awol

yeah, i've been awol for a while. dan reminded me the other day that i had only posted 3 times in february...not much, and i'm long winded, too. (;

thank you all for birthday thanks!!! (: (: (: (: (:

work's been nuts; lots of overtime for a few weeks, and now of course there's a moratorium on it, which means that you don't take lunches and then you have to come in late or take a long lunch...which piles up and becomes a longer workday, anyhow. ya'll know how that goes.

girls weekend up north was fabulous! we had a great irish dinner at brighid's cross, and then trooped across the street, where we did shots and gabbed and sang along to the jukebox and laughed until our cheeks hurt.

by cheeks i mean the ones on my face. (;

the next day cari and i had lunch at a diner, and i drove home. stopped on the way to do a drive by hugging in st cloud with my parents, and then jumped back on the road again.

the following weekend dan and i drove back to st cloud for a BUSY saturday. by 730 am we were at the st cloud mall for my dad's heart walk--which went VERY well! the wednesday before, i brought the donation form to work and passed it around the office. between my immediate coworkers and my own contribution, we had 220$. i called in a favor from a sales rep and she drummed up 200$ from the sales reps! the actual total was 420.00, and my company (despite seeming like slave labor at times) matched the full amount. on friday night, when we got home, i gave dad the folder. of course he got teary--he's just like me, never expects anyone to do anything nice for him. i think total, with his contributions and mine and my company's, he pushed over 1200.00! it was beautiful!

my mom, my dad, myself, dan and my bro in law, brett, all walked. halfway through my brother showed up, a little hung over, and walked the rest of the race with us. i think we were done around 9. on the way home we stopped to visit my sister at the eye clinic; she's got a new office and my parents had yet to see the remodel. got a tour and went home to clean up around 1030.

when we got there, my brother was already downstairs, playing with my sister's dog, maura. my mom gave him crap about wrestling with the dog and dave said he hadn't yet, because she'd torn apart a kleenex box and left evidence all over the crime scene.

the actual total destruction points was as follows:

1 book of my mom's
1 box of kleenex
1 plastic glass coaster
2 books i loaned my sister (who left them on the coffee table the night before)
1 tube of vanilla flavored toothpaste (mine)
1 toothbrush (mine)
1 toothpaste holder (mine)
and 1 comb (mine)

(sensing a trend yet?) i think it was the cat odor that clings to me.

anyway, maura my canine niece gave me a gift certificate to barnes and noble, so that i can replace the book that was most damaged (Love in the Asylum by Lisa Carey). the book was acutally missing only a small bit of the front cover, but most of the first 50 pages of the book, too. the other book (Hula Done It by Maddy Hunter) has tooth marks in the bottom corner, but is still quite readable.

spent the afternoon visiting; i rarely get to see david. it's like when you watch national geographic on tv and they show only night shots of the animal, because it's nocturnal and reclusive. dave's not a reclusive type, but he's also not one of my sisters, who like to hang out and chat over coffee or shopping.

around 7 or 8 we drove to becker, mn, for a benefit concert my sister had organized; she volunteers at a domestic violence shelter. it was all heavy metal, which is usually my music of choice. the first concert raised about 700.00, so she was hoping to make a little more than that with this one since the first was on a sunday and this was on saturday. the bar was smokey (ish) and the first band was okay. the second band was right up my alley--dark, crunchy and the singer's voice was amazing. kind of peter steele from type o negative, but not so low that you can't hear the song. got the cd and have listened a few times, and still really like it!

around 12 another band was coming on, and they had the executive director of the shelter speak before them. she was a gal my mom's age, who clearly did NOT belong in the bar. very nice, good speaker. one of the dj's from the radio station supporting the benefit got up and talked about her experience with domestic violence. the band started playing and we both went, uh, no. the sound was good but neither dan or i liked the lead singer. i moseyed over to beth to tell her we were sneaking out, but she insisted we had to stay...so we stayed. before the next song, the band said, "there's a girl in the bar celebrating her 30th birthday--kim, this one is for you. it's called victory song. "

it was very nice to be noticed, but i'm an under the radar girl. i was petrified that they were going to ask me up on the stage, or have me stand up, or something. beth came back for hugs goodbye and such, and we left around 1230. instead of driving back to my parents house, we just drove home and slept in on sunday. thereby avoiding mass on sunday morning.

yes, i'm a bad little recovering catholic girl. (;

tuesday the girls at work brought in lunch and cake, and then we met family for dinner at this organic restaurant on the north side of the cities. it was good, but somewhat bland. at the end of dinner, the staff brought out a peice of cheesecake and the restaurant sang to me.

*sigh* so much for under the radar.

wednesday night i met coworkers after work for a quick drink, and then thursday...cripes. what did we do on thursday? oy. anyway, yesterday morning we had breakfast with friends at our favorite breakfast cafe--their syrup is AMAZING! homemade maple warmed with butter...gaaaaaaaaaah. now i want more! (; did some shopping yesterday night, stopped at blockbuster for movies but couldn't find the one i wanted so i ended up with mansfield park...which was okay. nothing special.

now it's sunday morning. i'm up. the house needs cleaning.

i'll try to be more consistent. being awol is easier done than said. (;

quick

this will have to be quick, as i'm typing inbetween chores. the chicken is in the crock pot, but the cats are not yet fed, nor is their litter emptied.

it's the big three-oh on tuesday, but i think i'm just going to celebrate my 28th again. that was a good age. (;

last night my mental illness of choice came into focus so sharply that nasa should have been able to pick it up from space. "and here we have the great wall of china...and over here, kim's ADD..."

the whole issue was over where to go for dinner. dan wanted me to make a decision based on some options he had. i couldn't pick anything--because i honestly couldn't.

i wrote a poem later that likened my thought process to pouring water through a colander when you think you're using a funnel.

all of a sudden ALL the options are good. and all the options are bad. it's difficult for me to sift through and make a choice. dan suggested that i just pick something, some place. i know it frustrates him to no end that i didn't, and we had this fantastic fight about how annoying it is to the world around me that i can't make a decision.

at the same time, if i could, don't you think i would? i despise angering others.

thursday my mother called. she wanted to know what kind of cake to bake for my birthday. i was honest. i didn't know.

because here is how my through process went:

mmmmmmmmmmmm cake!!! i'm so excited to have cake that's made for me! should i have marble? or white? no not white, it's kind of tasteless...what about lemon with lemon filling? just heard dan say angelfood...with strawberries, delicious! but i'm not sure i'm in the mood for berries right now. or spice cake with some cream cheese frosting...no, carrot cake! so yummy! but no raisins in it...boy i sure do love chocolate cake, too...that cake we had for sara's bridal shower was so good, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting...

at this point i just grabbed something and said "marble...or chocolate cake, that's fine." to which my mother replied: "with what kind of frosting?"

*sigh*

it's not that i don't want to make quick decisions. my life would be easier if i did. it just takes me longer, because mentally i need to list out what my options are, and they get blurred and multiply like rabbits in my head, and pretty soon there's too many to count--they all are good, they all are bad. i can't prioritize which rabbit is the cutest, which is the furriest, which is the color brown...they're all rabbits.

all roads lead me to the same morass of thought: all cats are gray in the dark.

sometimes it reminds me of being at the nature center when i was a kid. they've got exhibits, they've got wild animals, they've got shows. and then they've got these boxes with dark fabric tops on them, and holes for your hands. you put your hands inside and feel:

a turtle shell
a bird foot
a leaf

you're supposed to quickly identify what the object is, and then lift up the flap next to the arm holes to see if you're correct. some things, when you reach inside, are obvious. others take time to decipher.

my problem is that i reach into that darkened box, and i feel around, and the objects are all there--scattered around in the box, a puzzle to be fitted together. i get distracted by each individual piece, so distracted that i forget that i am putting together a puzzle. in the end i give up--annoyed and angry at my self. i lift the flap and see the puzzle is only four pieces large--and then i get more annoyed because what seems like an easy answer, what seems like something a kindergartener should be able to solve--i could not solve it.

it's not that i don't want to be quicker at thinking. it's not that i don't want to be distracted. i hated that when i was a kid i was always the last one eating lunch, or at sleepovers, the last one eating breakfast. too many things were going on--i couldn' t focus on actually getting the spoon to my mouth at the same rate as my compatriots. i daydreamed in class--i think my third grade teacher said that i could be a very good student if i just applied myself.

it feels like after three decades, i'm still that child. that perhaps i should have better control of how i process the world. that i should put things together more quickly. intake is not the problem. i can keep up with what the world is tossing at me. sometimes i mentally move more quickly than my intake, which is the beauty of add. but for the most part it's just frustrating. your brain is moving so quickly, adding so many things onto your immediate options, that all you're accomplishing quickly is frustrating the person offering you options.

it seems awkward to think about picking up paper and pen when someone is optioning away, and writing down the options so that i can think of what i really want.

the same thing happens whenever i have to think quickly about what i want to do--the options become endless, and i just cop out and say, "i don't know," instead of taking the time to make my brain slow down and see the options. it sounds absolutely ridiculous: "can i call you back tomorrow and let you know what kind of cake i want?"

shouldn't i just KNOW right away what my favorite cake is?

perhaps. perhaps not. in the grocery store yesterday there were a hundred different options for barbeque sauce. they were all right there in front of me. it took me probably twice as long as dan would have liked to pick out one bottle for this morning's chicken. but with all the options in front of me, it was easier by far than standing in a different aisle, looking at cans of soup, and trying to think of what sauce to choose when i was in the right aisle.

