One Last Day Together (In Memoriam)

We had a long time together, Rodentia and I. Nineteen years.



But everyone everywhere eventually ends.




The night before, Rodentia was agitated, going from corner to corner throughout the house peering intently into the space between. Gareth said he saw a young tuxedo Jellicle cat outside looking in with big yellow eyes. Sounds like Jamara, I thought, the first cat who owned me.

Jamara was a cat of between spaces, always looking for just the right spot--in the middle of a doorway, in transitional spaces between the house and the out--the garage, the attic. Jamara would be happy as a psychopomp, escorting the living to the land of the dead. Leading her afterlife in the Between.

Jamara had come for Rodentia, and Rodentia was ready to follow.



Rodentia joined me for breakfast on that last day together. We were in the kitchen, and she got stuck on the other side of the water bowl. She wanted some moist cat food, could see and smell it, but could not piece together the way around the obstacle.

It seemed selfish to put her down. Whose suffering was I really ending this way? It seemed selfish to demand that she continue on a journey of drudgery--she was having trouble lying down. She would circle and circle, doddering and hunched.

I told her I wished she'd tell me what she wanted after I hung up with the vet's office. I asked her to tell me if she was ready to go, but tethered to a heart that just. Would. Not. Stop. Or, if on the other paw, she wanted every last scrap of good day that was left to her, even if she had to dig through a dungheap for them.

So, for the first time in weeks, she came out of hiding to sleep in line of sight, just as she used to do as a young adult.



When she turned her face to the wall, the way cats do when completely overwhelmed, I knew.



She slept the day away drowsing and nodding at my feet. She got up and drank copiously, but never left to use the litter box. It was clear what I was cutting short was not a matter of years, but of days, if that. And what I was cutting short was not long and lazy warm afternoons, but effortful existence--a burden on her narrow cat shoulders.



When I boxed her up to go to the vet, she complained about being lifted, but never said a word or tried to get out once inside. Usually I'm hearing threats to call an attorney before I've thrown the car in reverse. Not now.

The vet said that really, there was nothing to do for her--she was old, and what looked to be wrong was either kidneys, or thyroid, or both. While there are treatments, the question would be whether the few months we could buy her would be worth the discomfort. Whether we'd just be prolonging the inevitable, with the cost in pain.

We brought her home wrapped in a towel. I washed her feet and shaved the mats off her belly. Gareth walked in while I was handling her. His family does not handle physical death well¹, and I come from a long line of country wimminfolk who would set the deceased's hair, clean and dress the body for the funeral at home. I've touched all my relatives goodbye at the viewing since I became old enough not to give a damn what anyone thought.

I said, "I bet this is creeping you out." I had a basin full of warm water, Rodentia laid out on two clean towels, and a washcloth I was using to soak the clumped litter from around her pads.

"No," he said, tears in his eyes, "I think that's really beautiful. You're so tender with her."

I buried her under the largest pine tree for a monument, her favorite three toys with her. A knitted catnip mouse between her forepaws, a catnip pillow my mother made her grandcat under her head, and a jingle ball by her ear. Very Egyptian.

One year ago today, I spent one last day with Rodentia. One last day to encompass nineteen years.

Sleep you sound, little cat.





1. At Gareth's grandfather's memorial service (just a photo and some memories) I was treated to three-four earfuls about the utter and unspeakable barbarity of a viewing with the corpse present in the closed casket. Never mind an open casket viewing.

But see, how do you know they're really dead until you can feel that they're cold, can touch their hard cheek, and really get that there's no one in there? Ho wcan you grieve an image, a suit of empty clothes until you can perceive on a gut level that the entity you knew is gone, and this shell is all that's left?

O Wad the Gift the Giftie Gie Us . . .

Today tastes like melted gum, fried eggs, and concrete. It's summer, and the humid is rolling back in.

So, in the immortal words of the bard, it's always interesting to see how we really appear, to see ourselves as others see us. I love wordclouds, where the net does an impersonal search of your blog according to varied and arcane criteria and shows you what you really talk about. Not the genius posts in your head, not the tastes and textures of the words betwen the words, but what's in black and white there on the page. What did you really say?

Rodentia Rides the Burro (1990-2009)

And so it comes to pass.



Sleep you sound, little cat.

Missing

Sitting on the mat with Rodentia the other night, I came to realize that the being I missed was not Rodentia as she was just now, but the Rodentia of four-five years ago.

I miss the Minister of Funny Noises ¹, I miss Il Dulce², I miss the cat who slept around my head for a winter ³. I miss the animal who would rub her head on my feet, who would follow me out onto the back porch, the cat who took such unabashed pleasure in catnip.

That cat’s been gone for a long time. I miss the cat who helped midwife me from old kitten to young cat, who showed me that I could take a broken spirit and help mend it, that I was not somehow destined to ruin everything I touched. It’s very much the reason I knit and wear lace.

Gareth asked me if I wanted to go to the pound or ask around for a kitten. This year’s crop should be weaned and ready to be adopted out. For a minute I was severely tempted. A bright bundle of fluff would certainly ease the pain of the protracted farewell, balm for a bruised heart.

But then, but then, but then. Vishnu is twelve (or thirteen? I’m pretty sure she’s thirteen, six years younger than Rodentia) and bringing in a kitten to a home with a well-established older cat is an unkindness. On top of that, Vishnu has wanted to be an only cat forever. If I had known and seen then what became so very clear a few years later, I would have turned down the offer of this particular kitten and sought another beta cat. Vishnu should have her time as a solo animal with all the treats and all the attention.

And one layer down: I would do nothing but put off the inevitable. Remember, a cat’s average span is fourteen years. I hope for another six-seven years with Vishnu, I really do. But I’m not going to have her forever. And maybe I’ll keep that in mind for the next little while, and take more photos of typical Vishnu and write a post or three about my flobbity goofball of puddy fat. I begin to see why my parents and relatives can’t let a moment go by without grabbing the camera and taking photos. I begin to understand the scrapbooking craze, the desire to have many pictures of our child, our pets, and put them together attractively with some notes about what was so significant about this shot.

But yes, even as I pick up and cuddle that sweet little fluffball and play with names (Barong? Gault? Walker??) right now I know that in fourteen years, give or take, I’ll be writing memoriam posts with a tissue wadded up in one hand. I don’t want to handle the double-think right now, where you delight in the frisky young animal and ignore the skeleton in the corner. Sometimes one can ignore it so well that one doesn’t see the scythe until it’s already in motion.

That may change. I hadn’t lost an animal to old age in . . . I don’t know how long. Since middle school, maybe. The other pets who died of just plain organic shuttin’ down did so very quickly–practically between one step and the next, like a Garfield nap attack. I had moved out of my folks’ house long before the family cat died, so I didn’t see her last days of hiding under the table in her cool dark quiet place. This has been a bitter new experience for me, keeping a deathwatch for a beloved animal.





1. Rodentia was always amazed that humans mate out of season. Just as we lit metaphorical cigarettes, she would hop up on the bed, wondering what was up with the funny noises. Of course, she was happy to stick around and have her head and ears rubbed for a minute or two. In a homage to John Cleese, we began to refer to her as the Minister of Funny Noises, and petting her at that time became “bribing the Minister.”

2. When Rodentia began playing with her toys by carrying them around like kittens and meowing at them, we were struck by her resemblance to a furry little dictator issuing orders to her ‘nip minions. “Go out and bring back the cat food! And thumbs! I need thumbs!!!” When you have a mind like a steel sieve, “Il Duce” quickly transmutes into “Il Dulce.” The leader becomes the sweet.

3. Go here and read this.

Turning Another Corner

Todays tastes like sackcloth and ashes, of charred pork and wormwood, of the bitter cold of a snowless high desert winter.

We've turned another corner in Rodentia's journey.

Two years ago, we turned that first corner when I realized she was no longer late middle aged, but affirmatively old.

Cats have a funny-shaped life. After one year, they're teenagers--sexually mature and raising Hell. After three years, they're cats--furry little Republicans (can take care of themselves just fine, thanks, appreciate the perks they have [food, warm house, company] and pay for them [with companionship in return], and don't care much for change for the sake of change).

And then they stay cats for years and years and years, in a slow glide of easy middle age. Not bouncy kittens chasing anything that moves, not yet sleeping round the clock except for creaking over to the food bowl and litter box. Just living the blessed long middle age of a cat, as one vet I used to treat with referred to it.

