Sick. At work because I need the money and because being at home is boring.

conversation

Saturday, 7:59 p.m. The cell phone rings. Sarah pauses her movie to answer the call.

Sarah: Hi there!
John: What are you up to?
Sarah: Knitting, drinking champagne, and watching Alien!

(Slight pause. John bursts into laughter.)

John: But Sarah...not one of those goes together.
Sarah: This is my strange yet dull little life.

Scene fades upon more laughter and chit-chatting.

Goodbye, Hoosierland

Today marks my official residency in the State of Michigan. I have acquired my plates, auto registration, voter registration, and driver license. I have nothing connecting me any longer to the State of Indiana; I'm a Michigander!

I thought I would list a few ways in which the State of Michigan demonstrates its superiority to the State of Indiana:

1. Michigan residents = "Michiganders." Indiana residents = "Hoosiers." Enough said.
2. Great Lakes. Michigan has many. Indiana has none.
3. Majority driver tendencies. Michigan: Extremely fast, continental travelers (Michigan has MINIMUM speed limits. Fantastic). Indiana: Barely brush the speed limit ever if at all, rarely travel within 100 miles of birthplace.
4. Vehicle excise tax. Michigan doesn't have one. Indiana does.
5. License plates:
a.) Cost. Michigan: far less. Indiana: far more.
b.) Material. Michigan: metal. Indiana: cardboard.
6. Grocery tax. Michigan: none. Indiana: lots.
7. Obtaining a driver license. Michigan: No written or road test required if you have a valid out-of-state license; the background for your photo ID is official-looking vinyl. Indiana: Makes you take the written test no matter what, and requires you to take it AGAIN every eight years; the background for the photo ID is a bath towel.
8. Countryside. Michigan: pretty, generally rolling, forested. Indiana: ugly, flat, bare.

More to come as they are discovered. I'm also ecstatic that next year I will finally only have to deal with one state in regard to my taxes. Big whomping sigh of relief.

in support of butter

Okay, so the only shows I really watch are on Fox. I don't tend to have a lot of airing television on my weekly agenda -- currently just Bones (which is on the LONGEST HIATUS EVER, it hurts me) and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just enough to get a few mind-numbing commercials into my viewing diet.

There are a couple of commercials that bother me, though. First and always foremost, there are the Comcast ads, which in this backwoods area feature a Zen Buddhist monk and link Comcast cable to that amazing connection with the universe. I hate this kind of marketing. I loathe, abhor and detest stupid materialist commercials that shamelessly use a minority religion to push their products. Of course, really enlightened Buddhists shouldn't, according to their own philosophy, care about such things; so no one's made a big stink about it. But if someone used Jesus to sell AT&T, the nation would rise up in outrage. (Well, the Midwestern-Southern half, at least.) Why shouldn't we show other religions the same respect? Why can't religion be a tacitly understood "hands-off" subject for product advertising? I mean, come on. Ew.

But that's a rant for another day. Today's real rant concerns the second ad campaign on Fox that bugs me: "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

First of all, I've never liked the brand name. I CAN believe it's not butter. It doesn't taste anything like butter. Now, of course, margarine products have been advertised since we were little kids, so I'm used to them, but the latest ad sports the saying, "Now You Know Better," and shows black-and-white mockups of 1950s families eating entire sticks of butter on their dinnertime potatoes, and then flashes full color to I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, with the "Now You Know Better" running across the screen.

Now You Know Better? About what?

This morning on Fox News one of the guests, who, I think, sponsors this Now You Know Better campaign, was talking about unhealthy trends that people used to think were great. Here's the list of things he mentioned, in this order:

1. Slathering yourself with mineral oil and going out to sunbathe;
2. Smoking;
3. Butter;
4. Insulating your house with asbestos.

Soooo...butter is right up there on the evil list with skin cancer, lung cancer, and cancer-causing asbestos.

Wait...what?

BUTTER DOESN'T CAUSE CANCER, folks. That bizarre grouping is like listing butterflies alongside Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. People love to tote butter's high cholesterol and high fat content, and link it directly to obesity, as though butter is solely responsible for the nation's weight problems.

Know what really makes people fat? EATING TOO MUCH. That makes people fat. Butter doesn't make people fat. And sure, people with really bad heart problems might want to stick to vegetable products; but butter doesn't signal your arteries to start building fat walls within themselves. Now, consuming entire sticks in a sitting, that's bad (and gross). But having real butter on your toast, or real butter on your baked potato, isn't going to kill you. It's not going to make you obese. It's not going to give you cancer. It's not going to cause a heart attack (unless you're teetering on the verge of one already). It's just butter.

I also hold the strange minority opinion that one of the best ways to eat healthily is to consume moderate amounts of well-balanced, all-natural products (as all-natural as you can get them). And I don't mean "all-natural" in the way the FDA does. I mean foods with ingredients that you can only find in the natural world, where man had no hand in tweaking or processing the chemical makeup. I tend to shy away from these freaky substitute products that people have come up with in the past hundred years, where the long-term results are as yet unknown -- artificial sweeteners are a biggie. But so are "vegetable spreads."

Do you really know better? Take a look at the ingredient list on regular Land O'Lakes butter. It contains two things: sweet cream and salt. The ingredients list on I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, or any butter substitute, is much longer, and includes hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. We Grovers, if we dredge our memories enough, will come up with a few FitWell passages about the evils of hydrogenation. One of those evils: trans fats. Interestingly, incomplete or partial hydrogenation CREATES "trans fats"...and the FDA allows food producers to claim that their products contain "no trans fat," even if there are trace amounts of it within the products; the trans fat content just has to be below a certain percentage (according to Wikipedia -- fine, fine, yell at me for my sources -- if there is less than .5 grams per serving, you're allowed to call it 0). So margarines DO contain trans fats. They just don't have to tell you that. And trans fats have been implicated in heart disease just as much as cholesterol.

Yes, there are trace amounts of naturally occurring trans fats in dairy products. But evidently because they are naturally occurring, they are of a different (i.e. not synthetic) variety, and appear to be less unhealthy for you (though still not GOOD for you) -- and also occur in tiny percentages, as compared to the much larger percentages normally produced by the hydrogenation process.

Hydrogenation also transforms unsaturated fats into saturated or partially saturated fats; that's why margarines are solid at room temperature. So one of the criticisms leveraged at butter -- that it's a saturated fat, and those are bad bad bad for you -- becomes completely hypocritical from the margarine industries (which is why, I think, those blatant marketing bents have been disappearing. But the idea still lingers that butter has saturated fat and margarine doesn't. Wrong. Butter may have MORE saturated fat, but margarine's got it too). Oh, and let's not forget the kind of cholesterol present in margarines AS WELL as in butter: LDL cholesterol -- the "bad cholesterol." Since margarines contain saturated fat through the hydrogenation process, they also contain LDL cholesterol. Which is bad for heart disease.

So really, the only people who can claim their bread spreads are better for you than butter are the Italian restaurants who serve olive oil in its pure form for dipping. And if I have to choose between a fake saturated fat and a natural saturated fat, I'm going with the one man didn't screw around with, thank you very much.

Add to that the fact that the U.S. consumes much less butter than India, Germany, and France, and yet sports the world's biggest (haha) obesity problem, and you have to wonder, do you really know better? Is butter really so evil, just because a brand of margarine, attempting to sell itself, says so? If you moderate how much of it you consume, you're just as well off as if you use margarine, and you're also not putting into your body things that man-made processes have rendered artificial and potentially dangerous.

Besides, butter tastes better. The key, as always, is eating within a normal range of calories. If you do that, you can take a lesson from the non-obese French and eat as much butter or real cream or real sugar as you like...because in the end, you're not eating that much of it after all. And you'll have food -- real food -- that tastes like real food, and not hay.

So savor your butter. If you don't chow down on a whole stick in one meal, but limit your portions to reasonable amounts, why not go ahead and enjoy? Unless your doctor told you butter will kill you. Then you'd better listen.

Otherwise...it's just butter. And butter is just good.

ask not

I'm wearing tired like it's the hottest new fashion. My furnace was whistling like a tea kettle last night. My stove stopped working temporarily the night before. A snowmobiler was zooming around in what sounded like my front yard at midnight. My phrase for today is quoted from this shirt at the Engrish.com store: "Elvis is dead. Sinatra is dead. And me I feel also not so good."

And Heath Ledger is dead. I usually don't get all into celebrity news, but this one makes me sad. He kept his nose clean. He stayed out of the tabloids. He did a good job in all of his roles. His career was growing. And he was only twenty-eight.

I used to say of him, "He won't age well." At the time I was thinking of sagging jowls and graying hair; but I suppose it could also mean that he never seemed meant for old age. Which apparently turns out to be true.

And I was just talking the other day with Leigh Ann and we were reminiscing about his debut in Roar. And how we'd been following his career from the start. Two days later, he snuffs it.

I dunno. I didn't cry or anything. But I do feel sad. Now when I watch those movies of his that I own, I'll be thinking about how he's dead. And it will be weird.

And I feel really badly for his two-year-old daughter. Most people don't remember back to when they were two. She'll have such a strange way of reconnecting with a father she probably won't remember -- pop in his movies. Or maybe she won't.

