By Beth Coyote

It's July 4th weekend, and all the rocket/fireworks/gun lovin' folks are readying themselves to make nighttime noise to scare the cats and dogs and crickets, except for Jimniney Cricket who wielded at parasol (why, we ask, does a cricket need an umbrella, for fucks sake). And the babies are lining up to make their grand entrance, all of them, regardless of their due dates. Who pays attention to due dates anyway? Bombs bursting in air?

All I want to do is lie on the grass in the sun and have my servants refresh my margarita. And live the life of leisure I deserve. I talked with a midwife who's older than me (and never you mind how old THAT is) and she said she's never retiring. I have a plan. I'm gonna retire. I will retire. When is another matter.

I just got Life, the book by Keith Richards, read by (swoon) Johnny Depp and Joe Hurley. I got the audio book. Oh yeah. Ms Moon suggested it and I obeyed because she is usually right about most things.

I just looked at the galleys for two books/journals I'm being published in. Just leave the bags of money on the porch. By the geraniums.

I could do that today. The babies will just have to wait. It's me and Johnny, er, me and Keith.

It's a crappy, bad, terrible day. I have a headache and bad memories and I want to drink and smoke and lie on the ground and yell. Or cry. Or yell and cry. Sometimes it just sucks. And I can't be more specific either. I can't. I won't.

Being triggered (I think that's what they call it in therapy) is no fun. NO. FUN. Your life flows backwards to the time, the day, the bunch of days when you were scared and depressed and barely functional. Barely. And it went on for TWO YEARS. Like a sentence in hell. Never ending hell. And nothing worked to make it go away. No drugs or behaviors or other people. You're stuck with your shitty self, waking up with a pounding heart and no appetite and other lives swirling around you, oblivious to your pain. As if you're the center of the universe anyway. And you still have to go to work and take care of your kids and you pretend you're alright when other people ask. But you know you're not alright and who knows if you'll ever be alright again.

My honey is so nice to me. Even if I don't feel like I deserve it.

Another True Story

Today was Pride in Seattle. After an absence of several years, I decided to head on down (since it moved to downtown I've had my doubts) with friends. My pals the Dharma Buddies were in the parade so I thought I'd join them, especially my gay husband, James. After all, I'm a good Buddhist and in that spirit, why not march down 4th Ave, past Nordstroms and See's Candies and Bed, Bath and Beyond, etc surrounded by thousands of rainbow bedecked queers and their friends/families/dogs/recently released persons.

As some kind of cosmic joke, our contingent marched directly behind the Can-Can float. I gather that the Can-Can is a bar where much debauchery is enjoyed. Anyway, their 'theme' was called Ass Cream and it featured a giant pink ass with a slide coming out of the, ah, asshole and emptying into a water-filled wading pool. But wait, there's more. On top of the float were several scantily clad persons who spent the entire parade shaking, wiggling, humping and slapping their and each others asses. One woman did cartwheels and splits and had a technique for vibrating her thighs and butt that left the audience in tears.

Then there's us, the meditation group, two gals and five or six older gentlemen wearing Buddha shirts...

Directly behind us was a transgender group of smiling wo/men and (men/wo) in heels and polite skirts.

James, my gay husband, brought his strapping and beautiful son (straight) and g-d only knows what he thought. I don't know what I think.

The best part of the day: a gaggle of super heros on roller skates. Batman, Robin, Cat Woman and Spidey. And the guy who always comes with a megaphone and a sign to yell about the baby Jesus and how we're all going to hell was oddly subdued. Maybe he was stunned into silence by the Ass Cream extravaganza.

(I hurried by the dykes on bikes because I get the vapors around women on bikes and my honey was home sick).

So that's it for another year of Pride. And to all gals who put electrical tape on your nipples, I hope you're recovered and didn't hurt yourselves when you removed the tape. Ouch.

Time to lie down. Baby came at 8:30 while his brothers and poppa watched. Slid right out, no damage.

Man, when it's easy, it's so easy.

For some reason, I subscribe to Poets and Writers, where the fancy writers live. I read their ads for low-residency writers schools, contests for poets who will then go on to achieve success and fame and $$, and articles about finding the right editor.

Meanwhile, the generator drones on in the horror house across the street. What are they doing over there? Constructing a meth lab or a grow basement for marijuana? The siding is falling off and the hedges continue to flourish in the yard, obscuring their illegal activities.

A mom is in early labor, has taken her boys to the park where she'll count contractions and call me when 'her back begins to ache'. My equipment is in the car and I've showered. So much for Friday therapy and a pool swim. I'm on alert. When she calls again, I'll speed over the West Seattle bridge and haul my 100 pounds of stuff into her house. There we'll wait for her third boy who'll be as pretty and rambunctious as her other two.

In the interim, I've noticed that my magnolia has some dead branches so I'll get the saw and loppers and whack away. By the time the birth is happening, I'll be covered with dirt and branches; looking like scary mother nature. O, and some slugs. Slugs are part of nature's plan. I don't know which part. They're in the same category as snails, raccoons and wharf rats.

Must I pray for ALL of life?

In my next life, I want to be Katherine Hepburn.

My hands smell like earth because I generally begin weeding with gloves on and then at some point, I throw down the gloves and weed bare. It's so satisfying. Of course, my hands look like shit for a few days but who cares.

After my bike ride today, when I was all stinky and sweaty, I stopped by the nail place and had my toenails painted for $17. They're pink. I was thinking about Radish the whole time and wishing her toes could soon have a 'treatment'. And, of course, I got caught up on my pseudo-stars and their 3 million dollar dresses and their abs and boob jobs and so forth. Where would we be without People?

Anyway, the lady painting my toes was probably saying to the other employee, "Dang, this white lady sure smells and she hasn't shaved her legs and eewwwww". I mean, are we supposed to shower and shave before we go to the nail place?

My children once told me they had to learn about make-up from OTHER PEOPLE because I was such an au natural hippy.

I still haven't stretched my canvas. It's so big I don't know where I'm going to work on it. Sometimes, I only look at the dogs on my walks. One German Shepherd was 1/3rd of the way out the window, her tongue trailing along like a flag. She was enjoying herself, every bit. A blond poodle filled the window of the car. And the beagle bayed at nothing because that's what beagles do.

I go on call tomorrow.

At night, very late, I go outside to walk on the cold grass and sit with my garden. Even in the dark, the peonies are open.

You're like putty in my hands

*******My car is ready, my car is fixed******* This is music, celebration, the noises of cherubim. My very own car with car smell and random sporty stuff in the back in case I want to hike, swim, bike etc. Crumbs from numerous snacks and nutty bits and an umbrella and notes about music I heard and wrote it down so later I could look it up and my own cup holder and pre-programmed radio stations and the spare change slot where I put $$ and cents for the folks with the cardboard signs and my little statue of Quan Yin on the dash and bumper stickers and scratched up bumper and ding in the windshield it's all perfect like real life a bit bumpy and brilliant and being a lunar eclipse in it's own celestial group my car my blueberry car.

Just got home after an all night birth. Clinic starts in an hour. People say, "How do you do it?"

I have no fucking idea.

Today is perhaps the LAST DAY I will ever teach students in a classroom. My brain is picked clean. I wished them well. May you all be well. May you be open-hearted women who explore your and the suffering of others with kindness. Listen carefully. Leave your judgments at the door. Remember you will die one day too. Be humble. Be brave.

There are men swarming the deck. Sean amassed a crew. Banging and pounding and power saw noises. My back and neck need attention from the car accident. It's hard to turn my head to the right, difficult to look behind me when I park.

I'm going to offer the banging men some beer. The day is brilliant and the red head has a terrific sun burn. And no hat. Sheesh. Soon, I will have a deck that won't kill anyone. Sturdy and strong and handsome. Like my son-in-law. And one day, my grandson, Milo.

