In the Backyard

There is so much going on in my backyard! Look closely, and you can even see the aphids. Bonus. It's so much fun being a new renter, starting in the dead of winter when nothing is growing, and arriving at spring to discover what the previous owners have planted.

We Are Now Experiencing Technical Difficulties

I've been trying to post this foto for a week now, but our home wireless internet connection is not working correctly. It's making it really tough to get work done, much less the joyous stuff of posting pics and such. Please forgive any lack of postings, for it will probably be a month or so before I can pay someone from the Geek Squad to come out to my house for troubleshooting and repair at $100 bucks an hour. Sigh.

ESP III Wheeee

Flying High. How do you feel, SFHC? I feel great!

This weekend was one of those precious times when all the agony of being an underpaid travel writer payed off. We stayed here, gratis, with the puppies. There was the deep two-person tub, the gas fireplace, the DVD player (watched the last Firefly disc, you must), complimentary bottle of luscious red cab, the Smooth Jazz station, the beautiful weather and lovely grounds. I drove up early with the dogs, and Husby rode up on the bike, after a stop here for a few items. Although the dogs are always a bit stressed when we travel, they managed to console themselves, as you can see.

ESP II

Emerging from the dark.

Things just keep getting better. A hot shit new local magazine liked the clips I sent, and the Editor in Chief wants me to pitch some travel bits for the June issue and some travel stories ongoing. Woo hoo.

Emotional Self Portrait of the Day (ESP)

Broken, still beautiful.

I've posted a bunch of new photos at Americana, Texture of Nature, and My Hometown.

What a watershed week! I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved I feel; I've been waiting to exhale (such a fitting description) for so very, very long. The last pieces have fallen into place. It now looks like a reasonable life is in our sights--everything Husby and I have been working toward and all the sacrifices we've made are coming together to make it possible. Two major events of the last few days precipitated this Halleluiah Moment. The first is that Avalon graciously agreed to extend my book deadline until May 2007. I have 14 months to complete my next manuscript. This was necessary to facilitate the next piece of the puzzle, namely a permanent part-time job with full benes at my local food co-op. This is the enabler job I've been searching for, one that: is only three days a week; will pay for groceries (with a 15% discount); accrue a pension and vacation; comes with full medical, dental, and vision; is conveniently close enough to home to ride a bike to work; is with a socially responsible company that carries products consistent with my personal values; and best of all, can be left at the office, preserving my mental and creative energies for writing. The pay isn't much, just enough to pay our monthly grocery bill with a few bucks left over for mad money. But it's all we needed. When I'm not working on a major book or writing project, admittedly not very often, I can goof off four days a week. Ask, and ye shall receive. Thank you Universe, for hearing my prayers, and acknowledging them.

And, and, and...the new issue of Bark has been out less than I week, and I've already started to receive fan mail. Wooo Hooo! Check it out: "I am so enjoying the articles in this issue...'Two Wieners and a Mummy' was especially fun. I've already read it 3X and laugh harder each time."

I am Needy. I am Worthy.

My problem is not that I don't have anything to say. I struggle with apathy and inertia because I have far too much to say, and I don't know where to start. Each time I try, I'm overwhelmed with more choices than a bad Chinese menu. The indecision stops me cold. Another complication is the disconnect between my intellect and my emotions. I simply cannot cram for the finals in Feelings 101 enough to allow my emotional intelligence to catch up to my Mensa IQ. There's no immortality in private genius. If I let even a chink appear in the rock of composure which holds back the Yangtze of my emotions, the immensity, speed, and power of them destroy me utterly. I cannot function on a daily basis.

