None Of These Things Are Related

It didn't get as cold as they said it would and I woke up about fifty thousand times last night and so did Mr. Moon and I suppose we rested in tiny little sips of sleep and I am not at my most mentally stable this morning.
But it's beautiful outside and the gas dude is here, filling up the tank and that'll cost as much as a week in Cozumel but what are you going to do?

When Lily and I talked yesterday she mentioned going to Target to buy the bride for whom she's giving this shower a present and I was like, "Oh god. I forgot that part."
I'm losing my mind. Bridal showers are NOT all about deviled eggs and silly games. Those things are merely the backdrop for presents.
Duh.
We will be going to Target today. And on Friday I will be making deviled eggs.

Did you hear Terry Gross's interview with Joaquin Phoenix yesterday? If you didn't and are maybe snowed in and have an hour to spare, you can listen to it here. 
I'm not sure that Joaquin enjoyed the experience that much but Ms. Gross and I sure did.

Here's a picture I stole off Facebook.

That's Hank and Billy in the foreground and other people in the background, including Billy's lovely sister in the middle of that group. They are all at karaoke. Singing. Could you just die? 

Okay. Let's see. What else? 

My dogs are still alive. Obviously. Because they are immortal. 

The stitches in my jaw seem to be coming unraveled or something. No. I have not looked in there. But my tongue can feel them. I am not going back to the dentist until my next appointment. If they come out, they come out. Whatever. Once I had a cat named Bob who was the most personable of all of the cats I've ever owned. He had a huge personality. It wasn't a very sweet personality but it was big. Anyway, once he got hit by a car and his jaw got completely jacked and the vet put everything back together again and held it in place with wire and a button. A button like the sort you keep your shorts on with. Before it was time to take him back to have this whole bizarrely engineered contraption removed, Bob somehow removed it himself.

"Never seen that before," the vet said. 

Bob lived about another fifty years after that. 

Well, I better quit rambling. I need to go through that pile of crappy clothes to find something decent enough to wear to town so I can pick up Lily and we can go do our bridal shower errands. I have a new debit card. Do I dare use it at Target? 

And it just occurred to me that if I was in Cozumel I wouldn't need any gas for heat. 

Loving every damn one of you...Ms. Moon

Another Day In Which The "L" On My Forehead Becomes More Permanently Etched

About the most interesting thing I have done today is to run into the brass swinging lock thing on the back door with my thigh. It hurt.
"Shit," I said, and went on with my boring day.
I have been useless. USELESS!
I threw that dress away. It is now in the garbage along with all of the scraps and the pattern. Bu-bye, ugly dress! I had run it through the wash to see if that process might make me like it more. It did not. It made the fabric scratchy. I laid it back over the ironing board to contemplate my options and then a little while later in a fit of who the fuck cares? and what does it matter? I gathered it up and I tossed it in the trash can.
We can take "seamstress" off the list of things I might possibly be when I grow up.
Oh, but how that list is dwindling.

Beauty Queen
Rock Star
Movie Star
Famous Actor
Famous Writer
Stand-Up Comedian
Creator Of World Peace
Seamstress

This pretty much leaves things like:

Woman Who Can Still Walk At The Age Of Sixty
Uh...I Can't Think Of Anything Else

So, yeah. I've been completely useless today and have accomplished nothing beyond clearing the sewing things out of the dining room. I wiped down the wall behind the kitchen sink where all the tiny black ants are marching in columns but within ten minutes, replacements plus had shown up. I have no idea what that's about. Nor do I really care. I know that nothing I can do is going to stop their determined madness and they will disappear at some point. 

Nature.

I was talking to May on the phone a little while ago and I said, "I just want to get out of here! I want to flee! I want to leave it all behind!"
She said, "Do you want to change your clothes, your hair, your face?"
"Yes!" I said. "Well, I like my hair okay. But god. My clothes! I need to throw them all away. I wear things like overalls that are so worn out they're held together with diaper pins!"
"That's all right," she said. "You live in the country."

The country of the having-given-up, obviously.

So that is me today, tonight. Mr. Moon is on his way but will only race into the house to get his truck keys and drive to town to watch an FSU basketball game.
And it's going to freeze like hell tonight and I'm not even going to say, Oh, but I know it's so much worse in other parts of the country.
It's always worse somewhere else. You can just bet your ass on that. So what? In the mood I'm in, I don't care. I am here. Where it's going to be really, really cold.

Well, that's all right. Tomorrow I'm going to town to help Lily get things together for a bridal shower she's giving on Saturday. This will make me feel needed, it will make me feel as if I have a life! It is all illusion, it is all but a moving dream behind a hazy scrim or some such shit but who doesn't need an illusion? God knows I do.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

Not Much

This day can't make up its mind. I woke up to chill and a sky that looked, if I still lived in Denver, to portend snow. It has warmed up and the sun has busted through it all for a few seconds at a time but now the sky is dirty cotton again and it is supposed to get so very cold tonight.

I stopped for a second and talked to another fellow walker this morning as we crossed paths. He has but one leg and yet he walks regularly into Lloyd from where he lives down the road a piece. We have a gentle banter we practice, we do not share much it would seem except that we both live here, we both walk and that is enough, plenty, to have a few words to say to each other.

The soaring of my spirits, the pulse of energy I have been feeling due to the cessation of the anxiety has faded somewhat today. I feel the beast trying to get its claws back into my back. Perhaps it is merely this dull dense sky. Perhaps it is only that.

There are things I need to do which I have been avoiding and although I know in my heart that it takes so much more energy to avoid, I choose quite illogically to do that. I have to get over this. I am going to be sixty years old this year. Will I be a prisoner of my own devices until I die?

Here is another thing I will be a prisoner of until I die, it would seem:
My pets.
Why? Why do they keep on living? I never take my animals to the vet unless there is injury. We do not medicate them, not even their vaccinations. We feed them whatever food is cheapest without actually being made of chicken feathers and pine needles. And yet (or because of this?) they live forever. A cat who lives outside whose age we cannot even comprehend. Two dogs who are at least fourteen, blind as bats, running into walls, still going, still living, endlessly scratching at the door to be let in, to be let out. Barking at nothing, stinking to high heaven.
They will not die.
Our boxer, Pearl, lived to be twice the age of the lifespan of the boxer breed.
No, I am not kidding you.

Well.

Good morning. Here's your fun fact of the day- the very first Swimsuit Edition for Sports Illustrated was shot fifty years ago on the then, almost unheard of and sparsely populated island of Cozumel in 1964. The model was Babette Beaty.

She became very close friends with the Rolling Stones.

She is now a painter.

Love...Ms. Moon

Lloyd is lovely quiet tonight. There's something that sounds like a bird making a one-tweet note but I think it's a frog. I am not sure but it is a pure, whistle sound and wait...now there are two. A conversation.
I should be disturbed that I don't even know if it's a bird or a frog but actually, I'm sort of happy not to. In my mind's eye I am free to imagine a beaky, feathered frog like something from a Mayan dream and it is beautiful.