Uh-oh, cursing from the yard. I hope there is no blood. I better check. I'll wait on the beer...

I'm about to gesso a big canvas. I don't know if I have floor space. Pollack had a big studio so he could lay stuff on the floor and he could make a mess. I'm so lucky to have a studio but right now it's too small.

Ive been dreaming a lot. In one dream we were being chased by a bear. We locked ourselves into a triangularly shaped chicken coop. It was very crowded. We were all pressed together. The bear wasn't fierce, just intelligent. He was examining the fastener on the door of the coop, made of chicken wire and bits of wood (pretty flimsy, if you ask me). Then we were running down a steep meadow, brilliant with wild flowers. The bear was chasing us. I felt that we should be quick because the bear might want to eat us so there was a sense of urgency. Then I woke up and thought about bears, how beautiful and strong they are.

I was cooking dinner by the tide line in Glacier Bay, Alaska. We were on a kayaking trip. My companion said very conversationally, "Uh, about 200 feet in front of you is a bear." Indeed. She was sniffing the air and looking about for the cooking smell. I threw dinner into the water, gathered up the rest of the food and backed away. We put stones in the cook pots and banged them together and talked loudly. The bear drifted off into the bushes.

Later that night, as I tried vainly to go to sleep, I thought about the bear, the natural world and what wildness really is. Wildness in the heart of us, wildness with prickers and claws and blood and teeth. Wild wildness.

I am having a day of unabashed sloth and torpor. I read Sherlock Holmes and lay abed until 1:30!!!! I'm about to wander the neighborhood and make my way to the bakery because the banging and drilling is afoot in my yard where the new deck rises in cedar-ish glory.

A friend left an invitation on my door to come hear her read from her NOVEL. I might go and hear her because I am a friend of the arts and only a wee bit jealous. I'll try to dim my green glow and applaud politely at the right moments.

I am nearing the point where I unfurl a large canvas, cover it with gesso and begin to noodle with glop and paint. It has been percolating for several weeks and it is time.

Other than that, I will continue to remain relaxed and dreamy. Productively dreamy.

I made it through the day. Remarkable. The deck is completely gone so I MUST NOT GO OUT THE BACK DOOR because I will fall and break my neck, midwifery bags flying.

Sean says because my car has been in (count'em) three accidents, we're done. No more trips to the collision place where I am on a first name basis with everyone.

Is my car jinxed? Ok, time to haul out the incantations and smudge and feathers and pink light aura. Build a healing globe of spooky illumination around the force field. Park under a pyramid.

Or maybe get huge headlights and massive speakers coming out of the roof with noises of a thousand starlings.

Or buy a giant truck and jack up the wheels so I need a step stool to get in. Or ride a horse.

I like the horse idea. Where are my riding boots and crop? Plus, horses are beautiful and smart.

I'll call mine True Blue and I'll be Miss Lois. With a cowboy hat. And fringe.

A true story

Drifting home in my wee blue car down the gangster highway past the Safeway and T Mobile and the 99 cent Chinese place and the collision shop where I have unfortunately been twice in two weeks, just driving along then the unmistakable sound of screeching, grinding, car bits flying from MY car because a Coupe de Ville Caddy, vintage unknown has decided to change lanes into me. Oh great. We pull over and the lady jumps out, two tone bangs, missing teeth and attitude. I call the cops and she's trying to convince me we can work this out without the police. Uh-huh. Well, I'm trying to open my driver side door, lots of creaking and car bits falling on the ground while the traffic is way too close.

Then the husband appears and he's accusing me of being anti-social (?) and they have to go pick up their kid, don't I care about their kid??? Well, don't I? I spent some time thinking about this. I am a midwife and I spent the morning with students teaching them to extract a stuck baby in a simulation lab. I do care about kids, generally.

But. Half of my car in in the road and I don't think I can drive it very far with the bumper mashed up against the tire. So, as you see, I feel conflicted. I call my insurance company and listen to their sorry noises until we get to the confirmation number, which is many numbers long. I'm beginning to feel decidedly fuzzy when I remember I'm on call and there are a few calls to clients I need to make. "Hi, tell, me what's going on, oh, I'm waiting for the police to arrive so I can get a tow and a rental car, then I'll be all set for your birth." Sheesh.

The nice policeman arrives and finds out the lady is driving with s suspended license and no insurance. Again, I feel for them-poor people in a busted Caddy with the bumper hanging off. I get to drive to my collision place after the cop jimmies the bumper with a crow bar, get my rental (a giant Buick for g-ds sake) and they go off with a citation and a ticket and more to follow from my insurance.

Now I'm on the couch with an ice pack on my neck. I'm hoping they got their kid ok and nobody goes to jail. As they were leaving, the lady came over and apologized to me. It really isn't personal. She's not drunk or on drugs. She's just poor and can't get a break.

I downloaded all of the Glee songs and that's what I'm gonna listen to. Show tunes. Well, I am an honorary faggot so I get to.

My honey is coming home with dinner and her strong hands. Sometimes I feel incredibly lucky.

Cats have perched about me and the Sunday paper is unread. I basically did nothing today. Well, I wrote poetry and a student eval and I told someone who I was considering hiring that I withdrew my offer.

I've stopped panicking when I consider two midwives instead of three in my practice. Someday I'll retire and this will all be a memory. But. I have a time getting up at night and a bigger time recovering from an all-nighter. Sleeping for 14 hours seems to cure the fatigue.

I fear I've become a misanthrope. Clues: I'd rather stay home than go to the Nick Cave exhibit at SAM. I hang out in my garden A LOT. I wander around and pick weeds without gloves on. Then my hands have that moth-bitten look. I hide in my house if someone comes to the door unless I'm sure who they are. I'd rather spend time with my cats than almost anyone. Sometimes I go dancing and it feels great until I remember that I don't really like people. Well, I like some people. I like my clients. I think women in labor are amazing. Then I think I could be spending all my time reading and writing and playing the piano and painting and lying on the couch doing fuck-all....

It's happened. Sean and Henry came over today and ripped off the rest of the deck. It was truly rotten, I mean rotten. Thankful no one died out there putting their foot through a rotten board. Now when you open the back door, it's a five foot drop. And I wouldn't bounce. I would break all my bones. Plus be pierced by many rusty nails. The cats are behaving predictably bitchy. They have taken to sharpening their claws on the screen door in the front. Creatures of habit. Their cat door is in the basement, darlings. Nothing has happened to your cat door.

Sheesh.

What a glorious delicious scrumptious and blessed day of sun and blue and all. And the police cars screaming and driving 100 MPH through our quiet child-filled neighborhood.

My neighbor and I had a garage sale, my first ever. Since vacating my old midwifery office, my garage was sky-high with stuff. And I sold almost all of it, hooray. There goes the family round table with the five leaves. I sold it to a midwife buddy so I can visit it sometimes. And the beautiful teak couch from my exam room went to a pregnant woman and her man. Perfect. The blue velvet 'fainting couch' went to an artist for her studio, also perfect. And yes, girls, I kept the rug of your childhood and the platform rocker.

After it was all over, I showered off the grime and lay on the couch counting my money. Oh yeah.

By the way, I am deeply sunburned so I feel euphoric and glow-y.

Now the guy across the street is attempting to start his ancient pick-up. It sounds like summer, revving and popping and stalling. Better than the police cars. The air is perfumed with the smells of burning animals.

As for me, I walked down the street to the local home made ice cream parlor and had a vegan cone, almond roca. Yum.

The deck is partial, some parts of it are missing so you could break your ankle or your leg if you forgot and went out at night and walked the wrong way in the dark. Sean made a big pile of lumber with nails sticking out, a true lockjaw playground. Have you ever met anyone with lockjaw or recovered from lockjaw? Me either.