Then the next corner is turned, and wham! The cat ages like a vampire in sunlight, all the years collapsing in at once.

Two years ago, I noticed we were in the middle of the end. Rodentia was less active, less likely to seek a high perch, less likely to hop up and run at the sound of a can opener. (Treats?? eyes wide and ears up, tail high and crooked at the tip)

But she still played with her toys, picking them up and carrying them about, setting them down and instructing them loudly, a fur-suited Il Duce on the balcony. She was interested in and engaged with the world, lying by the living room window or the back arcadia door, watching other cats on her lawn or porch.

In the last few weeks, that's changed.

She started hanging out in the vestibule of the master bathroom, the place where we groom her and keep the cat treats. One of her problems has always been her cotton candy fur, so fine and prone to clumping into mats. She has a lion's mane, including a ruff under her chin, so it was always hard for her to reach her back and sides--the ruff got in the way. So she'd give up in disgust, and the mats would grow worse and worse until we shaved off her fur.

Then the place where we took her stopped having cat grooming hours on the weekends, so I bought a beard trimmer and did it myself. I started brushing her out, and to make the job easier, started giving treats as I did so. One clump off, one treat. One limb done, three treats. Right at the limit of your patience--four treats, and one more if you don't run away as soon as I put you on the floor.

So I figured that she was hinting she'd like a treat. Or three. And it made it easier this last time, as she was already right there and willing. (We even washed her feet--she's gotten stiff enough that she can't wash them comfortably, and the long hair between her toes was picking up the clumping litter and scattering bits everywhere. Little clay booties on the pads of her feet, poor cat.)

Then she moved into the bathroom proper. Into a dark, enclosed space, where it's quiet most of the time. Where she could lie between the toilet and the wall, where there's just enough room for an old, skinny cat.

I noticed she'd still come and lie on the bathmat while Gareth and I showered. For years, we've put the mats away after we were done, as the cats would sometimes mistake the mat for an alternate litter box. You only have to step into a warm puddle on the mat once to realize something needs to be done about that.

But this weekend, Gareth was going to shower right after me, so I left the mat down, and Rodentia was sleeping the sleep of the just on the mat. I went to move the mat, and she didn't wake up. She didn't wake up until I picked her up to move the mat, and looked at me slowly, not sure where she was or how she got there.

Can a cat have Alzheimer's?

So I've left the mat down. If she misses the litter box on the mat, then I'll wash it. I am of the species with the big brain and opposable thumbs, after all. When the mat wears out from being washed twice a day, I'll get a new one. This one is ten years old; with the money we've saved from using this one, I think we can afford it.

Right now, that's all I can do. Make her corner of the world a little more comfortable while we wait for her last steps to come.

O is for . . . Openness

Today tastes like olives and okra, oysters and oatmeal, Oreos and opopanax.

Well. Where to begin?

Tonstant Weaders will no doubt recall (because every word here is a pearl without price, ha-ha) that I've written about how fall tends to be the sucky depressing time in my life, filled with the smell of loss and frost even as the days shorten and the few leaves turn.

Fall 2008 was the maggot-ridden cherry on the pus-covered excrement sundae of Worst Fall Ever.

I went to the doctor's office for my semiannual urinary tract infection. I came out with Type II diabetes. (Rather like the Englishman who went up a hill and came down a felon. That was NOT what I had in mind!!!)

And here's the thing. I am an intensely private person in so many areas of my life. I share odds and sods, and sometimes surprise people with what I'm willing to say out loud, but this . . . well, this was different.

Honestly, if DH Gareth hadn't been with me at the hospital, I wouldn't have told him for a while.

As it was, I held onto to my secret for weeks, smoldering like wet leaves on fire, wrapped up in my judgment and perception of how others would judge me. If I hear one more person pontificate on how diabetes is TOTALLY avoidable, I will rip their living heart from their chest and eat it in front of them, saying to their glazing eyes, "THAT was totally avoidable, dumb-ass."

Hey, it's just protein, salts, and water. Shouldn't screw with my sugars too badly. (Thanks for your concern.)

And yeah, that's a lot of where my head was at. Three times a day for the rest of my life I get to stick a lancet in my skin and be reminded that I am TOOO STOOOOOPID to TAKE DECENT CARE of myself; can't even manage to FEED MYSELF RIGHT, F'R GODSAKES; and probably shouldn't be out among the ADULTS WITHOUT A LEASH. Anger and shame flambe with a sidecar of fury and humiliation.

Is this like pregnancy? Never having experienced the latter condition, all I know are the anecdotes that get told about how random strangers walk up and put their hands on your belly, how everyone has at least one horror story about how they were in labor for eighteen weeks and couldn't have any pain medication at all, and how their friend/sibling/third cousin twice removed tragically lost their child due to some ham-handed fuckup by the medical profession that left Little Turtle Dumpling dying in momma's arms, whispering, "Why did you fail me, o mother mine? How could you have brought me here like this? I loved you . . ." with their last gasping breath.

And it's kind of the same way. Others in my circle of friends have come up snake eyes on the sugar cube dice, and when they speak up, everyone has a story about an uncle or a friend or a friend's uncle who had the condition and either lived a long and happy life or had multiple amputations, starting with the toes and working inwards until he went blind, had a stroke, and finally died of a heart attack after being reduced to a drooling torso in a wheelchair. At fifty. And it's too bad, because diabetes is so easily avoided. *slowly I turn, fingers flexing, step by step, inch by inch*¹

So. Not counting on much support from that end of things.

I don't intend to turn this into Spike's Sainted Blog, where it's all Chronic Disease all the time. However, it is a part of my life now.² It won't get better. There is no cure at this time; just management. Kind of like addiction, only I can't take a vow of abstinence and stop drinking.

Although not eating would cure the condition, as much as it can be cured. Three weeks or so, and I wouldn't have diabetes any more. The side effects though, the side effects of that cure are a bitch. And permanent, to boot.

Back to openness, and secrets, and spilling your guts. (Not literally. I haven't heard you say the "A" word yet. Which "A" word? "Avoida--" *slowly I turn, fingers flexing, step by step, inch by inch*)

I've been telling the people it directly affects--the people I (used to) break bread with first, so we can plan around grains and carbs and meals when I may or may not be allowed to eat. The folks at the office, so they understand when I suddenly turn white and clutch the wall at about 3:35 p.m. when my sugars crash with an audible thud.

Ah, but the 'rents.

The damned disease makes frequent appearances runs gallops up and down both sides of the family tree. And yup, there's a genetic component. According to the American Diabetes Association, there's a certain amount of risk simply due to the way humans are constructed--it's a design flaw. Raise that to 1 in 13 if you have a diabetic parent who developed the disease after age fifty. 1 in 7 if you have a diabetic parent who devloped the disease before 50.

Anyone want to guess what happens if you have two diabetic parents? Anyone? Bueller?

Your risk is one in two. Flip a coin; tails you lose.

Can someone gimme "avoidable"? *slowly I turn, fingers flexing, step by step, inch by inch*

Yeah, choose your parents carefully.

And speaking of parents, how does one break the news that you have the family disease? "O hi, Mom, how's the weather? Uh-huh, and Dad? Uh-huh, and by the way Ihavediabetes. Isthatthedoorbell? Nicetalkingtoyoubye." Mmmm. Not so much. And I surely don't want them to read it on the blog. (Reason number 493 not to let your folks know where you keep your diary . . . Hi, Mom!)

It's not going to be easy. That much I know. So I'm tying up a shoe of Damocles here with this post, written ahead of time. (And even writing this has been tough. I keep running away and circling back. I've spent over five hours on this.)

I need to have broken the news before this publishes. If I don't, and I get a Rowling-style Howler from the 'rents, then it's my own damn fault for being too much of a chickenshit to put on my big girl panties and pick up the phone.

There. I've set up an auto-publish, and *gulp* the date's a lot sooner than I thought it'd be.

Well, I've said it before. I don't need inspiration. What I need is a deadline. And now I have one.



1. Hmmm. A human head is often compared to a cabbage in terms of consistency. I wonder if SKIN is much different? I'd think not; there's a lot of bone in a head. And you can avoid the rib cage handily . . .

2. Hence the tag, "Too Sweet For My Own Good." Read 'em or dodge 'em, but that'll be the thrust of these posts. I can feel several rants coming on . . .

H is for . . .

Today tastes like habaneros and halva, heliotrope and hippocras¹.

