Last day of July

the video camera despite what Bob says, does not work. I took great footage today of this black butterfly, and a yellow swallowtail, and the film just freezes and breaks apart.
Yesterday's poppy is already gone, but there is a new one in her place. Something sad, something pretty about that, like you have to pay attention and go out everyday, and appreciate what you see, because tomorrow it will be gone. (I filmed today's poppy, but the camera refuses to show it to me)

I'm tired, my neighbor made me do yard work. I was watering my flowers and picking beetles (not as overwhelmed by them today) (but seriously don't mess with them near midday, they kept launching counter attacks). He has some sort of machinery, (not a tracker per se, more like a mini version of some construction thing, anyway) he scoops up mulch with. He came over and was dumping mulch on our bank, but he asked me if I had a rake, and if I would weed more of the bank, so he could put more mulch down (for Bob and I, to rake and spred out later). We do indeed have a rake, but the rake didn't work so well, so I pulled the weeds by hand (bare hands, and flip flops, as I was not dressed for weeding). My neighbor, a good neighbor, helped me. He mentioned his surprise to find himself helping me weed my bank. I was equally surprised to find myself weeding my bank (but I didn't say this). The flower beds are my turf, but this part of the yard, I consider to be Bob's. After awhile, he asked if we should keep going, and I said no, it would take quite a bit of time for me to pull the next section of weeds. So he went off to his own yard, while I continued pulling. Then from his side, he walked back toward me, and said that just because he was going inside now, that wasn't any reason for me to stop working and go inside too. (Seriously? Is my husband paying this man? I could offer my husband a choice word or two, and go about as I please, but a helpful neighbor. One who, to my shock, pulled out one of our dead trees, with his daughters help, and dragged it away. I sort of have to compy with one of those.) I spent hours out there pulling and digging out weeds. Still plenty to do, but I haven't had breakfast yet, and is my dinner time. So dirty itchy had to take a shower. 2 1/2 pounds lighter though from dehydration.

standing on my pedals

The wind in my hair, up so high, the tree's green canopy becomes my sky.

I lift a hand and touch the leaves, as I fly by.

I am surprised that this still brings me joy.
So simple.
Standing on my pedals.
37 years old.
I wonder if it will always be this way. No matter how old I am.
If when I am 80, (probably on one of those three wheeled beach cruisers with the big basket in back), if I will still pump my legs along, to get up speed, so I can stand on my pedals, up high in the breeze.
I think if I can I will, and I think it will bring me joy still.

why

does Bob take pictures of me like this? I look like Howard Stern and Kenny G's love child. Which maybe is usually how I look, but shouldn't my significant other go out of his way to spare me from knowing this?
Last year's shore pictures are much worse. There is film where he is inches away from my face, out in direct sunlight. On the audio you can hear me complaining to him, "stand back". He knows I am sensitvie about my lack of looks, or rather lack of pretty ones, so why doesn't he go out of his way to make me look better, soft lighting, good angles, rather than persist in showing me just as I am?

the garden last week of July

The poppy. I thought I would miss it in bloom, and I did miss the one, but happily there turned out to be more than one on this plant. Very pink shirley is.
Butterfly bush is finally in bloom. Gourd vine, planted itself, is taking over everything, but the little yellow gourds are cute. I am also pleased by the two sunflowers (different kinds) that planted themselves. The cosmos look more like evergreen trees, some are just getting too big and bushy. Columbine are finally spent. Hollyhock faded away. Clematis seems to have woken back up. Russian sage, rose of sharon, hydrangea, zinnias (all purple) are in full swing. Plenty of this and that, I wont mention. Some daisies are doing great, some aren't.The roses are trying so hard, and keep coming through with new growth and buds, but the beetles are winning the war. They took over in the week I was away, and I am fighting being despondent over it, as they are destroying all leaf and petals on these plants, or should I say barren green stems. Some of the roses are doing better than others ( I wont say which for fear the beetles will hear me, and then target those plants). I got stung, or pinched, or bitten, by one of the Japanese beetles today, clustered everywhere they are, as I was trying to knock it/slide it, into the water bucket, I stayed calm, but the next one that clung on to me, unnerved me as I feared it too would hurt me, and I flicked my hand about too vigorously and knocked the bucket out of my hand, and into the grass, and had to scramble to recapture the beetles before they could escape. It was great fun. It is too hot and sticky outside now, I wont do more than press my face up against the window and curse at them. It makes me think of war. Of picking one off at a time, a never ending line, no way to win. Makes me want to bomb them, my own plants even, that is how frustrated I get. Good thing I am not in charge of actual wars. I need a new strategy. They are also quite fond of the pontilla (sp? I'll look it up later). My son seems to feel it is time for me to make him lunch.

The week went by so fast

I wasn't truly settled into my vacation and enjoying it, until Wednesday. Wednesday night I slept 5 hours in a row!! Instead of the stupid two hours at a time pattern. Then Friday night it was time to start repacking the car. Two weeks would definitely be better. I might have more than a day and half of really feeling relaxed and like I was there.

The sun is coming out now, which is nice, but I was glad for the rain, and an excuse not to be doing yard work. I have all these lovely suitcases to unpack, and wash to do. It is my job to pack the stuff, and pack and unpack the car (I do get some help with unpacking the car). Because Bob feels I pack too much stuff, and therefore never tries to make anything fit in the trunk, he can put two items in and declare "all full, no more room.". So I pack it, so that the stuff we need actually gets to come with us.
Bob laughs at me whenever we arrive (at the place we are staying), he and Cheese sit down and watch TV( Cheese right away, Bob not until after the car is unpacked) while I scurry about wiping down every surface with clorox bleach wipes. I bring my own bedding and have rules about anyone getting on it, who is in days clothes instead of pj's, and whether or not this person is reasonably clean and has just washed their feet. Cheese thinks this is funny and will come in and touch the tip of his finger to my sheets, so that he can hear me carry on, while he laughs. Bob will strip down, but refuses to wash his feet. It was a king sized bed, so he just stayed on his side of it, and was not to use the top sheets (till the end of the week, when I was more tired and cared less, and felt bad because he was using a pillow case as a blanket).

