moving adobe ain't a walk in the park
Instead of adobe, I'd rather shovel rocks
but we're putting that adobe in a BIG METAL BOX.

Uh.
Maybe I should go to bed now.

G'night.

Superstitions

When I was a teenager and I wrote little self-critical journal entries in books (as opposed to here, in the blogosphere), I had a short-lived superstition that something very good or very bad would happen to me when I filled up a book. I wanted to write a story about someone who died when they finished a book, but you can see how predictable that idea would be.

So what would happen if I didn't finish my I-will-blog daily goal/dare-response? Would it kill me? No. Would it diminish my view of myself, give me one more reason to believe that I'm a quitter or loser at some deep level? It might, instead, mean that I have finally learned when to gag my pride and be sensible and protective of my time and energy. But that's the rationalization of a lazy person.

Hmm. I think I need to see how much Libra I have in my astrological chart.

Along those lines, here's a brief reading from Astrology.com. (warning: it's nothing but narcissism tonight, folks):

How You Approach Life and How You Appear To Others
Cautious, prudent, and rather self-contained, you are a person who approaches life realistically and who is not inclined to take foolish chances or get carried away by the overly optimistic or idealistic schemes of starry-eyed dreamers. In fact, you frequently have a jaundiced view of such things. You are rather worldly-wise at a fairly young age, even something of a cynic. Often the world doesn't seem like a safe, friendly place to you, and you tend to approach life in a guarded, conservative manner. You are generally calculating and careful, and are rarely spontaneous, fluid, open, and childlike.

The Inner You: Your Real Motivation
At heart you are modest and humble, and you rarely strive to be in the limelight or in a position of power. You have a sharp analytical mind, a keen eye for detail, and you prefer to observe, dissect, and study life from a distance. Conscientious and conservative, you can be relied upon to be careful, efficient, and thorough in your work and you take pride in doing a job well. What you may lack in self-confidence you often make up for in skill - developing expertise, technical knowledge, and competency in some specialized area. You are adept at using your hands to create or fix things, and meticulous attention to detail and careful craftsmanship are your forte. Some would say you are a little TOO meticulous, for you can be extremely critical and petty if everything is not done exactly as you think it should be, and you worry about things that other people consider trivial and unimportant. You like to organize, categorize, and arrange everything into a logical system, and you are often distinctly uncomfortable when something does not fit into a neat category. Disorganization vexes you. You probably wish that you were not such a perfectionist, for besides being a stickler for details, you can be mercilessly self-critical as well. Whether in your environment or in yourself, you tend to focus on the flaws, with a desire to improve, refine, and perfect. You are strictly factual, truthful, and scrupulously honest in your self-estimation, and you often do not give yourself enough praise or credit.

Okay. I think that says enough. (And I'm not going to pay for the "upgrade" that tells me more.)

Hey. I didn't make this stuff up. I'm just reporting it.

Solstice

On my way home from the gym tonight, the moon looked huge, yellow and portentous. I was happy to see it, because it spoke to me of things larger than my life and my niggling problems of when the next dentist appointment is and whether we are out of milk.

The moon draws us all; it draws the sea, and it draws the moths to the midnight sky, a celestial porch light. It pulls and tugs at lovers; it calls babies from wombs and madmen from secret hiding places. As Dar says,

Calling the moon
’cause I know what it’s worth
To tug at the seas and illumine the earth


There are, no doubt, many cultures throughout history that have had with rituals around the summer solstice moon.

Mine, tonight, was just to admire it, and be grateful for its glow.

DSL delays

Whew! It's taken me 45 minutes of DSL troubleshooting to get online and blog. A test of my daily-posting resolve, because technically it's now (*ahem*) long after midnight.

Why We're Always Late:
Simple.
We GROSSLY underestimate how long it will take to do pretty much anything. It's like a version of Name That Tune. "I can paint the house in ninety minutes, Dennis!" "Well, I can pack for our week-long trip in fifteen minutes!" And, as is the case with procrastinators, just because it sometimes pays off in a spectacular way, we keep doing it. It's conditioning where the reinforcement is intermittent and therefore more effective. But it doesn't mean it's the way to go, especially if (like me) you're (ironically) someone who hates to be late. Hmmm. Hates to be late, yet doesn't give herself enough time to prepare.... Food for thought.

Something About Fathers:
It's not an easy job, I don't think. Really. And I'd say some of that has to do with the fact that I don't think boys are (in general) taught to be fathers the way girls are taught to be mothers, to mother. Still. Even today. Except insofar that it's the wives or girlfriends or men themselves doing the teaching. I mean, the verbs "to mother" or "to parent" are still much more common than "to father." There is so much more to say about all this, but with my internet connection as flaky as it is and the morning alarm now four hours away, I'm done.

Except to add that I'm seriously impressed by some of the men who are my contemporaries and fathers. And even more impressed by those who are older than 50 and are there for their kids or are just fatherly role-models. You know who you are. As they would say in Australia, "Good on ya" guys.