i want to be as quick, making a decision. i don't want to leave even the minutae of my life up to the whims of others. but at the same time, i just don't know how, without imposing my limitations on them. i don't want to make dan wait for an hour while i puzzle out where i really want to go for dinner, or tell my mother that i'll get back to her later about a cake flavor.

it seems like i keep missing the gold by hundreths of a second. if i could find some way to creep up the podium from bronze, i would. it's just not a quick process for me.

bacterial companionship

so this week i finally was felled by the dreaded Work Cold.

the girl at the end of the row got sick first. then the next...and the next...and the next...and then on wednesday, after two stressful days that made me want to run away anyhow, i woke up a bit stuffy and sore-throated.

it's like watching the weather channel and seeing the big green or blue mass of pixels wander over your city, and then seeing it precipitate outdoors.

it was a good thing we were in training. i was sleepy and chilled; the usual suspects. by the end of the day, i knew that i had a nice little fever broiling on the back burner. i stopped and got some of that Lipton noodle soup on the way home: bascially, chicken broth with bits of parsley and noodles this (--------) big. literally. they're probably double that size in width, but it's the most basic soup imaginable.

hunkered down with blankets and such. catered to my cold. around midnight, just before dan got home from being out with friends, i woke drenched in my bed, clammy and hot at the same time, knowing that the fever had broken. i stumbled downstairs and requested assistance with repairing the bedsheets, and dan replaced them.

it's at times like these that i'm grateful that i have opened my life up and added dan to the mix. sometimes he does drive me nuts; i know i do the same to him. but watching him carefully tuck the sheet under the mattress--a herculean effort for me, at that time of the night--was so comforting.

i have a very, very difficult time allowing others to help me. it's something i'm trying to overcome, clumsily. i'm not proficient at saying, "please do this for me"--if it's just something for me. i can ask dan to take out the garbage, or feed the cats--those seem like community property issues. but to ask him to replace my sheets, or get a glass of water--that seems like it is asking a great deal, because the effort is for no one but me.

***

last week i had dinner with my friend amanda, on her way through town, headed out west. we talked at length about where we were at in our respective relationships. i can see that she is where dan and i were years ago, before the gates opened last year, before questions and answers that you didn't want to ask or hear, before therapists and cognitive behavioral therapy.

we talked about my journey, about hers. i did not like to talk about anything "too personal" with anyone, for a long time. i've changed my opinion about this, quite a bit. however, sharing your story does not have to be whining, or asking for pity. i can relate my life's tale, thus far, and she can relate hers, and we can communually learn from them.

***

the moral of today's blog? sharing words and feelings is good. sharing a hug is good. sharing in general is good.

that being said, i'd feel just fine if my coworkers hadn't been so gracious with their virus-giving.

the archaeology of the soul

for the past few weeks i've kind of hidden in my hole. i just felt like i couldn't deal with the world. head in ground, like the ostrich. me, looking up from a great depth.


sometimes it's like the world is moving much, much faster than i am, and i'm just tortoise-slow in keeping up.

tomorrow morning i see helene, my tdoc, again. i'll be glad to see her but i'm having some real issues with my meds since they got changed. the wellbutrin should be pepping me up but for some reason it makes me dizzy for a while after taking it. i keep reading that i need to give it time to work properly so i'm trying to be patient, but it's made my mornings very slow. and it's probably why i'm having issues with standing next to the rollercoaster, unable to track it as it whirls along the tracks.

i can feel the apathy leaking out of me like fine sand, pooling around my feet and bogging me down.

there just doesn't seem to be a cattle prod large enough to get me going, currently.

it's not that i don't care about what's going on in my life. because i do. i want to call nathan, i want to check up on blogs. i would like to have some goal in my life other than "make it through tomorrow", and so on and so forth.

dan and i were talking about it this morning while i got ready for work. there's a lot of things i'm still trying to work through, since last year, since starting therapy, since being born...okay, i'm overreacting. (; but it has taken quite some time to get to where i am, and it's difficult to break it down and pick it apart.

my therapist told me at one point after some extensive testing that i was naive--and i have to agree. i have always had a slightly rosy view of how i feel about other people, and how i expect to be treated by them. (mainly i expect to be forgotten by others, and don't feel that i matter.)

anyway, after everything was finally laid out on the table last year, i had the opportunity to work on things with dan. which is going as well as can be expected, what with circumstances and such. if i look at things as a chart i can see improvement, leaps and bounds of it.

late this last fall, while my grandmother was busy getting to heaven, serena emailed me. i thought we were starting up a dialogue. i fell back into the hopes i used to have, the hope that dan had fostered in me while we were reworking our relationship.

human memory is slogged down with emotions. i don't know exactly what i hoped, at that time.

and she's never emailed back.

part of me wonders why.

i can understand keeping yourself closed off; i did it for a long, long time. but the value of cracking open your shell and walking around emotionally naked and honest far outweighs the safety and security of staying within.

i know that lately i've been burying myself under layers of fear, because i have niggling feelings all the time that people i hold dear mean me harm, or mean to do me wrong. dan's allayed much of this, by talking and going to therapy and being honest with me. at this point i'm not looking for any communique from serena. i've dropped that hope. it's starting to wither on the vine.

as my wise teresa says, you can only keep the door open for so long. you close it. you hope that something good happens on the other side, and you open it when the person knocks. but you don't expend energy waiting at the door.

yeah, i feel like serena's actions helped undermine my ability to trust people. but it was going to happen anyway, anyhow, at some point in time. the hard work of unearthing my fears, along with my dreams, had to begin, so that i could begin...i don't know, being?

the constant questioning of my anxiety has been helpful to me. why am i getting anxious? do i have any control over the situation about which i'm starting to hyperventilate, or am i only in control of my own reaction?

while questioning my self, i see the answer, buried deep--i'm afraid to lose people. i'm afraid to move away, i'm afraid they'll die, and now, i'm afraid they'll ditch me. i fear that i'll be some cast -off or forgotten relationship artifact, for some reader to dig up years from now in my words and deeds.

i don't want to be forgotten. and in the same vein, part of me doesn't want to forget.

luckily, i'm in therapy. i'm aware. i can learn. the adage about old dogs and their inability to learn new tricks is the part that i need to ditch. it's not a quick thing, this being. it's slow. like me.

a new world

spoon kindly offered dan and i tix to see "a new world" with her and josh last night. we drove over, had a lovely chat at applebee's, and met josh at the theater where spoon spends her money-making days. and nights. and weekends. (;

anyway, the movie was interesting. i had some trouble with it because the majority of the speaking roles were done in voiceover, or whispered tones, or a great amalgamation of the two: whispered voiceover.

so most of the movie was more of a picture set to music for me.

additionally, i felt the whole movie as if i were waiting for the movie to start. the intro music and shots were expansive and epic, just as an epic movie should be. but the intro music (which was screaming "fresh new world! fresh and sparkly waters! clean forests! natives coexisting with natures!" so on and so forth) anyway the intro music went on and on and on...until i was starting to feel like the whole soundtrack would just keep trying to be fresh and sparkling. perhaps it was the chords being played? dunno.

anyway, the reason i felt like i just kept waiting for the movie to start was because there was little to no dialogue. usually in movies you have the luxury, being that you're working in pictures, to display moments without language. given that space, it felt like the playwright ran with it--i don't know what the script looked like but i think it went something like this:

pocahontas dances through open field, smiling at john smith.
water rushes over river rocks.
trees are dappled with rainwater.
natives dance around fire, with john smith.
voiceover john smith: "is this all a dream?"

it really felt like one. my lack of hearing was a true detriment; it felt like i was back at cirque du soliel, where they speak this pidgin of italian and french, and you're not supposed to comprehend.

it was beautiful. spoon mentioned before we saw the movie that it felt like a long poem to her, and it really was. it showed off the beauty of the new world, unexplored and just as fresh and sparkling clean as the music portrayed it. it showcased a great performance by the girl playing pocahontas. but overall it was confusing and lacking narrative direction, and having a plot that seemed hastily scribbled on a recipe card. for a two hour movie, that's not much plot.

the story is well known; i'm not sure if terrance malick was relying on people to already be aware of the tale. ie, everyone knows the story of "little red riding hood" or the story of the first thanksgiving, no matter how flawed that memory might be. the plot seemed hastily scribbled on a recipe card. for a two hour movie, that's not much plot, regardless of what backstory i know.

i wasn't looking for an educational experience. perhaps that's one of those movies that you have to really be in the mood to watch. perhaps i was leaning more towards my usual direction in movies of action-adventure-romantic-comedy, or something with aliens landing and explosions and the saving of the planet by a scrappy and rag-taggle team of non-descript neighbors.

whatever the reasoning, and however lovely the movie was, with my lack of auditory nerves and attention span, by the end of the movie, i felt like i'd just watched a visual homage to the state of virginia, funded by the virginia tourism council.

but it was interesting. i enjoy seeing movies that expand my knowledge base and make me consider the art in general.

and on the movie subject:

dan pointed out that i was more willing to go see this movie than i was to see movies that he usually wants to see and that's a subject about which things are touchy between us. i think deep down, i'm so afraid of the movies he wants to view--usually horror movies--that the distaste within overwhelms any support i'd like to show.