Our video camera refuses to show me much of the footage from our trip, it is old by technology standards (8 years), and I fear it is, the footage and the camera, lost forever. Bob keeps talking head cleaner. He is here now beside me, unlike at the beach, here he doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. Not as many fun options.

I can take things personally that have nothing to do with me. (and it is one of my rules not to, as in -You are not to take things personally that aren't personal-. It is related to another rule, -You are not to get angry about things that have nothing to do with you-. anyway) It was Friday night, quite crowded on the boardwalk, and we were walking, close to 11pm, heading back to our place. And I was trampled! By two teenage girls, like we were playing tackle football, and I had the ball. Like when you see football practice on TV shows where the guy runs into that long padded thing, with his shoulders and uses his weight and force to move it. I wasn't knocked completely down, just hurled forward, bent over, as I manuevered, and braced. They continued to run off, then one turned around and said "sorry". I said " I SHOULD HOPE SO". And that was that. Except I actually felt a bit shaky and my back hurt, and I still feel insulted. My son did not help much by talking about how I am invisible and no one considers me, and saying "oh did you hear something? How odd to hear sounds when there is no one there." whenever I spoke. I am here, ugh, don't try and go through me, go around! Go around. I was wearing a black t-shirt and thought maybe that was it, but looking up ahead at the other people on the boards, plenty had on black, and I could see them all clearly. The girls just weren't paying attention, they were distracted talking to boys, and friends, I know. It has/had nothing to do with me, but still I can't help it. I feel indignant, insulted, offended. They were about the same size as me, only there were two of them, and somehow they both managed to hit me. Also a man had stepped on my heel just an hour before. What the heck was he wearing anyway? Sure didn't feel like rubber soles, felt like clogs (it really hurt). But he did reach out and touch my arm and sincerely apologize. Of course these things happen to everyone all the time. It is stupid to in any way take it personally. I know, I know. But...

I had more fun earlier that evening when I had to cross both lanes of boardwalk traffic, I chose to go staight across though it looked impossible, impassable. But I sped up, or slowed down, and would move a foot to the side. It reminded me of playing frogger. Well there you have it, I am both easily insulted and easily amused. I should really set to doing something. This is rather a mis-mash of a post, but so be it. My mind is a bit mis-mash at the moment. mish-mash.

by the bye,
Bob is asleep now (in day clothes! on the bed)
Totally pointless I know, but if I had known Bob would be filming me from behind that day, I would have worn darker jeans, so my butt would have looked smaller. Hopefully the oversized book purse helps.

centrifical

I couldn't find it in my dictionaries last week, so today I decided to google it. It doesn't exist. I have asked around, and everyone else I know thought cetrifical/ centrifical force was a word, a saying. But no it isn't. Apparently my options are centrifugal or centripedal. Centrifugal force? It just doesn't sound right. I was looking at a book, on the boardwalk, I guess I should have bought it, it was all about how to correctly say words, and about how we don't.

Back from vacation

Was at the beach.
I'm done reading Harry Potter.
talk more tomorrow.

I dreamed the shirley poppies came to my yard after all. So I went to look for them. I planted lots in April/ early May. To my surprise there are two white ones in the back bed, hidden among some weeds. One's petals have already flown away in the wind, the other is just as tall as one of my fingers, the smallest poppy I have ever seen. And there is one unopened in the side bed, the height of my hand, in among the zinnias. So three out of over 100, but I am grateful for the three. I thought it too late, to hope to have any.

I probably wont post for awhile, very possibly all week. Bob will be around, and I intend to spend my time with Bob, with Cheese, and of course with Harry Potter. 12:01 am. No matter what else I am doing, even if I think about it not at all, I am waiting, waiting, waiting. I am excited, I am anxious, I am scared. Each book has been darker than the last. I am afraid of what might happen, but I can't stand not knowing. I am going to try and pace myself, not lose my days completely to those in a book, but I fear that is just what will happen. Bob and Cheese will be reading it as well, though we will not share a book, as that would cause much fighting, and Bob reads too fast, and he gets overly anxious to talk to me about things, and it drives me nuts because I wont be that far yet, and he will say something stupid like it doesn't effect the plot. I don't want to take my journey out of order, I don't want to know anything, not even some tiny little detail, like whether or not Harry wears a purple hat one day, nothing, till I read it, in the story myself.

Bob just got home, must go, do busy things, instead of bloggy things.

weird questions borrowed/stolen from Keeper of the snails

1. What is a book whisperer?
A writer's muse. My stories are always whispered on the wind. I have to be silent, and listen, try and catch them. Let the words fall into me. Stop what I am doing, and see the pictures as they float by. The book whisperer is really the story whisperer, sends them out into the world floating in the air around us, and if we can listen and catch enough, they are like a thousand fireflies in a jar, all signaling at once, enough to light the dark. The muse is called a book whisperer, because he/she whispered these stories over the minds, ears, hearts, of those most likely to catch them and share them. Thus each book, once a whisper on the wind.

2. What can I smell when it is going to snow?
Childhood. LIke held breath anticipation, that something amazing could happen at any moment, that something magical is just around the corner. The world is still, waiting, but when you breathe the cold air in through your nose, down into your lungs, the cold sends electiricity through you, waking up every cell in your body.
(though in my opinion that is only the first true snow of the year, by March, approaching snow, smells quite different)

3. Tell me about a road that leads to a world where there are no ideas.
It is dark, and the path is at points narrow and tight, almost impossible to squeeze through, (you are barely able to see, sharp rocks cut into you, ripping bits of clothing, ripping bits of skin), and in other spots it turns all open, the road is wide, everything is flat and formless, grey, sky, ground, air, you, all grey, then you easily get lost, for everything looks the same, there are no markers to guide you, up, down, forward, back, it all becomes indistinct. The reason it is hard to walk this road, to find the place in the world where there are no ideas, is that the universe never wants you to arrive there.
(you only need one thought, to be able to turn around, and find the way back home, the road to ideas)

4. How can I get a memory out of my head?
I find the harder thing is to get one in there, I find it perfectly easy to lose them. Maybe I am lucky, for though I do have unpleasant memories there is not one (so far) I wish to forget. There are things I wish hadn't happened but as they did happen, I wish to remember them. I do wish I knew how to retrieve some of the shiny memories that are stored in deep storage, so I could bring them back out into the light and look at them. But I assume part of me still knows them, and they impact and effect me unaware. And that there is a reason it is so.

