escape, bacon, home, write

* I escape overnight to another town for my first Christmas party this year. Lovely! (Another one on Saturday)

* At breakfast I have bacon, thick long bacon, for the first time in months.

* And then home in the early morning. Home to furry dogs and touching base, catching up, with my room mate.

* "You don't put yourself in what you write. You find yourself there."

cogitating

* Cogitating, as R and I so often did----how do we consider a person who creates aesthetically pleasing stuff but is a total s**t in personal life? Kicks dogs. Cheats on people. You know what I am writing about. 
This conundrum particularly came into our life when a man in our town who creates award winning books and is lauded by many shook and screamed at my 9 year old son at a party. End of my relationship with that author!  R persevered, even collaborating with the man.
And then there is a woman who screamed like a banshee (melting the telephone cord if I had one) at me the last time we (actually only she) spoke. I appreciated her networking ideas but come on.
This particular question is much in the news now.Do we compartmentalize? Do we cross them off our Christmas card list? Do we limit contact? Do we continue to pay $ to see, read, listen to their creations? Do we consider on individual cases?
Ah, well. This is not a gem except that it illustrates that I am still thinking, considering, being. 
And then Sam Shepard comes back to me: "Outfly them. Avoid situations that are going to take pieces of you. And hide out."

measure, acorn

* I swear (frequently) if I had stacks of measuring (feet and inches) devices in every corner of this house I would not be able to find one when I need it. A woman who knits and moves furniture a bunch needs measuring devices always.

* I am knitting a sweater with interesting stitches and marvelous yarn the color of the inside of an acorn squash. What joy!

S. Claus, piles, fingernails, Tatlock, giggle

* What kind of moisturizer does Santa Claus use?
   Jojoba oil.

* I live from pile to pile: dirty clothes (high enough so the dog will not chew them), clean clothes (moved from chair to bed when I optimistically plan to sort them and put them away)(and most often moved back to chair so that I can sleep). I am perfectly great with this routine.

* Oh, Mother. If you could see my fingernails now. When I was young, even after marriage, you constantly bemoaned my gnawed off nails. See them now.? I have to trim them in order to use a keyboard!

* My thoughts slip back to my high school geometry teacher who told my father that I would never amount to anything. My father passed that bit of wicked analysis on to me. (Why? Who knows. To inspire me to work harder?) I am still at this advanced age flummoxed. Floored. To serve that kind of anathema  on a 15 year old is......the word escapes me. And so Mr Tatlock, Mr Ken Tatlock.....I say to hell with you.

* I inwardly giggle at the two women beside me at the cafe who are upset that I can hear their words. Sweetie pies, if you do not want to be overheard do not talk like that. 

sofa

* I requisition the sofa. The black dog is unfazed, perching in his usual indentation at the top of the back. He arranges himself so as to see through the peek of his eyes just what I am up to on this warmish November afternoon. The sofa I usually leave to them, its human use consisting of a "how was your day" moment when my room mate comes from work. 
   The floor lamp on in obeyance of my dead father's warning of blindness caused by reading in the dark. Forget that the sun streams through the door and windows heartily. Admonitions ingrained while young echo through eternity. 
   I am pretzeled on this love seat reading on a November afternoon. I deliciously brought home a heavy bag of books, ate tomato soup, tried the sunny deck, sneezed, and now it is the sofa for me. I have discovered Alan Bennett's writings. 
   The book hits my nose.
   Later I wake to the large eyed staring of the yellow dog. 
   Must be up.

movie & songs

* "The Big Sick"

* "Sleeping in the Stars"

* "Speak to a Girl"

in the next weeks

* I have blood tests, pokings and a m'gram scheduled in the next weeks. I prod myself to investigate how I 'feel' about it all--something like analyzing a wound to determine its regeneration and pain. I imagine myself a kitten just fallen off the sofa for the first time="Hmmm. That was not too bad. I lived through that." Shake, shake. "Now I know what that is like and I lived through it and thrived." I lived through it all alone once and I will be okay this time if the numbers and shadings and bumps are not optimistic.

Sam, avoid, THE GIFT

* As Shepard told it, he watched as a crow continually dove at the hawk in an effort to drive it nuts. Eventually the hawk escaped his tormentor by flying higher than the crow would. 
    "Outfly them," Shepard said. "Avoid situations that are going to take pieces of you. And hide out."

Santa Fe New Mexican

* The glorious circumstance of being in the position of being able to sort people and situations for the ultimate loveliness of avoiding them.