which is sad, because i love watching the makeup and such. you don't get to see gouts of blood and flesh in things like "a new world." there's sores and scars that are well done. but horror movies are my type of fake wound.

the problem i have is that i'm an anxious person to begin with. jumpy music and creepy people onscreen add to that mix. and before you know it, i'm leaping out of my seat and pulling hamstrings.

my sister sara postulated that she doesn't mind watching horror movies, as long as she's at home. i think that's my problem, too.

the other thing i have a problem with is movies in the theater that i can't watch with subtitles. seeing a film with subtitles is like finally seeing the movie for the first time, for me. it's also a reminder for me that it is just a movie, something that i often have difficulties recalling, especially during horror movies, when i'm keyed up and nervous.

theaters have all these auditory things you can wear, but half the fun of seeing a movie in the theater is listening to the crowd, and you can't do that with headphones on.

what i would love is a pair of glasses that i could put on. perhaps some glasses that don't affect your vision or the screen, but that reveal (ala some kind of magic decoder from a cracker jack box) subtitles along the bottom.

i think i would have enjoyed "a new world" more if i'd understood what was being said. i think i would also be more at ease in horror movies, and viewing them, if i didn't get so terribly wound up by them.

i love movies, don't get me wrong. i love getting lost in the story, and seeing actors create characters, directors create a vision. i love seeing a movie that takes my breath away--whether that's from fear, laughter or sheer beauty.

i just have some control issues with when i see them, where i see them, and how they're able to be viewed.

perhaps three weeks from now when i'm in a poetic mood i'll watch "a new world" again, and find the gorgeous poem that spoon saw. perhaps i can find some way to be grounded during a horror movie, so that i can find the same enjoyment that dan does.

it's all based on perspective. i just have to keep remembering that it's all a new world. it's shiny, as kaylee says. (;

surveys and chemical reactions--POW!

dan had this over on his blog and i just had to fill in the blanks to this one. i pasted the idea behind each one in after i'd completed things. it certainly is interesting. i think i have lake bemidji state park on the brain. LOL

***

You're walking through the woods. What time of day is it? (The time of day is your outlook in life.)

answer: it's a bright and very, very cold winter afternoon.

analysis: like i said, i'm thinking of my fave state park, my fave season. i'm not sure if that is really what this question is looking for, but it's what's on my mind. i'm in the afternoon of my life? not the morning, the dawn? i'm not nearing retirement yet...am i?

As you're walking, you happen upon a cup. What kind of cup is it, what state is it in, and what do you do with it? (The cup, and your reaction to it, reflect your outlook on love. )

answer: it's probably a paper cup, tossed out the window by someone else. i pick it up and put it in the garbage when i see one, or let it go back to nature.

analysis: do i get the leftovers tossed from others? or am i just thinking of what's in the woods, the litter from careless hands?

You happen upon a body of water. What kind is it? What do you do with it? (The body of water is the size of your sexual desire and how you feel about sex. )

answer: it's frozen solid, an endless lake sprouting rivers. i walk out onto it.

analysis: does this mean my sex life is stagnant? i think if i'd been in a summer mood it would be different. in summer i think of water and i think about diving into it at dawn. the fact that the lake is frozen, in my mind, doesn't present much obstacle. it's just as exploratory frozen as it is when it's liquid.

You keep walking, and run into a wall. It extends to the left and the right as far as the eye can see. How high is it, and how do you get to the other side? (The wall is an obstacle, and how you react to it reflects how you tackle obstacles in your life.)

answer: it's so high i can't see the top. i have to find a ladder or a rope, or picks to climb over or through, or friends to help, or an airport...or i turn around and find something else to occupy my time, as obviously i don't need to get over the wall if i'm walking in the woods here.

analysis: apparently i'm still pretty apathetic about life if my last resort is just to live with the wall where it is. but i do like that i'm thinking of different ideas as to how to get past the wall before i just give up. LOL

***

so much of the above answers depend on what time of day it is when i'm responding, and what mood i'm in. like i said, another day, a brighter outlook, warmer weather, and i'd be saying that it was a clear dawn, i was diving into the clear water, picking up coffee mugs and finding out that five feet up, the rest of the wall is a visual illusion.

today, however, i'm thinking of my state park. of the snow crunching, the strident call of blue jays, squirrels chittering and shaking snow off fir boughs. and that's flavoring everything.

last night was spygame. YEEEEEEEE-HAW! i was ready for some explosions and such. time to roll dice, laugh with friends, and be intrigued by the complexity of dan's creation. (which he thinks of as simple...LOL)

yesterday was my first day on wellbutrin and the fuzzy headed feeling persisted, and was worse when i forgot to eat lunch. today so far has been fine. so hopefully, eventually, it will just go away.

i'm also on a new blood pressure tablet. all kinds of chemicals in such small tablets that make my body do strange things.

i was just reading the national geographic the other day. the front page article is on love, which they're looking into as a chemical reaction. there were all kinds of interesting points in it, things to consider. in the same issue, there's an article about switzerland and how only 17% of its land has been saved as national parks. everything else is ski and tourist area.

mapping the mind--does that detract from the mystery of love? of how it blossoms? should we leave areas unexplored?

i suppose in the mapping for one item, scientists often must come across another. "oh my, we were looking for parkinson's and we found humility!"

the writer of the love article reported of an test that was done involving a group of women. the women were given a t-shirts that men had worn, while sweating. they were asked to smell the shirts and pick out the one that was most appealing to them. invariably, the women picked shirts that matched men whose genomes were complete opposites of their own.

good-bye, e-harmony. hello, scent-a-mate.

perhaps that's why i always hear that you shouldn't pick up guys in bars. you're just looking, you're not able to smell their DNA.

i think about my own relationship, the wild pendulum on which we've ridden. dan is very different than me; aside from being male...LOL he's much taller, he's got brown eyes, he sees the world in a completely separate manner. but in the end, our brains are functioning very close to being the same: he's dg as bipolar, and i'm dg as adhd and depressed. not so different, when it comes to chemicals.

anyway, i think that the above little survey was skewed by my proclivities for walking in the woods, and my craving for it. perhaps a better survey would be to ask what your favorite smells are. perhaps that will tie me back to a better understanding of how i move through the world, and with whom i choose to connect.

warts and all

i should have a worry wart the size of texas or possibly the whole of canada stuck to my forehead.

i worry about friends, family, finances--almost in that order. but more scattered, i'm sure. kind of buckshot on the target.

randomly: i worry about dan. i worry about dan some more. i worry about filling my gas tank and not having my bottle of Heet to add, and how high gas prices will soar.

i worry about serena, and then i worry about WHY i'm worrying about serena, since she doesn't seem to worry about me.

i worry about eero, and my parents, and if the milk has gone bad in my refrigerator. i worry about alison, aka unrested, the girl whose blog i happened upon by pushing "next blog" but seems like serendipity that i did.

and then i worry about what, if anything, henry the cat might pee on next.

it's exhausting.

having identified that i have this problem, this anxiety overlapping anxiety, i need to find its edges and make it something that doesn't just creep over me and intensify slowly until the only thing filling my head is this worry.

the actual definition is: v., wor·ried (wûr'ed, wur'-), wor·ry·ing, wor·ries (wûr'ez, wur'-).

1. To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled.
2. To pull or tear at something with or as if with the teeth.

word history: The ancestor of our word, Old English wyrgan, meant "to strangle." Its Middle English descendant, worien, kept this sense and developed the new sense "to grasp by the throat with the teeth and lacerate" or "to kill or injure by biting and shaking." This is the way wolves or dogs might attack sheep, for example. In the 16th century worry began to be used in the sense "to harass, as by rough treatment or attack," or "to assault verbally," and in the 17th century the word took on the sense "to bother, distress, or persecute." It was a small step from this sense to the main modern senses "to cause to feel anxious or distressed" and "to feel troubled or uneasy," first recorded in the 19th century.

course, the problem isn't that i shouldn't worry. it's the extent to which i take it. perhaps some people would classify their worry as kitten-sized, or lynx.

i'm a few classes above that. i can see my self in this arena--i'm the little pagan being torn to shreds by worry, wondertwin form of: giant slavering starving lionsand tigers and bears, oh my!

quite obviously, i need a lion tamer.

however, i can't depend on anyone to tame this fucker but me.

i wish someone else could sweep up the peices like i did when i was a janitor and cleaned up other people's crushed bags of potato chips.

***
worry eclipses hope. i don't hope for much of anything, except to wake up the next morning and not smell kitty piss. it's a big dream of mine. (;

often, universal signs surprise me--i think it's because i'm not hoping that i'm sent hope, in strange forms.

yesterday i was struck by a client's voicemail. there was the usual mumbo jumbo--hi, this is so and so, leave your message and phone number. and then just before the beep:

WHATEVER YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE PLANNING FOR LATER. IF YOU ARE WORRYING, YOU ARE PLANNING. IF YOU ARE JOYFUL, YOU ARE PLANNING. WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?

i'm planning to worry. i wake up every morning, already worrying the lion by its tail. to me, it seems as if when i worry, i shave off some of the fear that is my own anxiety over situations, and then when the situation roars, i'm not so worried about it. i can be complacent.

what i know i'm doing, however, is worrying about things until they become insurmountable--i take the kitten and stretch it and pull it and tug it until it is a leopard. the sun doesn't shine, the sky doesn't rain--above me i've got the protective layer of rationalization, which just isn't healthy.

how do i stop? dan says i just have to leave it alone. but it's so very difficult to do so. if i focus--and i mean focus as in spend an hour working at it--i can alleviate some of the worry. but i'm just rationalizing. i'm telling myself i have nothing to worry about.

the kitten is still there, on the machine, being yanked into form. do i dismantle the machine, or find a way to remove the kitten?

take me for a ride in your car, car...

a number of things are leading to this post.

first of all, it was just friday the 13th, full moon. i think that's bringing out the crazy in me. not that it's an under-the-skin thing for me. i'm mixed nuts on a regular basis. it's the only consistent part of me.

perhaps i can lay blame on the non-caffeinated week and the consequent cupof joe i sucked down this morning.

or maybe, like lizzie borden, it's nearing that time of the month and i'm without my favorite axe.