5.Where is shallowland and what lives there?
You must walk straight ahead and be braver than you've ever been before (braver than you ever thought you could be).
It is not (full of) a lack of depth (lack of meaning and feeling), it is things revealed.
The deep ocean, keeping things hidden, offering protection, now receded to reveal what it holds. The water is now shallow, items exposed, to light, to eyes. No need to be hidden, all treasures revealed, soft, shiny, and hard, dark things too. Wonderous all. Shallowland, to stand there boldy, among what you see, walk carefully through it, know it all. It is always in us, we usually keep the depth of water around it, around us, for protection, looking at it through layers and layers of grey-green sea, but sometimes we gather our courage, dive down, and walk there, among the inner parts of ourselves, the pieces gathered across the course of our life, and those parts of us that always were.. Sometimes we even let others, walk through parts with us (we bring part of it back and show it to them). Somethings are hard to look at it, to accept are there, to look at closely, but we go down, and walk there, because we know among these jagged pieces, are lost treasures, things that hold light, parts of us connected to something beautiful and vast, and we want to touch those parts, pull them out of the sand and hold them. The floor of us, the core of us, literally littered with light and dark pieces. Side by side, moving together in the tide of our lives.

6. Who is the man that lives inside the sun?
We've never met, and he doesn't sing to me the way the moon does. But I am grateful for the light and heat, just the same.

7. When did you first know who you were?
Still don't. I learn new things about me all the time. Like how the sunlight hits objects in different places at different times of the day, at core shape I am always the same, but look different in different angles of light, other parts are illuminated, revealed, as are, other shadows. If there is a heaven, I think there we know us fully, here is my journey, I find parts of myself in the strangest places, parts I didn't know I had lost, parts I hadn't looked into yet. It is not so much that who I am, is changing, just that time gives me more time to discover it, to uncover it. I am, I am, I am. It flies through the trees, echoes through the hills, pulled through an eternity of sky. Who am I, may be the question, but that I am, is the gift.
I AM

8. Why do gnats fly in sprials and never hit each other?
Centrical force (isn't there an f in that word? oh, centrifugal, I suppose, but now my poor brain is all confused, definitions and spellings not being just as I had thought. Poor brain, you try, I know you do. It's not your fault), and tiny magnets (with opposing forces, especially when spiraled). They used to fly straight and hit each other, get stuck together and drop to the ground. Which of course made it take forever to get anywhere. So one day, one of them ( I don't know who, several have of course taken credit) decided to fly in tight little circles to try and intimidate others to stay clear, and it worked, so they all started to do it. No matter how dizzy they got, they found they never hit each other. The reason it is spirals instead of tight circles now is because they discovered that spirals worked just as well, and then they didn't get dizzy (again I can't tell you which one realized this, over a million took credit at the time, and now every gnat says it was his or her ancestor who did).

9. What is love?
I don't know. I know it asks more of you than anything else, and gives more to you than anything else. But still, I don't know.

10. How can I capture a free spirit?
You never want to learn how to capture a free spirit. You want to learn how to set a caged one free.

(I notice there is a repetion of ideas and words, I have given in my answers)
not so pleased with them, but supposed to be doing many other things, and running out of time.
Time. Time. Time.
Time

you and the wind in the cosmos

there are blurrier picturers which bring me more joy, ones of the goldfinch swaying to and fro, with the cosmo in the wind. He is there again, striking among some darker purple flowers, the sight mocks me, for my batteries gave out while I was filming him earlier, as they recharge, he sits and feasts, and I can't capture any of it, except for with my eyes. And that part of soul which records such things, to do what with I know not.

I read GoodThomas's blog, and Vesper's before I went to sleep last night. Things seem to hang in the air around me, and over-lap, falling on me in layers. I keep thinking of Alena, of this time last year. I dreamed for the second time this week of my mom and my aunt, at my nana and pop's house. The over-lapping of people and time. My Pop said to me in the dream, "You can't change any of it now, you can do it after I'm dead". We were in his basement (in the dream I must have had plans to change it). And just as he finished saying it, I remembered that he is dead. And that is when my mom and her sister entered the dream. I woke early and couldn't fall back to sleep. I thought about how Ocean City, New Jersey is like home to me, because we go every year, because we have always gone, because my family on both sides always went. I think about how my homes have changed over the years, but this ritual runs like a thread through my life, a constant. We only go with ourselves now. Bob and Cheese and I. Occasionaly we will run into some of my Nana's relatives (thus also mine). And last year, my Aunt took her family and my Mom and Grandmother all went too. I have video of Alena there, pictures of her alive. Time, home, people, over-lapping, fading in and out of my life.

Home, home is something that is shifting. I remember when my Nana and Pop's house was home, always a home base, I thought it would be so forever. But now the door that locks, I do not have a key to open it. I can not go inside. I am outside of, where used to be the heart, the core, the security of my world. I think, how can that be, how could that have happened? How can there be day without sun? They were like the air, the trees, the sun, ongoing, part of the world, part of existence. The thing is though, even the sun, does not go and on the same. It will change getting so hot to burn us all, to burn our home, our planet, and then turn so cool that we would freeze. Even this, our Earth home, if we are lucky enough to go on and on here in the future, then humanity will need to find a new home. We will all need to leave, and search for a new place to call home. I will be long gone then, millions, billions gone then. The sun does have the luxury of time, going on so for millions and millions of years (or is it billions and billions?) before it changes. But would I exchange one lifetime, finite, of love, of hope, of despair, of people, for millions of years of burning in my own fire, suspended alone in sky. I would rather live, live and die. In my small, small space in time.