A lot of things start with "H" apparently. Let's start with hoo-doggies².

So . . . I caught my annual turn of the season cold, which has developed into bronchitis (as it usually does) but I learned my lesson in 2006-07 and STAYED PUT for the run of the sickness. That meant not going to the gym till this week.

Which doesn't sound like a hardship, but I've worked very hard at developing that pattern until it's become as automatic as putting on clothing before I leave the house. Wouldn't think of doing it any other way . . . until I knew I'd better not.

So I went back this week, and the workout, she has kicked my butt.

Not to mention that I've added on a cash-out to the routine for core and shoulder strengthening. Raising the resistance on the pull-ups taught me right where the weak spots in my shoulders were. So now, as DH Gareth bemoaned, we do the workout before the workout (the warm-up), the workout, then the workout after the workout (the cash-out). Getting old is not for wussies.

Let me add that H is for Havi Brooks. From her, I learned about dialoging with your negative emotions--your fear, your pain, your whatever--which always makes me think of throwing a little tea party in your head. (Hey, better than throwing a tantrum in your physical body, and less disturbing to those around you.)

I played with it, a little, and love the results. Goofy and twee, sure, but it allowed me to actually process the emotions rather than wadding them up in a little bitty ball and cramming them into the closet. O, that closet. The one in the corner . . . breathing. Someday maybe I'll be ready to open the doors and process what's in there, rather than pretending I don't see the eyes in the night.

But along those lines, H is also for hair. Yes, indeed, my vanity is showing.

I have worn my hair very long for most of my life. I cut in once when I was about ten to fit in (regretted it madly about three days later, when the novelty had worn off and my classmates returned to making my life a living hell their usual behavior), then when I was seventeen (into a lion's mane to celebrate passing a milestone as I was a senior and graduating soon, then my best friend died, and I cut it all off from grief)and four years ago, as I was getting a convertible.

I enjoyed the last four years, don't get me wrong. This was where I was, with my hair blowing in the breeze but too short to tangle. (I mean, SHORT.)

But now . . . I miss it.

So I’m hanging on to my patience by my stubby li’l fingernails, taking my vitamins, sleeping on satin pillowcases, using a horn comb, and most importantly NOT CUTTING IT while I wait for it to grow.

And it is growing. Bless digital cameras, since pixels are free. I can take back of the head shots and prove that the hemline is slowly slowly creeping down to my shoulders, slowly slowly inching its way along. When I compare March to January I see the progress I’ve made, and having the photo history of the growing out period may be useful/amusing at some later date.

Meanwhile, I am at the awful stage where I can’t even put it all up in a ponytail. And thanks to the wonders of the intarwebs, I have found beaucoup styles that all require long hair to perform . . . including one doozy where you mold giant pincurls into a stylized rose wreath. Le sigh.

So–an open letter to my hair.

Dear Topper:

I recognize that we have had a long and tulmultuous relationship. I grew you out and gnawed your ends, I left you to tangle in the wind, dry in the sun, and basted you in chlorine. I changed your shape; I changed your color. You hung with me through it all. This last time . . . well, I cut you off and swore I would never never change until you went completely white.

And now here I am, asking that you come back one last time.

I have nothing to give you but promises. Promises of oil and honey, of patience and protection, of care and loving treatment. Why should you trust me this time? Why, after the purple and henna and high tight cuts should you believe I'll let you go your way this time?

Because, dear Topper, I've learned my lesson this time. I've found that I feel more like me when the two of us are together. I've learned the pleasure of long lazy time, time where everything else can be set aside, where I can demand that the world turn without me for an hour or so.

I will treat you like the vintage textile you are, with no harsh chemicals, no demands on your shape, and with care for your delicate ends. If you will only come back this last time.

Sincerely,

She Who Lives Beneath



1. A medieval spiced wine, served hot.

2. A doleful ejaculation particular to my family. "The stock market just lost another 347 points!!!" "Hoo-doggies! Did you go short, I hope?"

G is for . . . Gnosis

Today tastes like gorganzola, greens, granola, and gasoline.

Well, where does one start to talk about the Infinite and one's finite and limited relationship to It?

I found Asana Bear some years ago when I started toying around with yoga. While our politics are nearly opposite, our dietary choices are complementary. I'm a gleeful omnivore, while he is strictly vegan BUT he has some of the best recipies for "food that food eats" that I've come across. Conversion by stomach, as it were.

So I read his blog. And post in his comments. And sometimes engage in a debate via e-mail, where we shake hands, salute the spark of the Divine in one another, and agree to disagree. I'm not seeking to gain his approval by making him agree with me, and I think the same is reciprocated. I am looking to enlarge my viewpoint by reading his words, digesting them, and refining my views by defending them. Sometimes it's hard to know what we think until we hear or see the words.

And that's why this is here, o Tonstant Weader.

So, getting 'round to the title subject at long last. Asana Bear has found God (under the couch with the cat toys, as I've been telling him for ages. That's where everything that is lost is eventually discovered). A little more seriously, Asana Bear relates that he had the bog standard church experience of lectures on Sunday where the preacher told you what your relationship with the Infinite Should Be (and presumably, how you were fucking everything up. Why is it always about ME???)

And see, I can relate in some ways to this, having had the Mystery Conversation with friends about their upbringing (one specific that comes to mind is Lynchpyn, actually, where after a nasty misunderstanding we sat and talked again (almost a year later, granted) and she explained that she had the Arranged Marriage relationship with the Great I Am, where the man stands up in the pulpit and tells you that anything that is remotely fun is Wrong and will lead to Eternal Damnnation and you should Quit That Immediately.)

And I mean . . . wow.

Just like an arranged marriage, where people who presumably have your best interests at heart hand you over to a demanding incomprehensible rule-bound Being whose sole interest seems to be putting up arbitrary rules for you to follow, and then insisting that you must love this Being, that you're going to be together forever and you shouldn't try to understand, just OBEY.

Here's the thing though, my experience was different. I was raised by wolves by a lapsed Baptist who found faith in Science of Mind teachings (as opposed to the Scientologists *spits through forked fingers* (yes, I have unresolved stuff around them, sigh)) and a Rosicrucian. So I had a more metaphysical/mystical upbringing than most, where questioning one's place in the world and one's relationship with the Great I Am was, if not expected, then certainly acceptable¹.

Yes, this was a Pustulent Ball of Suck in a community full of Catholics and Lutherans, with clearly labeled religions and icons of faith to point to and thump. But as I became older, I see that this actually provided me with tools to grope after understanding, limited though it may be, and gave me a spiritual life NOT predicated simply on proximity. (God as Work Buddy, anyone? What happens when you change employers, and can't make plans around the water cooler any more? When you have to put actual effort into the relationship?)

Given the demands for submission to rules and regulations that seem like no more than buzzkill whimsy at the time (and given no explanation for the same), and the increasing demands for limited time as we get older and our choices expand exponentially, is it any surprise that some people run for the exit as soon as they can walk??? And aren't particularly interested when you talk about your buddy, the Divine who loves to dance, and finds joy in the color purple, and who won't give you everything you ask for, but can help you find what you need?

Because all they can see, when your great friend the Divine comes through the door, is that he has the same face as their Awful Being, and so they scoot to the opposite end of the couch, make stiff small talk, and bolt for the door as soon as it's polite to do so.

And so my heart is delighted for Asana Bear, my other virtual friend, as he takes the next steps on his Mystery Walk and comes round to where he had left off before.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti. For each and every one of you.



1. In high school, one of Li'l Brah's classmates played a particularly sophisticated joke on him--they sent the Mormons to our house to discuss Li'l Brah's relationship with Jesus. And so they wound up with Li'l Brah on the sofa for--no kidding--an HOUR talking his ear off about their beliefs.

And the 'rents and I? The Dowager Empress and I bumped into each other in the hall, and essentially agreed that, well, if this was the path that called Li'l Brah, then who were WE to argue? *shrug*

A is for Admire

Today tastes like . . . almonds and apples, asparagus and arsenic. See a theme developing?