It's been a good and very busy day. My house is still in disaster-mode, the boys having had their way with it for some hours. It's not really that bad and we had a good time together. When Owen had been here for about half an hour he said, "It's good to be back at Old Mer's house again."
He hadn't been here since Saturday, you know.
Gibson did something today that charmed my heart. I was sitting on the couch and he asked me for some milk and so I said, "Okay, I'll go get you some," and as I went to stand up, he held his little hand out and said, "Help?"
Such a tiny gentleman.

I've been thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr. all day. I've been thinking about these words he said all day too:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. . . . The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

- From Strength to Love, 1963

I have to believe these words. Their message is the very essence of what I believe to be true. And I remember when he was assassinated, this man who (as Yoko Ono said of her husband, John Lennon) changed the world with his mind, thinking that the world as I knew it was crumbling and that all hope must surely be lost with his death. I remember this feeling of despair quite clearly and yet, thankfully, all hope was not lost because the world remembers him, his words, his voice, and also because he lived a life based on those words. A very human life, but one always aspiring in true action to that incredibly high belief. He did not live in vain and his message was a clear one to all humans of all colors in all countries and his words have wrought change in this world of ours. We certainly have not abolished hate or darkness or war but I do believe that we, as a species, are still capable of learning, of change, of trudging towards light and love and acceptance and perhaps, even someday...peace. 

Those days, those sixties and seventies days, were so filled with so much of the same message coming from so many different sources. We took that message in and we sang it, we danced to it, we tried, so many of us, to incorporate it into the very fiber of our being and of our lives as we lived them. 

Hell, I don't know. Humans are so very flawed, all of us in one way or another. But we all need something to rest our heart on, to hang our hat on, to choose to believe is true. And even in that choosing, I think we make a difference. 

I'm tired. But I'm good. When the dentist looked at my mouth today he said it all looked fine and everything was as it should be and that the stitches would be coming out next week. I was grateful. And then I said, "I want to tell you something that sounds crazy."

"Okay," he said. 

And I proceeded to tell him that as he surely knew, when I first came to see him, I was a person in a very scary anxious place. That it really had nothing to do with the bad tooth, the bone abscess, although that whole situation did not make it easier. 

"Well, everyone has anxiety," he said. And this is what people who have never experienced what Matt Haig calls not anxiety but Anxiety, says. I tried to explain to the doctor the difference but I am not sure he got it which is fine. If you've never experienced it, you can't know. And if you don't know, be fucking grateful as shit. BUT, what I wanted to tell him and what I tried to tell him, is something that I've been thinking about very seriously for about a week now which is that I truly believe that the very potent cocktail of anti-anxiety drugs they gave me before the procedure allowed me to somehow break free of the horrendous and hideous panic I had been experiencing for weeks. The complete relief of that panic, that Anxiety for the day and a half it took my system to clear itself of the drugs, somehow cut the misfiring of my brain and allowed it to rest, to heal, to cease its terrorizing message of insanity. To reboot and reset my mind. 

Is this possible? The dentist listened to me and he didn't have any answers and he told me that he was glad it had worked that way for me and I appreciated his listening. And the sweet angel-child assistant listened too and we discussed it a little more after he left the room to go on to his next patient. 

"Someone should do a study to see if such a protocol could work for other people," I told her. "Because I was fixing to have to go and get back on anti-depressants and beg, BEG for Xanax or Ativan and who knows how long I would have had to take those drugs? I couldn't keep on living that way."

She got it. She is very young but I can tell that she is also very empathetic. I touched her hand when I left. I have sort of fallen in love that child (whose name, by the way, is Jessie) who, when she prods the most tender parts of your mouth, does it so gently and so skillfully that you can't even feel it. 

And so that's been my day. A day as full of doing and thinking as any day I am capable of having. Trying, as always, to figure shit out and failing miserably. Making and doing and holding and kissing and hugging and touching and washing and laughing and talking and feeding carrots to goats. Thinking about lightness and dark, love and hate. 

In other words, a very good day. 

It's still lovely quiet in Lloyd tonight. I hope there is peace where you are too. And light, until the time comes for you to close your eyes and let peaceful darkness come upon you, the sweet kind of darkness which does not destroy but which heals, renews, and sustains. 

Time to go clean up the mess. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Here's what I've done today:
Had a follow-up dentist appointment at nine, had a breakfast date with my husband, drove him to the other side of Leon County to get his rental car to go to auction, drove to Lily's, went to the grocery with her and the boys, drove the boys to my house, unloaded the groceries, put them away, made Mr. Moon a snack bag, coffee drink, and his lunch and have made the boys their lunches.
Okay. So when I say "lunch" I am talking about peanut butter sandwiches and cut up watermelon.
Still.

So I've been just a little busy but all is well and I have no doubt I'll have more to talk about this evening should anyone in this entire universe be interested.
Haha!

Love...Ms. Moon

Reflections On Things

I have been working on my Make-It-In-Two-Hours! dress for most of the entire day and I probably would have finished it by now if I hadn't decided to put pockets in it and the pattern did not come with pockets but pockets are easy. Of course I screwed up the pockets so half an hour with the seam ripper and then putting it all back together and by god, if I were in the eighth grade I probably would be done with it by now but I am not.
I am also remembering how much I hate facings. I hate those little fuckers. And they always end up screaming HOMEMADE DRESS! no matter how carefully you interface and trim and iron and sew.
My mother had a saying, "Ugly as homemade sin" and it is one of my favorites. In this case, I do believe this dress is going to be a homemade sin. And as ugly as that implies. Oh well. It can always be a beach dress, should I ever go back to the beach again. Or perhaps I will just donate it upon completion to a thrift store so that some bargain-hunting round woman with no taste can buy it for 25 cents and wear it to slop her hogs in.
At this moment, I hate sewing and besides that, the old, worn rubber belts of the antique and beloved Singer are going to come apart. They are fraying noticeably. I need to find some place to have the whole machine refurbished, belts and hoses replaced, tires rotated. I know that I at least have to make Gibson a name blanket and so will need it again although I seriously doubt I'll be sewing another dress in the near future. If one could still find beautiful fabric it might be a different matter but I think that day has come and gone. At least in Tallahassee. I hear you can buy fabric on the internet but how can you buy fabric without touching it? I have always bought clothing by feel more than by look. That is just the way I am.

Ah-lah. I have spent a Sunday, shoulders hunched over seams and seam-ripper, iron and machine and as I have worked, I have been listening to Barbara Kingsolver reading The Lacuna in my ears and so that is not a bad day, no matter what the dress ends up looking like. (Shit.) This is the second time I've listened to this recorded book and before I ever listened to it, I read it in print and guess what? I love it just as much as the first time. I love how Ms. Kingsolver does the voice of Frida Kahlo as well as the faithful secretary Violet Brown. She is a damn fine narrator, Ms. Kingsolver, and it thrills me to hear her voice as she gives voice to the characters she has brought to life with her writing.