*sigh deeply*

i'm nowhere near where i thought i'd be after three decades of use. (as in,body and/or mind and/or spirit, etc.) i guess as a kid i had this glamorous image of me, jet-setting across the universe in my own private lear, with perfect hair and a slender, toned, athletic bod, fifteen novels written and published, home in minnesota northlands, a cabin in the mountains and another in ireland, no bills, no worries, lots of dogs and cats and a loving, romantic husband, possibly a few offspring.

the image i saw while writing this at work at work (in an office-supplied mirror which says: smile! they can hear it in your voice!) is somewhat different. i'm a bit lumpier than the dream, the hair is frizzier despite cathy's best product and cari's best efforts, i don't write as often as i'd like, and i'm doing math. daily.

middle age is simply not all that it's cracked up to be.

i'm anxious. all the time, i'm anxious. sitting in the dr's yesterday morning, trying to explain the anxiety, i could feel it. in the sci fi show stargate they have these symbiotes that live inside people. for a minute, sitting there, i felt as if i had one, itching inside my head. the frantic scrabble of panic, rising up in my chest, a red balloon in a brown net. it fills me until my whole body is one big nest of worry. my skin feels like it's trying to squirm off my arms, off my chest. behind my eyes there's the scratching of nails on blackboard. and before i know it, it's spilled over and annexed my spinning stomach.

and five minutes later, i'm rolling down the hill again, falling slo-mo into the pit that's always waiting there for me.

i picture my depression as a venus fly trap--hungry, toothy, dark and moist.

i've always seen these things as things that live inside of me, separate from my self. always felt my emotions roll through me like the rain in spain, falling mainly on the plain.

sitting there with my blonde and polished and soft-spoken doctor, i finally i owned my mental box of chocolates. it was like signing your final papers that give you a car, or a house.

this is MY depression. this is MY anxiety. this is MY attention span, my high blood pressure. no one else's.

other people have different flavors of my condition. sometimes they overlap--and sometimes that's a relief. it's stopping to ask for directions and realizing that the seventeen year old behind the gas station counter has no more direction for you than you do, yourself.

go north, young woman. go north until the road slips off the earth and into arctic winter, stinging ice and bright wind. you won't find a goddamned thing up there that will give comfort--polar bears gnaw your arms, wolves run in fear, walrus bellowing.

but you'll have your warm self, the core of you, and what the hell else matters?

***

this work, this job of being my self, of taking ownership of my own body and mind--it's just not as easy as buying a house, or a car.

with my car, i test drove it. i picked out the model and the color and shape. i waited for six hours, signed some papers, and i drove it home.

unfortunately, your body's not a matter of a new paint job or a different seat cover. you own this thing, this thing you never asked to own. you're given this one soul--no instructions on when to wash it, fuel it, vacuum out the insides and replace spigots and gears.

it's taking it apart, piece by piece for some of us. realizing that you cannot replace all the parts and make it a new vehicle, or perhaps that it's not even the same model you always thought it was. "My God, I'm a FORD f-150 truck! I always thought I was a Dodge Viper! Argh!"

you can only limp along sometimes, until you can afford to replace the tires or have the oil drained off. you can wash the rusty parts and keep driving.

i was just driving around in someone else's car--i borrowed it, it was a shiny black Mercedes with a bad alternator, but it wasn't mine to fix. for months now i've been realizing slowly that i'm mine. i'm my parents' child, but i'm my own person. i'm not anyone else's keeper; i'm not kept by anyone. but i'm tied to all these people in ways that i never really inspected all that closely--because this wasn't my life, this was someone else's life, one in which i was simply an observer.

slide over. let me try taking the helm.

***

last year i was making phone calls at work. my intended subject answered the phone.

"hello?"

"oh, hello, this is just kim from adp."

there was a momentary pause, as i'm sure she put me in place. then:

"just kim? you're not "just" kim from adp. you're kim, don't sell yourself short."

can i grasp that? it seems too large to handle. i'm still having a hard time visualizing the idea itself--that i'm a cog in the wheel, but i'm also the whole vehicle. why is it so hard to care about your self?

perhaps because it's hard to look in the mirror. i'm my own worst critic, i know it. i can believe in others, but i don't know how to believe in my self. no one ever sat me down and said, this is how.

it's difficult to not ruminate and say, i've wasted all this time, all this life. hard to not say: i coulda been a contendah.

i still am a contender. i haven't wasted time. i've been sorting through the trunk of my life, tossing out old boots and some hubcaps that ended up there. but it's still my car. i can still get in and go...somewhere.

i just need to remember that i really don't need a map. i'm just here for the ride--but it's mine.

perhaps i'll pimp it out a bit. (;

things

this is from: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/01/02/#sunday

yes, it's early, but i started because it just spoke to me.

btw, you can listen to the writer's almanac, too. but this was just a reading that spoke to me in my head.

and if you think that's silly...well, you're reading the wrong blog. (;

***

Things by Fleur Adcock

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
there are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

***
and i have to add this quote; same web page origin.

Umberto Eco (author of The Name of the Rose, a fantastic novel!) wrote, "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."

cheers, folks (:

cells, roaming like feral raindrops

that's what my head feels like right now.

nothing coherent. just random baffling things that keep buffeting me in the manner of storm winds hitting your siding. itsy bitsy spider style, i navigate my world.

*sigh*

i decided to do dan's WoW download for him today. of course, i didn't get home from work until quite late, with every intention of just eating some lean cuisine thai chicken (which wasn't bad) and sitting down to beat crap up with my new character.

however, i started the download at 7. it's now 840 and i'm at...let's see...16%.

take that, pentiums of the world.

i keep telling myself that i should just lean back, flip on my machine and pay my bills. but i'm just not up to bill paying tonight. perhaps tomorrow night.

tonight i'm up to running a bath. but i need someone else to run the bath for me, because actually going upstairs, wiping out the tub, running a hot bath, finding bubbly liquid for the bath, and getting and out of the bath, are all apparently far, far, far too much to handle.

so.

i'm sitting here. blogging. because that's the only thing that i can safely accomplish whilst the hurricane in my head swirls onward. i'm hoping it'll hit mainland and die down sooner than later.

***

i had this weird feeling at work today. like i was suddenly not seeing myself but actually feeling my body in relation to the rest of the space around me. spatial awareness? meh. not sure. just standing there next to someone else's cube desk, i had this clarity of mind--this is how much room you take up. this is the area which you inhabit. this is the size and span of how others relate to the idea of kim.

i carry my territory with me.

it passed pretty quickly, thank heavens. because otherwise i'd have gotten no work done, just stood there understanding something that i'm sure can be explained by the theory of displacement.

***

i'm just feeling...aimless.

like i'm not leaving tracks behind my self, when i walk.

and if i am, when i turn around, it looks like i've been dragging the carcass of a moose with me, but it's really just me, flopping here and there. sometimes other people have reached out and grabbed for a limb, and pulled me along like a little red wagon, like the one i had as a kid, only missing a wheel or two, randomly.

i feel this pressure inside of me--anxiety, hope, wonder, curiosity, the feeling that i need to write something. it's like the feeling you get right before you puke, right before you know you're going to need to run to worship at the foot of the porcelain deity.

the lean cuisine is certainly not producing this feeling. i'm physically fine, at the moment.

but whatever the flutter is, it's causing a direct effect on my stomach--the same butterflies i had as a child, on the first day of school. i'm trying to think of it in terms of WHY AM I FEELING THIS WAY and/or IS IT GOOD OR BAD. it feels bad, right now. teetering on the edge of sanity. or perhaps i'm teetering on the edge of insanity; perhaps this is what sanity resembles, and i've just never explored this part of the map.

my sister's world map: they had that map for years before anyone noticed that there were two Indias on it--one on one side, one on the other. a matched set of the same country. and the map owners didn't even know it; it was just a part of the house, wall decoration.

***

i feel far away from the screen right now. the little window at the bottom bar says that the download is at 18% now, then 19.

i suppose that if a watched pot never boils, a prodded download never completes.