A is for Admire. And Advice. And Alphabet, as you Astute Tonstant Weaders will have Assumed. (Enough with the freaky Germanic capitals, Already.) (ouch)

I have already 'fessed up to my somewhere-between-schoolgirl-and-stalker crush on Patti Digh (and if you haven't read her luminous essays on 37 Days, why not?) I am in awe of her concise prose about the ordinary, how she polishes the everyday and holds it up in a shining example of the things we take for granted, the things we think are just intuitively obvious . . . and the lessons we learn when we discover these obvious and granted things are neither.¹

And one of the tricks she's used to keep the posts flowing is the alphabet meme--each post is based around a letter of the alphabet. Well--that means there's (counts fingers, toes, borrows co-worker) twenty-six posts right there. At my rate of publication, that's half a year of material, not counting the times I actually have something to say, or a finished object to show, or even just a nifty snap off a random camera.

So I'm stealing the idea. A is for Avarice, after all.

1. My favorite essay? "Open the Mudroom Door for Tycho". For me, it's an essay about the stories we tell ourselves about other beings and their actions--and a reminder to tell ourselves the kindest possible version of that story before we act.

Reputations

Today tastes like lemons. A whole raft of lemons on the open sea at midnight. Lemons, salt, and wood.

See, I have this reputation as a writer in our little group. If you want something written that defies logic and sense, you ask Spike to handle it. And you give her a deadline because, in that, the Duke¹ and I see eye to eye.

So, one pal is a professional (makes her living at it) costumer with a handful of pals who simply like to make stuff. They go an an annual hajib to a conference that focuses on making costumes--how to do stuff, how much to charge for your labor, and this conference culminates in a contest. Needless to say, they're all entered in Very Big Dog level as a group.

And they need a script . . . Spike?

Of course I'm flattered, and happy to draw up a three-five minute short short for them. At dinner I wrote up a handful of notes, and on the way home I got to pondering. I sat down and started typing in my notes . . . an hour later I shut down to GO TO BED ALREADY . . . and fifteen minutes after laying my whirling head on the pillow I was back up at it with the final touches.

So here's the first draft:

Cast: Narrator
Evil Genius
Earth Elemental
Fire Elemental
Air Elemental
Water Elemental
Widget

Narrator: And so, with the Elementals subdued in her subterranean lair at the top of the world, the time had come for the evil genius to give her mandatory exposition disguised as a monologue.

Evil Genius: Aha! The voice in my head tells me to begin the expository monologue! And so . . .

Narrator: It's the usual. Explains how she’s going to use the power source in her plans for Total World Domination. Details the long, drawn out, horrible, messy, elaborate death she plans for our heroes. And then she’ll leave for a cup of green tea, with milk and lemon.

Air: Don’t bother with the details. It’ll just be an explanation how you’re going to use Widget to power your rocket chair . . .

Water: . . . kill us all slowly and messily . . .

Earth: . . . in a highly elaborate fashion, mind . . .

Fire: . . . and then you’ll go off for a cup of green tea. How can you drink that stuff?

Air. With milk.

Water: And lemon. Both of them? TOGETHER?? (shudders bonelessly)

EG: How . . . how did you know?

Heroes (as one): The voice in my head told me so.

Narrator: Our heroes looked at each other . . .

Fire: You hear him, too?

Water. I thought I was the only one.

Air: Well, no wonder we keep showing up at the same time and place together.

Earth: What did you think it was? That we were following you?

(Air rolls eyes, shoots Earth a “well, duh!” look)

EG: Hello! Evil genius, world domination, master plan? Widget?

Narrator: Our heroes quickly recalled their task. To make the world safe once more by rescuing Widget from the Evil Genius’s clutches.

Fire: That’s not important right now. Right now . . .

Air: . . . we need to make the world safe once more . . .

Water: . . . by rescuing Widget . . .

Earth: . . . . from the Evil Genius’s clutches. Guys, this is kind of creepy.

Narrator: Like mind control.

Earth: Like mind control . . . HEY! STOP THAT!

Air: If we all take a deep cleansing breath . . .

Water: . . . swallow hard . . .

Earth: . . . ground ourselves . . .

Fire: . . . and feel the fire in our hearts . . .

Air: . . . we can save Widget!

(Heroes focus, hands in mudras, bodies and faces clenched. Somewhere between enlightened bliss and terminal constipation.)

(Narrator walks across stage, takes Widget from the Evil Genius.)

Narrator: I’ll take that now, if you please.

All (as one): You’re . . . you’re the voice in my head!

Narrator: I’m more than that. I’m the Narrator. The most powerful being there is. I control all of you through the Cranial Capacitator. The Cranial Capacitator electrostatically amplifies the alpha waves, transmitting them through the phlogiston etherosphere . . .

Widget: HAT!!!

(WIDGET REMOVES THE CAPACITATOR AND RUNS OFFSTAGE, FOLLOWED BY ALL, SHOUTING EXTEMPORE ALONG THE LINES OF GIVE ME THAT/GIVE THAT BACK)

END.



1. I don't need time, what I need is a deadline. -- Duke Ellington

Jake's Pet

Today tastes like salt. Grey mineral-laden salt, earthy underneath the salinity. And pink peppercorns. It's a basic day, with a twist.

Hence, time for some fiction. Presenting: Jake's Pet.

Even in our eccentric little group, Jake had a bit of a reputation. See, we all have our areas of expertise–Mary can recite the jingle of every toy of the year going back to the Cabbage Patch Kids. Roy is the sea lawyer of Dungeons and Dragons–no, the classic edition, pamphlet bound in paper. Tom has been on a mystery walk since he was nine, and he’s picked up more than the Nag Thomas in that time. But Jake–Jake is kinda weird, and I don’t mind who hears me say so. Even though he’s my best friend.

See, Jake is into aquatic life. He’s fascinated by fish. And not bony fish, the squoogy kind. Slugs and anemones, cucumbers and jellyfish. And octopuses . . . octopi??? Jake would know for sure what the plural is, and it’s probably some bizarre Greek declension. Octopodes, maybe.

Jake never wanted a cat or dog, so far as I know. Or a horse, or other fantasy pet when you live in the city. He agitated for an aquarium when he was four, he bragged. A saltwater aquarium that he could fill with the strange floral animals of the sea. His folks bought him a goldfish bowl, telling him that if he took good care of it, he could have a bigger, better set up next year.

I don’t know what they were thinking – well, actually, I do. They were thinking that this desire would burn hot and flash over shortly, like kids’ whims often do. Jake would realize fish weren’t like dogs or cats; you couldn’t pick them up and give them a hug, they couldn’t sleep on the foot of your bed, they wouldn’t play with you.

Except, well, Jake had the touch when it came to fish. That goldfish not only made it through Christmas and past the Fourth of July, this fish grew to the size of a carp and lived a long life–years!–until it finally died. Jake trained it to leap out of its bowl and turn a somersault like a little orange dolphin when he waved his hand over the bowl. I’ve seen the pictures with a tiny cowlicked Jake in overalls, grinning with oversized teeth flanked by gaps, and a goldfish tumbling through the air behind his outstretched hand.

He did it for me once, live, when I said that it was photoshopped, or that he tossed the fish somehow. Theodore Sturgeon, the goldfish, rose slowly to the top of the tank when Jake waved his hand over the still surface of the water. I swear the fish heaved a sigh when Jake waved more insistently. “He’s old,” Jake said, apologetically. “I haven’t asked him to do this in years.” Ted sank back down a little, then exploded out of the water, shining scales gleaming, heavy head lowering till his barbels touched the water, tail waving as it arced up over his head in a flip, then creamy belly down and headfirst back to the bottom of the tank to doze. I’ll never forget that moment.

My folks didn’t care much for Jake. Too quiet, they said. But I overheard Mum talking to dad one night about him after Jake had spent the weekend with us. “His hands are always clammy,” Mum whispered. “And his eyes are too far apart.” Dad muttered something about prejudice and superstition half into his pillow, but Mum continued, “His mouth–have you ever looked at his mouth? He has too many teeth.” I was glad she’d never met Jake’s mother. He looked a lot like her, sharp white teeth in a little bee-stung mouth, small ears flat to her head, eyes wide-set with a broad nose between them. Her skin was a deep olive, even slightly blue, and her hair was pure white. Long and flowing, and somehow always in motion around her head as if she were swimming. Jake was paler, with short black hair that always looked wet. Like a seal’s, short and shiny. He took after his dad that way.

So, anyway, that was Jake then. And he really hasn’t changed since then. It’s like he was born an adult, just a small one, and now he’s just become bigger and stronger. Like one of his beloved invertebrates. But then he got religion, and things really became strange.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Animal sacrifice on the beaches at the turning points of the year, leather-bound books that moan and whimper in the night, fetishistic jewelry. Ok, you got me on that last one. Jake took up Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and started wearing a crucifix.