So that has been my day along with a little laundry, even some hung on the line, and filling up the chicken waterers and that is about it. But I am not complaining in the least. It has been a day with little to no despair or anxiety, just a bit of normal frustration and also some guilt that I have not been outside more on such a beautiful day. The air has been of that sweet cool temperature and shade of moistness that foretells spring and whispers that the dirt is warming up, getting ready. False whispers, of course, but still, I could have done some trimming and tidying, cutting back and making ready.
But really- what does any of it mean? These are merely thing we do in our lives as the minutes and hours of them pass. We can play solitaire or bake cookies or paint pictures or write poems or repot plants or plant trees or make dresses or stitch designs into muslin or read or watch TV or study Latin if that is what we so desire. Some days are not meant for earth-shaking purposeful intent and we are but the tiniest of not-visible-to-the-naked-eye specks in the great river of time in this universe.

Or maybe I'm just a complete lame-ass.

Whatever.

Love...Ms. Moon

Brunch

My Lord but we slept late! Nine o'clock and that is unheard of around here but we didn't get to bed until fairly late, having watched Silver Lining Playbook until eleven. Again- for me at least- unheard of! Have you seen that movie? I know that Elizabeth did. She is my LA movie reviewer correspondent. Of course she sees things the second they are released whereas we get around to watching things when they pop up on HBO. For some reason, I had no idea what that movie was going to be about. One would think I would have had a clue, but no. And what was the deal with Robert Dinero in it? His character was odd and I could see his acting gears all going at once, the scrunched up face, the rounded shoulders. And that mother? Did she have a line? I can't remember.
Anyway, we enjoyed it. I added another inch to the fuzzy pink possible-hat I am knitting. Lily teased me about it yesterday. "So, are you making it for me?" she asked. Pink is her favorite color.
"Maybe," I said.
"I don't wear hats," she said.
"Perhaps you should start," I told her.
My knitting projects have no true purpose other than to keep my fingers busy. I made Owen a scarf once but he claims it is scratchy.
Ah-lah.

It began to rain this morning, early, when it was still dark. I was surprised and then came the thunder, rumbling and the rain poured down. I went back to sleep again and again, each time I woke snuggling back into the cave of covers, into the sweet unconsciousness.

But now we are up, the animals tended and I have started cooking those stone-ground grits. They take an hour! But they are worth it, creamy as pudding when they are done. I had to give Mr. Moon a yogurt as a snack to tide him over until breakfast will be ready. So what? It is Sunday.
Brunch was invented for Sundays. May works at a restaurant where the brunch is famous and well-attended. She tells me tales of people waiting for an hour for the chance to sit and drink mimosas or bloody mary's and eat grown-up breakfast foods. Sounds good but who can drink in the morning or even early afternoon? I would be back in bed by one and maybe that's the point. I don't know. But I can't imagine getting dressed and driving somewhere to wait in line for a drink, for fancy eggs unless I am on a vacation. In New Orleans, perhaps, where they serve bloody mary's with a pickled green bean. Yes. That I would do. But I am glad that people do like to go out for brunch. Restaurants and servers and bartenders and cooks and chefs and dishwashers depend upon them and there is nothing wrong with a bit of of Sunday luxury, of enjoyment.

But here in Lloyd there will be no such foolishness. Just those grits and a piece of sausage and biscuits I make myself with buttermilk and some eggs our hens have laid. No bra required, and we can make and drink as much coffee as we want and there will be no contaminating of the orange juice with cheap bubbly. The cardinals and finches and a red-headed woodpecker are at the feeder, armies of them, and the squirrels leap from pecan tree to fence to skitter down its length. The chickens' voices swell with rusty crooning. They want out of the coop to take part in this Sunday's brunch of the fancy foods they love so much- the bugs and tender shoots of grass and weeds. We will eat our breakfast on the back porch because although it is cool, it is not cold, and the sun is shining full-on now, and it is Sunday and I am so hungry and we shall eat in a moment when the biscuits are brown and so, the day has well-begun and hello.

Just A Regular Saturday Night

As anyone who has been married for any substantial amount of time (and that ranges from fifty-eight minutes to fifty-eight years) knows, there are times when the tide is in and there are times when the tide is out. There are times when everyone is getting along fine but that's about it- getting along (and hey! that can be a miracle and a very fine thing) and there are times when you look at the laundry basket and wonder, why am I washing this person's socks and who is he and does he really live here?
And then there are those times in which for no discernible reason whatsoever you just fall head-over-heels in love with that person again and you cherish that person so much you just sort of want to die now and not have to ever deal with the grief of possibly being separated by eventual whatevers that life inevitably throws your way and you don't want to be more than five feet away from them and you want to kiss them all the time and you're laughing and you're joking and you are cherishing each other and the love you share.

Last night Mr. Moon and I had a martini and we discussed how when people fall in love they say, "I want to be with you forever. I want us to grow old together and for us to sit on the front porch and watch our grandchildren play."

And how it is something so incredible when it really happens.

It is worth it all- all of the shit life throws at you and all of the young-age arguments and hormonal fueled problems and the never getting enough sleep when the babies are little and the businesses are new and there's never enough money and then the middle-aged crazies come which are as real as dirt and can be as messy as anything you can even possibly imagine. If you just keep loving each other and believe in that love, it is so worth it. Or at least, it can be. If you are in love with the right person.

As my friend Kerry said when he did a toast at his youngest son's marriage, "May you know the joys of long love."

Those joys are bountiful. They are true.
And they can be delicious.

Miracle Of The Day

Everything in my life which has led up to this.

The very tall man, the very small boy.

The smile on the face as the hand waits to catch the monkey should he fall. 

Sometimes Humans Amaze Me. In A Good Way

It's Saturday morning and I basically have nothing to say. Oh, well, goodness, I could probably come up with a lot but none of it worth talking about. You know- it's cold. I'm cold. The sun is shining. The chickens are alive, Mr. Moon went hunting this morning but only a county away, not in Georgia, so he'll be back shortly.
Etc.

So since I have nothing worth talking about, I think I'll give you two links that Ms. Sarcastic Bastard-Beloved  sent to me this week. Both of them are to stories about people I can't seem to quit thinking about. People who are doing something that "normal" folks would call insane or ridiculous or idealistic or one of those other words which usually means, "that'll never work."
And yet.

Okay. First one is one that I already shared on Facebook. It's ostensibly about a young man who bought a house in Detroit for $500 but it's actually about so much more. Read about it here. 

The other article is...well, I can't even describe it but it makes my heart so happy and it makes me believe in the human spirit in a way that I didn't even know I could. Plus...toast! Please read it if you have a few minutes. Here.

And thank you, dear Ms. Bastard-Beloved for such tasty reading links.