And so I sat with my thoughts. And when I got up to listen to music and brush my teeth. I thought about Mikiyoshi. About the attention and affection of GoodThomas's post, and how that is something I need to see, to feel from Mikiyoshi at the end of the story. I knew he had changed and you see it in his actions, but this degree of tenderness, does not pour off him, and he needs it. He needs it to flow through him, and startle him. I could not see its absence and give it to him before, because I do not have it to give. But I see now, it will become part of him. Part of his journey; different eyes. As his heart unlocks and opens. The joy of it will scare him, as will the vulnerability. He will live in the world in a different way than he did before. I am glad I saw this, glad I read those words (GT's). It is in some ways a nuance, this addition, a few words, a few sentences, the story is still the same, but...but it changes everything, its impact, it is all different. It is an emotional connection I wasn't feeling, Mikiyoshi wasn't feeling, that is necessary to truly know the transformation, not just of actions, not just of ideas, but of heart. His being, his soul, reflecting light differently, in the world. And feeling this, I felt more, and I saw more; I saw farther and deeper into the story, its heart. I saw little nuances that changed scenes, and I saw scenes I didn't see before. So thank you GT, and blogosphere, for this gift, for another piece of the puzzle, or another piece of colored glass for the mosaic, I am trying to create. That will hopefully reflect the light that is within me, and reflect its light into me. (illuminating some darker areas, letting light in)

killing me softly with turtles

I need to be sleeping, so I'll make this short till tomorrow. I don't know why I watched it, I had set my tape to tape Anderson, so I could read in bed, and then clicked the remote for just a moment. Turtles. It was excruciating to watch this man on pbs, and his turtles. I can't believe the degree to which I felt the weight on his shoulders. It was crushing him. And a cruel tease how things got so close to working out, time and time again, and then just slipped away, leaving him desperate and dispondent. I wanted the film to end soon, because I could not bear to watch it any longer. Finally it did, and not the hoped for ending, but a liveable one.

no spell checking.
goodnight world.

why does the weight seem to fall on the individual? Why does he or she reach out, with vision? Why do organizations find it harder? I am thinking of turtles here, but also of NOLA. Red tape must be super sticky, no one can ever seem to move ahead once they come in contact with it.

can not be more articulate at moment, eyes closing, mind not asleep, not awake, somewhere in between, floating, in a murky grey green sea. (perhaps there are turtles in it? the program had fresh water ones though, this wouldn't be their body of water)

links

they did work, sort of, I just found them at the bottom of this page. Now how did they get there? I expected them to be on the right side, alongside the posts.

I do have to work on my writing today. I woke her yesterday, oh and she was very angry with me. I don't know her name, but her wrath is scary. "Wasted time!". " Wasted time!". Her breath hot on my neck, but burning like ice, as it sent chills though me. Her screams not to be heard by anyone but me, a vast wind, tearing through my cells, threatening my very existence.
She said I had a choice, for she would not be caged forever, I could either jump to something, or I would fall to madness.
I don't know if it is true. I am mostly in control, but she does gain in power now and then, and my equilibrium is off, and I can't steady myself. I must appease her. I over-ate yesterday, trying to disract myself and drown her out, but I don't want to live that way. Trying to drown out, what I don't want to hear, to know, to feel. Besides she will be there still. And she might just shake me all the harder, to gain my attention. And I do not wish to be shook at all.

read and write, read, and write. Read, read read, a great world of ideas rests between hundreds of pages, and I collect but don't read them. Write, write, write, a world swirls inside me, I watch it, but don't write it down, capturing it on page, releasing it from inside me, freedom gained for us both in the liberation. Read, read, read. Write, write, write.

the monarchs have arrived

gathered 101 J.beetles
(15 got away).
101 beetles, you can't make a fur coat with them.
Perhaps some jewelry then.

I wonder if you exist

Is that wrong? Is it wrong that I want you to exist even though I did not wait for you? Truth is, I lost faith early. No one I was ever interested in seemed interested in me. Even if such things as soulmates exist, I didn't think we would find each other. I didn't think I would find mine. I gave up the search, I married a good man I care about. Sometimes I think maybe he is the one after-all and I am just too stupid to realize it. I don't know, he is my partner at any rate. But still part of me can't help it, believing, hoping, in a romantic notion, that somewhere is a soul that sits so well with mine, fits so well with mine. A compatible sense of humor, a compatible being, laughter, a hand to hold (it all feeling right). Someone I am not afraid to tell my stories to. Someone I want to listen to. Eyes I don't want to look away from, I want to look deeper into. Eyes I want to look into mine.
I wonder if you waited, if you still look, and search, or if you too found a life to create without this element. A good life, just not the dream one falls in love with, around age 14. She will not grow up though, that 14 year old girl, no matter how I try, I can not pull her away from the window of wistful wishes, where she looks out, at blue skies and white clouds, or dark night and starlight, and forever dreams. Of you.

Joy

just spent time researching J beetles on the net. Lovely way to spend a summer Saturday. Did find some important things out though. Like the systemic insecticide I used, I used to late, so it wont work. Also, it is important to remove beetles, and damaged leaves, petals, from plants, as presence of beetles, and presence of damage, both release scents that attract more beetles. Also traps, unless used in specific situtations, and/or used by a whole neighborhood, are more likely to lure more than they catch ( I did plainly observe this with my own eyes so know it is true). If I understand correctly I should be applying both milky spore ( takes 2-3 years to build up and be effective), and insect killer to ground right now. And spray plants regularly.

I already collected a hundred J. beetles today (also, at least 15 got away, I was surprised by the words that I called out after them). Earlier, I asked myself, what would Mikiyoshi do? He would be ever vigilant, perpetually man his post. I am not consumed by the same depth of passion as he is (their death does not mean my own), but..I am now inspired by visions of him, to check and re-check my plants every couple of hours, to defend them from these pests.

by the bye,
Cheese has complained that I am calling him Cheese here, says he likes to keep a low profile, offered up other ideas like, Mr. E, and Darth potato head. I'm considering it.

Back from yard
the flowers simple enough, but if I cut off all the leaves that they chewed on, there will be no plant left. Or at least it is like trying to clip off half the needles of a pine tree, half interspersed among the others. Easier to just get out the lawn mower and...but of course I wont ever do that.
I saw the skeletonization of the leaves (not the petals, they bore through parts, and ate up rest), this will lend itself well to Echo. I should look up J beetles in Japan, but tired of reading about them for today.

ode to my enemy

Tired (Tried!) to add page element went super. (a.k.a. didn't work at all). Oh well, try links again another day.