He asked me and Tom to help support him in his new beliefs. Just as witnesses, you might say. Jake’s family, hard-boiled agnostics all, took a dim view of his retreat to superstition, as they referred to it. They celebrated Christmas in the grand old pagan style–any excuse for a party, especially ones that featured gifts and food. But as far as setting foot in a church? Never. Not even for Easter and Christmas. Jake attended every Mass, and soon knew the calendar of holidays.

I went with him one October for the Blessing of the Animals. Pretty much ever family had a little yappy furball on a leash, a cat in a carrier, a bird in a cage. I saw some big dogs sitting in the pews, and even a turtle in an aquarium. Jake, of course, had a bucket of seawater and tentacles.

When he took his animal up for blessing, the priest looked into the bucket. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw those slit-pupiled eyes looking back at him. The father was a trouper, though, laying his hands on the bucket to bless the creature inside. He didn’t scream when an arm reached out of the bucket to reverently touch his hand, but I saw him leave the nave shortly after Jake turned to go, beaming.

This last Christmas was one for the books, though. Jake had read about how animals were supposed to be able to speak at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. He wanted to hear for himself, but see, Jake is solar-powered. Seriously; as soon as the sun goes down, so does he. So he asked me to help him stay up till midnight, watching by the light of the aquarium so he wouldn’t miss it.

Well, Jake’s mom makes the best eggnog and fruitcake in Christendom, so I had nothing to lose by spending the night with my friend. If the beasts actually spoke up, I’d have a story to go drinking on for months. Maybe years. If nothing else, I could stuff my face with seasonal goodies and claim that the sugar would help keep me awake. Win-win, right?

So there we were, on the floor of the aquarium room–really. The little tank slowly grew to eat up a whole wall of the house, but only one animal lived there. An octopus nearly the size of a footstool, cruising slowly on the bottom, hauling itself along by its arms as thick as mine.

Jake never named his animals. “They have their own names,” he said, looking me in the eyes. He made eye contact only sparingly, only when it was really important that he be heard, that he communicate. “They have their own names, but I can’t understand them. It would be rude to call them by the wrong name, so until I understand their names, I won’t call them anything.” Maybe this year, I’d get to know this one’s name.

The minutes ticked by. I felt the same sense of anticipation you get when you finally get to stay up past midnight on New Year’s Eve–before you realize that there’s nothing magic about that moment, about the first few seconds of a new year. There’s no threshold to cross, nothing really changes. The champagne tastes the same. But that first time, why, anything could happen!

And in a way, it did. At midnight, the octopus surfaced, pulling itself head and two legs up out of the tank, leaving its body and six legs dangling in the water. It smiled. It had human lips and teeth on its underside, whereas I thought they had some beaky thing.

It smiled and it spoke to us, although I didn’t see its lips move, I heard it clearly. It said something about the forthcoming aeon of the Great Old Ones, then slid back into the water. Funny how I don’t really remember the words it said, just the sense of it. Just the feeling of the hair on my neck standing up, just the feeling of foreboding, like right after you wake from a nightmare.

And this morning I read that the elected Palestinian president has been assassinated, and troop withdrawal has been postponed again. And I remember what the octopus said, about the aeon of the Great Old Ones, and I wonder just what it meant by that.

I’ll have to ask Jake.

Busted . . .

Today tastes like everclear and Band-Aids, like iodine and phisoDerm. Like aspirin and plastic.

I broke my hand.

Ok, not the whole hand, just one bone. The fifth metacarpal, proximal to the phlange. In geek terms, I failed my wisdom roll at the gym, then missed my strength roll and bliffed my save vs. dexterity.

I loaded a barbell heavy for a first attempt, could not rise up out of the squat, and didn't dump the bar in time. I fell over backwards in the cage, hit my hand on the lower rack on my way down. Then, the barbell rolling backwards hit my hand, trapping it between the vertical support and the barbell. Then I landed on the barbell, hitting it with the back of my neck on my way to the floor.

As I got up, I had a huge goose egg on the back of my hand. On the palm, I had a bruise the size (and color!!) of a grape, and a blood blister on the side of may hand that I honestly thought was a cut when I first looked.

Sometimes you don't need to go to the doctor to know you're hurt.

So we spent the rest of the evening in the ER, and when I left, I had a huge splint on my right hand. Yup. The hand I use for everything.

Did I mention that this year I'm knitting Gareth socks for his birthday? That's not unusual, but these socks are. They're gourgemous. Only the fact that I can make them refootable (and have yarn to make a pair for MEEEEEEEE) is letting me part with them for the man I love.

Uhm, except now I have about four weeks where I can't work on them at all.

I just got a new, smaller splint on my hand. Look ma, I have fingers again!! I can type, and drive, and dress myself once more. No more elastic waisted pants, I can operate a zipper now! I can put on crew-length socks again! The new splint is removable, so I can WASH MY HANDS.

This has been a real lesson in patience, vulnerability, and asking for help. Gareth joked the morning after the accident that he'd probably come home to find me gibbering in the corner, unable to write, knit, or art. I told him he might want to cut to the chase and find a sanitarium to keep me in until my hand healed.

I had just started another shawl for myself, in fine wool and silk. I've been mooning for years over this project. It's totally within my skill set, I just hadn't settled down and got going on it yet. Why? Dunno. Just hadn't is all.

So I finally wanted something simple, but not crazy-making simple, the way the current Linus binkie is crazy-making simple. And something not too complex, like Gareth's socks are very nearly too complex. I'm welded to the charts for these, and doing them both at once on two circs means a lot of fiddling to fix mistakes.

The shawl was coming along splendidly, a nice marriage of yarn and pattern. And yup, something else that will have to wait until I get my hand back.

I followed up with the doctor today. He's satisfied that the bone isn't going anywhere, and believes that I'll have good healing. He's approved of the little PT I do each morning and evening in the shower so I won't have a long recuperating process (knocks wood with the good hand). The more you sweat in peace, and all that good stuff.

I'm going to be patient, I keep telling myself. I can knit continental, I can play with retensioning the yarn in my right hand, I can make this work. I can do part of the warm-up, I can modify the workouts so that they're possible. Some of them, the onew where you run and run and run don't even need modification.

I can write. I can art. I can knit. It could be worse.

I Had a Dream

Today tastes like marigolds, poppies, and tears. Green, bitter, salty. October is going to be especially long this year. I think perhaps I should make that crown of marigolds, and wear it with black ribbons in my hair.

Last night I dreamed about my honored dead, family and friends alike.

In the first series, my family was holding a reunion. And that, boys and girls, should tell you right off that this was a dream, since my family doing the big reunification group grope is as likely as jumping off a cliff and having your parachute turn into a scoop of strawberry ice cream. With jimmies.

But no, there we were--grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. From both mother's and father's sides of the family. We were in an enormous house in the high desert mountains--I get the impression it was Taos or Santa Fe. Wood floors, rugs on the walls, lots of exposed beams and windows, so we had light, light, light everywhere.

It was good seeing my grandmothers again. We talked about needlework-- knitting, crochet, embroidery. The grandfather I knew told stories of his time in the war, and compared it to the PBS documentary mini-series. The grandfather who died before I was born (so he was in black and white, grainy and a little off-focus) told about watching the southwest grow, what he'd seen of the towns. I told him about Phoenix, and showed him pictures on my cell phone.

And this time I kept my big mouth shut and didn't commit the faux pas of announcing, "But you're dead!" The first time I dreamed of a dead friend, I dreamed we were riding our bicycles down to the university campus, as we did often during the summers in middle school. Twenty miles as the bike path rides will take a lot of pre-teen starch out of you, and the long lazy warm summer days were just right to fit the trip in between dawn and dusk.

We wove in and out of the tunnels that surround many of the buildings on the main campus, laughing in the lengthening dusk. She turned back to look at me, hands off the handlebars, mouth open and laughing, and then I said it. The unforgivable words.

Her face fell, and she melted away. The dream ended. I woke up missing her all over again.

But not last night. I woke up feeling as though I had visted one last time as an adult with those who had moved on before. I'm the next to last of my generation in the family, born to the youngest daughter on my mother's side, born to the middle child (who was the issue of a second, later marriage) on my father's side. The youngest of the grandchildren is my younger brother.

