Monday, September 08, 2014

20140907 NO POWER yet

20140907 NO POWER yet
            Sunday, Septmeber 9, 2014, 12:31 PM I am over at R'dale where we slept because we had no power at Moran for the second night.
            6:52 PM I am walking my first walk of the day.  Yesterday I only walked 15 minutes and the day before 22 and half minutes, so I am slacking, but we still have no power at Moran, or, we have brownout power, but it's not running the fridge, airconditioner, computers etc.  Lights are very dim. 
            Today hauled a bunch of food from The fridge and freezer at Moran to the fridge and freezer at R'dale.  I should have done it sooner.  A lot of freezer stuff was melted and lot of fridge stuff was warm and threw away a lot and may have to throw away more.
            So, after all that, and carrying heavy coolers and bins of food back and forth, two trips, it's getting late.  Keith wasn't there to help me because among the things not working are the washer and dryer.  He was over at his Mom's doing laundry. 
            Also, I hauled the air mattress down and opened the couch into a bed and put the air mattress on it, but now it's so tall that if we were to fall off, we'd get injured, seriously.  I am waiting for Keith to decide if he wants to fold the couch bck up and put the mattress on the floor in living room or study, or try sleeping on the couch bed.  I figured we could decide that when he gets back. 
            I had a conversation eith Rolandale Bon, who is looking lean and handsome at 50 years old.  He told me he has a new girlfri2nd from Thailand, not from Thailand, but in Thailand.  "Sh3e's droop dead gorgeous," he says.  He showed me pictures.  She is very pretty, and young,, and she wants kids and he's not sure he does because he's too old.  At 50.  She's in a remote part of Thailand and teaches English to 9-year-olds.  He's going thehre in December and again in April.
            Some young guy with batman Toshirt is mowing his lawn with a VERY loud lawnmower.
            I can't wait to get away from him.
            UGH.
            *            *            *            * EJ end journal
            *            *            *            * begin Cowbird story, The Body in the Refigerator
            It looks like there's a body in our refrigerator.  A mangled, bleeding body.  I should have taken a picture.  Instead, I cleaned it up.
            I spent the day moving food from our fridge and freezer at home to the studio's fridge and freezer.  The power is out at the house where we live.  Some berries, raspberries, I think, and frozen meat thawed out and leaked.  We should have moved the food sooner. 
            *            *            *            * end CBS 1
            *            *            *            * begin CBS 2, the hangnail from Hell, for Robert Verney
            Elsie was a rare golden-horned dragon who lived in the mountains of Bhutan.  She was a member of a species that was known by the biologists of the area as extinct, which really pissed her off when she read about it on her iPhone.  The iPhone had been dropped, as per instructions, from a hot air balloon manned by Hernando the Great, the 19-year old flamenco stunt man from Madrid.  Hernando's mother, Aleina, was a fortune teller and an adept at reading tea leaves, and when Hernando left his morning tea cup unwashed on the counter instead of rinsing it and putting it the dishwasher the way he's been told, Aleina peered in with a combination of annoyance and curiosity to see what her recalcitrant son was up to. 
The tealeaves clearly said to he was to fly over the mountains in Bhutan and drop a new cell phone programmed in Draco-Bhutanese.  Since Draco-Bhutanese was considered to be a dead language, Aleina had to splash tealeaves into the sink to learn how to program that language and then teach her son Hernando, who was a whiz at computers, cell phone, and apps.  He did as he was instructed, but his balloon lost altitude and crashed on the cliffs just beyond Elsie's aerie.  When he sent out an SOS, he didn't realize that his cell phone was still programmed in the Draco-Bhutanese he'd used to drop the one he'd dropped for Elsie, but Elsie got the message and flew to rescue him from where he was hanging on a branch that was inch by inch breaking and about to drop him a thousand feet to the sharp scree below. 
Elsie flew under him and he dropped on her back and she took him to her Aerie.  She wondered if he was a delicacy she might have for a snack, but he texted her in Draco-Bhutanese, using the text translation app he'd developed with the help of his Mom and carefully explained that he was not a snack.
            Elsie told Hernando that she was not extinct and not a dream and that she resented people saying she was extinct.  "I am not extinct yet," she said, "but I might be soon.  I have the hangnail from hell."
            "Hangnail?" Hernando said, and laughed.  "Hangnail!  Only wimps complain about hangnails!"
            "Oh yeah, take a look at this," Elsie said.  She held up her back claw with its long sharp talons, and there was a flaming hangnail with fire pouring out of it 
            "I might set my nest on fire." She sighed.  “And let me show you something else.  We golden horned dragons can project our feelings to other dragons, and even to humans, here try this."  She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to Hernando's, carefully position it so his forehead fit between her golden horns.
            "Ouch!" Hernando shouted, leaping back so far he toppled out of the aerie. 
            Elsie made a grab for him, diving over the edge and catching him in her other claw.
            "Wow, that really hurts.  Here, maybe I can fix it.  I have some asbestos tape from my hot air balloon.  It is really nasty stuff.  But it might help.” 
            Hernando unwound the tape from his boots, where he stored it, and wrapped it round and round the hangnail from hell and gradually the flames subsided.
            "My Mom is a psychic and a healer," Hernando said.  “I am not the seventh son of a seventh son, but I seem to have inherited a little of her powers.”
            He leaned his forehead against Elsie's and intoned, in a deep musical voice, "heal, heeeal, heeeeeaall.""  He closed his eyes and imagined the hangnail from hell healing.
            Elsie gave a yelp and Hernando leaped back so fast he fell from the aerie again.  This time, Elsie caught him with her injured foot. 
"That was not a yelp of pain, " she said, “that was a yelp of joy.  You have healed me, dear human!”  And she gave him a kiss that left a scar like a brand on his face in the shape of a golden-horned dragon.  Hernando didn't know it yet, but he would wear that scar like a tattoo for the rest of his life.

