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The poems are not writing themselves they are writing me some deep river in me an electric cord a space heater too close to the tub they are tightening the spring in me the jack in the box held under the pasture pond its hideous face growing slack no more sick surprise no more finder's keepers one potato two potato there were never enough closets to hide in the old shack behind the barn is missing the old piano is breaking…

I should have been writing these last long weeks, but I have not. I found myself exhausted and quite to the point of stopping on the side of the road and just sitting down with my luggage like a worn out refugee fleeing the wars. So much has been going on, for instance--two weeks ago I had a torn retina that had to be repaired which was a surreal adventure to say the least. And also I got James' labs back…

"how much energy do you have? how many spoons?" I have joined the Y yet again. I've never been able to make a membership with the Y stick the way I want it to, but as I have been contemplating my own death I thought about what I would regret. Other than the obvious not taking care of my body, not listening to my body, becoming pretty much disabled at this point, I did think that I would miss having not…

So I am an HSP. A Highly Sensitive Person. I have heard this term over the past few months and I thought that it was just another fad,  another way to explain the obvious, but I see now that it is actually a recognized (since the 1990s) personality trait, or rather a set of personality traits that signifies behavior patterns in a person. This should probably not be surprising to me or anyone else who knows me, and when my husband…

It's time to talk about my frustrations. When I'm frustrated my automatic response is anger. Rage. Fury. These emotions are outsized and out of proportion, super-sized and overwhelming. Frustration #1. My son, my adult child, my autistic sweet giving loving in-his-own-way first born formally tow-headed little boy James needs physical reconditioning for his heart, for his well-being. I am neither inclined nor qualified to do this for him. It might be different if he were interested. It might be different if…

I really, really want my planner to get here. So I can start planning in detail. And yes, I know I must remind myself that this planning notion is to simplify my life, not over-complicate it. But planning can and, I think, ought to be fun--I can decorate the pages if I wish. It comes with stickers and inserts. I am eager to get started. And I need to take care of my calendar situation. I bought an Audrey Hepburn calendar…

Trying to focus. Having a hard go of it. Still. Yesterday I tested Covid-free for the second day in a row so that is behind me, behind all of this household. But when I went out yesterday I had to deal first thing with the perennially incompetent CVS and it just ruined my morning. I HATE dealing with that store so much that I must stop writing about it right now. The good thing about yesterday is that Dale and I…

I ordered my planner yesterday after watching this chick Amanda on You Tube who evidently does nothing on there but review planners and planning methods. She was extraordinarily helpful and I highly recommend. It was between Laurel Denise and Erin Condren. I considered getting a large landscape style, like one of those huge old checkbooks, but in the end I chose this from Erin Condren: These are customizable planners and I chose a vertical orientation instead of a horizontal. There is…

When you have an endless layover at the airport, or you’re sitting in a hospital bedside someone who is sick, the feeling of the doing of it, that misplacement, that crouching down in suspended time may thrust you into a different place of consciousness. It is exhausting this habitation of a false space, a reality that is not fully your own. But then, at some point, you pass from feeling misplaced to a sort of pervasive numbness as though you have…

Tomorrow will be a week. I am so zoned out on dextromethorphan that I think I should just take it on the regular. I have, for me, endless patience and understanding. I'm taking everything in stride. Why would I ever, why did I ever bark at spoons and dishtowels? Life has become a slow journey on a swiftly flying horse. I cough. My throat hurts. I wonder at tiny things, little gnats that seem gathered at the lights, at the windows,…

If I had a garret, a drafty, unheated, freezing upper-room sort of garret, I would be writing this there. The sickness is settling in in new ways--I feel I may be coughing by morning. I am too tired. But have done useful things. In spite of it. Not many, but a few. Tomorrow may be a day of nothing. Null and void as though God has turned his face away from the waters of my garret-tomb. Or I may be smiled…

Actually, in spite of this relentless neausea nausea I am feeling an upswing in mood. I went down at noon to open gifts, then I dragged myself back upstairs. I don't particuallry particularly want to be alone up here, but I'm bad company, and I also feel cocooned up here, snugged in, just not as vulnerable. And as I write this I realize that my feeling of "Robo-Tripping" is very real. Either it's the Max-DM, or the Steriods, Steroids or the…

Xmas is canceled postponed. Dale has COVID. He is marooned upstairs. I keep thinking of the Anne Frank house. I listen to his footsteps upstairs. Pound. Pound. Pound. An occasional crashing sound that is actually nothing, maybe a shoebox slipping absently into the floor. I hear his coughing, coughing, coughing traveling down the stairs. I hear all his small and large movements existing entirely apart from me. This is what it must sound like for him when things are ordinary, me…