***

this year has been odd. i was just reading an author's blog, in which she says that she's just not a linear thinker, and she's come to terms with that. i'm not a linear thinker either, which is why i have trouble plotting and writing a book. hell, i have trouble planning a blog post.

or when to pay my bills.

or run a bath. you name it.

it's like everything is suddenly thrown into such detail and clarity that i'm frozen in place. i'm a deer, in the proverbial headlights. i have looked faced to face with a basilisk, and am turned to stone.

perhaps that is what i found in side my self? the one genetically italian cell, my very own evil eye? i can suddenly see all the imperfections and perfections of my surroundings, threads and nubs of carpet. the hair on the side of my face is bothering me, even though it is all pulled back. only a few hairs touch the nape of my neck, and yet that few is too many. if i concentrate, i can tell you that there are five hairs pressing onto my skin.

this doesn't happen all the time. usually my brain is well behaved. usually it riots rarely and is more organized. today it was fine until i got home. now that i am home, it's running in circles. i appear to be typing, but the gray matter's on a stationary bike, keeping pace with lance armstrong.

i feel restless. there are things to be done. i need only stand up and move, and they can be accomplished.

but to stand is to risk. and to risk is to fear. and to fear--for me, is to be paralyzed.

***

someone is shining a flashlight into my head. someone's poking around with a long stick. it's me, searching for the shadows and trying to poke them out, push them out of the insulated cave in which they reside, quite happily.

it's me, reaching in, pulling them out like the snarling moles they are.

i'm scared to do that. i don't have gloves. stretching my arm into the snake tank. i remember a poem i wrote about dangling your feet in a shark tank. i may have to find that and post it, at some point.

some point later. some point not tonight. tonight i am up to emptying the dishwasher and writing a blog.

i remember my uncle's mantra, as he recovers and learns the limits of his body after massive strokes: little by slow.

i can chart my self; find the limits and boundaries within which my countryside lies. even if today i am beset by some tempest and trapped by a rainstorm of my own creation, perhaps tomorrow the rain will let up and i can venture out once more.

***

the itsy bitsy spider
climbed up the water spout
down came the rain and
washed the spider out

out came the sun and
dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider
climbed up the spout again.

curious

i have to wonder
when Big Lake was named
who wandered lake's edge
long enough
to say
it was big?

i think of that same person
encountering lake superior
or the gray atlantic

who decides to take a boat
across space uncharted?
how else could this planet be
mapped
down to each peak and valley?
is there a spot
yet
among towering trees
and squat buildings
that has not met
humanity?

i think about the land
before me
the map of my life
as yet,
mostly blank.

little squiggly lines,
drawn by a five year old
with a red crayon--
that is as shaped as i have grown.

am i afraid to find that my life is a lake,
bordered round
rimmed with green banks?

or is it scarier to think of self
as wide as
ocean?

kim versus the volcano

so a few weeks ago, i was getting ready for the annual cookie exchange at work. last year, my contribution was pans of brudgies, which are a cross between a brownie and fudge. very tasty and very simple to make.

this year, i once again had delusions of the food channel and decided it would be ever so grand if i made something with more panache. or just something fancier.

i looked through my copious amounts of cookbooks but ruled out pretty much everything because what i learned was: FANCIER COOKIES = MORE WORK.

and there's enough stress during the holidays to boil easter eggs...so i scaled it back a bit.

what about my grandma's refridgerator cookies? mmmmm, made with almonds...ruled out due to nut allergies at work.

fudge? too sloppy.

snowball cookies? nah, over done.

i made a rash decision to go online and search for something simple, tasty and with flavor that could be found no where else.

this is what i got:

Gooey Bars
1 pkg cake mix
1 egg
1/2 cup butter

mix it all up, press into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

toss 2 cups chocolate chips over this and press into dough.

THEN mix together:

3 cups powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 8oz bar cream cheese

pour this over the rest and bake for 30-40 minutes at 350.

i know what you all are thinking: this sounds messy. with a name like "gooey bars" i should have known better.

shoulda, woulda, coulda.

i was already having a rough-ish day when i started baking. i'd bought a lampshade at ikea that didn't work on the intended lamp. in the upstairs bedroom, the venetian blinds behind the roman blinds had tangled the cords to hell and back, a knot worthy of time i didn't have. i was pms-ing and annoyed, and i had to bake 90 bars to package neatly in groups of 6.

and due to genetic procrastination, it was the 9th hour.

i press dough into greased pan. i press chocolate chips into dough. some for pan, some for kim. i mix eggs and vanilla and cream cheese with my handy little mixer. i slop it into the pan.

at this point, i'm already considering the goop factor of the bars. i'm also considering the fact that the pans, which were purchased at the dollar store, are the right dimensions...but not the right height. they're like a 8.5 x 12.5 x 1.5...not a 9x13x2.

but in the hopes that they'll turn out amazing enough to turn martha stewart a lovely shade of envy, onward i bake.

and then i realize that i've forgotten to add the sugar to the top mixture. i'm ready to bawl over baked goods.

at this point cari calls. i'm so wound up and feeling defeated by domesticity that i'm not even sure i want to talk to her, my phone-chat soulmate. i get on the phone and i'm trying to be un-cranky, while balancing the phone on my shoulder and tipping my pan back towards the bowl, dumping the top layer back into the bowl, adding the fluffy sugar that doesn't want to go into the bowl and mixing with a spoon.

"i hear from dan that you're having a hard time," she says.

"yes in fact i am." i start to tear up a little, because i'm so frustrated by the day and all the things i perceive as so tiny that have added up and are now drowning me. i start to explain why i'm on the verge of running screaming and bald into the night, and as i explain, the entire situation becomes more amusing. by the time i've got the bars in the oven, i don't care if they work out or not--everything seems more manageable.

the bars are spilling over the sides of the foil pan (bought for ease of use, and so i can just recycle them when i'm done baking the multitudes of cookies...) and i have to find a cookie sheet to put under the pan. by the time the bars are done, they look like this and are a complete disaster:

unfit for cookie exchange! unfit! unclean! messssssssssssssssssssssssssssy!

part of me is embarrassed, even though it's cari on the phone, because she's staying with her dad and brother at the Sheraton or Marriot or something equally fancy, with pillow top beds and luxurious down pillows and soft, dove-colored walls. cari is classy; i'm feeling like the barefoot contessa without the valium i'm convinced keeps her so calm.

i finally pour a glass of wine, stop my own whining and ask: "so, what are you up to tonight?"

and cari says: "i'm washing my underwear in the sink because i forgot to pack any."

***

after laughing until i weep i feel better. but the bars are still taunting me from the stove, and the 9th hour has become the 10:30th hour. it's down to the wire: what can i create that's going to be worthy of my coworkers, who have been discussing for weeks what they're elaborately going to be creating... ? what, i ask you, what?

i pore over my cupboards and go back to the cookbooks. i finally decide to make my most basic weapon in the arsenal: chocolate chip cookie bars. i bake four pans of bars within half an hour, and by midnight they're neatly packaged and red-beribboned.

and i'm feeling like i should have done more--that these aren't going to be good enough.

the volcano, in my mind, has won the day.

dan gave me a pep talk about how everyone always loves the cookie bars, and how they're the best thing i make, and how simple is often the best option out there.

i go to work the next day with my basket in tow. i bring the volcano with me, in the hopes that the syrupy sweetness will be devoured by my teammates. if nothing else, i rationalize, i can just toss it, pan and all.

i email my friend amanda and commiserate about the flashingly busy week, and how i was so defeated by the eruption of mundane baking and lampshades. i tell her about how things got better after i talked to my classy friend cari and she was washing her single pair of underwear at 1030 pm in the Hilton bathroom.

***

everyone loves the brown bags of cookies. point for me.

everyone loves Sugar Lava, which is what the pan resembles, in my mind. point for volcano.

cari goes home and calls our friend amanda, who immediately asks, "how're your underwear holding out? still going commando?"

the circle is complete. truce has been attained. the volcano, for the moment, is dormant. (;

o night divine

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

***

this is the first verse of a song that my father and his four brothers sang years ago at christmas, when my parents lived up north. they stood in the dining room, jed wearing a santa hat, and they all sang.

i don't know that they'll ever all sing together again. jed is learning to talk again, and walk, but in my heart i doubt that there will be a miracle that will allow him to return to minnesota or sing again, like they did that christmas.

everything is making me weepy. i'm having trouble digging up the spirit to keep a smile on my face. all i keep thinking of is the boys, happily singing that song.

fall on your knees--oh hear the angel voices. jed got down on one knee, i remember.

so many years ago. grandpa w was gone by that time, but grandma margaret was still there. this year she won't be, either. no matter how much i bitched and moaned about taking her to church--she could be a little whiskey-scented rascal--i will miss it this year.

i want to linger in my house today, i want to curl up in the bathtub and emerge sometime in march. hell, i'm not sure i ever want to emerge. it's not going to be a glorious emergence, like the bright butterfly unfurling from the cocoon. it's just going to be mundane and boring--my skin will be all pruned from sitting too long in water, and my hair will be wet and dry and scraggly.

i am trying to muster spirit for this weekend. i'm trying to buoy myself up--thinking of the glee of dan's nephews, opening gifts. thinking of the hotel with the large bed. of sharing cookies and hugs, of relating stories and watching the children grow before your eyes.

and then i think of my father--in a strange way, orphanned for christmas. i think of cari, motherless. i think of dan in pain, i think of eero lonely, i think of serena, isolated by her own hand.

i think of my uncle jed, still trying despite such hardship, still smiling and still laughing--and i think of his inner gourmand being unable to taste the food at any table, unable to swallow, fed by a plastic shunt.

i think of my self--the stakes holding my tent down, tugged free by the winds. i am bare as a babe on wet stony ground, overwhelmed by the sky.

my thoughts roll down the hill, into the swampy area at the bottom--dark and misty and dank. you have to coax with words. you have to offer verbal bribes back up the hill. you have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, by which to find your way.

