Just Peachy

I'm doing well, thank you. And you?

Moonstruck

Sometimes there is a thin film separating me from normalcy. Perhaps it has something to do with string theory, and one of my nanofilaments is out of tune, thrumming in discord to the rest of my universe. At present, I know it has much to do with my mate being out of town, unexpectedly. His grandfather's health is failing fast, and his family made the emergency decision to move him from a retirement apartment in Illinois to their home in Denver. My hubby flew out Saturday to help them pack a 92-year-old man's life into a van, and drive x-country in the snow. I am profoundly grateful to have Husby as my lifemate, and when he's away, I feel his absence as a physical emptyness in the space around me. He takes a part of my aura with him, leaving me tender and vulnerable, less protected from the elements. I wonder how different this feels from the loneliness of not having someone at all. Judy Dench has an incredible scene and monologue in Notes on a Scandal as to what it's like being truly lonely. Speaking of movies, I saw Pan's Labyrinth by myself this evening. There were stunning scenes, but overall, I wanted to see more of her fantasy world and less of the real world. Oddly, it was the real world scenes that were overwrought; they could have been expressed more effectively in a subtle manner.

SPOILER WARNING!!!! If the violence were underplayed in the majority of the movie, it would have made the violence toward her more effective in the end. OVER NOW.

On an entirely different note, I was thrilled beyond belief to receive my latest royalty statement; my dog book has finally started earning money above and beyond the advance they paid me. What a milestone! To earn money, at least on paper, for my first book, is a thrill. In truth, we're still light years behind in terms of what I spent traveling, and what it cost us (is still costing us) for me to pursue this dream. If an outsider were to examine the practical evidence, the sure conclusion would be that my career path over the last four-ish years has been utter folly. How can it be that my internal compass feels never more true? I hope this is what it's supposed to feel like when flying in the face of convention, what it takes to pursue creative bliss. I have to believe I'll be rewarded in this lifetime for taking these risks, and for forcing the man I love to take them with me. In my deepest, darkest moments, there's a hollow core of doubt in my heart, an ache in my solar plexus. Mother Moon, shine bright tonight. Illuminate my path.

I began work on a novel today.
That's all I have to say about that.

I (Heart) Snow!

Love it, Love it, Love it! Totally brings out the little kid in me. Hubby's home, working at the kitchen table, dogs are in sweaters under blankets on the couch. Doesn't matter that the power lines are hanging dangerously low, that Cooper the Sooper Pooper leaves his turds just inside the dog door, that my cold is lingering with snot globs large enough to hawk up in a pan and fry sunnyside up for breakfast (thank you, Tony T., for that lovely image). I'm happy, the sky is sparkling, and we're going to try and coax the gutless Prius into the snow to get me to my 1 pm massage appointment. For this brief moment, I'm even content in the knowledge that I've done no paying writing work since Thanksgiving, able to largely ignore the niggling little voice at the back of my brain warning me that it feels way too good to be a slacker.

I never give burnout enough street cred, and I always underestimate how long it takes to mentally and physically recover from it. Even as part of me is trying to relax and just live for a bit, not worrying so much about what I'm not accomplishing; the other part feels worry that I'll never get motivated again, never get back on track. Then, I rejoinder with the justifications of the not-so-little recovery effort after the falling-six-feet-off-the-ladder thing, and the hours of locating and filing paperwork for the ongoing-IRS-Goodwill-Tour (audit) thing, which are very legit time and energy sucks, and yet, my superhuman expectations of myself fuel the internal critic, who is wormtongue-ing in my brain, "You should be writing fiction everyday, you should be writing stories to submit to magazines, you should be researching photo money-making opportunities, you should be pressing all your contacts for story jobs, you should be..." Why, why, why is it so hard for me to let go? Why can't I simply take this time to work my little co-op job, do my yoga, spend time with my hubby, and regroup without all the emotional baggage? Anyone know how to turn off, or amp down the What-Have-You-Done-With-Your-Life-Lately Monster?

The Drug Bust

Pretend that's a picture of a poppy, and I'm sitting in an opium den.