Yesterday Dale ordered a slender, almost needly tree and it was delivered a little after 7. Which gave us time to decorate it. Roslin was over so it was our special family time, though James wasn't really interested in hanging anything for some reason. Well...we had played 3 games of magic earlier and we were all a little tired from that. The tree is so small it's weird, but I am tired of dealing with the large tree. We had taken…

my level of exhaustion is hard to measure. this virus is unknown, a.k.a no-way-of-knowing-if-we-are-still-contagious*, a.k.a the soul crusher. it is relentless. it will not let us go. it's a terrible trickster, making one think it is gone but then roaring back. a week ago i stood in the kitchen thinking of Job and how maybe God has allowed Satan to corrupt my body which already has enough problems without this life/death struggle to REWRITE MY FREAKING DNA. for that is what…

Tomorrow night, Friday Dec. 1st, Clearstory Arts will...what...premier? Open the show? What do artists say? I don't know. In any case, my two pieces with "angels" in them will be in the Holiday/gift-giving show. My pieces don't fit this theme at all. I even went to the meeting about the show and thought I was in the "spirit" of the thing and now I realize just really NOT. AT. ALL. But that's okay. I wanted to "get my work out there"…

I picked up the canvases from the gallery today. I love them so much. It is beyond gratifying to see my work, images that before today only existed on my computer screen, in living I-can-TOUCH-them color. They are vivid. Strange. Weird. Scary. Ugly. Lovely. Provocotive. I only wish they were on larger canvases. I want everyone in the world to see them and go WTF? Also, learned that my idea of not "caring" about criticism about my art is...BS? We will…

A few years ago I had to have a pain-blocking surgery on my knee. While I was at the small surgical center waiting to be called back for my procedure, I walked around marveling at these paintings on the wall by an artist I had never heard of. Hans Paus. These are either early works by him or someone’s efforts to copy him. In any case, these paintings (on simple canvases—very large, in this tiny waiting room) struck such a chord…

Life was going well. I felt better than I had in ages, ages, ages. A spring in the step, an I-Can-Do-Anything Reading Rainbow feeling. Chin up. Chin up. Thoroughly thoroughly. Perfectly charmed by the upward progress in my life. And then? Bam. And again BAM. And it just keeps on BAMMING. In February we found out that James was in severe heart failure. LIFE CHANGE. LOW-SODIUM diet for AUTISTC ADULT CHILD. WORRY. WORRY. WILL HE JUST DROP DEAD?? Doctor's appointments. My…

i like to see the things i love to eat and drink, to remind myself of possibilities. water is the most perfect and most precious thing ale whiskey wine sumo citrus. like eating the very sun. coconut layer cake, served cold bon-bons with cream centers strawberries strawberry short cake apples Napoleon white grapes watermelon blackberries yellow cake with chocolate frosting, served warm raspberries carrot cake with cream cheese frosting red grapes blueberry muffin with sugar topping blueberry buckle the humble banana…

I have Thrush. I wish this meant that when I open my mouth I warble and trill because my insides are full of birds, but it does not. I wish this meant that when I open my mouth thrushes wing their way upwards toward the heavens, but it does not. It means bad luck. It means shame on you amoxicillin and stress, stress, stress. It means that I only THOUGHT I knew what cottonmouth was. I feel like one of those…

It occurred to me that in order to ever make peace with eating and food I will need to change my eating environment. It's what America needs. It's what I need. (see Marion Nestle) Then it occurred to me to really, really consider what that would look like. What do I really want to eat? When do I want to eat? How? With whom? Do I want to cook? Do I want to fool with the always-somewhat-yuckifying-and vaguely horrifying touching and…

my migraines may be back. i mean really back. i just came off a 12 day bender. and the headache is still here, lurking. f*****g lurker. but, i am not going to let this down dog be kicked, this downward facing dog i am going to get moving. i have gotten moving. get fit with rick! on youtube. i love this guy's energy filming in front of the water in Dubai. lovely thing. i just ordered my FITBIT after LOADS of…

The weekend was awful. Well, Sunday was awful. I had, I suppose, a mini bipolar meltdown. A spin-down. My centrifuge dropped me down its middle into my foggy, overspent brain and just spat me out. This may have been drug-induced, but not completely. Over cards Saturday night, my husband inadvertently insulted me about something—my rudeness, utter lack of manners. And a close friend echoed and encouraged/agreed with him in this. I know they figured that this would never have bothered me…