***

when i was a kid and we stayed at grandma and grandpa's house in the far, far north, we always slept in the room with the angel picture, in a gold frame. i don't know who painted it. all i know is that it now hangs in my parents' house, and you'll recognize it when you see it.

i'm not a believer in winged angels, or cherubs, or saints. i believe in spirit, that the 21 grams of your soul has to go somewhere, when you pass, and that you share that weight with others every day. sometimes they carry that weight for you, until you can pick it up again, and sometimes you do the same for them. we are all the caretakers of each others' souls.

i believed, when i was a kid, that the picture on their wall kept me safe in the night. that my progress was witnessed. that even if i do not feel as though i have shared or burdened others with the carrying of my soul, generous hands are held above me as i pass over dark bridges.

this year for me has been a dark bridge. this year has been filled with bright stars in the sky and some days of unsurpassed joy, but it has also been a time of pain and a time of darkness, for me.

i think of depression as the dark night of the soul. as me, lingering on that dark bridge, no candle to light my way, just one scared child in the black.

i think of my uncles, singing that song--o holy night.

this feeling being lost, of not hearing the searchers call your name--this sorrowing of soul is just as holy and just as beautiful as joy.

it is difficult to honor that feeling, in your self or in others. i get impatient when faced with it--in me or in dan or in anyone else. i want to turn on the lights and flood the indecision, scare the pain back into shadows.

but the darkness in which i linger is just as filled with light as i allow it to be. i can turn on the lights, just a little, like nightlights. i can cross the bridge. i can still be in the dark--and that can be just fine.

i have to search out the searchers. i have to learn the woods of my soul until the dark no longer matters. i have to know my self. the pattern of my forest is not that dissimilar from dark areas in which others pace. i have to keep that in mind.

today the road twists and turns, feels insurmountable beneath my feet. fog so close that i cannot see the end of my nose. if i keep walking forward, perhaps i will learn to call this night, this year, this life--holy.

cats. i'm being nibbled to death by cats.

this is henry as i see him in the morning: up close and quite personal. usually he's chewing on my hair.

and just because she would despise being left out, here's shiva koja.

i'm posting them because last night before i went to bed, i took a variety of pictures of dan for his blog--and at one point he joked that we should use henry instead of posting dan's own pic of himself. it looks like he's had it doctored some by maggs, but it's a good pic of him. the boy's always moving so we had good pictures in which he was actually minutely leaning back as i clicked...and therefore looked like he was rendered by an impressionist painter.

which i never mind, but he wanted something more clear. fine, sit still, man! (;

I'm supposed to be upstairs showering right now but had to come and check out his pic, and then decided that it'd been a while since i posted kitties...and now it's twenty after 7 and i'm going to be quite late, but i just don't care.

there's been a lot on my mind this week--this weekend we see dan's parents for the first time since last year, grandma's passing, the cookie exchange at work (about which i will post eventually, if for no other reason than to show you the first batch of disastrous bars), shopping for the holidays, work, etc. it goes on and on.

the thing i keep coming back to is serena. it's the holidays, her birthday was back at the beginning of december, and she had the courage to email me in november. i didn't actually check that email account until about two weeks after she first emailed. her first letter was apologetic and reminded me of the first few weeks and months of this ordeal--shaking when i thought about it, talked about it, so on and so forth. course, i've talked about it a lot at this point, with whoever i choose. it didn't sound as though serena had. i am hopeful that she will be able to approach our mutual friend, teresa, or if nothing else, go to a professional and find respite there.

anyway, i emailed her back and said, go for it--no harm, no foul. she emailed back and said that she knew i would have questions and that she was afraid her answers would sound like lame excuses--which they might. hell, dan's did too, but he just stuck to his guns and answered, and i had something on which to chew.

i emailed back with a few questions. that was on december 5th. i've heard nothing since.

i understand that she was back in st cloud recently, for her brother's graduation. and last saturday, as close as uncle hugo's in minneapolis. it made me wonder if she thought about stopping by, or if she thought of me or dan at all.

in conversation, my cari said that i was one of those people who would give cookies to their enemy. that same night, we watched a family guy in which quagmire cheats on cleveland with cleveland's wife, loretta. at the end of the show, cleveland has the opportunity to beat quagmire up with a baseball bat--which he declines, saying: "i just can't cause harm to anyone, even if they've caused harm to me."

which is the truth. i'm angry, yeah. but i don't want to maim serena. it just doesn't seem like it's worth the effort. it's frustrating, because for me, i've found a reason for this to have happened--honesty between friends and family, seeing a therapist for my depression and ADD, being aware of my own limits and learning how to work within and without them, and the gift of truth from dan.

i'd like there to be some reason for this for serena, too. people go through these things for reasons, i think. there were of course many many ways in which this could have played out--but between the three of us, we chose messy over honest and ordered. i feel like dan and i have been working on the mess, working on re-organizing and re-figuring.

i'd like to be able to do the same with serena, but the ball's in her court. i have trouble remembering that. and i keep shoulding myself--i shouldn't have asked her questions, i shouldn't have said anything, i should have just allowed things to go back to normal.

but realisitically, i cannot. in the books about affairs that i read, the prevailing idea i took was that questions need to be asked. which means that my asking the questions was fine. besides the fact i don't think i did so maliciously or with anything other than polite intent.

the first beast at the top of my post is currently playing with the key hooks. and the second one is staring at me in the hopes that i will give her the morning canned food, and soon. i do need to go to work, at some point, as well. so i suppose i should cut this short and feed the felines before they just join forces and chew off my ankles. (;

icicles

i know that our townhome's not adequately insulated because:

1. the furnace runs all the time.
2. it's still chilly in the house.
3. and there's icicles that sice of nuclear carrots hanging off our patio-side roof, which means that heat is leaking through the ceiling and melting ice, and voila!

not that i mind the chill. it's winter, it's supposed to be chilly. no, what i mind is the gas bill. and seeing those icicles reminds me that when i open it up next time, it's going to be fifteen shades of lovely. (;

yesteday we spend the day moving things around upstairs, in an effort to see what we could do with the rooms we have. we put all the bookshelves, including the new one, in the smaller room, which now looks much bigger because there's floorspace. dan even hung up his dartboard, although i'm no good without just one beer to take my Must Toss Perfectly Right edge off. without beer, he hits near center, and i'm off along the edges. *sigh* i suppose with practice, all things are possible. correct? i certainly hope so.

he also put together this contraption i had my heart set on--a peice of exercise equipment i bought at *shudder* wal-mart. it was cheap, but i need some way to exercise in my home during the week, and i'm not getting nearly enough right now. so i paid like 94 clamshells, dragged the box home, and dan looked at the instructions and set it up. there was a ton of cursing involved due to the fact that the instructions and the actual contraption were two different birds--but it's up and running now, and kudos to dan over and over for battling with it. i just hope we both get to use it now! (:

meanwhile in the kitchen...tossed meatballs and sauce in the crockpot. my sister and brother in law came down for dinner and a movie. they brought their dog, who is about 7 months old. the cats were quite insulted, and maura's still a puppy enough to not recognize that they're ticked; she just keeps barking and treeing them in various areas of the house. we ended up watching from hell, and by the end of it i realized what bothered me about that movie:

1. heather graham sucks.
2. heather graham's dye job is atrocious.
3. it doesn't have a happy ending.

the rest of the movie i like--ian holm is good, johnny depp is easy on the eyes, and there's lots of fake blood. mmm, minty fresh!

today must be the day for lists. i have a great deal to accomplish--need to run a quick errand, and then drop back home to see if dan's up for lunch, and then bake 90 cookies. yes, 90. i signed up for the cookie exchange with nary a thought of how many other people were going to. last year i only had to bake like 40 or something. i've got all my ingredients out, but i want to run my errand before i begin. in the end, it's only 4 pans of bars, provided i slice each pan into 24 squares. so we'll see.

dan's still sleeping and it's noon, so i'm assuming that he was up fairly late blogging and playing wow (which is quite addictive, but eventually i do get bored. go figure...) i often wish that dan wasn't such a night owl. i used to be, but as i get older, it's more and more difficult to sleep past 730. this morning was an exception, as i had a glass of wine last night after dinner and then took a sleeping pill about six hours later because i just couldn't fall asleep. i slept very well, but much longer than i normally do, and woke up feeling like i'd slept in the same position all night.

which i think i did...oops. but the idea is that i actually slept, which was a problem on friday night when i only got 4 hours of sleep. functioned fine yesterday, but i always doubt my reflexes when i haven't gotten much rest.

so it's off to the races for day two of Kimmy Does Domestic Duties. (;

the pits of despair

dan was talking on his blog about how he felt like sometimes people take glee in hurting others, and referenced the prisons in which saddam hussein's sons and "minions" (so to speak) happily tortured their neighbors. he spoke of how the fingers were not simply amputated, but were actually mangled.

i really took that as a symbol--the mangled fingers--and have been sitting here applying them to what i learn slowly about cognitive behavior and the writings of epictetus--then i am the one mangling my own fingers.

i think back to when i was a kid, teased relentlessly and bullied. my dad had a series of things he'd say that would make me feel like i should be able to cope with the teasing and hitting, etc: "Like water off a duck's back." "Sticks and stones, Kim--words can't hurt you." "Why are you crying? I'll give you something to cry about." (which he never actually did...)