Okay. So. The drug bust. The dogs and I are sitting, minding our own business, on the couch. I'm reading a book. They're snuggling. Suddenly, but without noise, our living room is flooded with a blazing spotlight, even though the mini-blinds are drawn. Then, the red and blue lights start flashing. No sirens, no warning. I get up and open the front door; leaving the screen door closed. The bleary-eyed dogs wander over. I'm just in time to see a cop car, parked between the two trees on our front lawn, about four feet up over the curb. A cop is shoving a youth onto the hood of the car. The kid, a white kid dressed all in black with a knit cap and a jacket with some white logo on the back and those classy baggy-ass pants, says, "Hey, whad did I do? I didn'd do nuthin." I figure this is as good a time as any to butt out. I'm also thinking it would be really easy to shoot me through the flimsy screen door. I close the door and go back to sitting on the couch, my curiousity burning. Not long after this, a dog starts going nuts barking outside, which of course makes my dogs go nuts inside. I get them calmed down, but I gotta' know what's going down. So, I kneel on the dog's perch by the picture window, and do the classic nosy neighbor peeking out from the blinds thing. Not that it would be any harder to shoot me through the front window, but the situation is well in hand now. There's now a beautiful German Shepherd barking and straining at the end of a short lead at the command of two police officers, and two more police cars for a total of three cars and five officers, and a partially open grocery bag on the hood of the car. Outside of the bag on the hood are little baggies and wadded up bills. The kid's hands are now handcuffed behind his back and his jacket is further pulled down around his arms. I can't hear what he is saying, but I can see he's talking a mile a minute. He is not taking his opportunity to remain silent. The cops are all shaking their heads. The scene winds down. The two cops with the drug dog peel away out of my sight. One cop gets in his car and drives away. The other two cops chat a bit. They stick the kid in the back seat of the original bust car. The second cop wanders over to his car and drives away. The first cop takes the paper bag, looks in the bag, puts the stuff back in it, wads it up a bit, and puts it in the trunk. It didn't look to me like he had gloves on. I'm pretty sure, from watching CSI, that he should've had gloves on. Maybe not, maybe they want to prove he was part of the bust. Chain of evidence, you know. Anyway, he finally gets in his car and drives off. I settle back on the couch to read my vampire book. So ends another quiet evening in West Seattle.

Certifiably Wierd

You may be tired of seeing pictures of leaves and flowers from me, but I just don't feel like a post is complete anymore without a pic. Yesterday was a totally wierd day. I woke up about 2:30 in the morning with a dry, tickly sensation in my throat, you know the one, that forebodes the coming of a cold. Woke up again at 3:45 am to take my hubby to the airport for a biz trip to Orlando, FLA (the bastard). Woke up again at 9ish, feeling icky. I hate the feeling of illness coming on as much as the illness itself--the fuzzy brain; the glassy, burning eyes; the thick sensation in the throat, a portend of a bazillion cold viruses multiplying themselves in your vulnerable system. Hate it. Almost as much as I hated spending my entire day, and part of the day before, filling out the second round of IRS Audit paperwork. Fuckin' sucks. Took the dogs to the park for a break in the afternoon, despite the rain and my drain. I'm always on the lookout for other dogs and kids, mainly so I can decide whether or not my kids can run without their leashes. Not this day, as there was a woman with a toddler and two pit bulls, although the pit bulls looked under excellent command, sitting everytime she stopped, healing well by her side. Anyway, so I stay as far away from her and dogs as I can and still be in the park. Soon, however, she starts screaming and whistling at the top of her voice. "Hey! Hey! Hey! That's mine!" she screams. Her dogs go ape shit at her panic. One of them slips his collar and runs full speed for me and my dogs. My dogs go ape shit. I panic...there's no way I can stop this beast of pure muscle from eating me and my pups whole. But, just as the dog is 3 feet away from us, it hears her calling it back, turns, and leaves us standing there breathless. Meanwhile, the woman has gone back to screaming: "Don't take that! It's mine!" She's trying to gather her dogs and her toddler and move across the park. I look caddy corner, all the way across where she's headed, a football field's length away, and I see a person walking with a stroller to a van, nearly ready to put it in the van. I can see that the woman with the toddler and the dogs is never going to make it. So, I run dead out with my dogs to the abductor with the stroller, and say: "Hey, I think that stroller belongs to the gal over there..." The woman taking it looks contrite. She is a young black woman, heavily pregnant. She says, "I'm sorry. I thought it was abandoned here. It's wet. I thought someone had left it." Meanwhile, she's dumped a Barney backpack out of the stroller where it sits forlornly on the wet grass. "Please tell her I'm sorry," says the girl as she backs away quickly and gets in the van. The van peals away. The woman with the dogs comes and gets her stroller and her wet Barney, thanking me profusely. Her dogs are calm. She apologizes to me about her dog coming after us. "She must of thought I was yelling at you," she justifies. I say it's okay. We go our separate ways.

Later that night, a drug bust went down, literally on my front lawn. I'll have to tell that story later. I'm tired of typing at the moment.