Meanwhile crappy celebrities are blitzing their way through Hollywood in drunken drug-fogged orgies and schizophrenic breakdowns and callus promiscuity. And those are the ones that get noticed, and those are the ones that keep on living. Death is never fair, but this irony is pretty rancid. Although I guess one might say, if one were optimistic, that the really messed up ones need more chances. If one were less optimistic, one might retort that the really messed up ones are wasting the chances they have, and keeping your head down doesn't get you off the mortality hook, and that never makes sense. Not that many people really deserve to die anyway. But death is what we live with.

Headache today. I blame it on lack of sleep, which I blame on the rattly furnace vent in my bedroom, which has awakened me every hour on the hour every night for the past week, which results in mild exhaustion, which...

You get the idea. Yesterday I called the landlord about it, finally having reached a level of tiredness in which I could not forget why I was tired.

Starting to settle into my house though, and to enjoy being there.

The meds are kicking in. (Yay!) I'm going to bed earlier, getting up earlier, eating breakfast, and washing my dishes. All things I was beginning to think I had forgotten how to do.

Where's that Imatrex?

I want to make my excellent, improvised garlic rosemary bread. You bake it in terra cotta flowerpots. It's beautiful and scrumptious. I'll call that a Sunday goal, since it takes a long time.

i can't get no

My dating prospects are ever-increasingly-promising here in the small town where I live and work.

Last Friday Boss-Lady and I were out to the local restaurant for dinner and drinks when the owner of one of the local businesses approached us. This guy, in his late forties, is strapping and genial and talks endlessly of his horses. He's also a pretty bad flirt with anyone who has, or once had, ovaries. Boss-Lady and I always smile and make polite conversation in return for the drinks he buys us, and wait for him to go away. He's nice, but we have only so much input into the life and psychology of the equine species.

I've seen his son around town. Nice kid, well-mannered, gentlemanly in that small-town kind of way, around my age, quiet, but you can just see him thinking "little lady" as he offers to move this or that for you. Sweet guy. Maybe high school education. And fighting with his ex-girlfriend over their kids.

So when his dad came up to us at the restaurant, he had this "look." That dad-look that men get when they're talking to a young lady who interests their sons. He said that his kid thought I was really nice. I smiled and said he was a nice kid himself, and then Dad started hinting heavily that I should have Son "take me by the house to go horseback riding."

Oh no. I tried to put it off nicely, hem-hawing like girls do, but it evidently didn't work, because last night Boss-Lady was at the restaurant by herself and Dad asked her if I was interested in Son. She said she couldn't speak for me. (Thanks a lot. Now I have to be mean.)

Meg thinks I've got that reputation -- the one of that nice, single girl in town for whom the guys are setting their caps, that girl with whom fathers would love to see their sons, and don't mind saying so. "The Belle of the Burg," if you will. I think she's right.

I think it's funny, in that absurd sort of way. I need to make treks down to South Bend once in awhile to find men with college degrees, though; it's sort of rare around here. And it's not that the guys here aren't really nice, but I just don't see many fruitful conversations. They always run when they find out I like to read, anyway; might as well save the grief.

Oh yes -- for the record, I'm becoming Catholic. I decided in early December, having accepted the doctrine of the Eucharist. I've joined the parish RCIA class (they let me join late, seeing as I've gone through the preliminaries before), and Boss-Man is my supplementary teacher (since no one knows more about the Church than he does). For nearly the past two months, I've attended church every Sunday. Unexpectedly, I'm loving it. I just joined the choir (the director said, kindly, that they need help...which I've witnessed. It'll still be fun.)

Everything becomes final at Easter.

Boss-Man told me about a Labradoodle he heard about that I could have for free. I pointed out the harsh intrusive realities of an animal-hating cat, tiny house, and forbidding landlord. He tried to guilt-trip me. I told him everything would work if he would buy me a house, thus successfully shifting the blame. He accused me of being a girl. I still won.

moving on

Finally mourned my old apartment last night. I hadn't till then -- I was too tired, stressed, and forcing myself toward gratitude for the enormous change in circumstances. But the truth? I have missed my apartment. I lived there for two and a half years -- nearly the whole of my independent adult life -- and I made it into a lovely home. I had everything arranged perfectly; I loved the cast-iron, claw-footed bathtub; I dearly loved the wide-open, spacious, sunny kitchen; I enjoyed living on the second floor; I liked my large living room. The walls and the ceilings and the nooks and the crannies and I all got along very well together; the floor and wall space was expansive; it accommodated itself beautifully to all of my decorating ideas. I loved Saturday mornings in the peace and the emptiness.

My house is tiny. The windows all face the wrong directions for letting in light. The floor space barely exists and the walls are cramped. The kitchen is small and dark, the refrigerator weird. A dankness pervades all the rooms that I don't have enough money to heat really well to drive out.

Of course the biggest practical factor remains the change in environment: The house is safe. The apartment was not. I unquestionably love the lack of noise in my home that I don't create myself; I do not miss the television buzzes, loud parties, thundering footsteps on the stairs, and arguments that had become the norm in my apartment house, nor do I miss the break-ins, drugs, creepy people and broken security door. I love my wide, gracious front porch and the short drive to work, and I enjoy being able to sleep without ear plugs for the first time in...well, two and a half years (although the isolation itself can be problematic...the grass is always greener, right?).

But that's only the practical. The attachment was to the apartment itself, and I do miss that. Lacking a camera, I don't even have any pictures of the way it used to be.

Naturally in my nostalgia I forget how small and cramped the apartment was beginning to feel toward the end; I had grown tired of living in an apartment; I wanted a house. It would have felt a lot nicer had the events of my move not been so frenzied, chaotic, and swift; I had no time to grieve a little, or say goodbye.

So last night I grieved, and this morning I felt more kindly toward the house. It's not, and never will be, the apartment, which I still miss; and I don't plan to spend two and half years in it; I'm looking forward to home ownership, as soon as I can afford it. But it's still a good little place. I can do a lot with it; have already started to do a lot with it. And I think that the advent of summer and later light will cut down on the small-dank-and-dark feeling.

Everything's a process.

the little things

Tired today, but happy. I'm plowing through my RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults -- Catholic school) materials at a rate that astonishes me, mostly to stick it to my boss (who is my sponsor and supplemental instructor in this process), who thinks I'll be slower than I'm going to show him I am. Even twenty-six years into life, I'm still finding that spite is a great motivator. My brain enjoys the challenge, after twitching around in my skull virtually unused for the past (nearly) four years, getting mushy. As a result it is tired, along with my eyes, but fulfilled, like a nice big yawn and a stretch after a nap.

I also spent three hours this afternoon scrutinizing a couple of accounts at work. Not technically part of my job, but the fun thing about a small office is role-sharing. In that time slot, I hunted down a mistake that my then-colleague had committed eighteen months ago, which consequently screwed up two accounts. Meticulous, time consuming, frustrating...but oh-so-satisfying to decipher. Ah-HA. I found you. God, that colleague sucked.

Now it's time to close down the office and go grab a bite. Boss-Man's dog thinks he's alone in the office and is offering up a mournful litany of lonely complaints that sound mostly like howling. On some days when we all leave for lunch, we come back to an office that smells like dog breath. Neighbors say you can hear him all the way down the block. Cute dog, though. Standard poodle. Shy and talkative and klutzy and funny. Feet look too big for him, like a draft horse.

things perhaps and things above

The only things I long for more than the next, currently mythical Sufjan Stevens album are marriage and the Second Coming.

Which gets me thinking about the Second Coming and the hereafter, and remembering that someone (Dorothy Sayers? C.S. Lewis?) once said that in heaven all of the art which we attempt to render, with varying degrees of success, during our time on earth, will be awaiting us in perfection in heaven. Even the ideas that we never get on paper.

There's a danger in the self-comfort of that thought, of course -- rather like the danger of focusing so much on the hereafter that we neglect the now. Art still demands attention, work, craftsmanship, dedication and commitment -- right now. But it's nice to think that some of the things we can't make fly, the immature stuff that we discard every so often, will be made perfect themselves one day.

What really excites me, though, is the thought that perhaps every artistic conception of my favorite artists will there for my perusal and enjoyment, all the things they never released or got done. If such is the case, then heaven is going to have one enormous library of books and music and films, and one enormous art gallery. And we'll have the whole of eternity to go through them.

Broke two fingernails on a box of files today; since I lack nail clippers at the office, they're all scratchy. I'm writing letters to lawyers I've never met, sending them heavy envelopes that will necessarily go Priority Mail. After fourteen inches of snow the weekend before this, the weather turned warm and it's been raining the past two days without much stopping. The birds seem confused. I drove to Elkhart this morning to file the papers in the box that broke my nails, and which I'm sending with the letters to the lawyers I've never met. Didn't get lost. The snowblades on the wipers squeaked on the windshield. A perfect day to listen to Sufjan sing about Michigan and wish I could be in his chorus.

the story of my life

Yesterday the next-door neighbors' son asked me out to lunch.

To celebrate his forty-seventh birthday.

I kindly turned him down in favor of housecleaning. He came back anyway when he thought I wasn't looking to pour salt on my front step.

Sighhh.

home again, home again

It's back to Michigan and back to work for me.