By the way, Carol Burnett on Glee looks terrible. Her lips are all stretched out like her mouth has melted and is heading towards her chin. Otherwise, her face is frozen.

Why o why do celebs do this to themselves? Why is it so wrong to get old and look it? Just look at their hands, I tell you. Vein-y and spotty and gnarly and OLD!!

My garden

Hush, be still

button, turnip

turned inside me so fast

wound up tangling

strangling

it doesn't matter

anymore

you were born

unborn, backwards

white, still as a stoppered heart

drifted snow on a draped railing

blankets carefully folded

put away

you slowly vanished, disappeared

flowers rotted in vases

we did not notice

we told ourselves

nothing, it was nothing

you were nothing to us

an old mirror of wavy glass

little raisin, little mouse

don't haunt our house

Too soon to go-such beauty

It isn't warm here (sigh) but not raining so off I go to the bike trail. This time, I'll go slower and longer, maybe. I always forget that as far as I go in one direction, I have to return. Ha ha ha ha. Duh.

I sorted through an enormous pile of poems yesterday and found some treasure, including the first poem I brought to a Radish King writing group I was in way back when. It's better than I remember. Yesterday I recorded myself reading poetry for Menacing Hedge. I told Gio I want some Vincent Price movie music playing in the background with faint screams. I don't think he's going to do it so I'll have to settle for jazz. (What about bongos?)

Can I say here-I dislike penis poetry. Let me explain. These are male poets who feel the need to name drop in their poems, the Beats, esp Allen Ginsburg and, of course, Bukowski. And they get up to shenanegans when they read; they yell, they stab the air, they twirl on their manly toes. Blech. And they're of a certain age. I try not to criticize but geez, enough already. Let your work stand on it's own without all the posturing and hubris. And maybe you'll hear if your work is actually decent. I often want to see the page when I hear spoken word and the like. How does it hold up? Am I engaged and curious? Do I want more? Do I return to the work again and again because there is always a new discovery? Am I challenged by the language and the rhythm?

Yelling and gesticulating is not necessary. Not. Necessary. (see above)

Off to bike the Green River/Interurban trail.

I rode my bike a long way and felt invincible. Then I rode back and realized I was riding with the wind at my back before and now I was riding into the wind. I downshifted pathetically and doggedly rode in the lowest gear. I could hardly drive back. Jell-o legs. Drippy sweat. Fie on physical fitness.

The cats have it right. Sleep all day, especially if there is sun, have an evening meal, repeat.

Today, I watched as a young woman on a skateboard haul ass down a busy hill, weaving in and out as her backpack slid around on her shoulders. She was brilliant. No knee pads, no helmet, just her tail of hair flying out behind her.

I'm reading the winner's chapbook from a chapbook contest I entered and (obviously) did not win. They sent me an honorary copy (gee, thanks). I'm trying to be gracious. I found one poem I like. Really, one line. A line I might steal, if I scramble the words.

I'm much more careful about who (whom?) I submit to. I read the editor's works. I read previous editions to see if my work 'fits'. Journals will say they publish experimental poetry but they don't. They publish safe, tame work.

Sorry, Glee is on. I LOVE Glee. As much as Dexter. Seriously.

I watched a biopic of Beethoven and it was so heavenly because it was full of MUSIC, concertos and symphonies and choral works and string quartets and talking heads talking about his failed love affairs and his bad health and his hearing and Vienna and on and on. His scores were scribbled and crossed out and splotted with ink. The piece he wrote for Napoleon had a big hole in it where he crossed out Napoleon's name after Napoleon decided to be king of the universe. I had to go listen to the 5th again because it brings me to my knees.

Beethoven's hand span was super-human. His piano works are practically impossible for me. My wee hands. Good for midwifery, not so much at the piano.

Last night I dreamt I forgot to feed the chickens. I picked one up and she felt so scrawny. I felt terrible, and tormented. How could I be so forgetful and careless?

Then I woke up in a panic. Then I remembered we don't have chickens.

Oh.

But tonight we looked at chicken coop plans. By the way, if you want to bring your favorite chicken into the house because you can't bear leaving her outside, there are 'chicken panties' for her to, um, poop and pee it.

Really. As Deb said, "Why was I born on this planet, what did I do?"

Six of my poems got accepted, count 'em, six. I'll post where when I see the whites of their leetle eyes.

I'm gonna go crack my poetry knuckles now.

There they go

Wisteria

Sean came over and tore down the railings around the deck. Actually, they fell off from rot. Nice. So most of the wisteria is now lying on the grass. That's ok because wisteria is impossible to get rid of. Impossible. Next, he'll tear off the whole thing and rebuild. We'll have an 'outdoor area' where we can eat breakfast under the apple tree and read the paper and eye the garden to the sounds of chickens clucking and the imaginary poodles romping.

Today is rapture day. Huh, I'm still here and so is my tenant. That's no surprise because she has frequent loud sex with a variety of boys. And I'm busy today because I have a mom in labor so I'd have to rapture after the baby is born and it might be too late. I think the whole neighborhood is still here. Our zip is 98118, the most diverse hood in the country. I think heaven is mostly white people so we're not going anywhere soon, except to see if there are any empty houses with wide screen tvs and leetle cans of gourmet foods, olives, fig preserves for Rebecca and fancy olive oil. Oh, and my neighbor's old Chevy. Although they're godless heathens. I'm a Buddhist so technically I don't even have a religion. Nobody prays to the Buddha. That would be silly. I guess I'm an atheist.

The garden is beautiful. Like a fool, I agreed to be in the garden show this year (again). It's in July, when the garden looks like poop; no flowers, hot and dry. Except maybe this year it will rain ETERNALLY so the plants will be sparkly.

I feel delirious with drunken with sunlight and all the flowers smelling like, well lilacs and ginger and roses, yes roses. When it is sunny in Seattle, it is the most beautiful place on earth.

The poem you might have written but you didn't

Squirrel Adventures

My neighbors, who have for years had a family of sparrows nesting in their stove vent (which I can see from my kitchen window, this year boarded up the vent. (sob!) That's OK, they probably had issues with nesting material igniting or something.

Now they have squirrels. I saw them going in and out of a crack in the roofline. Bruce has been up there many times with wood, nails and hammer to close up the access. And each time, they chew their way out. They make a leetle hole that slowly gets bigger, amid much loud crunching and scraping.

I stand below, cheering on the squirrels.

Go squirrels.

We got all the plants planted before it started to rain. We went to Sky nursery. It's one of those nurseries with water features and shade gardens and acres of rhodies and azaleas and roses. You stagger around trying to figure out what you can afford and will it fit in your car without breaking all the branches and where in your yard will you plant it and do you really (really?) need another hosta...and so forth. After the most pathetic frozen Spring on record, honestly, we were all rather giddy. The parking lot was full.

I wanted an oriental pansy in the worst way but they were $100. I mean, one plant for $100 dollars. I could pay my water bill with $100. So I didn't buy an expensive pansy. I contented myself with a maidenhair fern. I won't kill this one. I won't kill this one. I won't. Why do they have to be so finicky?

Sheesh. One day they're fine and the next they're all dried out and curled up. My house is not the rain forest or whatever it is they want. What? Singing? Red shoes? Chocolate? What?

What do maidenhair ferns need to be happy?

I opened the very expensive bottle of port I've been saving for an emergency. It was that kind of day.

It was an emergency. I'm going to have another lettle glass.

halogen breathlines

fearless less fear

stop struggling

throw down with horses

their tangled in the wild

make them behave

no

naked and the dead

see the mutations

finite so finite

organize your notecards

surge onto the railways

a matchbook was found

press your fingers here

suppress your finer moments

coil the rope no coil the timers

swallow vinegar and swill

no list no orders no mountain

oily napkins cover your face with pandora

panic night vapors vespers

bread with lemon

all directions forward

birds gathered to crush a withered sky

welter a flickering flatline

purse your handhold

carry yourselves covertly

I was in Canada. O Canada. Peace Arch. Huge ferries with the continuation of bad food, but a veggie burger with glop so it tastes like **meat**.