So most of what I knew of my grandparents were the older, frailer people whose health was beginning to splinter. We did things together, but they were quieter things, not games of tag or ball. And most of my memories are those of a child relating to adults, not as an adult relating to elders. I have a handful of recollections of talking with my father's mother as one needlewoman to another, like pressed pansies--faded and brittle. I handle them carefully, scarcely breathing.

The second dream was of fallen friends. I saw them as I often do, at a science fiction convention, which was taking place at a hotel that doesn't exist any more. This time, we were hanging out on the grass of the hotel near the pool, swilling various concoctions of alcohol potent enough to light ablaze, but sweet enough to cover the taste. Until you stand up, that is. Then you dishcover that shomeone shtole your kneesh while you were shitting--I mean, SITTING there. Minding your own bushinesh. Shomebody shtop him!!! Thief! Thief!!

Larry Lard, and Ozymandius, and Roderick the Sly . . . the whole crew. Capitan Benito Gato dropped in, and said he couldn't stay long, but he wanted to say hello. Which is interesting. Cap'n Gato is not well, I know. I may see him at Dead Man's Party in a couple of weeks--and I may not.

I woke up thinking of a story I've been meaning to write for years, now.

I think perhaps I shouldn't put it off any longer.

Rodentia Is Seventeen

Today tastes of sentiment. Of candied violets, of wine left in the bottle till it turns to syrup, of Halloween candy the day before Thanksgiving. Dry, dusty, bittersweet.

Rodentia is seventeen this year.



Rodentia is the elder of the two cats who share my life. She was a kitten when I moved to Phoenix. She was a hand-me-down cat--a friend of one of my roommates had acquired her from a shelter with an eye to looks rather than personality. She was beautiful--a fine-boned, long-haired, green-eyed tortoiseshell.

However, she was antisocial. She was very nearly feral when I met her first, unwilling to be touched at all. So Rodentia was dropped on the roommates with a request to "take care of kitty" for a week or two. So far as I know, her original owner has never asked after her.

I found her a charming and independent cat. A fierce little thing, seven pounds of cattitude. I talked to her, moved slow and easy, and gradually taught her to trust, a little. As a kitten, she'd play fetch with a jingle ball--I'd toss it over the couch that we used to divide the great room, and she'd leap and leap and leap to get it, then come trotting back to lay it at my feet for another go.

But that was years ago.



Rodentia is seventeen this year.

When I found the man who would be my husband, and we finally decided to get our own place so he could walk around naked, I was packing my stuff. My bed and dresser and bookshelf had been moved, I had most of my non-work clothes packed away, and I was stuffing the last T-shirt in a box when one of my roomies, Captain Vectril, knocked for entry and asked if we could chat.

"Sure," I said, "so long as you sit on this box so I can close it."

"Are you taking Rodentia with you?" he asked.

"Wasn't planning to . . ."

"But she's your cat. Or rather, you're her human." I looked at him skeptically. Rodentia would turn into six pounds of hissing flying feline fury if anyone tried to pick her up, and she would rather have her tail braided than sit next to a human.

I said as much.

Vectril answered, "When you're gone for the weekend, she sits outside your door and cries. When we let her into your room, she wanders around for a bit, then comes back out and wanders through the house yowling because she can't find you."

So, Rodentia was the last thing I packed out of that house to take with me to the new place. She was three then, just all the way out of kittenhood and turning the corner to full-fledged adult cat.



Rodentia is seventeen this year.

It wasn't hard to move from a house to a condo. So far as Rodentia was concerned she was trading one interior for another. We made sure she had balls with bells inside them, especially the fragile caged kind she was fondest of. Even though we stepped on them in the middle of the night and they splintered under our feet.

Rodentia began warming up to the idea of being owned by humans. She would sit in the same room, just sit and watch until she fell asleep. She was friendliest when we were lying down, because then she was bigger than we were. She would climb up on the headboard of the waterbed, look down like a little fuzzy tin god, and purr, and purr. She'd get up on the back of the couch against the western wall, where it was warm and secure, and read over your shoulder. She'd rub up against the soles of your feet when you lay on your back, sharp canines digging softly into your big toes.

She'd jump up onto bookshelves and nap. She'd lay her chin on a book on the floor and go to sleep. We'd ask if she wanted a Japanese wooden pillow for Christmas, and she'd look back, cooly, inscrutably.

She's mellowed quite a bit since those days. She's watching from the other desk as I type this, which is surprising because she doesn't climb very much any more.



Rodentia is seventeen this year.

She hated trips to the vet. She hated to go outside at all, so it got so I'd only take her for a rabies shot to pacify the groomers. Once every three years, we'd go and get the one stick. She'd hear me getting the box out, and run hide quick. Once there, she was well-behaved but terrified. There'd be times when we were finally done with the exams, and I'd let go, and Rodentia would hop back into the H-E-L-L box because at least nothing too bad would happen while you were inside.

This last trip to the groomers was hard. We've used the same person for four years now. He's a cat in a human suit, so I thought they'd be okay together--she's familiar with him and with the procedure. Usually I stay with her the whole way and act as a spare pair of hands.

But he was busy and it was going to be a good hour before he could get going, so I left. About 75 minutes later, I got the call that Rodentia had turned into a little psycho hose beast from hell, and could I come down and help?

So I came down to the shop and Rodentia was huddled in the very back of the kennel, blood on her muzzle from where she had hit the mirror in a mad dash to get the hell out of Dodge.

I stood at the door of the kennel and talked to her. Told her I'd been planning to revoke her driving privileges, but was now reconsidering. Told her how disappointed I was, that she'd told me I didn't need to stand there and hold her while the groomer did his work. How she'd said she was a big cat now.

And slowly, slowly, she crept to the front of the cage and let me touch her. And after a while, I picked her up, and this fierce little animal curled into my chest and clung to me.

She never does that.

I walked her to the table, which would normally be the time for fussing to be put down right now, but she wasn't budging. I stood there and held her for minutes while the groomer finished checking in another animal, and then we finished the job. She's fine as long as I'm there. She'll vocalize, but she doesn't struggle.

And that was when I realized we'd turned a corner. Turned away from late middle age with the occasional bad day, and turned towards old age with the occasional good day.



Rodentia is seventeen this year.

And because I am of the species with the big brain (and the thumbs, yes, and the thumbs) I can see where this is going. I've read Kipling, I know The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, I understand that it is truly Margaret I mourn for.

On the one hand, I grieve. I grieve for the inevitable day when I will bundle her into the carrying box for the last time (promise) and take her to the vet to do the last thing I can for her. To take away the pain forever.

And yet and yet and yet--I do not want to throw away our todays for fear of what will come tomorrow. We've had our ten plus four, plus a little. We'll have whatever we have, until it's all gone and I'm planting marigolds.

Rehearsing, through a little cat, the end we all face.



Rodentia is seventeen this year.

Artist's Statement???

I will admit to a certain fascination with elevator pitches. How do you define what you do, your vision, what makes you get out of bed and do your creative act in a handful of words?

It's easy to write a thumbnail bio. You know what will resonate with your audience--cum laude graduate from Yale; Pulitzer Prize winner; mother of five, one with autism. But when you ask yourself the hard questions--why DO I knit enormous swaths of lace? What am I trying to communicate from the non-verbal side of my head? Now say it out loud.

I don't intend at this moment to make my living knitting. I don't enjoy the sacrifices one makes for speed and novelty. When it's common to have a design accepted at last, then get three weeks to resize the design for XS to XXL and knit two samples in the yarn the manufacturer is huckstering (because what you knit has been discontinued, or is in LAST season's colors)well, I'd rather not play. That game is not worth my candle.

And I don't intend to go on the craft show circuit and sell retail or even wholesale.But the discipline of honing what I believe, the cutting away of the unnecessary to get to the heart of the matter, that moves me.

First whack:

We remember, deep in our bones, what it was to fly. Angels have swans’ wings, demons have bats’ wings, superheroes wear capes. Wrapped in fine threads of a single strand entwined, we pick up our wings once more.

So this is February . . .

Today tastes like vanilla-flavored sand, mists on a busy city street, and bacon. Not very good bacon at that--half-done and chewy rather than crunchy. Send it back.

Li'l Brudder was in town to visit last week, so part of it's missing him and his particular take on the world. We were raised by the same parents in the same house, but in two very different families.