I had a lovely Christmas with my folks, which was really, really nice. For the past couple of years Christmas hasn't felt like Christmas, and it's been...well, discouraging at the least, but more like a kind of headspin. I've always thrown myself into the Christmas spirit with a passion; this year I didn't decorate even a smidgen, and didn't bother with a tree. I guess it's one of the things about growing up I'll have to get used to. Nothing's the same anymore.

But still, I had a wonderful time at home, and wasn't quite ready to come back to my life. Thankfully it's only a two-day week at work, so the weekend draws nigh and I can dedicate a good portion of my time to housecleaning, which is top of the desperately needed to-do list.

The good thing about coming home, always, is Simon. There's something about having a pet who is completely and thoroughly Yours. My folks have three cats, one of which has been my favorite of the family kitties for years, and they were sweet and cute and delightful, but they weren't mine. I missed Simon. I missed his alert attention to everything I do, the way he comes and finds me when he's been doing something else for awhile, the way he comes to me when I call him, the way he stops whatever he's doing when I talk to him and rolls on the floor, the way he cuddles up to me at night, the way he shoves his head in my face and rattles my skull with his purr in the mornings. So coming home last night and seeing him was fantastic (he was purring so hard it choked him), and a nice balm to what has been a terrible grief of living in a house alone.

I'm looking forward to cleaning out the kitchen so that I can start my cooking again. Now that I have that wonderful meat cleaver, some of the recipes I had to shunt aside are now possibilities.

Now I just need a grill.

picture me with a slightly deranged grin.

I got a meat cleaver!!!

let all mortal flesh keep silence

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came from Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

~John 1:1-18 (NIV)

Allelu Yah.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded
For with blessing in His hand
Christ our God to earth descending
Comes our homage to demand.

King of kings yet born of Mary
As of old on earth He stood
God of gods in human likeness
In the body and the blood:
He will give to all the people
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way
As the light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At his feet the six winged seraph
Cherubim with sleepless eye
Veil their faces to the presence
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

I Wake to Grief, and Take My Waking Slow

I wake to grief, and take my waking slow.
The morning brings you no unfailing love;
I cannot tell you what I do not know.

I wish that I could tell you how to go,
that wisdom kills what longing cannot move;
but I wake to grief myself, and take it slow.

There ought to be some way for love to grow,
a releasing of celebratory doves –
but I cannot tell you what I do not know.

If I could bring you peace, dear heart, I’d show
you how many of your fears I could remove;
so I wake to grief, and take my waking slow.

My faith was something simple, long ago,
is simple still, but grown with pain enough
that I cannot tell you what I do not know.

The world parades its fancies in a glow
of farcical illusions none can prove;
and so I wake to grief, and take my waking slow.
I cannot tell you, love, what I don’t know.

* With acknowledgments to Theodore Roethke for the first (and repeated) line, and to W. H. Auden for the third (and repeated) line.

rrrrgh.

Med switches are the pits. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm not on the old crap. But I'm so tired and so irritable I can barely live with myself, and I'm not good for anything at the present moment.

Does it feel like it's almost Christmas to you? It doesn't to me. I thought the extra week we'd have, since Thanksgiving was early, would have me all in the mood and prepared. But I'm just not. I got all my shopping done, and now I need to wrap presents and bake cookies. And those little tasks feel just about insurmountable.

Auugggghhh. Help.

exhausted

I drove up to Ann Arbor yesterday to visit my general practitioner at the University of Michigan, and finally got some decent medical help.

Turns out my instincts weren't off track; Dr. Fine prescribed me regular Zyrtec again, so that my stomach doesn't need to go all haywire from a decongestant that I don't need. He also put me back on Wellbutrin, which I've used in the past and which has, at the very least, never given me bad side effects.

This past weekend was rough. I had stopped taking Cymbalta, which was actually kind of stupid, since with that antidepressant a person needs to be weaned off it, or suffer withdrawal; so I suffered withdrawal. But it was kind of a Scylla and Charybdis situation, because when I broke down and did take it on Saturday, I felt much worse. Bah.

So I spent most of the weekend an edgy, nervous wreck, popping Benadryl to calm me down. Fortunately I spent nearly all that time with my boss's family, so I had some support and distraction from how crappy I felt.

Today I'm just tired. The seven-hour round trip was a long drive, though worth it, and med switches are always interesting. My poor body doesn't know which end is up, and wants to spend the time curled up in bed. However, duty calls, so I'm going to plow through the day as best I can, and hit the hay super early tonight.

Good things are happening, though; last night for the first time in forever I actually cooked dinner -- an activity which I've sorely missed, but haven't had the energy to attempt. And it was nice to spend a quiet evening at home with my kitty -- he missed me while I was gone, and was all darling and sweet and purry. And so glad to have me back that he spent the night pressed as close to me as he could get, and patiently waited out my tossings and turnings.

My office has returned to its pigsty state, so cleaning it will be the focus of my activities today. And at some point, when I'm home, I really need to shovel out the driveway. My car bravely plowed its way out this morning, but I do need to clear the path, and I feel that the physical labor will do me good.

Yawn.

my life is a farcical drama

I've said many times that a lot of the events I undergo from time to time resemble something you'd watch on TV. Case in point:

Bad Apples, or, My Drama with the Doctor

I have been feeling poorly for quite some time -- since just before I moved, in fact. Granted, the stress of living in the Crack House would get to anyone, but it really took a nasty toll on my depression. Moving helped a little bit, but then, accounting for the stress of the move itself, the bulk of which I did alone (though I thank the Good God for the help I had with the heavy stuff), and then the following "settling in," which has taken forever due to the limited space in my new abode, the general stress of attending my beloved sister's lovely wedding, and the financial crunch I've been in, I've just felt down in the dumps since September.

The antidepressants I have been taking since April are no longer effective; I feel like the proverbial crap nearly all the time, and have recognized in my increasing agitation and horrible dreams (which didn't start till I began taking the stuff) a negative reaction to my medication. I had a bad reaction to an antidepressant before, and I can tell the difference between chemical and biological based on that experience (and a couple of others).

Not to mention some sort of stomach bug that has plagued me for a couple of weeks. It feels mostly like post-nasal drip, which, combined with the chemical stuff and the insomnia, have reduced me to a state of general mal-being.

So I made an appointment with my doctor. I happened to have made the appointment before the stomach troubles started, to do a med check, and then decided to include my recent illness when I got there.

Here's where things took a wild turn for the absurd.

When I first began seeing this physician, his staff informed me that if I were five or more minutes late, they would have to reschedule me. With that in mind, I prepared yesterday to leave twenty minutes early for the appointment to ensure a timely arrival. Unfortunately, the receptionist (who is generally wonderful, but doesn't always know how to handle new situations) paged me just as I was putting on my coat to pass me a new client call, and the person on the phone was in hysterics. Being that I'm in the business of people, I took the call, calmed the caller as best I could, and left immediately following my hanging up.

I called the doctor's office to let them know that I would be about three minutes late. They said that if I were any later than that, I would have to reschedule. I drove as quickly as I could, considering that all of the people in front of me had taken it into their heads to drive ten miles an hour below the speed limit. When the clock said I was four minutes late, I gave up, unhappily called the doctor's office to reschedule and then returned to the office.

My boss saw me upset when I returned, and, as he has taken me into a fatherly consideration generally, he decided to call the doctor's office to see if they could get me in that day anyhow.

There was an emotional explosion from the doctor's office. Although M'sieur had merely called to see if I could get an appointment that day, and requested nothing further, they alleged a HIPPA violation on his part, said he was requesting a disclosure of information (he wasn't), and threatened us with their attorney, regardless of the fact that I was standing right there and authorized them to talk to him once they started getting nasty. They were excessively discourteous.

Now, I understand confidentiality. I work for a lawyer. I have had relatives of clients call the office out of concern, and have always told them, kindly and courteously, why I could not disclose any information to them. But when anyone calls wanting to make an appointment for someone, I make the appointment. There's no confidentiality violation there. And if I'm ever in doubt, I let them know -- again, kindly and courteously. And nine times out of ten people respond well to what I tell them.

So their reaction was more than a little overboard. The escalation took me by surprise; however, they did arrange to see me that afternoon, through, I believe, their attorney.

Naturally I was upset and nervous about going there at all, but I did want my appointment. The staff there wouldn't speak to me, and then the doctor told me that because of that day's events, they could no longer keep me as a patient.

I had rather awful flashbacks to when I lost my job over a year ago -- the doctor's manner was exactly the same as the CEO back then: fakey-nice, falsely cheerful, patronizing, and insinuating that everything was my fault and I had inconvenienced the whole office and they simply couldn't keep someone who was as thoughtless and selfish as I was to throw off the whole schedule for the day. He also denied the five-minute window of lateness, and said I could have been ten or fifteen minutes late and it would have been fine, and they would have seen me if I had come in; he had nothing to say except to continue denying the five-minute rule when I informed him that that rule was given to me by his staff since my initial visit as a new patient, in addition to its reiteration by them that afternoon when I had first called. I became rather highly upset. I tried to tell him the problems I'd been having with my health, and his answer was immediately to prescribe an intensive medication used to treat bipolar disorder, to deal with what he called "an extreme episode" -- never mind that my state at the time was a direct result of the situation with his office.