I did see Canada geese. And eagles. And one frog.

Soon, Sean will come over and tear off the deck because it is rotting. MY BIG FEAR: I will forget there is no deck and I'll run out in the middle of the night with my birth gear and step into------nothing. Then my chin will hit the support beam and I'll break my neck. After that, I'll be in a wheelchair I operate by blowing through a straw.

How can I write poetry then? By blinking my eyes? And the cats will sit on me for warmth and I won't be able to wipe their (drool, fur, hair balls) off me.

Nightly-Hugo and Lola engage in a tussle involving laid back ears and yeowling. Fur floats through the air. Then Hugo makes a wad of the rug by the stairs. Every night. This is why they will never go to college and make me proud. They're in a rut. Because of the size of their brains and their, um, proclivities. And when they sleep on the bed, they pin me down with their weight so I think I've had a stroke in the night and can't move my legs. This is their job. Their only job.

Osama bin Laden's mother is grieving. For her son. Once he was a baby inside her. No matter, we were all babies once.

While walking around my yard, I stepped in dog poop. Since my dogs are imaginary, it couldn't be them. However, Lola, the downstairs dog is an actual dog and makes poop.

Then I found a busted robin's egg with a fully formed baby robin inside, yellow beak and featherless body. Momentarily, I pondered warming up the baby, bringing it back to life with my extraordinary powers and teaching it to say my name...on the other hand, my immortal powers are better saved for getting dog poop off my boot so I buried the baby robin and her shell.

There's an eagle nesting in the tallest evergreen. She makes her chirruping song in the evening. Crows dive bomb the nest. They see their own doom.

Tomorrow, Ina May Gaskin is at the big hospital here talking to the OB/gyn residents about normal birth. An anthropological inquiry since normal birth is not something they study. They don't see normal birth, they don't understand normal birth and they think we midwives are somehow loony. Ina May is a shrewd harmless granny with an alternate worldview. We're showing up in force to watch. I want to get there early to get a front row seat. NOONE sits in the front row at Grand Rounds. Ha.

We're contemplating a chicken coop for our as yet imaginary chickens. We want to have chickens like every other neighbor in our hood. Our chickens are gonna pack some heat for the raccoons, thieving bastards.

My tenant is playing music very loud. I might have to kill her. Of course you realize this is just a figure of speech.

The cats are fixing me with their cat-stare thang. Dinner is upon us and they are making sure we have a mind meld so I WON'T FORGET to feed them. Lupine, the evil one, is nursing on the afgan on the couch. If she had thumbs, she'd suck them.

I saw someone today (as I was stepping into my therapist's office) who was in a suicide survivors group with me a few years ago. We also did a Suicide Prevention Walk together, twenty miles at night. At the end of the walk, the path was lined with luminaries with photos of dead people who had 'inspired' the walkers. We held each other up for those last steps. She remembers Geoff's anniversary and always emails me. I think we could get together now for coffee. There are some tragedies we carry forever, like a burned arm.

Art shows me the way.

I went to the dentist this morning so now I'm drooling out of both sides of my mouth. But, dang, my teeth are clean!

The hygienist next to me had a kid in her chair. They talked about Mr Air and Miss Water and which color sunglasses did she want to put on (green). My childhood dentist was named Doctor Hummer. He did hum while he worked and he was a sadist because he never used novocaine. Ever. You just griped the chair arms, breathed deeply and let the tears slide slowly down your face.

In other news, it's about 14 degrees here but I'm going out to shovel mulch and pretend it's Spring since it's almost May. I say encouraging things to my garden like, "chin up, at least it's sunny!" and "aw, c'mon, at least there aren't any slugs." The garden looks sullen regardless.

Then I'll romp with my imaginary dogs, Gina and JP while herding the imaginary chickens.

LA LA LA and wait for the unicorns.

By the way, the US Post Office sent change of address notices to our new clinic and I just want you all to know that I am now President Beth Coyote.

I didn't even have to campaign. Or raise billions.

I'll be ordering medical care for everyone and 20 hour work weeks and massive vacations and chocolate drinking fountains and no war and public nudity. Oh, and red shoes for all.

Love,

Your Prez

I listen to stories at work. I sit in my grandmother's rocking chair and listen to women tell their stories. Today a woman told a story so painful I couldn't speak. My midwifery partner was beside me and fortunately she hadn't lost her voice so she talked calmly and soothingly. We made a plan some kind of plan. I asked the woman what we could do for her knowing we can't fix her or her life. My heart was bleeding, shattering, breaking. I don't think I'll ever understand why some people have to endure so much suffering.

She talked about g-d and her faith in (him). Because I practice kindness, I nodded. After she left, I wanted to bang my head on the table and eat chocolate. I work with caring women all day so there was chocolate. They gather around when head banging is going on. I felt their goodness. Maybe that's g-d, the impulse toward goodness.

I feel like I could explode with all the secrets I've heard.

The lilacs are swelling on the tree but it is so cold it might snow. The cats have crowded around waiting for dinner, a daily highlight. I saw Margaret last night at a reading/mic thing I go to occasionally. People reading from notebooks and yellow pads and some coffee and the sound of the expresso machine. And the old man talking because he wants to talk about anything...horses and people who are too smart and use too many words in their poems so of course I take it personally.

With s spring like this, I seriously consider a move to Florida or Mexico or southern California. Meanwhile, the English primroses have bloomed again, faithful. yellow and purple.

This weekend I have to make middle Eastern food: humus, stuffed grape leaves, baba ganoush, felafel. I might eat it all before anyone comes over. When the weather is dreadful, make bread. Then eat it right out of the oven with butter. (or in my case, fake butter). Bread is magic.

I'm so happy to live in a town where there is a local person speaking about the DEMONS in such a public way.

I have been eaten by a large hairy nocturnal spider. You should see my right leg. I have 15 bites that itch like a mother. And two nights in a row. WTF?

I like spiders. I liberate them. Quit eating me already.

Sheesh.

I spent the Easter thingamajig visiting a new baby and pulling weeds in the garden. Huge piles of weeds. I also stood over the raised bed where we planted everything WAY TO EARLY and apologized repeatedly. The kale might make it.

I walked six miles today and now I feel virtuous. I even shaved my legs, a biannual affair. All of us were outside in the warmth and sun and flowers bursting and so forth. I came home and made pesto. I found asparagus which I will broil with coarse salt, lemon and olive oil. O, it is a good day. If I had the strength, I'd haul the Adirondack chairs from the garage and sit in one. At this point, I'd probably drop a chair on my foot. It's better to wait for a stronger, younger person to do it, like Deb's son.

Yesterday, two girls were born. One after the other. I don't talk about my work here much but I love delivering babies. I do. Even if I get a twisted back and a stiff neck. And I lose sleep. I was meant to do it. And I'm lucky to do what I love for a living. I know it.

I'm drinking a good red in my only wine glass and I feel special. It's the sun. It makes me feel oddly optimistic.

We went to the movies last night and it was so awful we left. Even tho Juliette Binoche won some sort of award from Cannes, like best actress where she bites her lip fetchingly and utters improbable and incomprehensible lines about random events, it was BORING. I was nodding out. I'm so tired of my life at the moment because I've got too much to do. At least my new clinic has a phone and a FAX. All without the (sic) help of Qwest, surely one of the most evil phone companies around.

Oh goody. It's raining again and it's about 12 degrees out. Spring in Seattle. Feh!