do i torment myself, in a prison of my own making? have i mangled my own feelings, using the words and actions of others as the tool to inflict wounds? yes sirree, i have and i do.

can someone hurt me? yes. but in the end, i get to choose the degree to which i'm hurt.

the question becomes, now that i know what makes me stay in my internal drama pit, torturing my self until i'm too broken to breathe, is whether i want to stay here.

i think of epictetus and of what i've learned from the book "how to keep people from pushing your buttons." it's not something instantaneous. the answers don't come in a flash of insight. they come slowly, painfully sometimes. like pulling slivers out of your fingers--hurts like a sonofabitch, but when it's out, you can heal and not avoid touching everything.

in the book, they talk about the 4 ways you can think--awfulizing/catastrophizing, should-ing, and rationalizing are the bad ones. the good way is realistically thinking--something that is difficult to focus on, when you're depressed.

when you're in this dark pit, there are a whole series of ropes waiting to haul you out. (at least that's how my pit looks.) sometimes i yank on one i think is solid and going to "save" me, and it just dumps water on my head. or rocks.

realistic thinking, in the pit, is this tiny thread of thought, totally obscured by the other, thicker, flawed thought processes that are all much more familiar to me.

if i think catastrophically about what's going on in my head, it goes a little bit like this:

"what if my letter to serena was too mean? that would be horrible! what if dan never is able to heal? that would be awful! what if i am never able to heal, what if i'm always depressed? that would be terrible!"

(and it does sound horrible...and more horrible...)

if i should myself:

"i should be happier. i shouldn't be so depressed all the time. i should have asked no questions of serena. i should have been more polite. i should exercise tonight instead of going shopping. i should go home so i can make sure dan's okay. i should go shopping for the ingredients for the bars i have to bake on sunday, not for bras."

(and then i feel overwhelmed and guilty because i know i'm not going to be able to do all that tonight and i should be a better person.)

if i rationalize:

"i don't care about how dan's doing, it's up to him anyway. i don't care about why serena hasn't written back, it's up to her. i don't care about how i'm doing, because i'm not worth a whole lot. and i don't care when i bake those godforsaken bars, they're just bars anyway, so who cares if they taste like ass?"

(i don't want to eat ass-bars. do you?)

so on and so forth. it's a whole ton of ropes hanging down that look like they're my salvation. but i keep ending up on my ass at the bottom of my pit again. over and over.

is it because someone threw rocks at me? nope. what about the water? nope, not that either.

it's all about my reaction to being hit by the rocks. and my first reaction is guilt: what did i do that made them throw rocks at me?

realistic thinking goes something like this:

"i'm hurt by the fact that serena has not written back to me yet, but if i don't hear from her, i'm not going to perish. i'm hurt that dan's depressed, but i am doing all i can to be of assistance. i care about dan enough to be concerned, and caring is okay. are there parts that are is it awful, horrible and terrible? some parts. but i can feel this way and not allow it to dictate my behavior. if i don't buy the ingredients for the bars tonight, that is okay. i have more time than i am allowing myself. and my boobs deserve some flashy support."

it's just hard to do that all at the same time--recognize what you're doing, and curb it in a healthy way. especially when the fog rolls down into the valley and you're just reaching out and grasping for help by touch. you can't even see what you're reaching for--so when the snake bites you instead of the helpful rope, all you can think of is how much that hurt and why the snake was there. you're not even considering the idea that there is another rope, or that if you climb out of your pit, there's ever going to be another one.

rome wasn't built in a day.

not everything slides off a duck's back. sometimes the duck just has to avoid the rocks. or go sit somewhere and heal before the next truckload of rocks gets dumped.

before i get further into metaphor-hood than i'm qualified for, i'm going bra shopping.

unhinged

i've been
unhinged
i've wandered the dim hallways of my own
skull
pondering existence
and worrying about centipedes
i am that woman
laughing alone loudly
in the movie theater
when all of you are silent, incomprehensive
of the comedy onscreen
i've been out past dusk
stumbling through the woods
little red riding hood
without directions to grandma's
i've quaked in my boots
i've shuddered to think
i've run from
myself
for a while

does it make a difference
now
that someone else
with a degree in gray matter
points it out?

*********************

i've been thinking a great deal about the shooting in miami this week. it's hard to keep your mind off it when you live with someone who's bipolar, and moreso, you're considered mentally infirm yourself.

if no one had known, there would be no attachments made, no lines drawn. it would have been "man shouts bomb on plane."

i've got a big, big problem with drawing lines. it defines something that, to me, remains indefinable: the human capacity for change.

even if that nice gentleman who is now mourned by his family was on meds, would that have made a difference? if he hadn't been diagnosed, there of course would be speculation by the media of his being mentally unstable. i'm sure that his family has survived episodes and occurances on a daily basis for years; they're aware of an instability.

my largest issue with this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that the victim was bipolar. it has to do with the fact that when it comes down to brass tacks, the man was a human being.

was it based on his mental illness? how the hell do i know. i can't do much but speculate. but i live with a bipolar fellow. i can tell you that sometimes, yeah, it gets bad. sometimes you're the line between sanity and insanity.

but i can only be that line so much of the time. some of the time, he has to be his own line. i'm not his keeper. goddess or god, The Someone Upstairs--that is his keeper. and if the flint strikes stone and he makes a decision, i cannot always be there to prevent it leading him down some dark road that skewed judgment tells him is bright.

one of the things i'm trying to do is let go of the idea that i can be responsible for his actions. he knows he is not responsible for mine. i've just got a dependency problem that spills over and makes *me* feel responsible when there's no way i could be.

this dead man's wife probably is thinking about what she could have done differently--could she have yelled more loudly, could she have tackled an air marshal--what could she have done, just by herself, to save the life of the man she called husband?

the answer, folks, is nothing.

and it sucks to think that is the answer.

i read on another blog that someone heard, amidst a group of bp people, that perhaps they should start wearing jackets that said "BIPOLAR" across the back, much as marshals wear coats that state their occupation.

people wear identification to show what they're doing--you recognize a police officer, a doctor, and so on, by their clothing.

you can't see someone who's mentally ill. you can't see someone who has a new heart. you can't pick out of a lineup someone who has syphilis.

i have a problem with this because if you define your self and your group so boldly, people will start to make value judgements--they can't help it. if you see a doctor strolling through the mall on his lunch break, and someone falls over in a seizure, you'll probably wonder why the doctor just keeps walking. he's a doctor, right? he's supposed to save lives? you get the idea.

let's say i wear my jacket to the mall. my jacket's going to say: DEPRESSED AND ADHD WITH ANXIETY DISORDERS. first of all, that's kind of long. so let's shorten it, shall we? we'll just say ADHD. i go into a store. do i suddenly get preferential treatment? i'm wearing a jacket that states that i'll probably either buy a lot of shiny, glittery objects, and get directed to said area, or will i be ignored because there'll be too much to choose from and i probably won't buy anything?

yeah, it's simple, but i'm a shopper, so keep it simple.

push it a step further. leave DEPRESSED on the back of my jacket. does this mean i can't go to the top of the empire state building now, because i've been labeled as a possible jumper?

wearing a jacket that said bipolar wouldn't have changed anything any more than the man's wife yelling it at the top of her lungs changed anything. anyone could have a jacket that says "bipolar" across the back in big yellow eye-catching letters--does that make that person exempt from having the knowledge and wherewithal to create a bomb and detonate it on an airplane?

as dan pointed out in his blog--he got scared, because he does know how to put together a weapon of quite destructive capabilities. other bipolar people got scared. i can understand their fear--they don't want to be the one shot at an airport, at least not at the moment.

but then again, who the hell does? i sure don't.

in these days of heightened security everywhere--i'm waiting to be frisked at the grocery store, it'll come--anyway, i think the idea is that you can't be too careful. i ADORE the idea of law enforcement carrying tasers and such, something non-lethal, in order to preserve the life of a perceived wrong doer. or nets that just stop the fleeing suspect. that'd be super. that'd be humane.

something else that i took umbrage to, while reading the same jacket-idea blog, was that this was the first victim of the War on Terror.

again, erase some lines. there've probably BEEN other people who are bipolar gunned down, beaten, etc. since the war on terror began. they just didn't have a doctor's note saying they were bipolar.

i could start taking offense to every depressed person eliminated since the war on terror started; but that would take a long, long time, and be totally counterproductive to mourning the loss of just plain all humans whose lives have been cut short.

again, lines are being drawn that i just don't think you can draw. having high blood pressure, being diabetic--it certainly can affect your thinking, but that doesn't define the fact that you're going to be the one shot in an airport.

what defines that is YOU. it's like adding things to cookie dough. you've got your basic dough--mental instability--and you can add to it a variety of things. all of them will not give you chocolate chip cookies unless you add chocolate chips.

ie, just because you're depressed doesn't mean you're going to jump off the empire state building.

i'm certainly not trying to hide what i am. i know the cliffs of insanity that my brain hits. i know their shape and their size. it doesn't mean that someday while shopping i'm not going to be seized by cells, and overtaken with the desire to just pick up the giant, shiny, glittery christmas tree in the mall and run out the door with it.

i fully expect to be halted.

she laughs at the days to come

it was a completely and utterly lovely day outside, yesterday. i took the opportunity to tromp around in the woods, camera in tow. i felt kind of alone; dan had gone up to visit friends and see a movie. but in the end, it was exactly the balm i needed--being alone in the snow.