I've always done my best to be an intelligent patient. I know my body and my state of mind better than anyone else, so I had a lot of things I wanted to tell him -- that my agitation seems chemical in nature, that I believe I've been having a bad reaction to my meds, that the dreams correlate with the start of my taking said meds, that I further believe my stomach problems stem from the allergy medication he prescribed, which contains a decongestant which I don't need, since I'm not congested. But he wasn't interested in listening (which of course upset me further; he wanted to treat all of my symptoms as psychological backwash when I believe they're not completely interrelated); he just wanted to get me out of there. He seemed worried enough about my emotional state, made an appointment for me for today, and asked if I were going to do "anything stupid" that night. I curtly assured him I wouldn't.

I never respond well to injustice. I firmly believe that if my boss hadn't had "attorney" in front of his name, their reaction would have been more polite. And any doctor's office that responds that badly to an attorney isn't one I want to have treating me. It raises my suspicions regarding whether they've had problems in the past.

So, although the doctor said he wouldn't "let me go" until "we've gotten through this," I canceled my appointments for today and Monday (pleasantly, I might add. They'll never be justified in saying that I was rude). I don't want to see him again. And I'd rather be the one to make the call to leave, and not wait for them to say, "Okay, you seem better now, so..." No thanks. I don't trust his medical judgments at this point; I was being treated as a problem, not a patient, and I will not be taking that bipolar medication, when all I needed was a simple med switch, and when I've been wondering if it's time to stop taking antidepressants at all, if my reaction to the meds which helped me when I first started taking them is my body telling me, no more; you're all right now. Depression has been situational for me historically anyway; I was on antidepressants temporarily in college, and then, through the course of therapy, taken off them altogether, and didn't have to start taking them again until things began going downhill at the Center. But these are things the doctor didn't seem willing to discuss.

Furthermore, he seemed on board with the way his staff had handled the situation, and I won't be treated by a facility that sees fit to be so incredibly discourteous to someone who cares about my wellbeing, even if they aren't sure they can talk to him.

Altogether, the events of yesterday were insane. But at least life is never boring. I figure that something like this would have come up eventually, and on the whole, I'd prefer to find out now rather than later. I haven't been impressed lately with the doctor's treatment anyway. So it seems Providence took a step in and gave me a nudge.

The general physician I've seen before at the University of Michigan has scheduled me for an appointment on Monday, and I look forward to seeing him. He's top of the line, pleasant, courteous, competent, and enjoys my input.

Oh yes; and my boss is the one who e-mailed him to ask if he could see me soon. Rather than freak out over bogus HIPPA violations, he had his staff call me to get me in. Nice, eh?

And I'm feeling, though tired and worn out from yesterday, in a decent frame of mind today. Bless my parents, and my bosses. They've been extremely supportive.

So there you have it, folks. The continuation of my strange little life.

insomnia

Something doesn't want me to sleep.

It's been going on like this for months. Every night I have completely insane dreams about people I haven't seen in years, full of uncertainty and worry and all sorts of negative emotions, then I wake up two or three times throughout the night, then I can't fall back asleep, then the house starts making bizarre noises that wake me up again once I do.

Last night I took a Benadryl and went to bed at 9:30, dead tired and hoping for a little rest. But every hour on the hour my furnace kicked on and made loud rattling noises that woke me instantly, I was too hot, then too cold, I couldn't fall asleep again, my dreams got worse when I did, and then the furnace kicked back on.

And of course, this morning the furnace was quiet as a purring kitten.

But hey, the shadows under my eyes look artistic.

the new Christmas spirit, part 14

I'm running this one backward to save bytes. You all know how it goes.

The (New) Twelve Days of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
twelve break-up speeches
eleven bland excuses
ten busy signals
nine days of silence
eight awkward kisses
seven nervous stutters
six shy glances
five cell phone rings!
Four doctored photos
three romance surveys
two stilted emails
and a nudge on eHarmony!

more home improvements

So my house stories bore you. Too bad. :) I have nothing else of particular interest to report, and I'm currently obsessed with nesting, so there you have it. I'm not sorry not to have horrific mouse stories or psychotic neighbors or anything else to relate, although those sorts of things are certainly more entertaining than tales of my sewing conquests.

Come to think of it, though, here are a couple of things that aren't totally dull:

1.) An eighty-year-old woman died in my bedroom a number of years ago. The house, however, radiates peace, so I believe she didn't suffer.

2.) My basement is hung with merry curtains of cobwebs which give me the dry heaves, so I never use it.

3.) This past weekend I found a cigarette butt on the path leading from my porch to the car. I didn't put it there. The middle-aged son of my next-door neighbors is a little odd, so I suspect he was standing out there in the evening looking in my one blindless living room window. That's my best guess. I don't feel threatened or anything, just mildly nauseated. I hung miniblinds to take care of that issue.

Onto the boring stuff!

I have crowned myself the Curtain Queen. They're all finished. Red curtains for my study, gorgeous linenesque yellow-green curtains for my bathroom. Which meant I was able to hang the remaining curtains in my bedroom. Altogether, it looks lovely. The study is transformed from a hideous spare room into a place of relatively cozy comfort. The bedroom is perfect (aside from one glaring empty white wall, but I'll be hanging a large picture to alleviate that). The living room is picked up and vacuumed, the dishes are washed.

All I have left is the general lightweight clutter. In a house as small as mine, even the slightest bit of clutter on any floor or flat surface makes the whole place look completely messy, since there isn't much open space to make it look as small as it really is. Which means I'll have to be the consummate housekeeper.

I wish my kitchen weren't so ugly. Maybe I'll paint the cupboards.

And I have to set up my computer. Now that the study isn't blugh, I want to be able to take up my writing again.

hobbit hole

This weekend I finally pulled the stops out and worked hard on my house.

I moved all of the stuff that I had been storing in the study through the adjoining door into the garage.

I rearranged furniture in the study to accommodate my antique rocking chair, so that I didn't have to, as I thought I would, store it in the garage as well.

I looked at and seriously hated the hideous door connecting the study to the garage, which takes up a lot of the end wall of the narrow room and makes the whole thing look incredibly tacky. That door is made of the cheapest possible material which has obviously splintered, and looks like it was unceremoniously forced into the jamb. Altogether so ugly it's depressing. So I dug out a set of garnet sheets that Boss Lady had given me, ripped out the stitches on the top ends, ran a spare curtain rod through it (one that I had saved from when I made my living room curtains in the spring, but it was too wide for the windows and I never throw anything away that I can help), trimmed the bottom, grabbed my portable sewing machine, sewed a quick seam, mounted the curtain rod's hardware, and hung the curtain over the door. I then placed an antique captain's chair in front of it -- light enough for quick and easy moving when I want to use the door, but heavy enough to lend a sense of permanence to that end of the room. The dark red curtain gives the room a little splash of elegance, covers the ugly door, and traps the cold draft running in around the badly fitted edges.

I retrieved a very long, wrought iron curtain rod I've had lying around for a year or so and a designer shower curtain bestowed upon me by Boss Lady, forced the curtain onto the rod, and mounted it over my wide, doorless bedroom closet. It's a good closet, but a closet is a closet and viewing its innards from the rest of the room gave the bedroom a sort of unwanted ghetto chic. The curtain goes with the colors in the room and gives the room a sort of finished touch. It's stiff enough not to float around on the breeze of the heating vent and to act almost as a door itself when one ducks around it.

I solved the dual dilemma of what to do with this lovely antique suitcase I had bought as a bed for Simon which he never uses, and what to do with all the little stuffed animals people keep giving me (I refused to buy one of those horrible stuffed animal nets that hang from the ceiling, and at the same time, at the age of twenty-six, I also refused to pile them all over the bed). I opened the suitcase, which has a lovely red sateen lining, set a potted plant in one corner, and arranged the stuffed animals around the plant. It's sitting on one of my dressers in the bedroom and looks a lot more adult and nicely whimsical.

I cleaned the entire bedroom. I put away all the clothes, picked up all the clutter, and vacuumed. The result: beautiful. Finally, a finished room. Simon spent the entirety of yesterday in it.

That was only Saturday. Yesterday I went shopping for a few necessaries, which included a seam ripper. I took the fitted sheet from the garnet set and ripped out all the stitches (which took forever), then trimmed it into a square and cut out panels for curtains in the study windows to match the curtain over the door. I hemmed all the panels and cut out strips to sew into loops which I will attach to the top of the panels and through which I will run the curtain rods. These will give the study its final touch, and grant me some much-needed privacy, as I am uncomfortable sitting in lighted rooms at night into which anyone outside can see.

So I made a lot of progress yesterday which two months in a depressive funk had, till this weekend, prevented. Somehow it was much easier with Christmas music playing in the background.

Tonight: finish the curtains, wash a few more dishes, and hang a miniblind over the last bare living room window. Also cook dinner (creamed chicken and biscuits. Heavenly).

by the heels

A legal secretary's life makes for some interesting experiences. Foremost on my list at the moment is skirting the antiquated practices of the Indiana filing system.

See, nearly all basic Indiana forms -- minute sheets (required for all filings; since the clerks don't like actually flipping through documents to determine what they are, every filing requires a minute sheet detailing what the filing is), summonses, subpoenas, attorney's appearances -- are given to the attorney's office in advance and the secretary, or attorney, has to fill them out manually. This means with a typewriter. So, each time one of these forms needs filing, I have to type, over and over, the case name, the case number, the Court number, and then the body of the text.