A sunny day and bicyclists were out in force, like swarms of brightly colored insects hunched over their bellies. This makes driving beside them a challenge because they will ride abreast and tear along as fast as possible. And they have ATTITUDE, esp the guys. Ok, exclusively the guys. I must remind all bicyclists: I HAVE A LARGE MACHINE WHICH CAN CRUSH THEM FLAT. It's called a car. I wouldn't mean to crush them flat, it would just happen. I'd feel real sorry. I'd leave the country in disgrace. My life would be ruined, but, hey, their lives would be ruined too, being crushed flat and all.

So please. If you're on your $3000 bike in your fancy clothes, thinking you're the next big thing in the Gran Prix, stay out of my way. I wouldn't mean to but it might happen.

Ok, We forgot what day it was last week and didn't go to a Cheryl Wheeler concert. Just. Forgot. Tonight Rebecca is reading and I didn't realize it was TONIGHT and not TOMORROW night until it was too late. Shit. F--k.

This is serious. I hardly go out as it is. Is it because I moved my entire clinic today and one of the midwives who works for me is leaving and I'm interviewing replacements and we changed our emergency numbers and fired our answering service? Too much to do syndrome.

Rebecca, I'm so sorry. I was so looking forward to seeing/hearing you. I so owe you a dinner at Plum.

Shit. That's all I can say.

Even though the mover guy is coming on Sunday to move heavy guy-type things, like the full filing cabinets and couches, I'm leaving town overnight. My friend lives in the Skagit where snow geese land in the fields and right now there are rows and rows of tulips and daffodils. Her house is right on the river and I'll go up there and she'll make me dinner and I'll sit on the porch and think deep thoughts. Last year we watched a pair of baby owls on a high branch.

She lives in the damn country.

Deb and I are going to go to Chickens 101 class and learn about chicken care/culture/etc. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna love having chickens because they are beautiful and NOT TOO BRIGHT. Cats are peculiar, dogs are slobby and chickens have feathers growing between their (toes?), um, claws, what do they have? See, so much to study.

I rarely call myself an imbecile but I am an imbecile. I sent poems to a journal that doesn't accept simultaneous submissions and I didn't record what I sent them. Idiot! And then I tried to find their email and my tech savvy g'friend figured it out because it was NOWHERE on their beautiful WEB page. I groveled and begged for their forgiveness.

I have been submitting and yesterday I found out I'm being published, hooray. Just one lettle poem but it made me absurdly happy.

The cats are using the new couch as a scratching post. Bad cats!! We are using the squirt bottle trick but will soon resort to harsher methods. Withholding catnip? Making them sleep in the cellar? Dressing them in doll clothes?

I got up to see a lady about a baby which did not emerge from her body yet and so I came back home and attempted sleep which has so far been impossible because EVERYONE I've ever known has decided to come over. Shaun is on a ladder right now and Pete needed some place to put gardening tools and the mover guys were here all shiny and young, muscles bulging, to move a couch.

However.

I'm in my green bathrobe and a t-shirt and slippers at this hour in the afternoon (my mother would call it unseemly and she'd be right) with a cough that will NEVER go away. Still waiting for the baby to emerge from the lady, maybe tonight or tomorrow. Such is the life of a midwife.

I'm gonna put on real clothes and go weed so I feel like I belong here in this neighborhood and I belong to the human beings and I'm not a bathrobe-wearing cat woman people talk about behind their hands.

I'm productive, dammit.

I can't believe that I might be getting sick again. Could it be because I'm on call for the next hundred and fifty years, I'm moving my clinic to Eastlake, my honey just moved in and oh yeah, we changed out emergency number at work (for clients) and we fired our answering service because they can't pronounce 'midwife' or 'midwifery' and they're RUDE to clients. Like, they're an ANSWERING SERVICE, I mean, they answer the phone. Is that so hard? The last time I complained, the boss lady said the operator was having 'personal problems' Wha? They schedule clients on days when we're not in the office, they double book clients for one midwife and they misspell names and get phone numbers wrong.

Or maybe I have a cough because I'm dying of consumption. I could cough delicately into a lace hanky and then play a few etudes. Then I'd put a hand to my brow and slide to the floor under the piano and lie there insensate while my beloved throws rose water on me.

I'm not getting sick. This is ridiculous.

Dental adventures

I was there at 9:30. The hygienist chatted and poked around, making small clucking noises. I felt afraid. I mean, pockets are Ok if they're 1 or 2 or 3 but 5? Does that mean I have craters in my mouth beside my teeth with small fishes in them and areas of darkness? Stalagmites and stalactites made of plaque? Then she moved in with a face shield and a blow torch after the needles in the palate. You are not supposed to have needles in your palate. G-d did not create your palate for needle treatment. She roped off with the headlamp firmly in place and descended.

And this was only for half of my mouth. I have to go back for the other half. Later.

The dentist came in and he was much more optimistic. He said my mouth looked 'pretty good'. He admired the color of my gums and gave me a 4 point lecture on implants, complete with power point.

I think this is the dental version of 'good cop, bad cop.'

Even with dental insurance, I know I'm going to spend a small fortune there. Fortunately, B of A offered me a home equity line of credit today for no reason. I needed a notary and ended up giving a complete stranger permission to view my credit history, review my home and car insurance and check my tax returns from last year. My g'friend left the premises and walked around the neighborhood. She didn't offer to put a stop to this situation.

{{{sigh}}}

Maybe with a big line of credit, I could run up a huge bill and disappear to Tuscany. Anyway, the Feds are shutting down on Friday so who cares.

Today was my sweetie's birthday and we went to the Tacoma Glass Museum. Ordinarily, glass art makes me yawn. We're all Dale Chihuly here in the NW and, well, I blaspheme but he's boring. And he does the same stuff over and over and he's everywhere. Just look up when you're next at the Opera (or the ballet or a play or even the Majestic Bay movie house) and there he is. Snore.

But.

Today we watched a gang of youth blow, heat, shape and aim blazing torches at molten glass and they didn't burn themselves. It was astonishing. I would undoubtedly touch the glowing end of pretty glass after it came out of a 5 zillion degree oven with my naked finger because I forgot it was hot. I would. I forget where I am. I'm sure I'd be real sorry if I did that too. So we sat rapt while the youth gang messed around without personal injury to themselves or others. Then we went and looked at the galleries. The best was a toss-up. The locals made glass art from kid's drawings. My favorite was a dog eating flowers. The other favorite was a room sized installation of clear glass in the shapes of trees, leaves, clouds, a waterfall, bushes and grasses. It was all suspended from the ceiling by fishing line and soooooo magical.

Then we went to the best vegetarian restaurant and had black truffles and avocado mousse and salsify and so many other esoteric ingredients I feel positively high falutin'.

So kiss my grits.

I am most distressed. Bailey Coy Bookstore closed last year. I walked down there from my clinic and it was GONE. Forever. Then I was just in Fremont and their bookstore is closing. I've read there and attended readings there. Elliot Bay Books moved up to Capitol Hill so I can still go there and smell the heavenly paper/ink/glue of books. I cruise books. I sidle up to them and feel them. I read the back, the cover, sometimes the index. I ponder their physicality, their heft and texture. When I bought Just Kids, the Patti Smith bio about her and Mapplethorpe, I felt the pain of happiness. There are piles of books on my bed. I sleep with books. There are piles beside my bed. I read mysteries, biographies, poetry, travel books, cook books, classics, trash. I read everything. Some books I read annually. The Cider House Rules is one of those books. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow is every bit as good as Dostoevsky. I've read it so many times in the bath, it's swollen to twice it's size. A Kindle won't replace a book, even though I'd use a Kindle if someone gave me one.