Love...Ms. Moon

Some Of My Books

The other day, Rebecca, in a comment to one of my comments on her blog asked me to take pictures of my bookshelves as she had done.
I said I would and then forgot but today I remembered.
One of the things which made me want this house with the burning desire of a thousand suns was the fact that it had a library. An entire room for books.
Now there are books in it, yes of course, and also the boys' rocking horse and there are toys and there are games and puzzles and little things the children made for me over the years and pictures and a mantel with sacred objects (to me) and two rocking chairs and an old light of my grandfather's and a huge leather couch which my sister-in-law gave us and it's too big for the room but somehow it is squeezed in there. It is often covered in the larger of the stuffed animals. The Big Bears, the chimpanzee who makes noises and moves his arms and sometimes for no reason whatsoever, he will begin to chatter and hoot. Perhaps he wants a book. Or to be read a story.

Anyway, it's a fairly dark room and so forgive me the quality of the pictures. But here are some of my shelves.

Mostly, there is not much order. Well, a little. But it's not very logical. 

Such a pretty book. May gave it to me. And a set of Dr. Dolittle. 

New home of the Beatles, plus a Little Mermaid tea set (which May also gave me) and dolls. 

Some of the children's books. A few. 

There are more. And my old LP's. And god knows what all else. Some of those corners get pretty dark and deep.

Okay. There you go. There you have it.

I am making a soup which has everything in it from beans to a mango salsa I made last night to sausage to greens to sweet potatoes and butternut squash. It's either going to be the best soup ever or not.

I mopped floors. I did not make a dress. I have that to look forward to. It has been a quiet day and I have taken it easy and I am as mostly at ease and grateful for all of it- every book, every doll, every seashell, every floor, every wall, every camellia, the smell of Fabuloso and white vinegar, the sun going down with the skeleton arms of the pecans reaching out to grab up the last bit of light.

Inside and out. I am grateful.

There May Quite Possibly Be No Miracle Today

Well, I have been up for four hours and have done nothing whatsoever except feed the dog across the street and make my husband breakfast.
Oh yeah, I fed the cat and chickens as well.
So. I have fed things. That pretty much sums up my life as well. If I were to have a gravestone (which I will not) it would most appropriately read, "Mary. She Fed Things."

In the last twenty-four hours I have gone from complete (albeit prosaic) happiness and contentment and relief to profound exhaustion (I was in bed by nine and forced myself to stay awake until 9:30) to what I am feeling now which is pretty much "fuck alla y'all" but only in a universal sort of way, not a directed-at-you-or-anyone-you-know sort of way.
Considering everything and especially the fact that yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my mother's death, I'll take this not-bipolar but possibly quint-polar range of emotions and frankly, when I say fuck alla y'all, I think I am mostly speaking of myself as the alla y'all.

I tried to give some sort of emotional, at least, tribute to my mother and her life yesterday but failed miserably. To be quite frank, I don't think I've had one real moment in the entire year of what I would call grief in regard to her death. How sick is that? I sincerely hope my brothers have taken the grief burden upon their shoulders because could there possibly be anything sadder than not being grieved by your children?
I probably shouldn't even say these words out loud, much less write them down here in the Internet but this is how things are. I am no more resigned to having had the mother I had than I was on the day before she died. I can certainly remember good things about her, things I did very much respect and that, too, is quite true. Things I even appreciate. But these are more logical and Mr. Spockian than they are human gut-feelings. I cannot fan the flames of them into any real human emotion.
Which disturbs me somewhat.
Here's another thing that disturbs me- I still, in my heart, believe that if I had been a better person, a better daughter, she would have shared with me more of the love I know that she must have felt for me and we could have gotten along so much better.

Well, that train has left the station and that's all there is to that.

It is Friday. I have things I need to do. I am an almost sixty-year old woman with a missing tooth. Well, it's not missing. I have possession of it. When I asked for the gold of my crown back, I did not realize it would come attached to the tooth. What was I thinking? Human molars, extracted from their gum beds, are horrifyingly ugly. I certainly do not have the technology or ability to removed gold from a tooth. Perhaps I will have a tiny funeral for my gold-topped tooth. I could bury it in a matchbox, say a few words over it and place a tiny violet overtop the grave. It will become part of this old piece of dirt which regularly yields me tiny treasures which other humans have left behind. Shards of old dishes, old bottles and rusted jars, pieces of rusty iron tools. A child could find it someday and think- TREASURE! TOOTH TREASURE!
Or, be completely freaked out.
I sort of like that idea.

I have given up on those sheets. I washed them and washed them with hot water and fabric softener and they are still not fit to sleep on. I put the old sheets back on the bed last night and they were heaven.

I am procrastinating. The Target credit/debit card breach has left me feeling vulnerable and angry. Someone (possibly a Russian) now knows where I live and other things about me.

Oh yeah. So do you.

Well, you are not evil.

I hope.

Happy Friday.

Love...Ms. Moon

Two Pictures. I Am Too Tired To String A Sentence Together.

Miracle Of The Day

Is the day.

Just back from a beautiful walk and the sky is crystalline and blue as scallops' eyes and I'm going to go to town to meet my babies for lunch at Fanny's and I think the soup of the week is mushroom and the sandwich is grilled cheese.

I dreamed all night, full-moon, scratchy sheet dreams of hosting huge events and I should be exhausted from all that work but no, I feel good, I feel fine, I want to come home from town and clean out the hen house and mop floors and tomorrow make a teal-green dress.

Is rejoicing too strong a word?

Dental Advice Plus Other Stuff

I am so tired. I'm tired like just come on now please and lift me up and carry me to the bed and lay me down. Pull the covers up around my neck and turn out the light and kiss my cheek and get on with your bad self and let me sleep.
Like that.
You know that ain't gonna happen.
Here's what did happen:
So I went to the dentist and the sweet, sweet little child who is the extremely competent dental assistant angel looked in my mouth and assured me that what I was seeing was not grody grossness but a membrane thing that the doctor put in there and it was all growing back together and it was fine and maybe a little irritated and how many times a day was I doing the salt water rinse? Okay, maybe I was over-doing it. Just a little.
Hey! I'm trying to be an A-student here. I want to win the award for healing, right?
Anyway, I was so damn relieved I had to hug the little fairy-child who wields the dental picks and mirrors and maybe I want to bring her home and adopt her but she appears to be married to someone who bought her a ring with a stone the size of Mr. Rushmore's biggest president's head and she says she has a three-year old so probably not.

I rushed over to Lily's and picked up my grandsons who were full of energy and love and joy and devilment and I drove them here and we played in the bamboo jungle and look! Look what I found! The second Miracle of The Day!

The first little white violet and I almost fell over from the shock of it. 