The Wake

thursday was the wake. as usual, technojoy overtook my uncles and they had photos on stands, as well as TWO slide projectors of old pictures. it was entertaining to see how my brother looks like my dad, when dad was young. in fact at one point i had to ask someone for claification because i thought, what the hell is david doing in that picture?

there were a lot of pics of grandma, fishing. and the one of her giving me a ride on her schoolbus, which she drove for 14 years. i doubt i was 3 at the time. i remember that after i had my ride, grandma gave me the pick of the lost and found and unclaimed--i got a few brushes and combs that i think are still in my mother's drawers at home. mom was suitably appalled and all utensils were soaked in some kind of disinfectant before i got to keep them.

my uncles thought that perhaps they would have time for a few prayers, but everyone was laughing and commenting and having such a good time that they never interrupted or bothered. it's interesting how your perception of a person can be changed, based on the views of others. i always thought my grandma was kind of cold, and that booze was a substitute for love. but the people giggling over pictures did not share that sentiment.

i was fine the whole evening, until i saw my uncle paul. my uncle paul is actually my grandfather's brother; they look enough alike that, although my grandpa's been gone for well over a decade, when i saw my uncle paul, my whole chest clenched. he and his wife, vernie, are both getting up there in years. they were never able to have children, so i think my uncle dan, who was my grandma's keeper, is also keeping an eye on them. paul still drives, and is quite capable of cooking and everything, but vernie's blind. apparently she relates the recipes from memory and paul just follows direction.

paul got a bit overtaken when he realized that him, vernie and another sister-in-law, florence, were all that was left of his generation of family. he counted them off on his fingers--all his brothers and sisters and in laws, gone. a tear rolled down under his glasses. my sister and i exchanged glances; she asked what pies they had recently baked, as they still do a lot of baking.

we did some mingling and re-meeting, reminiscing. at around 730 the receptionist gently kicked us all out; she wanted to go home and of course we were running late. had some ice cream at my sister's, watched a biking dvd that had footage of my brother, and turned in for the night.

The Funeral

friday morning i got up and according to my dad's direction, left the house at 9 so i could be at the church by 10, for the funeral at 11. i figured with traffic, i'd make it around 10 but not before.

silly me.

i got there around 940, grabbed some caribou coffee (caramel high rise, so delicious!) and headed into the church. uncles dan and tim were there, as well as tim's wife and my two cousins. eventually we tracked down the gal in charge of the service, a petite, soft-spoken, lavender-suited woman named jerry. she went over when to come up for the readings (which my cousins did) and the intercessions (which i did). then we just stood around talking for an hour and meeting relatives and friends who'd come for the occasion, some from quite a distance.

my dad's brother bob was still in hospital; he had his other hip replaced dec 1st, so missed wake and funeral. and my other uncle, jed, is still in palm springs, rehab-ing from strokes. tim and anita and their kids and dan sat in the front row. mom and dad sat in the second row. my cousins therese and her husband sat in the third row. fourth was empty, fifth was my grandma's side of the family, and sixth row was my family's children.

(we'd gotten a bit confused; sara and i had to get up and do things during the service, and wanted to sit on the edge. but dad was also supposed to do things, and would be exiting the pew...so we sat separately. halfway through mass, i made the executive decision that after communion our row would decamp and move to their row...which we did. it was kind of a feeling of solidarity.)

the first reading was the one that made me think, i haven't read the bible in years. (which i did do, at one point. i think i skipped kings or leviticus...can't remember. the one about how to build the tent that housed the ark. and i don't remember reading revelations...) anyway, there was a line in the reading that is my title today--i liked it so much. it really summed up for me who my grandmother was--the parts of her i knew, and the parts i did not. she laughs at the days to come--even in her dementia, when she felt abandoned and betrayed by her own memory, she kept her humor and spirit.

as most of you know, i'm nowhere near a practicing christian. i'm mainly pagan, with a dash of wisdom from philosophy and other religions tossed in for flavor. the church of kim, is what i usually call it. it's kind of a hotdish version of all these things assembled and baked for 30 years, with cornflakes to top.

some things in the christian doctrine still speak to me, mainly because they're so close to being pagan. for example, the priest smudged the altar with incences about fifteen times during mass. bells ring while he's performing different sections, which usually is done to scare of evil spirits. the whole time, i could see the circle being drawn around the altar, and it reminded me that although it felt foreign--as though i'd returned home after an extensive stay overseas--it was still familiar and i could be comfortable here.

do as you will, an it harm none. love thy neighbor. where's the difference? i'm not going to waste time drawing thick, black lines to separate myself from all the things i have added to my hot dish. that was my mass distraction.

at the end of mass, when i could feel my throat tighten and the tears building, the choir came from their perch and gathered around grandma's urn, and sang acapella. there were about 10 white-haired church mavens, all who'd given up their day to sing my grandma to heaven. it was probably the most spiritual part of mass, in my opinion.

i felt like i was going to sob, but just before i could do so, i noticed the flower display to the left of the urn swaying, and the annoyed and somewhat embarassed face of one of the singers, as she realized that she'd knocked it. and all the feelings of sadness i had--all the fears for my parents, and the grief--it all got up and walked away, and i smiled.

i wasn't even able to cry when my dad picked up the urn and walked grandma out--the oldest son, carrying her away.

they had a meal afterwards, cold salads and some warm chicken stuff that tasted like stroganoff, but no one could figure out if it actually was stroganoff. kibbutzed with my family, met one of my dad's second cousins who we found out had brothers playing in pro hockey, and watched my dad's first cousins hold up a picture of my grandma when she was sixteen or so next to my sister, beth, and comment on how similar they looked. they were right; she does share many of the same characteristics.

the picture had been at the wake too, an 8x11 of grandma looking younger than imaginable, and glowing. in the bottom right corner there was a note, penned in her hand: to my loving mother, from your loving daughter.

i wept on the way home. later, friends gathered to play some spygame until late, and collapsed.

Saturday

when i woke up, it was snowing. soft, fresh snow. we were scheduled for a few inches, maybe 2, but in the end i think we got about 4 or so. i was feeling for beef stew, so after my walk i hazarded into target and grabbed some items, and came home and put the stew together. made 3 loaves of banana bread that substitutes tofu for eggs. watched the bbc version of pride and prejudice.

i was going to take the short route through the woods. tired, my nose was colder than i remembered it being, and it was slippery under the fluffy snow, mainly because of all the cross country ski tracks. i was enjoying the waves i created, the snow riffling out front of me. flakes were falling thick and fast, and i was having trouble seeing, even more trouble taking pictures.

halfway through, a skinny girl skiied towards me. she didn't have any poles, just her arms moving. i was reminded of my cousins, who race cross country in the winter, who'd just read at grandma's funeral. as she came up she skiied to a stop. how do you get to the hockey rink, she asked, cheeks flushed. i pointed behind me: take a right at the bench. she started to ski and then said, if you turn left up ahead, you'll see a spot of snow cleared out; i lost my mom's watch, i think it was my grandma's watch.

then i noticed the tear on her face, just one. how her cheeks were blotchy, not in the pattern of exertion, but in the pattern of distress. i'd just seen a church of this, the day before. i said i'd check, and if i found it, i'd leave it at the hockey rink.

left at the next intersection. i started to think that perhaps her idea of a large spot where the snow had been trampled was a smaller spot than my imagination was searching for. after a good twenty minutes, i was ready to give up. i stood at the top of a small rise, looking for the wide, triangle shaped marks that would mean someone had recently climbed up a hill. there weren't any. i thought perhaps i should head back, that perhaps i'd missed it. nah, why not keep walking. as i went down the hill i could see what she had done--instead of the bird-shaped marks, she'd removed one ski and just pushed herself up the hill on the other one. smart girl.

at the bottom of the hill, i found the area--a big spot. you could see where she'd realized she'd lost it, and then the backtracking. i looked around, i swept gently with a stick.

i remembered when i was in high school. i'd borrowed a ring from my mother, dark coiled wire, one she'd brought back from italy. it fell off as i walked, and i was in near hysterics because i knew where the ring had originated. i cried for a while on the shoulders of friends, and then later in the day, when i figured i was going to have to find a good story to tell my mom, the ring turned up.

i remembered that feeling, searching for something my teenage mentality told me was going to ruin my relationship with my mother forever. who knew what how she was going to react?

that story ends happily. i don't know how mom would have reacted. when i got home, i told her the truth--that i'd lost the ring, but that it had been found. my mom laughed and said that the ring was a trinket from italy, not something on which she spent a lot of money.

i didn't find the watch. it'll probably turn up come spring, when things melt. or even next week, if temps rise. or someone else will find it, and it will become a memory in their minds, some other person's keepsake. i don't know the girl's name, or how to find her. i don't know how her mother will feel, or how old that watch was, or what memories were attached to it.

in fifty years, that watch will be forgotten. that daughter won't care about that watch; she'll care about her mother, and her father, in a different way, one that reminded me that the grief my uncle paul felt, and the grief that stained my father's cheeks, is a grief best kept for losing a person, and not a piece of jewelry.

Sunday

the sun is out. i've got beef stew bubbling in the kitchen, and banana bread with cinnamon on the counter. homemade pepper biscuits will be made soon to accompany the stew. whatever happens in the next days, i must remember to do just one thing, something i have done but often forget: laugh at the days to come.