Bookstores are disappearing right now. Save a bookstore. Buy a book. (buy a stack of books)

I have two imaginary poodles. Standard poodles. Their names are Gina and Jean Paul. Gina is a silvery gray and JP is chocolate brown. They are past the puppy stage and midway through obedience school. They are extremely smart and intuitive. And they don't shed. The cats tolerate them, as they do one another. When we go for walks, they hardly need leashes because they are so well behaved. They have puppy haircuts, not those stupid pompom cuts you see at dog shows. They are handsome and dignified and they sleep at the foot of my bed. They understand three languages; English, Portugese and, of course, French.

They are the best dogs ever.

I have to talk about a sensitive topic here. The dentist. I had a dentist who is my friend. She began all young and perky. We gossiped about people we knew and we even went to a wedding together where we were horrified and delighted. Inappropriate comments, horrible bride's maids dresses, the works. Then she decided she would move to an island and raise sheep dogs. So she got some sheep and some dogs and did just that. She still commuted to Seattle to be a dentist. Then one day, without any notice, she sold her practice to a guy, a Christian guy who played (blech) Christian soft rock in his office. From NPR to that. It was terrible. So I took my dental needs to a local guy walking distance from my house.

(((sigh)))

It wasn't the same. No one gossiped with me. The dentist cleaned my teeth with a vicious vibrating metal torture device and gave me a rinse to use that would "only stain my teeth a little". Argh. And now I need another cleaning and nowhere to go. I am bereft.

Plus my doctor just retired. That shouldn't be allowed. I'm reduced to seeing 12 year olds who say they are doctors but I'm not so sure. I think they're on their lunch break from junior high.

I got all caught up with my NYT book reviews and I learned that Oprah! magazine had a spread (for poetry month) of young nubile poets modeling fancy expensive outfits. WTF? A $5000 jacket? $400 shoes?

This is totally WRONG. I'm so disgusted I'm going to wear my red clogs all week in honor of fashionable poets even if they don't match anything else I'm wearing. Or maybe the lavender clogs with French writing on them (oui oui!) My daughter gets free Danskos so I do too.

Poetry is sexy! Poetry is hot! Poetry sells outfits !?

Today is Eden's birthday, my daughter. It was a wild and fast labor, a home birth with my beloved family doc who I convinced to attend and a cold snowy morning in upstate New York. Her face was bruised she came out so fast. My house is filled with her photos and art. I sent her roses.

In case you're wondering, this is an urban coyote riding the subway. We are everywhere and we can't be got rid of. We're invincible, especially on the uptown train.

There is a sign on Beacon Hill over a hair shop that says, PERMS, Pedicures, TUNA. I think they must be a full service salon...sashimi and a manicure perhaps.

As I was putting on my 'walking shoes', my beat-up sneakers, it began to rain. Eff it, I have a raincoat, so there!

After I get a cold, I cough for, o, weeks. Last night, in the midst of a coughing fit in bed, I staggered to the medicine cabinet and downed {{{codeine}}} cough syrup which works because it makes you unconscious dead never moving until morning so you don't have the strength to cough. But all the gunk in your lungs is still there, waiting to start bubbling and wheezing in the morning AND you have a wicked headache and you feel...drugged. I sound like Linda Blair. I need an exorcism. Be gone, evil lung gunk!!!

My midwife partner thinks my sicknesses are from my vegan diet. I wonder if she's right. Although I can't see eating a few hamburgers as a cure. Besides, yuck.

I purged my closet. The rule is, if you haven't worn it in 1 year (Ok, maybe 2 years), out it goes. I have this little black dress, cut on the bias that I looked HOT in about, um, a lotta years ago. I would look ridiculous in it now. So I've been hanging on to it for the sake of memory. And my former hot self. With high heels and stockings with seams. Oh yeah. Farewell, former hot self. I'm sure I have a current hot self. She hasn't arrived as yet. Deb thinks I'm hot in my green ratty bathrobe. She is obviously blinded by love.

I forgot to put out the garbage and the outfit I wore in haste ahead of the garbage truck was stunning. Pajama top, dirty pants that were on the floor and aqua gardening shoes. Yum. I bet the garbage people have seen everything. And Deb still thinks I'm cute. I'm so glad she's delusional.

FOR TODAY AND THE SUN AND ALL THE BRILLIANT

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

dshaw@jabberwocky.com

---

Return to Glorious Nonsense

My girlfriend just put a bowl of strawberries in front of me. They are so beautiful, I want to cry.

Downed trees in Seward Park, trilliums coming up in my yard and a ton o' weeding awaits me. Light and shadow, bring an umbrella but bits of sun and an eagle calling out of sight in the treetops. The camilla is thick with pink flowers, wholly over grown. I'm a wimpy pruner. I make little snips here and there. My stout hearted girlfriend will wade in with giant clippers and give the camilla a proper grooming. When all appears dead, green mites appear ground level where I despaired of any plant living through the winter, especially a fickle winter of snow and warmth and more snow and ice. Plants in their dumb glory.

One lone daffodil but many more coming. I forgot how many tulips I planted last year but they are everywhere under the bushes. I will never vanquish the grape hyacinths but I always try.

The dogs in the park are, for the most part, delirious. Especially the blondes. They run all over, their owners calling in vain. I miss Yogi man and his barrel body. He was quite polite and above the frolickry.

Got a nasty sore throat. Here in bed with the blue sky and puffy clouds. No gardening for me.

PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES

If you're squeamish. I'm waiting for my g'friend to arrive because she has to help me. Seriously to g-d. Lola has a giant poop matt under her tail and try as I might, I can't pin her down to wash/cut/slash etc at her bottomside without significant damage to myself. I tried. Last night. My hands are bandaged. I left her in the bathroom because she smells, well, like cat poop. And she knows something is wrong. She limps down the stairs. She's taken to lying flat on her back with her back legs wide apart, something I've never seen her do before. Occasionally she tries to clean herself but, yuck, even for a cat. In the meantime, the house smells real bad and no amount of incense is helping.

ARGAA.

I just wanted to share. Thanks for listening.

My hunny and I went to the Gem and Jewelry show at the Seattle Center today. I got a piece of amber, still in my pocket. Amber is magic. Lots of 'jewels' are fake, apparently. I saw a lot of rocks which should have been left alone where they were, like geodes that people saw in half. Most of the people selling were Chinese or Korean. Most of the people buying were East Indian. I don't understand this. There were two men sitting by a polisher machine that whirred around and around. This is how you make facets. I asked how long it would take for a rock to be polished and the one with the glasses said, "about 800 years". I believed him.

My neighbor downstairs is having sex VERY LOUDLY. It might be time for me to go upstairs to bed. Oh, now it's quiet. Sometimes, I wonder if I am really a human being. Like other human beings.

It is blowing winds about 800 miles an hour. I rolled up the awning and a garbage can convention is skittering down the street, can lids everywhere.

In Wisconsin, the farmers are gonna drive their tractors to the state capitol. Go farmers! What's happening is truly horrifying. Tonight I'm gonna eat sushi with my honey, go to a movie and hunker down in our liberal corner of Seattle while the world goes to hell. I'll dust off my protest signs for the coming street demos. Or the space ships to come get me and my friends.

While swimming today, my lane partner was a sleek young man who mostly swam underwater. I'd look down and there he was, fish man in his little black trunks and wavery hands. I though I might be dreaming. Swimming in the pool is not like Hawaii and the Pacific. I know this because there isn't any salt or blue neons or parrot fish. Just a merman.

Back to the forest for split pea soup and a bread crust a crust some sparse butter from a butterfly bush last summer we had no thought of the winter calamity but here it is the sorrowful hand signals a darning egg we frolicked in our flouncy trousers the beetle queen adorned her many children with spun sugar all colors I liked the purple ones cavort you may=nonesuch=honeysuckle birds in their feathered bower.