So yes, we played in the bamboo jungle and I had make-up applied again ("My name is Jeffrey," said Owen as he distributed teal eyeshadow all over my face) and then it was all like, "Let's listen to the Rolling Stones, now watch me run!" and "Let's play the matching game!" and "Let's have a tea party!" and "I'm so hungry!" and "I need juice!" and while all this was going on the dog kept leaving me little puddles of vomit and Gibson learned a new word today which was "puke" and we're lucky it wasn't "Oh Fuck!" That's two words. Whatthefuckever. And water was being spilled and juice, of course, and Owen got his shirt wet and Gibson got dog shit on his Elmo shoes and, well...

So yes, I am tired. Between the Anxiety Red Level Alert which was cut like an electric line when a tree falls on it, the walk I took this morning to try and control the anxiety, the boys, the laundry, the puke, the sweeping, the...oh fuck. You know. 

Hell, I am old. 

I am so old. 

And I am so tired. 

Now it's time to cook dinner and clean up the detritus and I know for sure there's another puddle of puke in there because I just saw it a minute ago. Mr. Moon is in the deer stand down the road and he'll be back and oh, how I just want to lay down and rest but no, not yet. 

Soon.

Those new sheets may suck but I'm going to sleep like a beast on them tonight. And it's going to get down to 27 degrees or some obscene number and it's going to be cold for days. No polar vortex this time, just winter but dammit, I saw that violet, it's standing there in the side yard, the bravest little violet in the neighborhood, and before you know it, it'll be time to kick the bamboo again. 

Until then, stay warm and let's all get some rest. 

And hey- twice a day on the salt water rinse is plenty. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Miracle Of The Day

What I thought was grossocity in my mouth was actually not. All is well. Once again I have catastrophied  that which which did not need catastrophying.

It's a beautiful day. And I am still an idiot.

Oh hell.
I have to go back into the dentist today. Yesterday that site seemed just lovely. Not that I've actually looked at it or anything. But hardly any discomfort at all.
This morning it seemed a bit more sensitive and so I looked in there and it's not looking entirely great to me.
I will spare you details.
And I am going in at 1:00 and no, they don't you Xanax for that. Well, I didn't ask.
And I'm supposed to take care of the boys this afternoon AND my new sheets suck AND of course the anxiety is screaming at me saying, "See! I told you! I told you that you should be worrying about everything in the world!"

I'm so tired of myself. I can't even tell you.

Well

Here I am, wearing my overalls and I feel like...me.
Me.
Me.
Mary Moon.
It's a very tenuous thing. I am afraid to talk about it.
But.

I did take my walk today. The sun came out a glory. I knew I wanted to go to town and although I procrastinated and did little getting-ready-dances for a long time, I finally went. I had washed my hair. I had shaved my legs.

I dropped off library stuff. I went to Tuesday Morning, that weird discount place where you can buy rugs and sheets and crystal and toys and kitchen stuff and I bought a new set of sheets for $38.00. They seem nice enough. Soft, and a decent thread count. But here's the thing- I bought them. I didn't just look around like a scared rabbit and then run. I stayed. I debated with myself. I bought them.
I went next door to the fabric store which was my real errand. I found a pattern to make a dress. It says you can make it in two hours but "you" is not me. I haven't made a dress in forever and ever. It will take me two hours to pin the pattern and cut it. I found fabric- a dark teal, not unlike one of the colors in Owen's quilt. It is linen mostly and a little rayon. I think I will feel like I am walking in the sea if I actually make the dress and it is fit to wear. I bought thread and I bought interfacing.
I did all of that.

I went to Office Depot. I bought ink for my printer. I bought the new Bruce Springsteen album. I paid for everything, I got in my car, I came home.

I am washing the sheets. I have cut the pattern pieces from their tissue page to pin to the cloth. My husband is home. Sweet potatoes are in the oven. The moon is rising silver and almost-full-bellied and in two days it will be the anniversary of my mother's death. I swear to you, I have been thinking that she died on January 15th for forever but no, it was the 16th. Now how could I confuse such a thing? Oh who knows? Not me.
So anyway, it will be the full moon on the 16th. The anniversary. I am wondering how it will go for me, that day. I am not projecting anything. I am just wondering.

Me. Mary Moon. Wearing overalls and wondering. Feeling like I am in a very tenuous but shining bubble of light. I went out into the world and I made decisions and once again, I didn't die.

Phew.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

Miracle Of The Day (Possible New Feature Here At Blessourhearts Until I Grow Bored With It Or It Turns Out To Be Stupid)

Camellias.

Their glorious variety.

Their gift of blooms when winter is most wearisome.

A Few Thoughts On Popular Culture

That's me! At Disney World! With my daughter!
Okay, no it's not. It's Emma Thompson and that was taken yesterday, supposedly, the day after the Golden Globes where Ms. Thompson famously removed her gorgeous, cruel high heels and...well, let me just give you the video:




So maybe Emma Thompson and I ARE the same person in a multi-universe sort of way. Taking off her shoes, drinking a martini, wearing overalls.
Well, okay, I doubt I'd go to Disney World the day after the Golden Globes and of course I'm neither English nor a world-famous actor nor thin and glamorous, but beyond that, sure. Yep.
Could be me.

So good morning. The day can't make up its mind as to rain or not-rain. The wound in my mouth is feeling much improved. I have things to do and a walk is in order.

Remember that book I was reading? The Fields: A Novel by Kevin Maher? Well, I finished it last night and the ending was just bizarre but I have to say I am not sorry I read the book and if happens to pass through your hands you might want to read it too. Story of an Irish lad in the 80's and it's all there- the huge family, the Church, the drinking, the joy, the...new age healing?
Well.
It's almost like three or four different books in one but I enjoyed it. It's not a perfect book and it's not a perfect life and it's not a perfect world but it kept my attention.

All right. Time to get moving. There's so much more I could discuss in the vein of popular culture including Robin Wright's sideboob moment at the Golden Globes, why some woman hasn't used shampoo in six years, why Oprah doesn't want you to know about her fat-busting technique, and several moments from last night's edition of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills but I WOULD NEVER BE CAUGHT DEAD WATCHING SUCH TRASH so I couldn't possibly have anything to say about that.

Much love.
Ms. Moon Who May Well Wear Overalls At Some Point In The Day But Not At Disney World

Pondering The Mysteries, Etc.

After Jason came home to relieve me of boy-watching duties I went into Publix to pick up a few things and I lolly-gagged around and chatted with Lily a little, and also Ms. Judy who does the meal demonstrations and when I left the store probably thirty minutes after I'd walked in, it was pouring rain. I mean, those big fat drops and lots of them and it was like, "Where the hell did THIS come from?"
And isn't that life? One minute the sky is clear and the kids are running around outside and it's warm and the next minute, clouds come scooting in like, "Oh! Sorry we're late! We'll get right to it!" and there you go.

But I just drove home the back way which is what I usually do anyway, slowly, as is my wont. I am now one of those sittin'-low, drivin'-slow old biddies. Fuck it. I'll get there when I get there.

