O to wake up to the sound of rain. Because the bathroom is torn up, I thought the stairwell was leaking but no. Lovely lovely rain. It hasn't rained for many days, not real rain. Unusual for Seattle and according to my utility bill costly. Slowly I recover from torn broken etc.

Shall I go to Bhutan next year? Instead of a month long retreat. These are very different. Some of my friends are very sick right now. Very. Sick.

When I was by the Tahuya River, I heard voices. Some would say it was a branch moving with the current but I heard two voices, a woman and a girl. It was my mother before she lost her hearing. I don't know who the woman was.

[[[[[[ I swear to g-d, the house is breathing and it's not the refrigerator. ]]]]]]

I sank down into the couch and came out today. I went swimming and while in the locker room, I contemplated the other women and their bodies, all in various stages of disrepair. I can still walk. I can still swim. I'm not a mass of scars. (Well, not yet anyway). Richard came over and walked around my yard with me. As I am unable to actually bend over, gardening has become an interesting type of problem. Richard and his crew are going to 'clean out' my garden and mulch.

I fear I am becoming eccentric. Or maybe I should be proud. Eccentrics unite! I'm thinking about learning to play the cello. A lot easier to move than the piano.

James and I went to visit a 9 foot tall jade Buddha at a Vietnamese temple near my house. The Buddha is traveling around the country. The temple was having quite a party, with flower and incense offerings and singing, very loud singing. There were lots of people on folding chairs or bowing and kneeling. The statue is carved from one piece of jade and has a golden face. The inscription over the Buddha says, "Jade Buddha for World Peace."

A young woman gave us little cups of vitamin water. Maybe we looked depleted. There was a man singing karaoke too. And many children running around. Behind the temple there were cooking fires and big pots filled with food. We crossed over into another country.

Oh, I'm on bedrest for a week. Gawd.

I watched 10 episodes of Dexter today. I am deeply into Dexter. I feel slightly feverish. Enforced idleness is troublesome.

I love Larry Yang

Back from a retreat by the Tahuya river, beautiful valley and the usual flora and fauna. As I was leaving, I pulled a hamstring (don't ask) so now I am quite a crip, lying on ice and feeling very sorry for myself. I feel kinda drunk but without any medication. Weird. Plus I look so hot with a big ice pack in my pants. Oh baby.

At least the cats didn't pee and poo all over the house like they do when they are displeased with the odd person feeding them. They also tend to protest the lack of a human around to break up fights and keep the wacko Lupine in line. I am having fantasies about taking her to the shelter and 'relinquishing' her. But no one would adopt her because she is psycho. *guilt guilt* Sigh.

The writers are once again rescheduling, a grateful thing because I have nothing to critique. Nothing. What I'm writing lately is bizarre, even for me. And Pat always wants my poems to make sense. I'm in my squirrel nutkin phase.

Off to see the chiropractor now. Maybe she can help me walk again. With her magic wand. In the library.

An unusual day. I celebrated Annual Ironing Day by ironing three shirts. And that's it for another year. Tomorrow I leave for a retreat. I though I'd be sleeping in a tent but instead I get a garret room. As long as I don't fall down the stairs and lie until morning with a concussion and smashed teeth.

My child left for Portland. She's on tour with a band; their official photographer.

I want to go to Bhutan. Next year. I want to wear a headdress with ribbons and hair and a mask and dance in the town square and play a bone whistle and fly.

I was on Bainbridge yesterday with my daughter. She was a professional photographer yesterday which is what she does. We went to vineyards and wine tastings so we were slightly drunk by noon, something I never am. Then we tried to find a park, Williams Olsen Park, which is a park that is really someone's yard, someone's idea of a joke. We drove there and said, " Nah, this can't be it, there's a foot of waterfront and we are in a yard, fer crissakes. So we asked many Bainbridgeans where the WO Park was. We even asked a women who was tending a small burning pole by the road. I didn't want to stop because I thought she wanted to bewitch us but my daughter insisted. She sent us to the wrong park. Many people sent us to various parks. Bainbridge has many parks. My daughter took many pictures of food on plates and people eating food and a guy standing in his garage among wine barrels. And sunsets and trees and water. I was supposed to be her assistant but I sucked. Her girlfriend was much better. After walking for miles in a vineyard, I wanted to lie down and drift in and out while inebriated. In the heat.

In the lake, I'm no longer a human. I'm a selkie.

this is where I was today.

tonight the blue dress in the parlor with the angels

Last night I watched a documentary of Henri Cartier-Bresson. An old man in front of piles of photos. Occasionally he would hold one in front of his face and talk about it. All you would see is the top of his head. He has photographed Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe and Samuel Beckett and a very young and beautiful Truman Capote. Over and over, he caught people kissing and lying about, in cemeteries, on bridges, in alleys. He talked about the mystery, the mysteries of light and shadow and the rhythm of repeating designs-nuns, fences, bridge struts, stairways. He wasn't taking photographs anymore. He was drawing, nudes and landscapes. He had a slight smile on his face while he talked and paged through a book of his photos, cover by Matisse. His archives are enormous, a huge room of sliding files.

I went back and looked at my daughter's work. A brilliant photo necessitates timing and alert attention, to the moment when everything falls into place; the light, the dark and the borders in between.

Henri said, "Oh, I love this one. I love the people."

Tonight Susan Sontag, still having terrible trouble with debt. At risk of losing her rights to her work. Egad.

Spiders have bitten my legs all up. The skin doctor blistered the spot on my face. In response to this, I just finished making a flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. It's for James tomorrow so I can't even have one leetle piece. And good heavens, it has 7 eggs, a cup and a 1/2 of butter and a butt load of chocolate, not to mention sugar. Heart attack food.

It does look good, doesn't it.

I cried today. A lot. I got bad news. I went outside my clinic and cried and made noise. There were clients coming and going. Bev let me lean on her shoulder while I cried. She was there the day my brother died and she held me up then too. I think she is not altogether human. She might be part deva. With human arms.

We're just too fragile, especially little kids. The type of work we do, we see it, know it, the fragile, insubstantial, breathtaking new baby work. We come in and go out. Little flames. Poof, we're gone. Just like that. Staying takes courage. Leaving takes courage.

Going to see Angelina Jolie in her stupid summer movie did not help. Neither did smoking a cigarette. Nothing whatever helps with the pain, nothing. I used to perform many diversions to avoid the pain. Now there's no escape.

Thank you Rebecca.

Light fades from the sky.

The cats are flat on the floor. Flat cat mode.

I have a giant piece of chocolate cake to eat for dinner.

Oh yeah.

We're having a weird kind of summer, like San Francisco. Foggy til midday then the sun. Atmospheric. Mysterious.

After a very long birth, came home to discover that the cats had locked themselves in the house. At least the cat door was locked. Maybe it was raccoons. Anyway, they peed/pooped on a few area rugs. Grand.

My ex FED EX'd me my kayak bilge pump. Why, thank you. I sure was missing it. (?) I think she is trying to appear normal and kind. I, however, am not fooled. Not. Fooled.

It is the middle of the effing night. I must go to bed before another baby decides to be born.