I'm on O'hau right now, looking out over the town and the mountains and the ocean. With my baby. In the sun. It is paradise. I can hear the mourning doves. The mountains are sharp and pointy and VERY STEEP. I thought today was my birthday but it isn't. It's the day before my birthday. Ha! We're going to go down to the water again and see and swim with more fishes. I saw puffer fish and neons and parrot fish and multicolored fish I don't know their names. The land here is temporary because the volcanoes pushed up the melted rocks yesterday and then the seeds blew in and grew palm trees and hibiscus flowers and orchids and many other houseplants. And here they are huge and they grow up things, like your car.

I could just go over and jump in the pool but I'm saving myself for the ocean. Which is everywhere all around.

The moon is a melting lozenge, a fuzzy cough drop, a liquid blind eye. In two days I fly off to Oahu where I will put on a mask and a snorkel and fins. (After you put on fins, you have to back into the water because it is way too hard to walk in fins while the waves mess you up). Then I will spend as much time as I can watching beautiful fishes. It is MAGICAL.

I won't want to come home to face my real life.

Angel fish. Clown fish. Sea turtles.

I will not eat poi, however. Poi is nasty.

One of our babies was born last night. I would have too, with the full blowsy moon lighting up everything like it did. And a daytime rainbow. I was gardening, raking last year's leaves and whacking away at the fallen. Oh, and digging up the grape hyacinths. They are impervious to eradication, try as I might. Now there's four bags of yard waste by the curb. I wore a beautiful new (thrift store) shirt to garden in. Why do I do this? It is covered with mud which usually doesn't come out. I also do this with shoes even though I have several pairs of gardening shoes. No, I wade out into the garden in a new pair of shoes so I can get them irreversibly caked with garden mud. Why o why? Maybe I think Home and Garden is coming to photograph and I want to look my best.

Off to my teaching job. Maybe we'll go outside for the afternoon and contemplate the huge herb garden.

Not one, but two rejections. Both with 'comments' about sending more and good luck and so forth. Piffle. How hard is it to publish one leetle poem/chapbook/ magnum opus?

I mean, really?

I am effing sick of rain. Bletch! Feh! Snorf!

I'm going to Hawaii next week. I'm not kidding. Oahu. Take that you rain clouds. Kiss my grits.

Recipe for heart-brokenness.

Take your favorite sweetheart to breakfast, then to the hot tub place with a sauna and steam bath. Marinate and sweat. Cry on her shoulder. Make a huge dinner with lentil soup and roasted garlic and homemade apple sauce. Watch the latest Sherlock Holmes from the BBC. Imagine you are a high-functioning sociopath like Sherlock. With zero social skills.

Pet Lola, the dumb but beautiful cat. Go outside in your bathrobe and allow the wind and moonlight to wash you. Clean. Sit in your bed and watch the radio towers on Queen Ann Hill blink on and off.

I "cleaned out" my office today. It's a dreadful kind of task. I pile up many piles of photos, poems, books, check ledgers, cameras and more books. Then I go away for a while. I don't write in there. I write on the couch downstairs with the cats draped around me. By the pink and green plant I just got and the big one with the long leaves I fuss over all the time. There's a buddha carving in here too, for ballast. The upstairs office has a forlorn light. One of the cats sits on the desk and sheds cat dust. Today I found bits of bird on the window sill so I think there have been bird murders in there too.

But.

I went in there last week and made an awful mess, the kind I loathe. And I let it sit there for several days to marinate. This morning, my contractor guy called and said he was coming over to work in that room. Gawd. So I had to wade in and begin.

Here's the problem. I sit down with a packet of photos and then I'm lost. Lots of trees and water and mountains and skies and children, all different ages. And there are boxes of photos. Then there are the check stubs and statements. How long are you supposed to keep those? Forever? What about the homemade cards from the children? And love letters from people I no longer remember.

Mostly though it's the stacks of poetry, mostly mine. It's a giant pile, clipped and scribbled on and sorted and unsorted and manuscripts and loose and untidy, a gawdawful tangle. Busted notebooks and scraps of paper.

Besides, my sweetheart is moving in. Moving. In.

I haven't lived with anyone for the past three years. I have forgotten how. I think it's like riding a bicycle. A big beautiful bicycle that goes real fast along the lake. With streamers. And a bell.

My daughter was here for a few days so I could help her buy a car. She's my whirlwind daughter-taking over the kitchen, opening all precious jellies and artichoke hearts and throwing things away past their sell-by dates. Sheesh. And then she cooks up a storm.

Raw kale salad:

2 bunches kale, stem removed and cut into bite sides pieces

Marinade

1/2 lemon juice and/or orange juice

2 TBS apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp corinader

2 cloves garlic, crushed very fine or through a garlic press

a bit of agave

salt

olive oil

mix all together and taste, adjust. Toss with kale. Oh yum.

Oh, the car buying business. Gawd. We put down $$ on one car and then tried another, way across town. She was set on a VW and she test drove one, liked it, sped through a residential area and thought that was it. Then she drove an older Acura. Ha! As she sagely observed" Mom, the Jetta is shite." I agreed so we went for a 2000 Acura with heated seats, electric everything, and I mean everything. A sun roof that opens and closes. Seats that move around on their own. Way more fancy than my car and less money. The miles were OK and the tires were not down to the rims.

She drove off this afternoon with her girlfriend and I fell into a funk. It will never be different. No matter how much or how little I help her, there will always be the feeling, the yearning to do more... I even made her go to the tire store this morning to be sure the tires were alright. No late night calls that they're stuck somewhere in Oregon with two flats.

Nerd universe

I just ran around Seward Park without stopping. This is a minor miracle. Granted, I was not fast. I wasn't even slightly fast. From a distance I probably looked like I was limping along. But I wasn't. I had 'running form'. And the sky was blazing with a sunset and the mountain was shimmering in the distance and the babies were all smiling and the ducks were quacking Beethoven's 3rd.

No, wait. I made up the last part.

Oh, when having a hair day like today, just put on a hat before you go out. So you don't scare the horses.

I have the whole day, THE WHOLE DAY, to lounge in my bathrobe, the green long one, on the couch or in bed and drink tea out of real bone china and read the NYT, except for the sports pages and the finance section and the travel section. I don't read the travel section because I always want to go everywhere they write about, like Tuscany and Aruba and Borneo.

But.

I might go to Thailand or Burma this year. I can do health care there and visit/be in monasteries. Specifically Buddhist monasteries. I haven't been in a Buddhist-dominant culture before. I bet the people are the same. But with incense and bells.

I just started Season II of In Treatment on HBO. The first season was so good, I would watch immediately when I got home from work. I wouldn't even take off my coat. I'd sit on the edge of the couch, chewing my nails and watch. Gabriel Byrne is brilliant, so's the the dialog and it's sick because I'm in therapy and I'm watching a show involving actors playing therapy clients and the effing sexy Gabriel is their therapist. If he were my therapist, I'd never miss a session. Even though he's a guy. He's got that cute accent and earnest lovely eyes.

My real therapist is a woman with curvy hair. She doesn't let let me get away with anything. I don't think she's the slightest bit sexy, probably an important thing. I wonder if she could fake an Irish accent. It might help me.

Nah.

Tonight I went into the dark garden and picked collards. I sauteed 'em in olive oil and hot sauce and salt. I have no need of anything more. Except for a brisk walk in the dreadful wet night. No one will bother me because I am fueled by cruciferous vegetables that survive the winter.

Today I'm taking my house apart. Old paint cans, half-used fluids and solids, a major pile of old 5K, 10K bibs (why do I have these?), random empty boxes, all the detritus that has a way of accumulating when you're looking the other way. My mother would be so proud. She threw out everything and I mean everything.

I'm gonna make a pile in the garage in anticipation of a U-haul trip to the dump (the dump!) in the near future.