This wastes a considerable amount of my time. Michigan rallied itself to twenty-first century technology and put all of its basic forms in computer format. If my boss only practiced law in one state, I probably wouldn't notice or mind; but the juxtaposition of 2007 and 1955 wriggles under my skin.

I've done a few things with office forms already; my boss is an old-fashioned guy, and many of the internal office forms that we use had to be done manually as well. Late this summer I grew tired of using the typewriter for every little thing, and so I took the forms that we had and designed them in the computer. Now the clerical work goes MUCH faster.

So my challenge lately has been designing all of the Indiana forms in the computer as well. I actually enjoy doing it -- there's something about the organization required, and the perfection of getting every detail just right, that satisfies my little Virgo soul. I've had a lot of fun creating all of these forms from a single table, splitting or joining table cells as necessary, and locking the permanent ones in so that all I have to do is tab from one typing cell to another.

They actually look pretty great. My boss prefers to use the typewriter himself, so he wasn't that impressed, but I'm excited for my sake. Now I can save a bunch of minute sheets as master forms for each case and save myself the typing of every caption every time I have to use one.

One of the things I love about our computer-oriented generation is that it doesn't require much training to figure stuff out; all I did when I first started playing with WordPerfect (I know, most computer people hate WordPerfect, but I have found it to be rather easy to work with, if a little outmoded and unreliable in some respects) was go to the Michigan forms and hit a lot of buttons to see how they'd done their work, and then I was able to reproduce it in my own documents.

Brain surgery? No, of course not. But these are little things I like to do to ease my own tasks. I find them tremendously fulfilling. And I laugh at myself when I find that I'm procrastinating on work by doing other work. One of the signs of loving your job, I guess.

a consumer's priorities

Dear CVS:

I would like to applaud you for the many efforts you make to enhance the lives of your customers. Your pharmaceutical staff in particular are all extremely helpful, polite, kind, and gifted with excellent senses of humor. I tip my metaphorical hat to you in regard to this phenomenal accomplishment.

I also appreciate the efforts you make to provide consumers with your own generic equivalents of name brand products. While I wouldn't call you, exactly, a cheap date, you're far more affordable than many of the name-brand products you carry. As my pocketbook is tight, I certainly appreciate the option to purchase less expensive, though no less in quality, products.

I must, however, point out the singular reason why I elected not to purchase your product equivalent to Vaseline Intensive Care Body Lotion last night. I was standing in front of the lotions debating on the prices, and noticed your store brand, equal, you said, to Vaseline Intensive Care Advanced Healing. As I like this lotion, but couldn't find the name brand on the shelf, I was deliberating on whether to purchase your brand, or the Vaseline Intensive Rescue, which I hadn't tried before but looked similar. In order to compare them, I picked up your bottle of lotion and turned it to the back to read the product description.

I was, I must confess, disappointed, CVS. Your product description was looking good, until my dismayed eyes stumbled on the words. You wrote, "It's healing effects [do such and such] to relieve..."

CVS, I have a degree in English. But I never needed that degree to distinguish between "its" and "it's." These are, I must say, relatively elementary concepts for professionals. "Its" is an adjective, CVS. A possessive. "It's" is a contraction abbreviating "it is." Clearly your product description contained an error that should have been caught by someone long before it went to print on your bottles. I would have thought that you would have people in marketing paid for just this sort of thing.

In the end, therefore, I chose to give Vaseline my money. Of course you made a profit on it, and I do not begrudge you that; you are, as I said before, an excellent company with a pharmacy that I have yet to see outranked in terms of promptness and service. But I do admit that I expected a little more from you in terms of marketing grammar based on that reputation for excellence.

This is not written to lambaste you or to call you a poor company; I will certainly continue frequenting your branch in Granger. I simply felt obligated to point out an error that denotes a certain lack of attention in one of your departments, and thus connotes a slip in professional language, or even a lack of education, which is extremely unfortunate for you, and, I confess, makes me feel a bit disappointed and even sad.

You may, in future, want to have someone with experience regarding and a vast knowledge of the English language and its rules to oversee what you print on your labels. It's an important facet in your sales.

Yours very warmly,

Sarah

the new Christmas spirit, part 13

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
Thy leaves are so unchanging
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
Thy leaves are so unchanging
Thou represent’st my single state
That year to year doth not abate.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
They leaves are so unchanging.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
O wilt thou not appease me?
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
O wilt thou not appease me?
I long to hold somebody tight
Before thy glowing colored lights
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
O wilt thou not appease me?

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
Thou twinklest so brightly
O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree
Thou twinklest so brightly
Thou art a beacon, bright and clear
That my true love is drawing near
O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree
Thou twinklest so brightly

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
I love thee for thy comfort!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
I love thee for thy comfort!
Thou bringest back the memory
Of childhood and family
O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree
I love thee for thy comfort!

the new Christmas spirit, part 12

Deck the halls with mistletoe
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Kiss someone that you don't know
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Don we now that date apparel
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Troll the Christmas single's carol
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

See the scotch and wine before us
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Strike the bar and join the chorus
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Follow me in merry measure
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Flirt in hopes of Christmas pleasure
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

Fast away old failure passes
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Hail new love, ye lads and lasses
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Sing we hopeful all together
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
For romance that time will weather
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

the new Christmas spirit, part 11

Here we come a-matchmaking among the neon green
Here we come a-clubbing, so better to be seen
Love and joy come to you
and to you that romance too
And God bless you and send you a date this year
And God send you a date this year.

We are not nightly drunkards that vomit on your floor
But we are lonely singles whom you have seen before
Love and joy come to you
and to you that romance too
And God bless you and send you a date this year
And God send you a date this year.

the new Christmas spirit, part 10

Have yourself a single little Christmas
pet your cat tonight
From now on let your troubles all be out of sight

Have yourself a single little Christmas
scratch your kitty’s chin
What companion could you ever want but him?

Once again as in recent days, good and decent days of yore
That faithful pet who is dear to you draws a tear from you once more

Through the years you both will be together
since the Fates allow
He will eat the tinsel while you laugh aloud
So have yourself a single little Christmas now

the new Christmas spirit, part 9

(See comments to Part 6 for parts 7 & 8.)

I’m dreaming of a hitched Christmas
It must be just around the bend
Where the bed is queen-sized, the house is dream-sized
And cuddles on the couch will never end.

I’m dreaming of a hitched Christmas
with each love-and-diamond TV glitch
May your days be merry and rich
and may all your Christmases be hitched.

the new Christmas spirit, part 6

This one's written in earnest. I love you, Mom and Dad.

P.S. Think of "Tender Tennessee Christmas."

Back-at-Home Christmas

Come on, fortune slip, tell me of romance strong and bright
Can’t you hear the prayers of every single heart tonight?
Match.com’s calling, Christmas love falling, somebody said it’s true and deep
But it doesn’t matter, joy's not a ladder
I’m gonna choose to keep

Another tender back-at-home Christmas, the only Christmas for me
Where the love circles around me like the gifts around our tree
Well I’m told there’s more gold in a man’s hand to hold than alone I will ever see;
but a tender back-at-home Christmas is the only Christmas for me.

Every now and then I get a wand’ring urge to see
Maybe New York City, lots of singles there like me
There’s a parade there, I’ll have it made there
Bring home a guy for New Year’s Eve
Sure sounds exciting, awfully inviting, still, I think I’m gonna keep

Another tender back-at-home Christmas, the only Christmas for me
Where the love circles around me like the gifts around our tree
Well I’m told I’m not bold, that love has no foothold, it’s a lonely way to be;
but a tender back-at-home Christmas is the only Christmas for me.

Well I’m told there’s more gold in a man’s hand to hold than alone I will ever see;
But a tender back-at-home Christmas is the only Christmas for me.

the new Christmas spirit, part 5

Sleigh Ride

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, whee!
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!
Outside the snow is falling, the weather is calling to me;
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!

Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup, I’ll go!
I’ll soak in the show
I’m riding in a wonderland of snow
Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup it’s grand
With a frostbitten hand
I’m riding along to the song of a wintry fairyland!

My cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy am I
I’m huddled down in the sleigh bed like a nice little daybed outside!
I’ll take that road before me and tell a story or three
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!

There’s a party somewhere for all of the married folks
But I’ll head down to the pub for some cold beers and smokes
I’ll be singing the songs I love to sing without a single stop
While across my sweater the Guinness will slop – slop slop slop!

There’s a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy
When I’m hit on by a really old and bearded guy
It’ll really be like a picture print by Vincent Van Gogh
These wonderful things are the things that set my heart aglow!

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, whee!
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!
I’ll take that road before me and tell a story or three
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!

the new Christmas spirit, part 4

This one's bitter.

The (New) Christmas Song

Dinner heating in the microwave
Jack Frost nipping at my nose
Money gone that no skinflint can save
Kinda hope the choir members froze

Everybody knows
Christmas specials and some mistletoe
Give me thoughts of suicide
In my bed stemming tears as they flow
I sleep alone and wish I’d died

If only Santa on his sleigh
Would bring me my true love gift-wrapped on his sleigh
But instead I know, deep down, that I
Will toast my parents’ health and try hard not to cry.