He left a book I had meant to purchase one of these days, but never got 'round to. Sometime the universe is like that. You address the sky, explaining that you need fruit. And what lands in your outstretched palm looks like a cross between a football and a pine cone, and smells like garlic, melon, and last week's gym socks.

"So what the hell is this? And what do I do with it??"

Comes the answer: "Durian fruit. Eat it."

And so you do, although you had apples in mind. Other times, you send your request out, and what you get back is a rusty skeleton key. So, grumbling about how this always happens to YOU, you pocket the key and keep on putting one foot in front of the other . . . until you happen upon a rusty gate with a huge old padlock . . . that the key fits into.

And when you unlock the gate, and swing it open, you come into an orchard of apples, where the windfalls clutter the ground and wasps buzz drowsily around, drunk on the fermented juices. The trees are old and untended, bowed under the sheer weight of their goods. So you pick a handful, and stuff a couple into your pockets for later.

Other times, you get exactly what you needed in exactly the form you anticipated.

The book? Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Li'l Bruddah insists that it's changed his life for the better. So I guess we'll see.

When You Ignore Them (a writing exercise)

When you ignore them, words will come begging; participles dangling, clauses tucked in velvet pauses.

When you ignore them, words will perch on your shoulder, singing songs of black sand beaches and diamond blue skies.

When you ignore them, words will drop onto your head, chucking paragraphs like pinecones to drive you away to paper and pen.

When you ignore them, words coil and hiss in the dust of unwritten pages.

When you ignore them, words will flash their headlights just before they barrel through the intersection, knocking you out of the crosswalk, leaving you bleeding under the streetlight.

Life is as Strange as Fiction

Today tastes like dry champagne, day old caviar, and melba toast.

The year has come round again, I see . . . how many times does that make since I came here? I don’t recall; one looks very much like the next from where I sit.

It was a February, I remember that much. February, the armpit of the year, when Christmas is a gaudily lit memory, the new of New Year’s has worn off, and spring is just a daydream of longer days and balmy temperatures. It’s grey and cold and wet. You get up in the dark, go to work in the dark, and come home in the dark, especially at my job.

I’d gotten locked down again, stuck on doing one more thing, and then just one more thing, and then one more little task. The good part of being obsessive-compulsive is you get a lot done. The bad part of being obsessive-compulsive is, well, you get a lot done. Often at the expense of any number of other things.

The janitor startled me as he came in—was it already eight o’clock? Good thing no one was home to miss me but the cats. I backed up to the laptop (might as well crank out an hour at home), turned off the coffeepot, and gathered my stuff to leave. I got in the car, and checked the gas gauge out of habit. Habit, because it’s been on the fritz for the last several weeks. I have a sticky note to have that checked the next time I take it to the garage for its oil change taped to the steering wheel. Enough gas to get home? I thought so. I’d chance it.

I might have made it, but traffic was ghastly bad—drive thirty feet, stop. Wait. Drive thirty feet, stop. Wait longer. I decided to turn off the main street and cut through a residential neighborhood; not as risky as it sounds. This city is laid out on a big grid, so you can get just about everywhere from anywhere. It may take you a while, and a side trip or two, but you’ll get there.

So there I was, in dark enough to be midnight, driving through a series of blocks that the historic society hadn’t yet adopted. Ranch homes from the twenties and thirties, not yet restored, gently decaying with wide deep porches and Arizona rooms from back in the day before air conditioners. Handyman’s specials now, for sure, but in a handful of years they’d sell for as much as a McMansion in the trendy parts of town. Once they get discovered, that is. Right now, the inhabitants are the ghosts in straw boaters and white suits with carnations in their lapels, and shambling ogres with dreadlocked beards and broken fingernails pushing shopping carts.

If I read this in a book, or saw it in a movie, my suspension of disbelief would hit the floor and leave a mark, but sometimes life imitates art. Yup. The car sputtered, stalled, and then shut down, and I watched as the gas gauge needle slowly trickled to “E” and then a hair beyond. I said some words my mother doesn’t know I know.

I got out of the car, slamming the door behind me. Fortunately, I have AAA for events just like this. It would only be a block or three to the next intersection, and then a couple more to a convenience store with a pay phone. That’s what I told myself, trying not to think of the old jokes about why there are no crocodiles in this river (the piranhas scared them all off, ho-ho.) No junkies in this neighborhood, the gangs are fiercely territorial. I took a deep breath, and started walking down the sidewalk, where one light in three still worked, and the shadows lay in pools.

That’s probably why I didn’t see where the pavement humped up, thrust into the air by a tree root, or even just buckled from age. I caught it squarely with my toe, and for a gut-dropping moment, I flew.

I buttered the sidewalk with skin from my palms, and utterly destroyed the hose I was wearing (a new pair, too!) And just as the physics of bread demand that it fall jelly side down, the aerodynamics of purses command that they fall open side out, launching your whole life in a splendid arc. Can’t get anything to fall out when you’re hunting so you can spread the mass thin and paw through it for your lipstick, but drop a purse and generate fallout for square yards.

I got up from my amazing four-point landing, and then I heard it. Some wiseass in the house in front of me had seen my feat of gymnastic grace, and was applauding.

I called him names under my breath as I gathered my stuff back into my bag. Lipstick, pepper spray, hairbrush, paperback, keys. Keys? No keys. They were shiny, they should have been easy to spot, even in the deep shadows. I looked through the chain link fence, and there they were; on the wrong side of the wires. It figured.

I stood up, and brushed myself off. “Excuse me? Sir?” No reply, just the slow sardonic clapping tapering off now. “My keys are in your yard. Is it ok if I come get them back?” The porch light wasn’t on, nor were the lights in the house. Saving electricity? Or squatting?

Since he didn’t say no, I figured that must be a yes, so I opened the gate, fumbling awkwardly at the latch on the inside, right at shoulder height, and let myself in. But when I reached down, my keys weren’t there. I fumbled at the ground for several seconds, patting and poking the dust, but no dice. Then I heard them jingle from up on the porch.

Enough was enough. I put on my biggest attitude, and swarmed up the steps to deal with this jerk. But as soon as I reached the top, I was struck by how warm it was there.

It was summer. I could smell the green smell after the monsoons wash through, could faintly hear the bells of the ice cream carts that wheel through neighborhoods like these, begging pennies and quarters from sticky fists. I took a step back.

“What’s your hurry?” a voice asked from the depths of an old couch. “Stay a while.” It was thick, phlegmatic, coarse. “Have a Co’Cola.” The porch swing at the end creaked, as if someone had shifted position.

“Yes,” agreed a thin, reedy tone from that direction. “Tell us a story.” I knew this voice, I thought. I knew both of them. I felt smaller when I heard them, smaller and less certain, somehow. Plastic hinges squealed as the lid to the cooler was flipped open.

I looked inside, and for a moment, the shapes inside were large, and round. Bowling ball size . . . but bowling balls don’t have hair. Heads, I though. Heads in the cooler, and familiar voices. Voices that sounded right in the dark, voices that made me feel small.

The one on the couch reached into the cooler, plucked something out, and offered it to me, pushing it into my numbed hand. A coke. In a glass bottle, green and cold, an emerald of winter on a summer’s day.

“They haven’t had these since I was . . .”

“A kid,” he croaked for me. “The last time you heard our voices. Remember that night?”

I did. My knees buckled, and I sank down into the old cane-bottomed rocking chair. I had been seven when the night terrors that plagued me finally ended. They said I grew out of them. I learned to tell stories about them, weave them into webs to be walked through in the light, and shut away between covers. And now they were back.

I dropped my drink and ran down the steps that melted into the Escher painting that had hung over my bed, the last thing I saw every night. I had run from them, Croaker and Reed, every night for months, and every capering horror was just a mask for these two. Down the stairs and down the stairs and down the stairs, winded and blowing, and when I stopped I was still at the top, with the rocker swinging softly behind me, runners cutting bloody gouges in the cement of the porch. I sat back down.

I’m glad I packed the laptop when I left the office. I’m glad I had it with me, and set up this blog. You found your way here; you can find your way to the gate, and open it for me. Because, you see, I am seven again. And the latch is too high for me.

So Much Depends Upon a Writing Exercise

Ten minutes. Go.