Owen is on a kick of wanting to "in charge." This takes the form of, "I'm going to be in charge. You have to do what I say."
"Mmmmm," I tell him. "We'll see about that."
I do what he says if it's reasonable and I'm in the mood. Otherwise, nah. He deals with it. Plus, he's a fairly benevolent despot. The most outrageous thing he asked for was a smoothie and I made him one. It was delicious.
Gibson didn't have his Boppy around so I got all his hugs and kisses. Then he fell asleep on me. It was nice.

So it was a good day and now I'm home and Mr. Moon is out of town to go to auction and it's still pouring rain. I shut the chickens up sweet and dry and fed the kitty cat. I found another egg today in a pot on the porch and that makes two hens which have resumed laying some. After all these years, I still feel blessed when I get an egg and isn't that silly?

No, actually, it's not and I am glad to be a human being for whom the small miracles of life never cease to give me pause and wonder, whether they be an egg, a child falling asleep on my lap or a rainstorm coming up out of nowhere.

That's the news from Lloyd tonight.

Love...Ms. Moon

Still A Little Shaky

Artwork by Owen. Pretty much how I feel. 

Monday morning and all is pretty well here in Lloyd. I took the trash down to the trash depot and it looks like someone's dumped three adolescent cats. Damn. 

I did not watch the Golden Globes last night but I wish I had. I did watch the opening dio-monologue by Fey and Poehler and it was wonderful. It really caught my ear when they said something about Matthew McConaughey's amazing forty-five pound weight loss to play the role of a man suffering from AIDS in The Dallas Buyer's Club. What Tina Fey said was something like, "And wow! for Matthew McConaughey, losing all that weight, or, as actresses call it, 'being in a movie.'"
The whole room sort of laughed uncomfortably because you know what? That shit is true.
I thought The Dallas Buyer's Club was a very fine movie and I think that McConaughey and Jared Leto certainly deserve the awards they got for their roles in the movie and yes, McConaughey (and Leto too, for that matter) were scary skinny BUT, it struck me while I was watching the movie that neither one of them was that much skinnier (if at all) than most leading ladies these days and NO ONE SAYS A WORD ABOUT THEIR RIBS OR BREASTBONES OR HIP BONES. They're supposed to look like that. But with huge boobs. Right?
It's actually no more normal for a woman to have all of her skeleton exposed than it is for a man, no matter what our culture tells us.
And I guess that's all I need to say about that right now.

Can you tell that I'm still sort of whacked on drugs? And I'm not taking drugs. I don't know. Maybe it's not the drugs. Maybe it's just my poor brain which had been so completely consumed with the anxiety and then hit with all those lovely, lovely narcotics and benzos (thanks for teaching me that term, Rebecca!) and the complete cessation of any anxiety at all for full day and I have to tell you- I just cannot and will not judge anyone for becoming addicted to drugs that make you feel that way. I love drugs! Well, that sort. And no, I'm not going to go out and try to score any but I sure do understand why people would and it's just a damn good thing I never once did heroin or I probably would have done it until I died.
So that's my little drug talk for the day.
But I honestly do feel as if my brain chemistry is a hot mess. I'm not exactly anxious and I'm not exactly depressed and I'm not exactly feeling "normal" either although I don't remember what "normal" feels like, even for me.
Plus, I'm not exercising, plus my diet is shite.
I need to do better. I will.

I'm going to go trim up my porch plants and water them and hope for the best. And this afternoon I'm going into town to watch my boys for awhile. So I'm easing back into "real" life, I guess. I don't know. As I may have said here before once or twice, I don't now shit.
I'm just doing the best I can and so are you. Mostly, I think we all are, although the set of the bar can be pretty variable. For one person it may mean running a Triathlon, for another it may mean walking up (or down!) one flight of stairs instead of taking the elevator. For one person it may mean writing a novel and for another it may mean reading a novel. For one person it may mean winning a Golden Globe and for another it may mean not becoming a junkie.
Well, I guess there could be some overlap there.

All right. Go eat a piece of fruit or take a walk or write a poem or do something cool. I'll be sitting right here, cheering you on.
Go YOU!

Love...Ms. Moon

Twas Like A Dream

The last few days have been dreamlike and today too.
The procedure itself was, of course, painless. I went in and out of awareness. I remember hearing them say, "You're doing great." "Your blood pressure is great." "Almost done."
Etc.
Meanwhile I was thinking things like, "I'm not doing a damn thing." And, "Of course my blood pressure is great. I'm almost unconscious here." And finally, "Thank God."
I remember seeing the dentist's hand shaking with effort. It didn't bother me, but I remember it.

Notes:
Dental office spa treatments are not the best spa treatments you will ever get.
Offering someone a milkshake when they have just undergone two hours of oral surgery is ridiculous. Seriously. A milkshake?
We didn't even get to the moist towelette part. Thank-you. No.

Here's the funniest thing and the thing I keep turning over in my mind- they put an eye mask on me. Which is fine but I swear to you, I could see right through it. At one point, it had slipped up and one of the assistants pulled it back down and I thought, "Well, that's useless. I can still see everything."
Again, seeing everything (or at least being convinced I could see everything) didn't bother me. The Unibomber could have come in and threatened to blow the whole place up and it wouldn't have disturbed my peace of mind, my oneness with the Universe.

The drugs they gave me did not even begin to wear off until the next morning. All I could do was laugh at myself as I pinged from one wall to another like a pinball. It was hysterical. And I did not hurt myself and mostly stayed in bed going in and out of the most enjoyable sleep of my life. There is a certain sweetness to not having one damn thing in the world to worry about except pain control, which was no problem, and remembering to take my antibiotic. Mr. Moon made me the best dinner I have ever eaten and I'm not kidding you. He cooked me a chicken pot pie and I ate every bit of it, chewing slowly and carefully on my good side for what seemed like hours and then he made me a float of lime sherbet and grape juice and ginger ale.
I could happily have died, completely satisfied and still so very, very stoned.

But I didn't die. I went to bed and slept that sweet sleep again.

The boys got here at six a.m. yesterday morning and Mr. Moon took such good care of them. At one point, around nine or so, Owen came into my bedroom and said, "Mer. I want a carrot."
Boppy and Gibson were asleep in Mr. Moon's chair and so I got up and got Owen a carrot and went back to bed. Later on I got up and played a few games of cards with Owen and Boppy and I made the absolute worst dinner I've ever made in my entire life and I'm ashamed to tell you what it was and so I will not although when I told Lily and Jason about it, Lily laughed and Jason said, "That sounds awesome!"
I am hoping the healthy pancakes I made them for breakfast made up for the sins of the night before. At least a little.

And so it goes. It rained all day yesterday but the sun has been shining all day today. I've spent another chunk of time in bed, sleeping again and by now I'm starting to feel guilty. Which is stupid. Still- there you are. I am reading a book that I got at the library and quite frankly, I think it is marvelous. Could be all the drugs but I don't think so.

Who knows? The ending may disappoint but the meat of it is just chewy enough and I am glad to have it. I read for a bit and then lay it down and fall asleep and wake up and take it up again.