And so I’m offering this simple phrase
To all us single gals tonight
Although it’s been said, many times, anyways:
Merry Christmas – we’re all right.

the new Christmas spirit, part 3

Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’?
In the lane snow is glistening
A beautiful sight, I’m happy tonight
Walking in a winter wonderland

Gone far hence is the sparrow
On a fence is a scarecrow
He’s single like me, but I’m warmer than he
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow I can build a snowman
and pretend that he is Parson Brown.
He’ll say, “Are you married?” I’ll say, “No, man!
I’m happy hitting bars all over town!”

Later on I will slouch in the crook of the couch
I'll stifle a groan, 'cause it’s better alone,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

the new Christmas spirit, part 2

C'mon! Celebrate!


Oh the weather outside is frightful
But my cat is so delightful
And since I’ve no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Oh it doesn’t show signs of stopping
And my knitting keeps me hopping
The heat is turned way down low
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

While I watch TV every night
I eat Stouffers and drink cheap wine
No one calls me but I’m all right
'Cause everything I have is mine!

Oh the evening is slowly dying
But I never (really!) thought of crying
'Cause in the morning, to work I’ll go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

for the papercut in paradise, for the lizard skins in ypsilanti

Winter is here, and I don't know about you-all, but that means papercuts. Horrible nasty ones, like all the papers are lying in silent wait until that one moment you're not paying quite good enough attention, and they metamorphosize into knives and slice your skin to the bone.

For years I tried everything I could think of. The best, thickest, creamiest lotions, from every brand-name store I could imagine. My pocket money ran out, and the papercuts ran on. My hands began to look like I spent my free time arm-wrestling with cats or weeding briar patches or juggling razor blades.

Until I found it. Or, rather, received it in my Christmas stocking. Santa, aka Mom, was smart.

I got a little plastic tube of Vaseline.

Papercuts betware! Petroleum jelly is your Kryptonite!

Ladies and gents, this stuff is magic. And if you buy it at Wal-Mart from the travel section, a tube costs you only ten cents. If you object to Wal-Mart, you can go to CVS for a slightly bigger tube at a dollar-fifty. A little tube lasts for months; "a little dab'll do ya," as my mom says; and it's also usable on chapped lips or other parts of the body, like elbows and heels. It provides a protective coat that doesn't soak all the way into your skin and doesn't dry out and doesn't go away unless you wash your hands. It's scentless, so if you're like me and hate all the fission-powered scents out there that rock into your nostrils and blow your sinuses apart like atom bombs, you're safe. This is the perfect skin care tool.

Of course, there's probably something deadly and terrible about it that will give me cancer of the fingers in thirty years. But in the meantime, my paper cuts have diminished by something outrageous like ninety percent. My pocketbook isn't gasping from the punishing prices of Bath & Body Works. And my hands look like hands again.

the new Christmas spirit

Unattached for the holidays, hooray! But because every Christmas song has to do with boring old-hat things like love, companionship and family, I thought I'd add my own touch...


Dashing through the snow
in a one-horse open sleigh
o’er the fields I go
screaming all the way
Bobtail’s bells don’t ring
The reins are quite a fright
I don’t know how to drive this thing
but at least I’m out tonight!

Chorus
Single bells, single bells
single all the way
O what fun it is to ride
in a cold two-person sleigh!
(Repeat)

A day or two ago
all the couples took a ride
just because I lived solo
didn’t mean that I would hide!
I was feeling pretty swank
till the traces came undone
I flew into a drifted bank
and walked back home alone! Hey!
(Chorus)

settled

It's winter again. Outside it's cold and snowing, and on my walk to the post office to get the office mail I realized that I really need warmer shoes, so, despite my renewed hatred of shopping, particularly at this time of year, it looks like a trip to Ye Olde Malle looms inevitably in my immediate future.

I enjoy the cold. I love the briskness of the stark clear nights when every wisp of humidity has evaporated into the freezing atmosphere and you can see every star. I love the heavy snowfalling air on the swirl days, when visibility retreats shivering to the end of your nose. I really love that I live less than five minutes away from my job -- though I don't love the nagging knowledge that I'll have to shovel a path across the yard to my car in the mornings. But it's winter, it's snowing, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, and it's so much better this year than last year when we were wearing T-shirts until January. This feels normal. It feels right.

It also reminds me that I've been at this job for just over sixteen months, and it's hard for me to believe I've ever worked anywhere else. I came in this morning after our Thanksgiving break ready to rock and roll, and I've already accomplished a bunch of little things around the office, and I'm preparing to roll up my sleeves and dig into the paperwork. I like getting up in the morning and coming to work. The office is always fast-paced, the clients are usually irritating, a lot of the attorneys are rude, but the fly-around stress is enjoyable for all of that. When I go home at the end of the day, I feel that I've done something.

I have grown up with the knowledge that I never wanted to enter the business world. I don't like all the phone calls and the emails, the ladder climbing and the futile ambition -- I don't like career. My bent has always been toward writing and the arts, which, sadly, no longer pay the bills. When I decided against teaching and decided against grad school, I felt a little lost, a little desperate -- I knew I didn't belong in the fields I had rejected, but I knew also that I didn't want a business career, and I didn't know where that left me.

So I bounced around just paying the bills. Looking back, I can't quite believe I did what I did, working nine months doing two part-time jobs in basic retail without health insurance -- I would never, ever do that again. But I learned so much, and really came into my own then, and I'm glad I chose it, and glad too that God was so vigilant and gracious during that year, and the years that followed.

I was so unhappy in my job doing events at the Center. It was everything I hated about business, combined with a whole lotta other crap I've blogged about before. But even without the negative environment and the nastiness and the conniving and the politics, I just didn't like the job. But I felt well and truly stuck -- what else was I supposed to do?

And now I'm here. I do secretarial work, sure, and it's not glamorous and there's no ladder-climbing, which matters to some people, but it's important work, it's stable, and I love it, and I love my bosses. I can't imagine doing anything else. I am fairly certain, as certain as one can be in life, that I'm going to be here for a long number of years, and that thought energizes me.

The bottom line is, I'm proud of my job. I hear people sneer at it when they think I can't hear, or demean other people in secretarial positions in my presence ("so-and-so is only a secretary"), and I know plenty of others who hold back the criticisms like levvies hold back the sea even if they don't say anything, who think I'm wasting my time and talents doing menial labor when I could be doing something so much better. These people don't have to say anything; their opinion comes screaming across the emotional barometer like a hurricane-force wind, even as they say faintly, "Well, I'm glad you're happy..." while their eyebrows contradict the idea that my happiness in such a job is even possible, any more than my happiness as a prostitute would be possible.

But I'm proud of my job. It takes a lot of mental acuity to do it well, and a great deal of attentiveness to someone else's style and someone else's needs, and a knowledge of someone else's habits to the point where I can know what he's going to need, whether a document or a file or a cup of coffee or someone on the telephone, before he knows it himself. It takes a tremendous amount of skill, a deft application of known factors and creativity, to make oneself an invisible presence of crucial importance for the smooth functioning of an office. And I can do just that. I can be there at his elbow with a cup of my excellent coffee just when he's becoming cognisant that he wants some, I can put the files for his next appointment on his desk and he never notices, I can have received a telephone call from some company we subpoenaed saying one little phrase was wrong and have it corrected and ready for him to sign before he even gets the message, I can receive entered orders back from the Court and have them served on all the interested parties before he's even seen the mail.

I can also get away with a lot. I know how he works, and so I know how to interrupt him when he's busy with something important. I can bug him about certain phone calls or documents that need to be made. I can make suggestions that he ordinarily wouldn't consider, and he'll consider them. In short, we work well together, and it's usually fun, and almost always rewarding.

If he were a horrible boss, the job would be thankless and wretched. But he notices, he always thanks me for everything, so my bid to be invisible never quite works -- which makes it, therefore, a challenge, a goal...and a cheerfully sneaky one.

And I'm smart. There are a lot of dumb secretaries out there. I've met them. Dumb and drab. But he's leaving more and more of the documents in my hands, giving me less and less instruction, and it's because, as he told me early on in the job, "You have a brain and you use it."

I'm no lawyer, but I'm getting snatches of the law, and it's fun and interesting, though nothing I'd choose for my own career. I like where I am, much as I liked chiefing makeup crew in my college theater days -- it's background work, but it's no less important for all that. And I prefer making others' performances possible.

I also have the opportunity to connect with other background workers like myself. Some of them are truly fantastic, and the ones who aren't make themselves the butt of good jokes. The really good ones know their place, know that they're not the lawyer or the judge, but know even better that the lawyer or the judge couldn't do his/her job without that competent, friendly secretary taking care of the small stuff.

So where I am is perfect for me. I'm paying the bills doing work I enjoy and believe in. And meanwhile I have plans for my computer and my fingers and the words and stories that flashpoint through my busy brain, and those aren't career goals; they're Alpine ambitions, divine callings, and I do keep the two separate, and they fit interestingly well together, like pieces of an insane puzzle that match just as your head is starting to ache and your eyes begin to cross.

So for the time being, here I stay, well and proudly.

worried friends

If I don't check in with John about once a week, hilarity ensues. Here's a voicemail left for me this weekend:

Oh where oh where could my Sarah be?
Oh where oh where could she beee?
She might be missing and I would be sad
Oh where could Sarah be?