            *            *            *            * End Hangnail from Hell EHNFH

For Robert Verney.  Bhutan is a country near Nepal that contains some of the Himalayas.  The dragon shown here is from the flag of Bhutan.  These dragons can fly without wings, just as we fly without wings in dreams.  Robert, you or anyone can use this illo, or any of my others, as long you credit me.
            It looked like there was a body in our refrigerator at home, a mangled, bleeding body.  I should have taken a picture.  Instead, I cleaned it up.
            I spent the day yesterday moving food from our fridge and freezer at home to the studio's fridge and freezer.  The power is out at the house where we live.  Some berries, raspberries, I think, and frozen meat thawed out and leaked onto the white floor like blood.  We should have moved the food sooner.
After I got it all moved, the power went at the studio.  We may lose out food!



Sunday, September 07, 2014

20140905 Cabbage phew; Friday, September 5, 2015 contains two parts of a letter to Tom

20140905 Cabbage phew; Friday, September 5, 2015, 11:23 PM  I am out on my first walk of the day--yup, at almost 11:30 at night.  Earlier, I was working on making sauerkraut, and that was exhausting and then it was very windy and raining. 
            I went to bed at 10:34 PM and at 11:15, I was still wide awake and bored out of my gourd, so I got back up and got dressed and am taking a walk.
Graham got a summons from GPP courts because he did do the things he was required to do for his probation.  He did not see his probation officer over the summer, he did not take his alcohol class, and he did not do his community service.  He is required to appear in court on October 15 to explain why he should held in contempt of criminal court.
            It's very quiet tonight, except for the loud crickets, especially considering how loud the wind was earlier.  It's cool and humid (it was in the 89s earlier!) and cloudy, with the moon shining through the clouds. 
            The sidewalks are littered with downed branches, some of which are difficult to see in the dark.  Others, like a huge one I skirted back there, a re difficult to miss.  Glad I wasn't under that one when it came down.
            I move out into the street, which better lit than the very dark sidewalks, and there hasn't been an6y traffic. 
            I put my shorts on in the dark and didn't bother with underwear, which I almost never do, and for some reason, it feels itchy that way.  Of course, I am always itchier at night.  (Itching is one of the things that contributes to my insomnia.  Reason unknown to me.)
            A car comes and I have to go back to the sidewalk.  I've decided to walk around the block.  The same car goes back the other way.  Then it turns around and comes back this way again.  It stops just ahead of me. 
            Makes me nervous, and I hope I don't have to run for it.  But it's a woman carrying a huge purse and she walks past me on the other side of the street.  Now there are sirens and I am still looking behind me for the person who drove by 3 times—maybe she was checking me out nervously.  The sirens make me nervous.
            I walk down the middle of the alley.  I can see all around me, but then again, anyone could see me. 
            Now I smell smoke. 
            I don’t know what I am so nervous about; I walk here all the time.
            But when I get home, I am going inside and locking the door.
            This one walk will have to be enough for tonight.  It's almost tomorrow anyway.
            *            *            *            * EJ end journal
            *            *            *            * SLT start letter to Tom
            Friday, September 5, 2014, 11:41 PM Dear Tom,
            I am out walking because I went to bed at 10;30, couldn't sleep, gt up at 11:155 PM and decided to go for a walk because I hadn't been able to walk all day.  So here I am, out walking in the dark.  When you eat, just eat, when you paint, just paint and when you write, just write --I mean when you walk, just walk.  Except I am walking and writing at the same time and twice since I started, huge brilliant flashes of light (lightning?) lit up the sky and the same moment, the power in the neighborhood flickered on and off like something from a horror movie.  Yikes!  I think it is starting to rain.  There are branches down all over the sidewalk from the wind earlier, and then it was still, but I hear it picking up again, I think.
            I hear a train whistle, must be a low ceiling.
            OK, I'm going back in, more later.
            I walked about 22 and a half minutes, not very fast because of the darkness, the wet and bumpy sidewalks and the downed branches, and also the hour of the night.