The boys have been gone for hours now. When Owen got up this morning, the first thing he said was, "Mommy and Daddy don't have to come too soon."
He still had things he wanted to do with his Boppy.
And Gibson? Well, as I told his parents, I'm fairly sure that he would happily take up residence in his grandfather's back pocket. Both boys are completely and utterly content here. But of course they were happy to see their mama and their daddy and went home cheerfully with them although right before they left, I found Owen sitting on the ground, his back to a pecan tree, and he was eating a candy cane his mother had brought him, just quietly and thoughtfully looking around, his legs crossed, and he reminded me of a skinny, four-year old Buddha, surveying his domain, content to be exactly where he was and not in a hurry to go anywhere else nor yet loathe to leave.

I guess that about sums it all up.
Me too.

For this moment in this time. Me too.

I swear to you, I am absolutely aching to write. Between drugs and boys though, I haven't had time or energy or even the mind but today the odds are good that it will happen at some point.

It is a beautiful Sunday morning and there have been pancakes and bacon and clothes-changing and a dance party and I've got laundry going and suddenly, I realize that no, I am not feeling quite that good at this moment and perhaps it is time to go lay down again or is lie down again? Oh, I don't know. I should know, I probably do, but anyway, it is time to rest and Boppy has the boys outside to tend to chickens and give me a little break and he's been wonderful. Just the best grandfather anyone could ever want and the boys have been wonderful too and my mouth doesn't hurt so very much, and the bleeding has long since stopped but...
Yes.
Rest.

Post Surgical Notes

I've slept for approximately eighteen hours. I can't wait to go back to bed. And I'm not taking one damn thing but Advil, even though I have a prescription for one of those Oxy drugs.

Did I mention that this is the weekend that Lily and Jason have a wedding to attend in Jacksonville, meaning that the boys are here? Planned event for over a year.

Bless Boppy. Bless Boppy. Bless Boppy.

It's raining.

Swallowing blood can give you heartburn.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

 Argh and big bloody hole in my gum and enough stitches I thought maybe he was constructing a tiny dress in there, fit for a Borrower bride but it's all okay. There were no problems and I've slept all afternoon. 

Which is to say I'm alive. Wheeling like a drunken fool, an inebriated tool when I try to walk. 

I'd say it's taken me forty five minutes to write this. I think I'll quit now. I'm so glad I washed my hair for this. 

Waiting room

Really stoned. Dang. 

It's Raining. That's Okay

I have not had one cup of Valerian tea today. This is like...well, I can't tell you.
I am so vastly grateful. I may wake up tomorrow and go into the red zone but I have had this time of relief.
And why?
Fuck if I know. Is it all because I know I can take ONE XANAX tonight? Honey, if that's what it takes, I'll sell my soul to get one Xanax per day. I'm not even going to pretend I have any actual idea what turned inside of me today. I'm just going to count it as a major blessing.

Anyway, I had a good time with the boys. My favorite part was when Gibson and I were playing a drum and we started imitating how different animals walking sound on it. Owen got into the game and said, "What does a panda sound like?" And then he began to demonstrate different animals walking and we would try to copy him on the drum. He did panda and tiger and chicken (he does a great chicken) and penguin and dragon. He had us do, without demonstrations, rabbits and kangaroos and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It was awesome.

Here's a tiny video of Gibson. I had made him a cheese sandwich. Toasted, of course.

He was a tiny bit mesmerized by the TV for part of it. I'm sure you'll be able to tell.

Lemmetellyousomething

I woke up this morning feeling a little shaky. Like a drunk coming off a bender. Not that bad, but a little. I've had no substances but the antibiotic and a little melatonin before bed so it sure wasn't anything like that.
I checked my what-do-you-call-it? Mental state? Waking up is tricky. I'm okay for a few minutes but then it comes back- that clutch of the belly, that panic. But today, it didn't come. I can feel the physical buzz of it in my limbs but the mind part is better. A few hours so far of some relief. Enough for hope.

I actually got dressed for a walk and despite the fact that it was gray and chilly and even misting a little, I strode out the driveway. I didn't walk so far but I walked. I came back. It was all right. It was all right. I moved my body in the moist gray air across the ground and I didn't die.

I found my iPod, I've plugged it in. I can take that tomorrow. I can listen to music or I can listen to Keith Richard's autobiography if that is what soothes me. My spirit totem animal, speaking into my ears, a testament to what the human can survive and live to tell the tales. This time tomorrow, it may be over.

Today, though- still here. I'm going into town later to take care of my boys for a few hours. I talked to Owen on the phone last night. He said, "Mer. Lemmetellyousomething." That's how he says it. One word. "Okay," I say. "Tell me." Then he tells me stuff and then again he says, "Mer. Lemmetellyousomething," and off he goes again. I wonder what he'll have to tell me today. He is a boy who is full of observations and thoughts. I am glad he likes to relate them to me. We like to discuss them, we like to enlarge on them. We like to explore a topic until he is bored with it and then we go on to the next. I look at Owen and Gibson and I am in stark wonder. You already know that. Still- I can't say it enough. It's like if I say it over and over, perhaps the true meaning of the feeling will be more appropriately described although it's not really possible.

The sun is coming out. The cold is slipping away like an uncomfortable guest, head down, apologetic. The cilantro survived. The collards and mustards survived. The arugula and lettuces survived. The chickens and cat survived.

Me too.

So far. Me too. Let's all of us keep surviving until such time as we can try to do even better than that.
Lemmetellyousomething- it could happen.

This Is NOT A Restaurant Review. And Yet, It Is

I'm sitting here beating myself up because I could be heading back to town to have supper with Boppy and Jason and Lily and the boys at a new Mexican restaurant near their house and I'm not because I'm stuck here in this stupid, stupid fog of brain and body and I hate it. I just hate it.
I could do it, you know. I could. I could go out where there is light and tortilla chips and baby boy smiles and kisses and I COULD DO IT and I want to do it. I don't want to sit here and eat leftover soup alone. Who wants to do that when they could choose to go out with people they love?
Who the fuck would choose to feel this way?
I know I'm not going to feel this way forever. I am holding on to that.

I did go to town today and I had a wonderful time, really, although I felt very disassociated and I couldn't remember words but it was okay because I was with Hank and Anna and we actually sat around and talked for a long time after lunch and May kept popping in to talk to us and Taylor came and sat down with us and I loved it. The whole thing.
The new place where May is working is not new at all. It's a little cafe in an outbuilding of an old plantation house in Tallahassee named Goodwood

and it's such a charming little place. Our dear friend Taylor has been the chef there for some time and when it came time for the owner of the cafe to replace the front manager, Taylor said, "I've got the girl for you."
And thus, May got an interview, May got the job, and Fanny's Cafe got the best front manager they could ever want. And May and Taylor get to be a team! Hank is calling it the Tay And May Cafe! High Fives Every Day!

