Two Weeks, Seven Hours

I'm at the Box on a Saturday, waiting for PWG cohort Julia. Rebecca, the third member of our merry band, is off to Esalen for a poetry workshop. It's a different group behind the counter. A nice man with a lovely accent, but no angels. On the drive here, I was thinking it would be good to arrive before Julia--I could get some writing done before she comes, we could blab for a bit, then I'd leave and she could get some writing done. As with most writers groups, we've morphed from writing and critiquing to some critiquing but mostly blabbing, some of it about writing. I'm so very happy and grateful for Julia and Rebecca. Not only are they just all-around wonderful women, but they're helping me to actually write, even if it is just this blog, which seems to somehow be a very crucial part of my being that I can't quite accomplish on my own.

Warning: I'm at a loss for blog topics this morning, so I'll be rambling for a while.

Not a good sleep last night. Tomcat made a cameo appearance, and so in my dream I was happy, confused, and worried--Pookie is so much less twitchy without him, and the food I prepare has a lot less hair overall, so how would we smoothly incorporate his returning presence?--then sad as I realized that I was just dreaming of Tomcat. Also, I've been plagued at work by someone I've had to say "no" to (in a professional capacity), and he hasn't been taking it well, arguing with me, and so I have to keep saying "no," which, as a middle child, I hate to do. He sent the latest email Friday, and I have my response all queued up and ready to go, but I'm sitting on all two sentences of it til Monday. Don't want him to think he's so important that I have to respond to right away, even though I'm losing sleep! As M might say, why am I letting him live rent-free in my brain? I am weak. General Axtell (my Dad advised that I should be sure to be a four-star general--none of this brigadier stuff) would just bark out a "No" and move on. Channeling General Axtell, channeling General Axtell...

I've finished my bagel and cream cheese, but there's some cream cheese still left in the container, and I'm wondering how gauche it would be to scoop it out with the knife and then nibble it off the blade here in public.

I have my vows sitting on the bedside table, and every night I work on memorization (except for last night when I was too distracted by That Work Guy). It's only 179 words, but I want to be sure to say it all without stumbling, to convey it meaningfully. But the memorization exercise also gets me thinking of so many things--random wedding details, the whole Wedding Thing, other weddings I've been to, and on and on. The other night when I was ostensibly staring passively into space and memorizing but really off on a mental tangent, M turned to me and said, "What is going on with you?" He claims he can hear my thoughts, which I like, but it also scares me a bit. I don't think he can understand them yet, but I guess he can't duck the roaring brain waves.

Two bumpstickers I've read recently:
"My honor student gets pierced at Zebra!"
"If you lived closer to your heart, you'd be home now."

That last one is so "West County," as we describe the post-hippie-new-agers around these parts. I sort of like the balance of ex-hippies, traditional redneck ranchers, yuppies, and a new generation of back-to-the-landers. In my doctor's office, I had to make the hard decision to pick up "Gourmet" or "Mules Today" while in the waiting room. ("Gourmet" won, but I did read the back cover of "MT," an ad for an apparently nearly miraculous piece of mule flesh.) I want so much to be able to spend the rest of my days here--buy a small spread and raise fruit and heritage farm animals with a little cat and dog rescue thrown in for good measure ("But you won't be able to travel," M observes about this little fantasy)--but even if M does find a great lawyer job with a fancy salary, I don't think we'd be able to afford much more than we have now. It's just too expensive here.

M took me out to a nice Italian place for dinner last week, the night of the disconcerting precipitation. That sort of helped bring the day into a semblance of normality. Perhaps you're familiar with the art projects that seize cities these days, where fiberglass statues are painted/decorated then displayed around town? We have that going on here, the fiberglass likeness that of Charlie Brown, since "Sparky" Schulz was a resident for most of his life. There was a Chef Charlie outside the restaurant. He looked like he was in pretty good shape, but I've read in our local paper that several of his Doppelgangers have been vandalized. Inside, the restaurant reminded us both very much of our favorite spot in New York, which was at once pleasant and a little sad for me. There was a young woman sitting alone at a table with a book, ordering a second glass of red wine, and I thought of how many times I've been in her shoes, alone in a city, loathe to order room service and stay cooped up after travel, but still so alone in a public place.

OK, one last thing about that fancy Virgo soap--aside from the fact that it's stinky (oops, aroma therapeutic), it's also very blue. So blue that it stained my wash cloth. Isn't that oxymoronic, for soap to stain?

I'm liking "The Time Traveler's Wife," for the most part. I feel a little guilty about it, since several other respected readers in my life pshawed it. But I feel myself craving a read when I hop into bed, and I have a hard time stopping after just one chapter. That's definitely part of my lack of sleep equation.

Two weeks, six hours...