Bought film today. Maybe I will go film the hollyhocks now.

Cheese had sleepover here last night. Dropped off the extra boy at his house today, and then went to mall in search of shorts, came home with a pair of jeans. Never a good idea to go there, always makes me want stuff. But the truth is the stuff that I want, doesn't fit my life at all. What, should I wear cute girly dresses while I clean, and garden, and write? If I had money and was graceful, and had fine manners, maybe I would. But as I do not have money and am a great slob, they would just get rumpled and stained, I can see no point in having them, so tell myself again and again "stop wanting them!". Oh but I do want them. Like a child in a candy store, their colors call out to me, such pretty sweetness, I run my hand across a front, touch frill, and hem. And imagine for a moment a different sort of life, one where I wear little dresses like these. Is it too late, I wonder, can I still be that girl? Still become a woman like that? So no one ever sees me, so I never go anywhere, still I want to see me dressed like that, want to be me, dressed like that. But then we are back to the issue of money again. And denim capris and t-shirts fit both my life and my budget.

Vesper indicated that I should probably be working on my writing more, and blogging less. I totally agree. I go on vacation soon, and I am hoping that will propel me to finish typing stuff from my notebook onto my computer (so I can print it out). It makes me nervous leaving my work. What if something happens to it? I need to have several copies in several locations. A complete copy must be here at home, and also one must be with me. The notebook is fragile. Already Cheese spilled water on it, and it has dirt smudges from being in the garden with me, and folded pages from being shoved in and out of my purse. ( I like little cutesy purses, but bought a big one this spring, for the notebook, and for books I am reading).

My front yard no longer smells of death. The beetles were taken with the trash this morning. It is odd to watch oneself do things one doesn't actually feel comfortable with. The unbagged beetles, the ones I slide off of petals into a bucket of water, well they were also starting to stink. Some were dead, some were not. At least fifty of them were in there, probably closer to a hundred. I scooped them out (with plastic throw away food container) letting most of the water drain out, plopped them into another big plastic container, then when I was done, poured out all the icky stinky water from the buckett, carried the beetles to the driveway, dumped them out in batches, and squashed them with my sneakers, by jumping and slidding. It was both mushy and crunchy, smelly, and all together gross. I heard this voice "Who are you?", a mix of curiosity and horror. " I don't know what else to do." was my only reply. I can't let them eat all my plants. It seemed a shame to dead-head the roses, to cut away spent blooms (well in this case not spent, some were just buds, but were bud and bloom alike eaten to shreds) so new ones would form. Why bother, when I will just be feeding the beeltes and never see the flowers. Last year they were just on my roses, but this year, they go to all my plants. I have already started a new bucket, 20 this morning, I should go round again, but it will upset me. They tuck their hard little bodies between the delicate petals, hidden tucked into fragrant beds. I wonder what that would be like? To sleep between folds of silky soft petals. To sway gently in the wind, to breathe the fresh night air. Your days, sex, and food, all part of this fragrant bed. Except of course for me, the giant monster, who comes and steals them from their beds, drowning and smashing them. Ah, each the villian in the other one's story.

I am not inclined to spell check today, so please forgive. (and do make excuses for me...she must be very tired not to notice she spelled....)

not much going on

Saw Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix this morning (with Bob, Cheese, and my mom), went out to lunch (with Bob and Cheese), mini grocery shopping, and now am home and it is raining. Bob is about to watch some political thing on TV, some guy he doesn't like, so I am upstairs in my studio so I wont have to hear him carry on about it.

I started reading Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, though truth be told, I was more drawn in by the first paragraph of Tuck Everlasting, but I rented Balzac on DVD, and want to read much of it before I watch it, so it gets read before Tuck.

Research, I read about shintoism yesterday, and just started The Compassionate Buddha today. It has concentric circles on the back (like my story does). It will probably take me forever to read, as I am also reading and doing other things.


I still haven't read the library books I took out, actually I still haven't as much as opened them. They are diet, and cooking ones. I have to come up with some sort of idea and plan about what it is I am eating, and what I am cooking, for me and these two I live with. They still wont tell me what they want, they still wont give me a list, at grocery store they say "I don't know, I'm not hungry right now". At home they are forever asking me "what's for, breakfast, lunch, dinner?". I made several things yesterday (spaghetti, turkey burgers, several veg) and they didn't eat any of them (child ended up eating hot dogs, husband ate pretzels). I guess, I will just decide what it is I am doing, and make what I want, and they can get on board, or start being clearer about what the heck it is that they want.

Writing? Of course not. Don't be silly. Just because it is my dream, and greatest ambition to write a book, you don't expect that then I would spend anytime actually writing, do you? Honestly, some people, act that the only way to get something done is to do it.

tic toc tic tock tic

well I did buy more paper
and I watered a vole
and bagged a bunch of beetles
cleaned and organized the pantry, and started on fridge and freezer, watched Bread and Tulips.
and a world of matting and mulching still awaits.

And I saw the twigs left in the ash, just like pieces of bone. And I smelled the overripe earth, full to bursting, lush in the deep wet heat, till it turns and (festers, ferments, molds, mildews? I don't know the right word), decaying in on itself. I saw it all for Mikiyoshi. For him to finish his journey I too must take it, and also make my own, different but the same. I have not forgotten, I have not moved on. We are knee deep together in the trenches of dirt.

