Misc. Stuff

I've been struggling to write about several topics lately, I'd just like to complain about that: God, being child-free, and the nature of friendship. My feelings on those issues are complicated, contradictory, and charged, so maybe that's why I'm having a hard time sorting the words out. I will continue in that endeavor. I should be doing it today, now, at this very moment, in fact, while I'm at the Apple Box, butt firmly planted in chair, with the PWG gals, but I'm preferring to simply complain about it instead and leave it at that.

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I'm going to send these hundred words off to the Washington Post in the next day or two (I want to sleep on it a bit, but this is evidence that I got some creative writing done here at the Box), submitting it to their Life Is Short column:

I was--am--fortunate, in almost every aspect of my life. I have a job, health, home, love. But for years I've harbored niggling discontent. Two Novembers ago, I purchased a rhinestone horseshoe necklace to remind me that Life Is Good. Once I joined the clasp, I didn't take it off. Until two weeks ago, when it broke as I was undressing. Am I more vulnerable now that I'm separated from its sparkling mojo? Will I neglect to give thanks for all that I have? So far, I've been free of lightning bolts. Maybe it's time for a new luck.

I had originally thought to send this, but reading some of the other winners, I think it's too wordsmithy foofy:

Being from the Left Coast, angels bestride both shoulders, arguing for the urban, the rural, the urban, the rural. So I inhabit the 'burbs. Pet hair envelopes me like Pigpen's cloud. From my post indoors, I watch the light move through its day, pushing me into night. A flickering screen is often a lullaby. I get caught up in words, yarn, dreams, looping together a few moments, then a few more. More often than not my patterns are flawed or too small. My circle is also small, but I am luckiest of the lucky--a romantic in love and beloved.

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I'm way behind on correspondence, electronic and otherwise. I've been putting off writing to one friend because she asked if she's going to be invited to the wedding, and I think I have to tell her "no." The place where we'll be having the ceremony is small, so I've been planning on implementing a "ten-year rule," limiting those on my list to those I've only known for ten years or more. M has so few people in his family that he is exempt from this rule. This plan would allow me to not feel obliged to invite some people from jobs past and present but not others, and get me out of a few other invites as well. But there are several other people that I've met since moving back to California that I *want* to invite. Like this friend. So now I'm having doubts about the wedding location (the reception location has plenty of space--that's "just" a matter of money, since feeding people is the big wedding expense). This is the part of wedding planning that I don't like. Making decisions that might make others feel bad.

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After departing the 'Box, I came home, ate the last of the delightful pea soup, snoozed briefly, then took the dog for a walk in the field. Though still soggy and muddy, the field has dried out a bit, and the grass is luxurious and brilliantly green. The little camomile daisies that bloom like snow drifts in February have already started to open. In a nearby parking lot, the County lets people drop off their Christmas trees for free, then chips them up for compost. It makes me a bit sad to see their discarded carcasses tossed into heaps, but the fragrance is intoxicating. Yesterday when I walked the dog, I looked up just in time to see a Christmas tree soaring into the air, landing at the top of the dogpile, which was a bit disconcerting until I made out the baseball cap of the person who had flung it.

M just came home. Seems like our birthday celebrations of late revolve around food. I saw him off to work today (thank god he's employed again!) with pumpkin ginger pancakes from Sunset mag, made with butternut squash, which were quite tasty. As soon as the dishwasher has finished its cycle, we'll head out to Valley Ford for dinner with another couple.

I hope the blue sky days stick around for a while--I've been missing the sunshine...