Housekeeping (Bloggity, Blog, Blog)

Like a silver shimmering fish, I can feel myself rising out of the deep dark river, breaking the surface of the water which is shot with moonlight. It's so weird. How do these things happen? What makes me dive back into the darkness, what causes me to rise again?

Hell if I know. And I think I'm a fairly well self-examined person. Probably WAY too over self-examined, if the truth be known.

But whatever, I'll take it and since I've done nothing but whine and moan here for weeks, I've decided to talk a little about the positive things going on so bear with me or just skip it. There's nothing earth-shaking here today.

The Play: I find myself going through the lines for the play at the weirdest times and get frustrated when I get stuck. During yoga this morning, I tried desperately while in Savasana to concentrate on the breath and nothing else, but damn, those lines kept inserting themselves into my consciousness. I can't wait until I can say them quite literally in my sleep, freeing me onstage to slip into my characters the way I want to. I am already finding myself creating little bits of business onstage which come from somewhere else. Not from me, consciously. And this feels good. I don't know how I'll be in the performances, but I do love cracking the directors up during rehearsal. The weirdest thing about this play for me is my interaction with the guy who plays opposite me. In one of our character scenes, we do a bit of cuddling and handholding and it's odd enough that he's younger than two of my children but add that in to the fact that this is the most physical contact I've had with another man besides Mr. Moon in twenty-five years and well, it's just strange. It's also scary how well we play an old Jewish couple. I mean, we must have been an old Jewish couple in another lifetime.

Doing New Things: Tonight Mr. Moon and I are going to completely break out of our rut and go to Tallahassee to play trivia with Downtown Guy and his merry band of misfits. Read about that here. I'm so excited! Mr. Moon actually knows sports and I know...well, I certainly know Jack Shit. It'll be great just to hang with DTG and Billy and whoever else shows up.
And my friend Kathleen is coming over this afternoon and we're going to discuss soap-making. She's been making soap for twenty years and she's going to teach me how this weekend. SOAP! I'm going to make soap! Could there be a more godly endeavor? She's ordered all sorts of essential oils and healing oils and age-preventative oils and we're also going to make lip balms and I don't know what all.

Place your orders here.

The New Stove: I LOVE my new stove. My bread is better baked in an oven that works, my soup is better, simmered on a burner that simmers. Last night I went crazy and made a butternut squash soup and chickpea-and-sweet-potato samosas. My house smelled of curry and garlic and ginger and Mr. Moon said of the samosas (which of course were baked, not fried), "I like those biscuits!"

The only real cloud on my personal horizon right now is that it's going to get cold, cold, cold here. And, yes, I say that as a person to whom anything below forty degrees is frigid. But seriously, it's supposed to get down into the teens which calls for some major plant protection. And which also means I have to keep the back door shut so the heat will stay in which means I have to go let a dog in or out about every fifteen seconds. Bah!

And one more thing- my free hit counter is NOT working. Dammit. Instead of numbers it just says Hit Counter, Hit Counter, Hit Counter. Any suggestions there?

So that's that. I'm going to go take a walk on this brisk, blue day and then get back to work on my memoir/cookbook which I have not felt like doing in over a week. I have black beans simmering on the back of the stove and I'm feeling fine.

Not manic-fine, like I want to go out and buy thirteen pairs of shoes.
Just fine-fine, like I've been given the gift of a beautiful, calm day and I can appreciate it with an open heart.

And so I am.

I hope you are, too. Because feeling fine is a glorious thing, especially when it's been awhile and it would feel mighty good to know that others are feeling the moonlight shimmer on their backs, too.