11 talks of heaven

in car leaving pool
Cheese- "it is weird how the difference between being 90 and being 95 isn't so great, but the difference between being newborn and being 5 is. It is five years either way."
He then went on to discuss dating, and how it is no big deal to date someone 5 years younger, men even sometimes date women 10 or even 20 years younger, but it all depends on what the ages are, on how much of a difference that really is. You could be 10 and someone you could end up marrying would just be being born.
I of course threw in my two cents, that women should marry men 8 years younger, since on average women live 8 yrs longer.

next thing I know, the topic is, death and reincarnation, and heaven, and spirits.
Reincarnation freaks him out, so I told him you probably don't have to come back if you don't want to. I tell him you forget your past life, till you go back up to heaven, otherwise it gets too confusing.
So then he wants to know, well what do you do in heaven all day?
I say, Some people think it is just perpetual bliss, but I think you still grow and learn.
C-"So it is like another life?"
me- "One without pain and death." Somewhere I tossed in, some people don't believe in an after life, they think when you die that is it, nothing happens, you no longer have thoughts, you stop being, but I prefer to believe that we do go on, don't really know how or what it is, but believe we do go on in some way.(laws of themordynamics and all that).
He wanted to know if there is technology in this after life.
I said "I don't know, I think we are spirit forms.'
He said, "it sounds boring."
I said "I think you can go visit other times and other dimensions, not interact, not change anything, but be invisible and watch."
That he liked, "like witness bloody battles?"
I just frowned at him.
C- " you just don't understand boys" he said.
"no I don't" I said.
He then realized that if he could watch people, he could watch people watching tv, thus watch TV. (I then had a vision of my son and I, sitting on sofa together in some afterlife, invisible to the person whose home we were visiting, each getting annoyed when the person clicked the channel away from our show.)
Sting theory and other dimensions came up,
C said-"we could get reincarnated into one, especially if anything would ever happen to the earth."
Cheese has much indignation that some scientists don't believe in alien life (thinks they are idiots).
me-" we can't say that there is alien life, but we can't rule it out either."
c- "So would alien life, and life from other dimenions go to the same heaven we would?"
me-" I don't know, I guess so. Never thought about it before"
Talked about deep water sea creatures, that don't need light, those thermal ones (idea being that not all living creatures have the same requirements for living that we do). (by this time we were at staples, and my deepest thoughts were of trying to figure out why it is so darn expensive to get 3 hole punch computer paper, while looking for cute little pink binders with designs, none to be found. I felt a bit odd, as Cheese was talking loudly of aliens, other dimensions, idiot scientists, reincarnation, and heaven. And I was doing my best to field questions and respond to statements).
By the time we were at blockbuster I did try to freak him out by saying he could be a reincarnation now, but that idea didn't seem to bother him at all. Not like the notion of being reincarnated as a girl did. ( I had to take that one back, and say maybe souls do have a gender. I really don't know. which you know, I don't know. I added maybe if you had been really bad toward women, you would then come back as one. To learn more, and grow)

We have a really hard time with death. With others dying, with the idea that someday we will die.
Cheese- "the only people who aren't afraid, are those who have had near death experiences. You know what should happen? You know how they have orientation days for schools, before you go to a new school, so you will know what it is like? It should be that way with death, and heaven"
me-"that would be great, then you wouldn't be afraid, you would either dream of it several months before, or have an out of body experience, and then know what it would be like, what to expect, and then you would be okay with it, you could relax, not fear it."

I don't remember thinking about such things when I was 11.

It means a lot to me when he will share his ideas with me, tell me what he is thinking, and ask me what it is that I think.

still not inclined to be merry

I am tired of doing yard work.
Had a "conversation" with Bob today. He insists he is not upset with me, just furstrated with ALL that needs to be done. It just feels like he is constantly upset with me, because he is perpetually upset and complaining.

I am also tired of crushing on a particular someone. Even if I was the last woman on earth, I wouldn't have a chance. I need to find someone less handsome, less rich, less busy, and over-all less shiny.

I am also tired of beetle war. A japanese beetle, either stung or pinched, or whatever the heck it is they can do, me yesterday, and it hurt. The ones out front are simple, I just slide them into the bucket of water. But the ones in the purple bed on the side of the house, they're smart. And nasty nasty.

I wish I could get video of the yellow finch in the fountain, I swear he is having an intimate relationship with it. He stands on the top tier pressing his body against it, as the water flows out, cupping the pillar with his body, up on toes, head into the top of fountain, his beak dives into the center of it as the water pours out, like a bee into the center of a flower, the core of nectar, then he tilts his head back and swallows it down, then he dives back down in for more.

Well at least the birds are enjoying the effects of the yard work. Bob wont take us anywhere or do anything till it is all done. We do still get to go to the pool though, thank God. I have to get ready to take Cheese soon. At least there I can sit and read and not feel guilty about it. In fact I would get reprimanded if I did not go. (as the membership was not free, and it is the only thing that will tear Cheese away from TV, video games, and Legos.)

Which reminds me, tear and tear should not be the same. I shed a tear as I tear up the photograph.
anyway time to print out some research information to take to the pool.

Oh and I found hollyhock in the backyard, beautiful pale peach, attempted to plant it last year, or year before, from seed, nada nada nada, finally, finally, finally. It has placed itself in a bad place though, so I dug deep, and moved it to the front bed. I hope it doesn't die now, but there was no seeing it where it was.

photos will be extra bad for awhile. I am out of video tape, so am using previous stuff, or like this photo using my isight built into camera. When I get film I will take a better shot of this rabbit, he is my writing symbol.

P.S. Drat! Now I am out of printing paper.

post-poned

Yes, post postponed due to icky mood.
It was supposed to be about information found for writing (yeah!!),
but instead complained about Bob complaining (bah hum-bug, bla).

Hopefully tomorrow will be brighter. With both of us having sunnier dispositions, or with me bearing better the dark clouds he keeps sailing over me.
tut tut it looks like rain.
Perhaps I shall feel better if I wack him over the head with an umbrella?
Oh dear, see, better just to go to bed.
Actually, I am in bed, Bob is already asleep beside me.
So I'll change it to, better just to go to sleep.

Shuffling feet

The shuffling of feet, sets off an avalanche of emotions inside me.
It is just Cheese sliding across our carpets, perhaps he has on imaginary cross country skis. But the sound cotains memories. My Pop had MS and the first 29 years of my life are filled with that sound, the sound of his shuffling feet. A sound that in and off itself I would not enjoy, but because the sound is him, it means so much to me. It is like music, a song that our life together danced to. To hear the tune played by the one who created it in my life, is something I long for. Though all the memories are good, the sound can't but make me sad, for never again will I hear it, and turn and look, and he will be standing there.
The shuffling of feet sets off an avalanche of emotions inside me.