If I don't hear from her in twenty-four hours
I'm gonna call the policeandmakeamissingpersons repoooorrrrt
Oh call me back or I will be blue
Oh Sarah please call meee!

After I laughed till I coughed, I played it for all of my friends. And I called him back.

office machinery

Copier and I are having issues today.

I've learned over the past year, mostly, how to deal with its quirks and foibles. I've learned the appropriate moments for sweet-talking it, the appropriate moments for threatening it, and the appropriate moments for dousing it with curses. I know how to push down the back hinge so the paper won't jam feeding through, and how to grab the paper with the speed of lightning if I forget to push down the hinge. I know how to fiddle with all its knobs and dials with the smooth skill of a nurse or a horse doctor.

But today we're having problems, Copier and I. It doesn't have a name yet because it keeps switching genders. I'll have to pick a gender-neutral name for it...one that is easily switched from male to female. But for now it's just Copier.

And it HATES me. Today it's pseudo-jamming -- not actually jamming but you can't convince the machine of that, so it shuts itself down and I have to wait three minutes for it to come back on before I can continue copying the massive depositions that I need to get filed and served on the other counsel today. This will of course involve a drive to Court in this bleary head-fogging weather, and I can't get moving until fricking Copier decides to get these things copied without acting like a Pomeranian forced into cold muddy snow.

It's a very familial relationship, this one. I hate the copier passionately, call it all sorts of foul names and threaten it with all sorts of grisly ends, but let anyone else in the office criticize my Copier and I bristle and call it my baby.

Guess I just get lonely in my office and need something to talk to.

Gah! It just jammed again. *$^&%*@^.

Harboring a vendetta against the electric company really gets you nowhere. It's not as if you can change service, so if they screw up, they don't care. The best you can do is use as little electricity as possible.

This is a monopoly in practice. And this is why monopolies are bad. What am I going to do, go Plain?

But I WILL turn off the lights every time I leave a room.

home improvement

Yesterday I washed all my dishes. They really needed washing -- I was running out of them altogether. (Yes, yes, put me in a new environment and I celebrate by living in squalor.) I then tackled my bedroom and hung the ginormous mirror, the little wall shelves, and the pictures. It looks more like my room now.

This move has taken a lot out of me. It's been quite a month. I moved under extreme duress, had only ten days to get all my stuff out of the apartment and into the house, got it done, took no time off from work to do so, went to the Cayman Islands for Laura's (gorgeous, perfect) wedding which involved my first flights (and those out of the country too, fortunately to a laid-back English-speaking island, whee!), and then back home for much sleep and recovery.

So with all of that activity, I'm bushed on all life-facets. Physically, emotionally, mentally exhausted. I'm told that this pervasive fatigue is part of the job here, since this is, after all, my first full year working at the office, and the job's constant demands and high pace tend to drain your resources so that you're staggering around blearily by the year's end. Between Friday and Sunday I got 24 hours of sleep, and I'm still backpedaling.

Which makes me very, very glad for coffee. I stood in my sparkling kitchen yesterday vainly admiring my own coffee as it sat in the glass French press, so perfectly black that I couldn't see through it even when I held it up to the light. So strong that it banished caffeine deprivation headaches instantly, and woke the soul with the aroma of life.

I'm in charge of coffee-making at the office, too (I know what you're thinking. Don't even pretend you're not thinking it), and that mostly because I'm such an unforgivable elitist that I can't stand anyone else's coffee and have ground down (haHA) the system of the office drip-maker to pure perfection through careful trial and error. And when you hold the pot up to the bright window (or as bright as it gets here these gray November days when there are only like four hours of daylight), you can't see through the gorgeous liquid, so dark it blurs the lines that distinguish brown from black.

Ahh. Monday's best pacifier. Coffee.

Tonight I plan to drag my tired ass home, after finally working up the energy to trek to the stores in Mishawaka on my quest for home necessities like curtain-hanging hardware. And trash bags. It's so easy now to put off whatever I don't screamingly need, because I can get the absolute necessities at the teeny grocery store in town. It's so easy to live my whole life in Michigan just because I don't want to drive down to Indiana. But one must eventually break out of Hobbiton to get those modern goods.

I'm running out of nails, too. Lots of pictures have been hung. And my house is starting to look, a little bit, like home.

old made new

This morning sometime between five and seven I was awakened by the sound of a gunshot.

In my old apartment, I would have mentally bolted upright (though physically remained inert) and tried to calculate how far away the shot came from and listened intently for the wailing of sirens indicating police involvement and therefore the commitment of a crime. I would have sweated in bed until I knew that things had calmed down. I may have arisen and sneaked about my apartment in the dark, clutching Patsy (my shotgun) and peering out the windows.

(Note: Many of you probably already know this, but in the event that you don't: If there's something dangerous going on outside, or you're worried that something dangerous is going on outside, turn off your lights. If you have to look out your windows, make sure your house is completely dark before you do. It increases your ability to see outside, and hugely decreases anyone's ability to see in. Staying away from the windows is better, but a darkened house is always a good idea. Show your face in the window with a light on, even if the light is in another room, and you present a wonderful target.)

This morning, however, I dragged one eye open and concentrated for a second before groggily thinking, "November fifteenth. Oh yeah. First day of hunting season." And went right back to sleep.

Small town living is the best -- I'm so unconcerned for my physical safety (though, yes, I still lock all my doors; I'm not that unconcerned) that I allow my rational brain to kick in before plunging into a world of instinct and my years of training as a cop's daughter.

And where I'm living is closely on the border of country living, so there are always people in the woods. Even the horses across the street were unconcerned by the shot reports. And the cops might be the ones taking a day off to go hunting.

Bodily Betrayal

I can't tell you how many euphemisms we have heard or invented over the years. Here's a shortlist of where I am today...

1. Entertaining Aunt Flo.
2. Surfing the crimson tide.
3. On the rag.
4. Enduring That Time of the Month.
5. On my cycle.
6. Cramping it.
7. Internally bleeding.
8. Under the influence of the moon.
9. Suffering from the Silent/Woman's Curse.
10. Going through the monthlies.
11. DYING.

I love being a woman. But I do dread the monthly moments when my whole body turns on itself like a bad allergy and plunges me into a whole lotta pain. It's like all the alarms and wires are going off: Fatigue, nausea, gastrointestinal misery, bloating, cramps, bad skin, bad dreams, swollen feet, headaches, absentmindedness, depression, irritability, lower back pain, hot flashes, feverishness, lightheadedness, sluggishness. All for one little unfertilized cell.

Ridiculous. Insane. Yesterday I barely spoke to anyone, because anything I did say sounded bitchy and edgy, and I wasn't even mad. There's nothing rational about this, and nothing controllable; you just feel miserable and the mood swings are abrupt and puzzling.

But that's part of being a woman too: learning to roll with it, trying not to be horrible to people, and understanding that whatever you're feeling is all hormonal.

Biological persecution. Blah.

Speaking of cycles, though, reminds me of a conversation I had with friends over the summer as we walked through a park along the polluted St. Joe River and made fun of my former place of employment. The place was in the process of changing its longstanding motto, "Where Miracles Become Reality," to "Ending the Cycle of Homelessness." As we discussed the multitudinous, vast, innumerable administration problems that negate that bold new motto, I laughed and said, "Shouldn't it really be Pedaling the Cycle of Homelessness?"

So yeah, I haven't badmouthed that place on my blog in over a year, and have been extraordinarily careful to be vague and political about the whole thing because I never know who's reading, but hey. Some things are too good not to share.

And I'm proud to have been booted off that ship. Looking back, I can't believe I wasn't fired sooner. Not for bad job performance (almost nobody, outside of a few fiery and dedicated case managers, performs his or her job well at that place and the notion of teamwork -- though not cliquishness -- is dead, and under the circumstances I did my job quite well), but for some of my less politically careful statements (and the desire of someone from a prominent South Bend family to have my position). I actually said during a meeting, "Why are we dedicating so much time and effort to doing these little news articles to inflate this place's good reputation? It's all smoke and mirrors. Why aren't we actually doing what our mission says we're doing? Because then we wouldn't have to be scrambling to make this place look good; its reputation would speak for itself."

Oh yeah. When I told Boss-Man about that one, he sat back and stared at me in a combination of shock, pride and amusement. "And it took them four months to get rid of you?" he said at last.

Nobody was fooled by what happened to me. The people who were actively participating in getting rid of me, and the ones who were in the know and didn't forewarn me while pretending to be my friends, naturally lied their asses off and expressed their "sincere" condolences and offered "to have coffee" sometime because "we're all still friends here," but couldn't look me in the face afterward; and the people who were as ambushed by it as I was -- residents included -- knew exactly what was going on. "It's because you get along with us," one resident told me. "You don't look down on us or separate yourself from us; you talk to us, you listen to us, and you don't act like you're too good for us. They hate that up there. They keep themselves all separate and they can't stand when someone doesn't fit into their little club."