I went to an open mike recently. Gawd. How could I have forgotten what they're like? I could say some very unkind things here but I am metaphorically biting my tongue. And my friend Maryann taught me to be polite and not walk out because I would want the same consideration when my turn came. Yeah, but sheesh.

I once read at Red Sky, a Paul Hunter thang on Capitol Hill, now defunct and a guy came in with a rolled up notebook. He sat at the piano and attempted to keep the notebook from falling on the floor so he could YELL and POUND on the keys in no apparent order, rhythm, etc. It was excruciating. Paul tactfully asked that he finish and no, we didn't want to hear any more. I miss that reading. There was some talent here and occasionally Paul would sing and play a harmonica.

Yes, I'm still in love, in case you were wondering. It's tiresome to have to go to work and live in different houses. I think we should work about 5 hours a week and play the rest of the time. Then I could get everything done, like writing more and painting and playing outside in the mysterious Northwest. Mysterious you say? Ha!

I'm gonna go biking in the freezing weather. It might be good for me. I'm not sure. I do know that I went dancing last night and it was wonderful. I was dripping with sweat, I'm sure I've shortened my life as a hearing person and I drank one alcoholic beverage. One. Honest. Well, I had some sips from a friend's drink. Over three hours.

But. I jumped around like I was a young person and waved my arms in the air and the girl on the platform wiggling and wearing VERY FEW CLOTHES came and danced with me a bit. And there were people grabbing each other and smooching in corners ((((sigh))) and it reminded me of the good old days when we went out every weekend and had (well drugs and alcohol may have been involved) a party. I behaved in an unseemly fashion. Then. Now I'm pretty tame. Dancing to loud music is fantastic and I'm gonna go again.

As long as my knees hold out. Oh, and my low back. And I promise I won't go home on the back of someone's motorcycle, no matter how much I want to. Unless it belongs to my sweetie. (And I will never do drugs in the bathroom again) So not Buddhist. Besides, you feel like doo-doo the next day. Horrid doo-doo.

Cauliflower mashed poatoes

Steam a head of cauliflower. Mash in a blender with (fake) butter, salt and pepper. Voila! Mashed potatoes which are really a cruciferous vegetable so you can EAT THE WHOLE BOWL. No guilt! And sometimes you can even fool your friends because they don't know they are eating a vegetable and not potatoes. I know, potatoes are vegetables too but not in the same category.

I think I'm allergic to my cats. I sneeze and cough and blow my nose whenever I'm home. Either that or I have the dread mold. Maybe the cats have mold...

My mother always told me I am too sensitive. Whatever the hell does that mean?

I'm so relieved that I can still be a Pisces after all the kerfluffle about the zodiac adding a 13th planet named Okechobee or some such. And don't you dare take away my Leo rising even though pride goeth before a fall, as my mother would say. Without my Leo thang I'd be a pile of Piscean mush all wishy-washy and stoopid in the head. As of this moment, because I saw a rainbow ring around the moon, I have dedicated myself to unseen forces behind potholes and candy corn, which is not candy or corn.

Tonight while driving home after my writer's group, I contemplated the meaning of life and I have rediscovered that there is no meaning really, an argument I had some years ago with an ex-lover. I stand by it. Life=no meaning, not in the usual sense. Josh has a 10 month old baby and he says that life is bliss and effing crazy, all at once. Exactly. Babies make you insane with their incessant demands and their total control of the situation. They scramble your few remaining brains. Muttering and stuttering ensues. And we all started out the same way. A baby, drooling and pooping. Gawd. That's why babies are cute and look like us. So we don't put them in a basket on the steps of the municipal building down town. With a note.

I don't know why I'm writing this. Probably I'm avoiding talking about upsetting current events. Don't get me started about the polar bears. I'm going to listen to the Fleetwoods sing 'Mr Blue' and drift off to sleep.

Goodnight dear indigo. You know who you are.

I want you all to know. Sometimes I rite real good.

I know what I said about skiing. I don't take it back but in the Northwest it rains. A lot. So this weekend, with friends, we went to Rainier, my home mountain to ski/snowshoe/play and sing. And it rained.

A sad day while snowshoeing in a spot called "Paradise" because it is, to be rained on. Sodden women in the car back and hissing of drying clothes steaming up the windows and so forth.

I bought a blackberry pie at the famous blackberry pie restaurant. Ruby licked the plate so we all did. It helped the rain situation.

Homemade blackberry pie is surely one of the seven wonders.

This is where I was. I love to ski. I love everything about it, the quiet, the white, the shushing sound of my skis on the snow, the cold on my face, the taste of a peanut butter sandwich in my mitten, the ache in my muscles after I'm done. Because I wasn't an athletic kid, the discovery that I could ski into the woods by myself and fall down a dozen times and get up and continue, that it didn't matter that I wasn't any good but I was good enough and I could stay warm and bright on the coldest days in the Northeast was a benediction, a kind of blessing. I've been on Rainier by myself when I had no business being alone, I've skied down pretty big hills without falling down and no one to witness, I've been standing in the forest catching snow on my upturned face.

Maybe I'll never be too old to ski. Just strap skis on my shoes, stand me up in the snow where it's perfectly flat and give me a little push. The joy pierces my heart.

I am teaching again, o lord, and I want to go into the classroom and insist that we play loud music, maybe Nirvana or Jimi Hendryxx and howl. Because the class is called 'Grief and Loss' and I don't want to talk about it anymore, I just don't. Because my personality is sucked into automatic grief and loss whenever I read a paper or watch the news or go outside and, lo, the sky is still gray (duh, the Northwest, I know, I know). I cry easily, the weepy overflow just waiting, always there to pounce.

What was I saying. Oh yeah. Tomorrow I'm going back to the snow by myself. It will be fine, I'm not going on any hilly trails where I might fall and break all my bones and lie there until the wolves find me. It's flat and pretty and long and groomed. So. I'll take snacks and hot tea and I'll drive carefully. I promise.

I just saw Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland, a real mess of a movie but he is so beautiful. ***sigh***

Kittens and puppies. Baby animals of all kinds. Unicorns. Rainbows. Dewy morning. La-de-da.

Without a lot of vitamin D, I deteriorate into hell and madness. So as you see, my vitamin levels are okey dokey.

I'm going to the dump today. It is the most glorious place. It truly is the maw of hell. There is a smasher truck on top of the garbage with a cage over the windows and it rolls back and forth smashing and crushing. (((shiver))) And you stand on the precipice throwing all manner of detritus in so the masher can run over it.

I once was going through a break-up and I went to the dump with several gallon glass jars. I hurled each one down where it made the most satisfying crashing explosive sound. Ah. I could have done this in my kitchen but this way, no mess to clean up.

Besides, in winter, the dump doesn't smell so, well, like a dump.

I went skiing today in the beautiful sunny blue and diamond-y snow and many children sledding and the enormously fit stake skiing individuals. Holly decided to let me make decisions, o lord, and we skied about 94 miles. going in one direction was fine, cold and bright. Then there was the issue of coming back. We, rather I, miscalculated a bit about the distance. Coming back was fine until it wasn't. Then we were trudging, then creeping, then crawling with much silent screaming of various muscles, some of which I didn't know I had. For instance, there are muscles in the back of your neck that somehow have something to do with skiing, poling, I don't know what. Also there are these little muscles in the inner thigh which begin to twitch and slither amid howling and weeping.

When we returned to the car, I could barely walk. I made hopping steps to the bathroom after leaving my car keys on the roof of the car. Of course, we looked for the keys for twenty minutes in the cold and so forth. Then I gracefully concussed myself on the hatchback lid that was still up.

Somehow we made it back to the city. A large amount of ibuprofen and a bath have helped some. Actually, I passed out in the tub. I fear I will be crippled tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

This is the consequence of exercise.