Yesterday was the anniversary of his death. He was born July 14th 1918, he died just before his 81st Birthday. We always celebrated his birthday on the weekend we celebrated the 4th of July, because he always had a big family reunion then, plus he was always off fishing in Canada, in a great stinky camper full of men, during his b-day. So I think of his birthday and his death, as part of the 4th of July. I always think of him as I watch the fireworks, I used to watch them from his yard, and the year that he died, the hospital called saying he might die tonight, but I waited to watch the fireworks before I went in, I needed his passing to be entwined with them. I was worried he wouldn't wait for me, but he did, he died on the 6th, two days later, early in the morning when none of us were there, but we had already said our goodbyes. He had looked around at us, at all our faces, and smiled and said how lucky he was to have us, to have such a family.

I didn't think of him this year as I watched the fireworks, because we didn't go to see them, perhaps that is why I heard the shuffling of feet this morning, why I realized I knew the date of his death, but couldn't remember the one of his birth, and had to go through the storage containers in the basement till I found his memory book, which now lays open next to me on the bed. It was time for me to remember and smile and say, how lucky I am, to have had such a family.

the sky

Today- A few white clouds in a blue sky, the yellow sun shining, and suddenly rain pouring down, off and on in intervals, and then, after 20 minutes it stopped, the sun shone through it all, the sky stayed blue, the clouds white, afterward it was like the rain had never happened. (except for the puddle at the bottom of the driveway). I don't remember ever seeing before, a downpour through a clear sunny day.

Tonight-My husband declined my offer for him to walk the rest of the trash out to the can, so I did it. As I walked, I realized I am hardly ever out at night. I lock my doors to it, the darkness. It is so beautiful out, so peaceful, the stars, the crickets, the warm air. I will make it a point to spend time there. More often lately I find I like to say my nightly prayers while looking out the window, up at the stars. I like the vastness of it, of feeling the universe, I feel more like I am talking to someone, to something then, often times when I say them in bed, it seems mere routine; I don't feel a great vast other, I just feel words. I like sensing the heavens, and the earth. I, just one of so many people, one of so many creatures, looking up at the forever sky. During the day the sky seems like an end, the top layer of our planet. At night, the sky seems like a window, we can use to peer into a different world.

12:21 now, way past my bedtime. my thoughts murky with longing for sleep
the world is so beautiful. It is filled with a great many painful things, but it is quite beautiful.

very odd

that I can go anywhere on safari but to All Things Anderson, they say they haven't given me the boot, and wouldn't know how to block people from visiting if they wanted to.
I would just assume it was the universe, saying to me, "stop meandering around, and be more productive with your time!". But I have been quite good lately, at only stopping by, not hanging around there. And also trying to go there, is taking more time, than actually going there would.

Oh well, I am going to write or read.

Bob and Cheese just went to the pool.

I planted the two russian sages earlier and am out of yardwork steam already.

Oh that is right, I'll research dragons first. One only appears for a moment in a dream, but still I need to see it clearly. Is it asian, or european, or a mix, or a creation my own? The sketches I did last night, are..um....not good.

it is both

easy to make me happy, and easy to drive me nuts
right now I am so irritated because I can't go on All Things Anderson, I link to it, and Safari shuts down, over and over, and over and over. I can go other places, I just can't go there.

weird mood, jangly inside. Not bad mood, not sad, just odd, shifting feeling.

I have been thinking about A. a lot lately. We were all together last 4th of July. Then we all went to the shore two weeks later. Yesterday it was just my family of three, and same will be true at the shore. They have moved, and she is dead. I will send them a dvd of last years trip, when I make one, but I don't know how, and I currently don't have the heart to learn. Memories walk with me. What a difference in just one year.

I would feel better if I would work on my writing, but there is this unsettled feeling that wont let me land on anything. Paint paint paint, the smooth glide of colors, to have them stain my fingers, and fleck my nails, another layer to the dirt that is under them. Whenever I want something too much, I try not to want it at all.

The russian sage is right, Bob is upset that I charged it, but as I look down the driveway, it looks exactly right, and I don't care that he is upset with me; but I must dig the darn holes! For he wont stop rolling his eyes at me long enough to help. Feeling my scraped off skin, and weary arms, are befitting, a justice, a payment for such reckless behavior, as continuing to buy plants and expand beds.

Looking for something, that is the feeling of today. I am a seeker. Is it a lost something? A forgotten something? An unknown, or undiscovered something? I don't know, but like a faint bell it sounds in the distance, and I hear myself jangle an echo back. I feel uncomfortable in my own skin, like I need to shed it. Like an itching, but it doesn't truly itch, but I'd like to scramble out of it, and be free. Free to what? What? What? What? What is it that calls to me?

Like forever bursting on the inside, and forever still on the outside.

I am pacing internally. Plant the plants. No! read the book. No, find another book, one that echos, one that teaches. No, finish writing your story. The paint, the paint, I need colors to flow, pour over canvas, pour into my eyes. And my body is still, but it is so uncomfortable with the internal tossing with no direction chosen, which way to go, what to do?

To be more.

seek to be more.

too heavy want to cast it off, and flit about, light and free, everywhere.
feel trapped here, with this heaviness, this heaviness which is me. Which doubts, and makes every attempt at reaching for something, hard.
Why not do it all?
It matters too much. Too much to me.
So what? It's okay, jump.
I wish to be so much, yet I am nothing
nothing, but a fractured fragment of the universe...of God. Even a speck of dust catches the light as it falls. You reflect what you choose, Imbue what you choose. My how lucky you are. Choose your hue. You will not figure it out by standing still, so you must move forward. Never forget, how gently you are held.

Fireworks postponed due to rain

We probably wont go to see them now, as Bob works late tomorrow, and it is unlikely that Cheese and I will go without him.
We watched the ones on TV from New York, so beautiful, must be incredible to see in-person. (the photo is not of those)

I felt very optimistic about my writing today, which I thought odd as I haven't been writing lately, but then realized that was exactly the reason I felt so optimistic. Much easier to see the potential from a safe distance, just as it is much easier to see all the problems when up close. So easy to imagine something could be wonderful when not working on it, sad really to take up working on it again, and lose all that dreamy happy. But like a little bell it rings. Come hither, answer, come hither.