So much for trying to make a difference. I was excited when I was first brought on the job, not only for my position, but for the opportunities I thought I would have to speak up for the residents, having worked closely with them, and help things in that shaky, unstable environment to change. I had a lot of ideas, a lot of passion, and a great pride in where I worked and why. Not for its shining (ha! tarnished and crumbling) reputation, or for the goody two-shoes points I earned from members of the community by displaying my humanitarian work, but for the ways I could labor alongside people and help make their lives better in practical ways and communicate for them at meetings. That's why I was there. Not for some sort of personal prestige and inflated self-image, or for power (a lot of people my age sold themselves out for positions of power there. Power. At a homeless shelter. Ironic?), but for the daily interactions, the opportunities to present ideas that would help the machine run so that the people could focus on what they needed to do, and not worry about their daily living in a fast-running-down and badly organized facility.

So that didn't work. I was extremely naive then about the ambitions and two-faced political natures of the people who work in those kinds of jobs. I was extremely naive about what I could get away with saying and what I "shouldn't" say; I assumed everyone else was as committed and idealistic and driven toward change as I was, and that any kind of reformist statements I would make, any reformist ideas I would have, would be welcomed with willing ears and open eyes and likemindedness and eager hands. I've learned better, the hard way. I've learned that the factions and scheming and nastiness I witnessed in high school don't really stay there when people grow up; some folks carry those things with them. I've learned that goodness is not always a windfall against harm.

Take me back, though, and I'd do it all over again. Because I also learned that conscience is not something to be compromised, regardless of others' disapproval or rationalization for why they behave in the cruel ways that they do. Ask anyone who had a hand in what happened to me, and they'd tell you something different. They'd present the silly list that was read to me the day I was fired as to everything I was doing wrong, which they had been keeping (and in many of the instances, half-inventing, or leaving out distinguishing truths) for quite some time, unbeknownst to me. They'd list all the reasons I didn't fit in, wasn't part of the team, was a really nice girl who tried her hardest but just couldn't hack the job and they regret that they had to let me go, etc. But they'd also know better, somewhere deep down there, even if they didn't really care. Funny how none of them could quite meet my eyes, or even the eyes of my real friends there; when I've had a hand in letting someone go, they good and deserved it, and I was angry and had justice backing me up, and I could look them in the face any day, any time, because I knew I was right. That element was noticeably absent from those who did the same to me when I left my old job.

But I'm a little older, a little wiser, as a result -- I learned I don't work well in environments that are centered around politics, because I hate keeping my mouth shut when something needs to be said just to save my own skin or keep from looking bad. I've also learned to read bad signs, and that I can get out of a bad job before it crashes on me. And I've learned that people are even less trustworthy than I thought, and I let fewer people get to know me. That last one's a bit cynical, perhaps, but realistic. It helps to know your friends, and only trust a few of them. I've done some weeding out since then, and my life is smaller, more ordinary, and much more stable.

And I will almost always speak my mind. I see no point in going with the current just because that's the safe thing to do. I never have. And I learned that's probably not going to change, whatever the consequences. Because my conscience is clear -- and that matters more than other people's approval, or good opinion, or job stability.

I am so blessed to work in an environment now where that kind of thinking is the common bond.

grr. argh.

I have come to an enmitical understanding with the dog next door.

He belongs to my landlord's daughter. She's nice, but more than a bit standoffish, and her dog is ugly and mean. Having failed thrice to win him over, I decided to ignore him and let him live in his yard, while I lived peaceably next door.

The problem is, he likes to live in my yard. Either he's a Houdini escape artist, or he is allowed to run freely about the neighborhood. I came home from work on Friday to find him in my driveway, and when I got out of the car, he took issue with the fact that I was standing on my property and charged toward me barking and snarling with his hackles up.

That certain something snapped in my head -- the certain something that asserts itself forcefully in the presence of ill-mannered children and ill-mannered dogs. I stood my ground, calmly stared him down, and ordered him off my property.

Well, he stopped short (he's a scared dog, which is what makes him mean) about five feet from me, still snarling and barking, and then I, still calmly, started walking toward him. He shot off toward his yard and then turned and continued to bark. I very deliberately walked right up to the property line -- no further -- and watched him. He came no closer.

I waited about a minute, then turned to walk back to my porch (all I wanted was dinner, not to have a pissing contest with the dog who thinks he owns everything), and right away he started to follow me with his operatic solo of barking and growling. I turned to face him again. He shot back into his own yard. I turned around. He started after me.

This went on for about ten minutes, with me occasionally chasing him out of my yard. But eventually he got the message, I backed up to my porch and into my house, and that was that.

Until yesterday when I was sitting on my porch and saw him loping into my driveway.

Well, having just finished a quick reading of Julie of the Wolves, I was in a power-aggression mode anyway, and I did what the wolves did. After I leapt to my feet with a loud stomping noise, at which he raced back into his yard and turned to bark endlessly, I narrowed my eyes at him and leaned forward.

And he went away. He circled his owner's car and disappeared onto her porch. I smiled.

Sigh. I must be starving for some kind of confrontation if I enjoy having spats with the neighbor's dog. But it's all about winning, with these kinds of critters. I have been fortunate in never having had a bad experience with a ferocious dog in my childhood, so I'm pretty much completely without fear of canines, and love almost all of them -- but give me one who tries to boss me around on my territory, and I'll show him who's really in charge.

the waves

It's funny how states of mind come and go, weave themselves in and out of existence in a cyclical pattern like the tides.

Last weekend I flew to the Cayman Islands to witness my sister's wedding. It was beautiful, she was beautiful, she was radiant and smiling and her husband had tears in his eyes and the reception was lovely and the sunset stunning, and a good time was had by all (except perhaps by his creepy hateful mother who spent most of the reception looking glumly like someone had died, bollux to her). I'm not the biggest fan of the beaches or the suncombed seas; I prefer the quiet mystery of forest, the bark and leaf smell of trees, the stone smell of hills, a sky shrouded in branches and a wind peppered by the whispers of foliage and the chattercalls of birds. But I still enjoyed myself.

And something interesting happened there, walking barefoot on the beach in early November scanning the shores for shells and bits of glass and coral -- a habit long borne of living on the lakeshore at home, one that calms and focuses me -- something happened, sitting in a tropical dress that cost me four dollars at Old Navy and had the courtly French proprietor of our inn offering my father a million dollar dowry if he could have me for a second wife (what is it with me and these jocular polygamous marriages?). Something happened, toasting my sister and watching her move along the dance floor with her husband, with my parents interlocked nearby, and my sister's married friends on her other side.

I was happy alone.

Weddings are usually a signal to my subconscious to plunge itself into a subterranean sea of sadness and self-pity. At most weddings, however happy I am for the bride and groom, the yin balancing-opposite-factor in me gets up next to the Lion and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and starts singing, If I only had a date... Or, if the self-pity is really bad, mate.

But I learned in the Caymans something that all of the rejections of the past couple of years had obscured -- I am a quality woman. The serving staff were more attentive than they needed to be at any restaurant we attended, whether or not I was even wearing makeup. I smiled, I laughed, I was gracious, I was perfectly comfortable in my own skin. I was happy. And when I wasn't happy, it was because I missed being in my own house with my own cat in the solitude that I love. The flights back into the States, which I made on my own, were totally fine, because I was relaxed and believed -- no, reveled -- in my own independence (an unusual state of mind for a new experience -- new things tend to stress me out).

And I returned to my beloved Michigan happy. It hasn't worn off yet. The horrifying grief of singleness has, for the time being, gone. I like falling asleep alone in my single bed between my scarlet flannel sheets (mmm, weather finally cold enough for flannel sheets). I like waking alone in the mornings, enjoying my coffee alone, showering alone. I like my quiet, solitary evenings with my cat. I look forward to having a house settled enough (I have so much stuff, and the new house has less floor and wall space than the old apartment -- much creativity, and some downsizing, needed) to cook my incredible meals in my quiet kitchen with a Yankee candle burning and enjoy the results alone (I'm getting fat from too much eating out -- it's like the restaurant foods pack in unnecessary calories just because -- ickgh).

Maybe it's fall -- it's hard for me to feel lonely or unhappy during the dying of the year. It's hard to feel despondent when all around there's the beauty of the resting fields, the leaves showing their true colors hidden by summer's cholophyll, the smell of vinegar and wet grass and naked bark and the first hints of snow. It's a time to celebrate aloneness and introspection and the pure happiness of being.

Maybe it's that I know that I'm loved by my family, and by the people that surround me. Maybe it's that I know I'm loved by my God, and am grateful just to have been brought to a small harbor of rest. The grief has been long, and turbulent, and hard, fraught with a few sharp hopes quickly dashed in unkind ways, and it's lovely, really lovely, not to care about them anymore, but to feel the goodness of my life, and to realize that, whatever may be, my single state is not a result of some lack in myself. It's a time to focus on my callings and my gifts -- I'm starting to write again, I can't wait to start cooking and baking (it's hummus night tonight, a return to an old favorite; and as far as baking is concerned, my new stove is pure joy), and my home is so peaceful and safe that I can sleep again at night, and relax when I come home.

Of course this tranquility, this unexpected contentment, won't last. It will ebb, to be replaced by the grief, or the anger, or the anxiety, one of these days, and probably sooner than later, because I really don't think (although I'm beginning to wonder) that this solitary state is what I was meant for, and is, most times, uncomfortable at best, and agonizing at worst. But I'll enjoy the peace to the marrow while it lasts. This tide's been a long one coming in.