* Every morning I stretch and contemplate with great gratitude THE GIFT.

jewel, cards, hats

* Forget that Jack could have stayed on the door with Rose--why the bluidy 'ell did Rose dump the jewel in the drink?

* Jolly Christmas cards come.

* Hats.

* The lady (English) at the dog food counter notices my poppy pin which I wear year round on my vest. We have a lovely chat about the tradition with me returning to the store to mention the field of ceramic poppies that surrounded the Tower of London a couple of years ago.

they say

* "To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt."
   Whyte

* "The truth is, rarely can a response make something better--what makes something better is connection."
    Brown

* Something new written in the ashes of your life.

* We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.

* bureaucracy=the supreme institutionalization of helplessness

wrap, dream, imagine

* Tingly glad that neck wraps (cowls, scarves, etc. not nooses)are "in". Never been "in". My neck without a wrap is always cold. Now I am "in".

* I wake from a warm happy dream, cocooned in comforters. The happiness lasts all day.

* I imagine whispering to someone who has shrieked like a banshee at me. Up close, in her ear. So that no one but us can hear and know what I think of her. What I want her to do with a certain part of her anatomy. I know I will never do this but it helps to imagine doing it. Hopeless I know because she will never understand how she hurts people.

read

* Lisette Lecat reads me to sleep. The House of Unexpected Sisters. Mma Ramotswe. JLB Matekoni. Mma Makutsi. Mma Potokwane. Mr Polopetsi. Phuti Radiphuti.

deck

* Warm enough for deck sitting. Dogs cavort. Sunlight glistens and sparkles on the remaining leaves of the red twig willow. The solar bird bath whirs. Worries of weeds evaporate with a leaves covering. I pull my pajamas up to my knees. I leave my hooded sweatshirt on and over my head. Such joy!

plan, life, gunk, back

* Slowly a plan begins to glow within me.....

* "Do not give up on the robustness of life."

* For me, fevers burn away the extraneous gunk.

* "Go back to where/when you knew who you are."

Kilt, under, dark, deer

* The swingy, swayey, perky movement of a kilt.

* I hear of the outrage from harassment but there is a certain harassment in looking under a kilt to investigate underwear wearing, too.

* In the wee hours, in the dark, B. Franklinless, I read the toilet paper packaging, "40% more sh*ts." Then in daylight I realize it is 'sheets'.

* Graceful deer flowing over a fence. A tall fence. Is there a deer Olympics?

happen, ears, rhythm

* "Let everything happen to you:beauty and terror"
   Rilke

* My mother had a "you will get better or die" attitude about illness. Doctors exclaim when they see my eardrums (scarring). No trip to the ER when I fell out of a window while sock skating  on the newly waxed floor of my brother's bedroom (I am thinking she did not even know about the ER). Drying the inside of my ears (with the hair dryer) before leaving the house this morning I remembered the way she would warm up her hand for me to sleep on it when my ear hurt.

* I bought a drum. I bought a tambourine. Room mate has the overnight shift. Walls, prepare to vibrate.

van gogh, laughing, dusk, point

* A grasshopper has been found imbedded in a van Gogh painting. An in the moment painting.

* Laughing made us invincible.
   Not like those who always win,
   but like those who don't give up.
   F. Kahlo

* "Life will take care of itself.
    Just continue to love, be happy, and stay open."

* The dusk closes into dark. I switch the lamps on and cover up in knitted       garments. Bring out the yarn and knitting porn. 

* On the last days home he said there was nothing of this house that was his 
   any longer. He had been away so many days of that year that I had begun 
   putting things where they accommodated me, hanging pleasing things in 
   eyesight, stocking the fridge with foods I like. It was a 'friction point' time
   with one foot in caretaker days still and the other in independence. His 
   independence from pain and mine from watching him writhe in pain. 

server, chai, silent

* "Your server is changing."
   Into a butterfly? Menopause? Her mind? 

* Biscotti
   Sluiced into hot chai
   OH MY!!
   (Just realized I wrote about chai & biscotti in Sept. Note to self:must cultivate new yummies.)

* When all the world is silent I tromp out to vanquish the snow.

excuse

* "Mary, Stacy will be late today. Her mule jumped the fence. It's the one that doesn't like to be touched."

nothing, c de m, berries

* Waking up with the knowledge this day holds no appointments, worries, 'I have to smile' minutes, nothing.And that I have complete control over my universe.

* How many women recently have tasted creme de menthe over vanilla ice cream a la a writer at 'Outlander'?

* Red berries in a clear glass vase.