As I look back on the short life of this blog, I see brilliantly reflected a large part of who I am. It shows how I most often wrap myself as a present to the world, with flashy paper and bows of humor. Look, doesn't this make you happy? These bits and bytes are full of pretty photography and humorous escapades of my dogs and minutia of everyday living. I play it safe and anonymous. Only once in a great while do the deepest of my innermost heart's secrets peek through, escaping from the places where I try to protect the wounded bits of me. Depression is such an evil illness in its insidiousness, it robs me of my very self: creativity, vitality, adventurousness, and most of all, fearlessness. Where is that brave and joyous girl? Where's the girl who wandered through Europe, learning the languages as she went, getting lost and speaking terribly and getting corrected and not minding any of it? Where's the young woman who left a six year career one day with no idea what she was going to do next, and wasn't afraid of the unknowing? Only in the last two years, while I worked on the dog book, did that brazen me occasionally return; even then, it was a daily struggle.

I cannot even fully revel in what should be proud, solely joyous moments. For example, my fabulous story being published this week in Bark Magazine (see Essays & Poetry).

No one but my closest friends can see my disfigurement. Even my family, other than my husband, has no idea of the depths and breadths to which I have sunk. Sometimes, I wish I had visible scars on my body to represent the inner ones. I want to be able to pull up my shirt and show you the scar tissue and say, "See! I told you it hurts." Somehow, I think that would make it more legitimate, give me more sympathy from others and more support from the world in general. Hey, Universe! Give me a fucking break already!

Squirrel Gang Initiation

My husband believes that the squirrels of our back yard have a gang initiation right. A prospective member has to enter the yard, thereby drawing the attention of the Wonder Wieners, who survey their territory through the picture window, perched on the back of the sofa. Between the time it takes Coop and Isis to get down from the sofa and get out the dog door, said squirrel must find a spot and freeze there. This momentarily throws the dogs off track, as they can see movement, but are somwhat impaired when it comes to still objects. The brave rodent must stay frozen until the dogs lose interest and look away long enough to make a run for it, then has to clear the fence before either of the two pups can get a mouthful of tail fur. The score so far:

Squirrels - 256
Dogs - 1

Oxymoronic

As I wandered the aisles of my local grocery yesterday, I noticed that Brawny paper towels, the ones with the strapping he-man dressed in red plaid on the package, now come in Mary Engelbreit prints. Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds this hysterically funny. I busted out laughing right there in the Paper section yesterday, and got plenty of I hope she's not contagious looks.

For the Love of Coffee

I'm getting a kick out of my girlfriend Janeen's new blog, which, so far, is exclusively devoted to the worship of the bean and accoutrements. Nummy.

Enough

I am so tired of listening to myself bitch about the same personal issues over and over again. I have been harping on these two things since I was 12 years old; namely, having too little money and too much weight. Allright, already. It ends here, now. You will no longer hear me complain about either. Not that I'm asking the universe for new problems to gripe about, no thanks. In fact, exactly the opposite. I ask the universe for assistance to remove these obstacles to living my fullest life. Once these energy drains cease to be factors of daily life, I can work on the fine tuning. Amen. Ho.

The Mountain's Out

The peaks were in fine form yesterday.
More photos, including a couple good ones of Rainier, at My Hometown.

How to Engineer the Perfect Nervous Breakdown

Take a wildly imaginative writer who can fake her way through technospeak and write bullshit marketing copy with the best of them. Tell her to bring her best ideas to the table, because you can always pull back if she gets too creative. Then, subject her to This process on every project for a little over eight years. Use the Rivision Marks(tm) Tool to strike through the vitality of her work with editing-by-committee and rounds of feedback through the agency, the client, the product manager, the project manager, the copy editor, the legal department, and then back again. Tell her you must have the deliverables by 9 am tomorrow, then wait months to respond, or never use the material at all. Repeat for every project. When one of your employees makes a judgement error, place all blame on the writer in the international media.

No, I'm not bitter. Watching this video is cathartic; it'll save me thousands in therapy. Note: Not surprisingly, the Microsoft iPod Parody has already been removed from its original source. Apparently, all the wealth and power the world affords doesn't protect Big Brother from feeling threatened by a little bit of piercingly accurate humor. Sorry, don't have time to find and link to somebody else who saved it!

And, in other news, the Word of the Year; as in, the U.S. administration has a complete lack thereof.