Taylor says I can come and cook with her sometime and I swear, I would pay to be part of that team. I had a warm spinach salad and a curried sweet potato soup. 

Insanely good. And then Taylor sent us out angel food cake with a strawberry sauce that was to die for and I had forgotten how good food can really be when someone else cooks it with love and talent and attention. 

You walk up to the front door and you almost feel as if you should knock. There's a long hallway that leads to a larger dining room and other small rooms off to the side, each different, each with mantels and old fireplaces, 

each just lovely and light-filled with great old windows, their glass old and wavery.

There are tables outside for when it gets warmer and it's a great place to go and sit, looking at the beautiful gardens of Goodwood and I can't wait until we make it our place to go with the boys because they can play and tumble on the lawn. I suggested to May that they acquire a border collie to keep the children of patrons rounded up and safe. Don't you think that would be a good idea? 

Do you want to know the best part? All sandwiches come with a pickled okra and one of Taylor's deviled eggs. Uh-huh. You know you want some. 

So it was such a nice time, eating and talking, even if I felt like an alien, sort of, and I have great hopes for May to be happy there, with such an opportunity to give it her own special glow. She is going through great changes in her life and I think she is going to pop those pretty wings out even farther. 

After lunch (Hank said, "Come on, we have to go, we're slowing Anna down from getting her PhD") I drove across town to drop off another Virgin of Guadalupe calendar at another dear friend's house and THEN I drove back across town and went to Costco and THEN I went to the grocery store trying to think of what I will be eating after I get my tooth taken out which was a dismal failure (really? canned soup?) and then I came home and unloaded everything and turned off all the dripping faucets because it's not going to freeze tonight and I unwrapped the porch plants and that was sad. Just sad. I've lost some. Maybe I can cut them back and they'll be okay. I have hopes. But oh Lord, they just look so pathetic. 

And now I've written myself out of my despair, a little bit although I am still feeling weepy. I want to be...me, not this mess which feels like those porch plants look. 

Well. I guess I'll go heat up that soup. Mr. Moon called me and offered to come and get me or to bring me something from the restaurant or to just come home and take care of me but, no, of course I said no to all of that. I'm almost over beating myself up. Being in town and doing what I did today was rather huge, or at least huge-ish, for me, and it's good to be here and quiet. 

It is. 

I promise you. 

I think that when I go to bed tonight and go over the day, I will decide that on balance, I did okay. 

And for me, right now, that's good. And I will see the faces of the people I love whom I saw today in my mind and I will hold them close to me as I fall asleep. 

You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Part Whatever

Why can't I make myself go walk in twenty-nine degree weather?
Oh, I don't know. A desire for self-preservation?
Fuck it.
I took the trash. In the car. Of course.

Okay. I have to say that this periodontal surgeon's office is, well, to say the least, attentive. I can't tell you how many times they've called to re-go-over and verify things with me. To ask if I have any questions. Frankly, I don't want to know everything. That may be silly but so what? Every thought I have lately is completely illogical so why try to pretend? I did ask if I could keep the gold from my crown and had to get a special dispensation for that one. They said I could but that they would have to keep it and autoclave it before giving it back to me because it's a bio-hazardous waste.
Whatever.
It seems to me as if they really are trying to make this as positive an experience as possible. And for the money I'm paying them, well, they should.
So anyway, the last time I talked to Norma Jean on the phone she said, "Now remember to leave your jewelry at home in case you want one of our spa treatments."
This absolutely did not register with me. First of all, whenever the phone rings and my caller ID tells me it's the clinic, I go off into ear-ringing clang-clang alarm mode. I try to pay attention and write anything down that needs to be remembered but the words spa treatments sort of went right past me. I have a bone abscess. I am getting an extraction and grafting. Where in the world does spa treatment fit in there? I guess I just thought that she was making a joke and that I shouldn't wear my jewelry in case they need to do X-Rays or you know, perform CPR on me or something.

But NOoooooooo...

I finally got around to reading my pre-op instructions last night and discovered this:

Click on it. 

A PARAFFIN TREATMENT AND/OR HAND MASSAGE?

A MILK SHAKE AND A MOIST TOWELETTE?

And did I mention that they gave me a prescription for a pre-procedure Xanax to take an hour before I come in? 

Is this going to be the best day of my life or what?!!!!

Well, this just changes everything, doesn't it? 

Or, actually, no it doesn't but it made me laugh and I had to call May and read that to her. She said, "Do you think they give you a choice of flavors on the milk shake? Like you can have chocolate or vanilla or strawberry?"

One can only hope, right?

Well, there you go. 

The moist towelette thing really cracks me up. Is it going to be one of the teeny ones like they offer you at the barbecue place or is it going to be a really special warmed-up one like I fantasize that they give you in First Class on airplanes? Will I have to rip it out of the little package myself or will they do it for me and hand it to me with tongs? 

All right. I'm going to go put on real clothing and get my ass to town. I'm meeting Hank for lunch and that is that. It's a beautiful sunny day even though it's cold and it's going to get warmer and I'm going to eat a salad while I still can and although Lily is working so I won't get to see her, I'll get to see Hank and May and Taylor, too and I am looking forward to that so much.

I am still anxious as hell but I am accepting it and getting on with it. Sort of. 

Thanks for hanging in here with me, folks as I explore the World Of Crazy and send back reports and photographs of the sights and sounds. Just trying to be a good reporter. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I am over-writing. This is no shock as I am also over-thinking. All day I've been telling myself to get out, get out of the house. Go walk, go to the store, go do something. Anything.
And I haven't. Okay, I went to the post office. And here's what I got

My Virgin of Guadalupe calendar which I had ordered and this book and I don't know who sent it but if it was you, will you let me know? Will you tell me so that I can thank you? Properly?

So I have been inside all day and I have done house-wifely things and swept and washed sheets and made soup and bread which is NOT rising and the soup is strange but I watered the inside plants, at least I did that, gave water to thirsty plants. And I put all the birthdays on the new calendar, and even that was stressful for me because as I go through the pages of the months, I can only think of all of the horrors which may befall me this year and I know, I know, I KNOW- that is not logical and it's ridiculous and again I say- there is no logic here in this place of anxiety. There is no logic and there is no reason and there is no comfort and there is just...this. 

But. 

The calendar is hanging on the wall. The birthdays are put into their places. Anniversaries, too. 

I did not go to bed today to nap. I stayed up and awake and I drank my tea and I have talked on the phone and there will be tomorrow.  

And tomorrow, I swear. I am going out. I am going to go out into the world and I am going to go see May at the restaurant where she and Taylor are working together, maybe with Hank and maybe Lily and the boys too. I don't know. But I'll take May her Virgin of Guadalupe calendar and I'll go the grocery store because we are almost out of dog food, almost out of milk. I will return some things to the library and it will be warmer tomorrow, it will get above forty, it will be a good day or at least a day of doing and talking and hugging and being out in the world. 

I'll let you know how that goes. 

Please be warm. 

Love...Ms. Moon