Oh, bedtime, I can't recall it ever being bedtime so early in any other summer. Where is my endless time? Where is painting, and writing, and reading till the small hours? When it feels all the world is asleep, but my mind is awake dreaming. I remember it well, but can't touch it from here. I can not sleep in the morning, so I must sleep in the night. And dream dreams not of my choosing.

And as they have been going strangely as of late, perhaps I shall set a few requests in with my prayers. Which reminds me, I am so grateful God watered the flowers today, hopefully they will fair better now. Maybe the shastas will become cheerful.

Oh and odd movies, one tends to watch things late at night, one wouldn't take up during normal hours, you start watching, you have no idea what, and keep going with it, wondering where it will go.
But right now, I know where I will go...
but who knows where I'll go once there.

Goodnight

Sad Shastas

I am however much better. Finally decided to take some ibuprofen (sp?) yesterday, made the pounding stop. I also stopped trying to do things, and watched Nicholos Nickelby (sp? again too lazy to go look it up)
ate white nectarine, fuji apple, cheese and crackers, and vanilla ice cream, so much for healthy eating.
Didn't improve upon it today.
I now want to read Nicholas N, and I Capture the Castle (borrowed both DVDs from Library this week), plenty of odd characters in both. I want to see how it is written compared to how it was in the movie. But for the same reason I am already reading The Bridge to Terabithia, and though it is a short book, the closer I get to what I don't want to have to read, happening, the slower I go. They just painted the room gold.
I pay more attention now, when I read, and when I watch, not on purpose, for I could never make myself do so, even though I know it is the way to learn, but rather I find myself there unwilled, asking how did they do this, or that. Of course so far, it tends to happen more with the stuff that isn't so good, as I am more easily pulled out of the story then, and wonder how it has gotten so muddled; while reading or watching better, I forget that it was created, because it feels as, an always was, and therefore is simply just the way it is, or was, and continues to be. No questions of choice then arise within me.
Not doing anything for the 4th, went grocery shopping and to Target, surprised to see so many other people there. It is raining right now. I wonder if they will still have the fireworks tonight? Usually cancelled fireworks would upset me, I am rather fond of them, but...desire is groggy within me today, so I don't care.
I got a line from the story today, just a sentence really, but it will extend out to influence a paragraph, a little thing, but one it was important that I caught.
Stopped raining already. Suppose it will go on so, off and on.
I have fallen off, and not been working on my writing again. I am still jotting stuff down in the notebook, but not typing anything up. It is all the bother with the weeding and mulching, and digging, and still a world of work to do.
There are a lot more birds about in the yard now. They like all the planting and digging.
I find the world out the window interesting. So many creatures scurrying about, paths crossing, all day long, their world, and mine, overlap, yet are separate. Dramas, desires, battles, births, deaths, I know them not, though they take place all around me, in a space I call my own.
Pouring now.
I should read or write, or at least watch the third movie full of odd characters.
bye

poison ivy?

As of yesterday it finally stopped itching, and is now a red dried out mass. Pretty. (much prefered to the oozing) (I can't figure out how I only got it there)
My allercold has faded back to its holding pattern. I am happy about that.
Sadly my stomach and head decided to take up the slack (guess they felt left out)
Why is my head pounding so? (I can not be dehydrated)
And the watermelon that I so loved yesterday doesn't taste good (actually it tastes bad), so my stomach is complaining, because I haven't really eaten yet. (the white nectarines are really good right now, hopefully one will appeal to me today)
Bob is out in the yard doing mulching, I must get myself in gear and get out there, for there is no telling what he will do to my beds.
I ripped a bit of skin off my hand digging the other day (really hurt), 3 more holes for roses. Bob pointed out that I might want to try wearing gloves. Well I suppose I have to, for now.
Maybe I will perk up once I am outside, there will be all kinds of stimulus to make me forget my petty physical concerns. There will be wind and scent and sun, and paying attention to what I am doing, and no doubt my arms will soon start to hurt...
my, I am terribly whiney today..well it is unpleasant to sit here, as my head and neck hurt.
As I am more whine than chat, I shall go, till tomorrow.

by the bye,
did eat nectarine, but no to yard work.

July 1

Bit cold really.
Breezy and cool, felt like fall to me while I watered the flowers.
While doing so, I lfelt something on the back of my head, brush up against my hair, it felt sort of like the flutter of wings, so I turned expecting to see a large butterfly (it's happened before), but it was a mockingbird that I saw flying away. I wondered if it was an accident or on purpose. Am I being attacked? I went back to watering, several minutes later, he flew right past my head. So I turned to watch for a bit, incase I needed to duck and cover. But he wasn't interested in me at all, it was the robin. The mockingbird and the robin were fighting. I was unseen, unoticed, running into me, incidental, accidental. Just a lowly field worker, like a shrub to be trampled, while to possible heirs fight to be king. I do not know how the battle proceeded, but I imagine it will be ongoing. I did have to keep my eye on the mockingbird as he pays no attention whatsoever to me, and I do not wish to be constantly banging about into one another.

I'm not sure about

The music
I got a CD of French classical music from library, but it isn't impressionist, and it builds and fades too much, so it isn't ideal to go to sleep to, too loud in some parts, in others I couldn't hear it at all. I still like the idea though. The cat seemed to like it too, he was lying on the floor with his head an inch away from the speaker.

chipmunk
Oh...I just remembered the chipmunk ran into the garage today, hope he got back out, because I closed it hours ago.

wolf
Last night I dreamed there was a wolf in among my flower beds, standing in the yard staring at me, and I was staring back.

Many years ago, I used to have nightmares about wolves (and sometimes wild dogs), always chasing me, trying to get me, like an evil presence. I got tired of it. So I decided to research them a bit, (I did a watercolor of one), and I got a poster of one and stuck it in the corner of my room. Like a talisman. Like a protecter rather than a predator. It made me nervous, in the beginning, I didn't know if it would work, or if the dreams would get worse, and I would wake up in the night, see that image, and be terrified. It did work. I never had a bad dream about wolves again.

So now, it is over 14 years later, and there was that wolf. Only I don't know what it meant. I was not afraid, but it was clear this was no puppy in my yard, I would go no closer. I was there, the wolf was there, to look, asking with eyes, why are you here, what are you doing, to wonder about each other.

Why is there a wolf in my garden?