So much depends upon a grey polarfleece jacket, missing one of its zippers and the drawstring from around its waist. I could swear I zipped it up last night at the gym, on the way home, talking with First Consort Gareth about the minutiae of life; the type of conversations we swear we'll never have because we are NOT our parents-- we are immortal and will speak of nothing but romance and starshine and significance (and what would YOU like for dinner? Dunno. Fast food's ok, tho' it seems kind of silly to be talking about fast food with all the fat and sugar and bloated wallowing evil when we're just coming out of the gym. Whatcha doing over there? Zipping up my jacket.)

But I couldn't find it this morning, even though I know in my heart that I laid it on the bed last night after we came in and ate boxes out of the fragrant paper bag. I see it still in my eyes, next to the jumper and long t-shirty slip. I looked in the laundry, I looked in the drycleaning, I looked in the washer and the dryer in case I started a load with my old fuzzy friend (it's missing the zipper in one pocket because that zipper broke one wintry sullen day with my wallet zipped tight inside, and the only way to get to my cash and ID was to take a seam ripper and remove the zipper entire, teeth still locked tight. I ripped out the drawstring around the hem out within a week of buying the thing because the locking beads tucked inside the pockets called to my fingers; I was constantly twiddling them till my index finger tips were sore.)

Stupid jacket from Target. Stupid glorified soda bottle. You were less than twenty bucks when I bought you years ago--off a rack with dozens of others. You're nothing special.

You're grey and fuzzy and like a security blanket without the satin trim. You've gone camping with me and I know the little patch of burned fuzz where the ember landed and melted your material before I could brush it off. You've gone with me to Mexico and walked on the beach in the salt spray. You've gone hiking with me in Greer in the rain.

I finally gave up hunting around the house (in the garage? No. In the office? No. In the workshop? No. Under the table, in my closet, in the hall closet? No, no no.) and called the gym to see if anyone had turned it in. They had--it was waiting in lost and found under the front desk. I hurried over in Friday rush hour traffic to reclaim my touchstone.

So much depends on a grey polarfleece jacket that's seen better days.

Perfection

Today tastes like . . . pineapples, limes, and unripe bananas, with a touch of cream and the texture of meringue.

It’s Friiiiiiiday, gracias a Dios, and in a very little while I will be out of
this office (spelled H-E-L-L) and off to be shamelessly pampered at the salon, meet with my knitting muse/head pusher Terpsichore, and pack for a trip to Mexico. Hence, this very very long post will have to keep you happy for a week. Decide now if you want to gobble it all down RIGHT NOW, and emerge with words smeared on your chin and behind your ears; or if you'll savor it a few paragraphs at a time.

But I don't want to hear it if you give yourself indigestion. You have been warned.

The Dowager Empress Odie-Bird shared a prose poem earlier this week, in which the narrator talks about rituals and holidays, and trying new things especially for holidays. Of playing with the traditional Thanksgiving recipies to make something uniquely your own, perfect and special.

And then ends the poem by suggesting making reservations.

So that’s First Consort Gareth and my Thanksgiving this year. We’ll be in Cabo San Lucas, eating the traditional Thanksgiving seafood enchiladas. I remember a Thanksgiving where I was in my early twenties and Brother Splunge was a teen, and the Dowager Empress and Papara decided that we were going to the horse races in Ruidoso for Thanksgiving. No turkey. No trimmings. No family save the absolute nuclear one.

Speaking of nuclear, Brother Splunge and I almost melted down. You would have thought that the winter holidays were celebrated in Rockwellian fashion, with Grampa tucking napkin after napkin into his shirt, Gramma putting the last touches on the homemade mince pie (no shortcuts from a jar for her, nosireebob), and row upon row of kids with fresh-scrubbed faces all waiting for their chance at the turkey.

But, well, none of us care much for turkey. It’s fine for a meal-- maybe two, if you count the heart attack on a plate that is tetrazinni. (How can something that is mostly a cheese and cream conveyance device NOT taste splendid?) But after the full-blown meal, and then a plate of tetrazzini, there’s still half a carcass left taking up real estate and slowly drying out.

But of course, it’s the fitting in that counts. For a while, after I had gradually realized that leftover turkey holds the same appeal as a slow root canal for me and the ‘rents; that the price of reporting that yes, we TOO had had turkey for Thanksgiving was a nasty repeat of turkey for a week; and concluded that fitting in that way just was not worth it, we were able to convince Brother Splunge that Cornish game hens were actually little turkeys. Yes. We lied to a trusting, naive child.

That worked for about three years. Then he was old enough to be cynical and read the labels for the “little turkeys;” talk to his classmates about how he got a whole turkey to himself for Thanksgiving; and deduce that we were feeding him a line along with dinner. So, back to a big brown bird that took three days to defrost, a day to cook, and one meal to get tired of.

So off to Ruidoso we went that year--and had a most excellent time learning to handicap the ponies.

Having discussed yoga in a previous post, it must be time to chat about mara, illusion. And taking up the theme, here's a couple of thoughts on the illusion of perfection.

When I started thinking aboout blogging, I had in my head an image of exactly what I wanted to show. I'd have progress posts every Monday to keep me honest, "window on my world" photos and essays on Wednesdays to keep me looking around and noticing what there was to notice in my world, and essays every Friday. Each little week in perfect order, three posts of opalescent wisdom and humor. Each one oh-so-very timely, with holiday posts in appropriate places, and amusing vignettes.

Thankfully, that crumbled before it could really get in my way.

Writing has always been a top-down experience for me. You start at the top of the page and work your way down. Maybe you have a basic outline in mind (boy finds girl, boy and girl fall in love,monster eats girl, boy seeks vengeance and is turned into a monster himself) but I never worked out of sequence, writing the easy parts first, or drafting the skeleton and building on it. Any time I started to listen to the shoulda's, the center could never hold, and mere anarchy was loosed upon the page.

I was reminded just today that while I've filled lists extolling the virtues of the TKGA's master program, I haven't said a word about it here. I replied that it had been a couple of years since I passed Level I, and I was slogging through Level II. One of the requirements is knitting an argyle sock in the flat, another is knitting a vest.

And I just realized why the program has stalled itself, and may require the push of a new year to get rolling again. I shoulda'd it to death.

I wrote out a list of all the requirements, with deadlines for each one--reasonable deadlines, mind. I've knit argyles flat before, so I know how long it takes, and I know how long it takes me to knit a vest--but I flubbered and the project died about five months in because I don't have colors that turn me on, and I haven't come up with a vest pattern I like. You aren't required to knit a pair of adult socks in fine-gauge yarn; nor are you required to design a vest yourself. But when I missed the first deadline because I was uninspired, I let the project drop because I SHOULD do the work in this particular order. Pffffftt.

I'll say it here, so I can hold myself accountable--one of the wild card projects for next year will be the Master's Program. (As mentioned before, I like to have five going so as to always have something appropriate to the situation. I plan to use Linus Project; Southwest Trading design; socks; and two wild cards as my categories in '05.) And I will work on whatever piece of the thing strikes my fancy--whether it's the swatches, the research, the vest or the socks. Maybe I'll make the argyle socks one of the sock projects.

Some of the women in the local guild are working on their Level I projects. The sad part is that we all started at the same time. It's not that they haven't finished the requirements--most of them have at least one set of swatches completed--but that they're afraid of sending in something that isn't perfect. So they'll re-knit, and re-do, criticizing their efforts and never ever actually putting them forth to be judged. It has to be perfect the first time.

And that's sad because the levels are set up as learning experiences. You do the tasks to the best of your ability at the time, then send them for evaluation. just like in school, the last learning experience most of us had.

Except that after the test is marked, you're handed back your work with information about how to fix the bits that weren't up to par. You didn't fail, this doesn't go on your permanent record--you clearly needed some information you didn't have. And now here's where to find it, so read, learn, and try again. You have nothing to lose but your lack of knowledge.

But no, the gals say they've learned enough knitting up the last batch so they don't feel good about sending off that sub-par bunch of string, and therefore they need to do it all over again so that it's PERFECT.

I can't imagine what they'll do when they actually get a batch off if errors are found. Will they give up? To have done so many four inch bits of knitting, over and over, to have wrestled to read the judges' minds and to have spent so much time only to have to do bits over AGAIN (wailing, tearing of hair, rending of garments) would be frustrating indeed. Especially because more might have been learned with less angst if they had only said--these aren't perfect, not in my eyes. But so what? I'll get feedback regarding what they think isn't right, and I'll re-do the swatches that don't pass muster. More importantly, I get to find out what I'm doing that is just right as it is.

And sometimes, that is indeed the most important part. See you in a week.