            Saturday September 6, 2014, 5:45 PM  I am out walking, just a short walk.  Keith came home made a phone call to a tree service and left again almost immediately.  That was a long time ago.  Because I am out walking, I writing on the Psion, so the letter will be out of order unless I rearrange it first.
            Meanwhile, I see a man with a helmet, and I ask him if he's from NIMO--I said that, then said, I mean DTE.  Detroit Edison, not Niagara Mohawk.  He was cute and had a foreign accent.  He said someone else on our block also called to say his wife wears a CPAP and didn't get any sleep last night.  He said I need to call so that they can prioritize my needs because of my medical condition.  I imagine if I call, I will be on hold all day.
            What I did, since I didn't sleep last, almost not at all, and the sleep I did get was really bad, Keith shaking me every time I stopped breathing.  I DO have a medical condition but I guess telling the triage guy isn't enough; no I have to call and wait on hold.  
            He had a clipboard of names addresses of other people who have issues.  I am thinking I might go stay at Rolandale tonight--blow up the air mattress and sleep there.  I will have pack up as if for a trip.
            I was making fun of Keith's addictions, but my addictions are just as fatal.  I am addicted to food and my weight interferes with my sleep and just about everything else.  I am primarily addicted to sugar, which I almost never eat any more, including not eating fruit or white flour/refined grains, which turn to sugar in the body. 
            A lot of people have generators running--must be nice.  We have a generator, if it still works, that I bought years ago for camping, to run my computer when I was working on a novel while camping.  But it's just about big enough to run one light bulb and a small simple computer.  It certainly can't run a stove or fridge or air conditioner. 
            The triage guy said at least 24 hours, but whether he meant 24 hours from when it went out or 24 hours fro now, I'm not sure.  When I get home, I am going to pack up my sorrows--I mean pack up some stuff to mac and cheese for K and go over R'dale and do that, unless he's at home and objects
            I see the triage guy.  I want to corral him and tell him he could call for me.  Maybe he has an in somehow.  Some husband called, wish my husband called, but he's been pretty busy.
            Sunday, September 7, 2014, 10:21 AM, R'dale  I did call DTE yesterday, but it didn't do any good.  The first time I called I just got menus etc and it hung up on me, the second time I got an unsympathetic annoying person who merely said she couldn't help me and that should go stay at a motel.  I wonder how those other people got on the triage list.
            At bedtime, there was still no power, so we packed up and stayed at Rolandale.  There are some advantages to having two houses, one of them being, that if one has power and the other doesn't, and you need power to sleep, you have somewhere to go.
            I'm going to download this now, and maybe I will stop writing.  The sun is shining and it's cool and autumnal feeling outside.
            Hope thing are looking up on your end.
            Love, Mary  XOX
            *            *            *            *  ELT end letter Tom


Friday, September 05, 2014

20140901 Labor Day Under Dark skies.

20140901 Labor Day Under Dark skies.
            It is 5:54 PM on Monday, September 1st, 2014, and I am walking home from Rolandale after doig some writing.  The sky is very dark and threatening.  Very dark, very threatening looking.  There are thunderheads, and I am walking away from home. 
            It is warm and windy.
a            Graham just called and wanted me to come home.  He said he liked me to be there whenever he asked Dad for anything.  I said if he anted me to come home, someone would have to come and get me, because I don't have a car and was intending to walk home. 
            I HOPE I didn't misunderstand him, but what I thought he said was that he would talk to Dad by himself.  In other words, they are NOT coming to get me, because if they do come, and I am not there, Keith will be annoyed. 
            It's already kind of late.  I was "working" on my novel.  I actually wrote and "published" a Cowbird story and then was "working onn my novel".  Working on the novel considted of searching for the latest version of it and reading it.  I got kind of sucked in to Discovery at Little Hog Island.  There were things I'd forgotten.  I liked it.  A lot.  Not that it doesn't need work, it does.
            A lot of work.
            But it's pretty good!
            I just ran across Moross.  That's always exciting.  Now I've got the liccups.  At least I am no longer walking AWAY from home and will soon be walking toward home.  Not that the sirection I am wlaking in will help if it suddenly starts pouring. 
            I SHOULD be working on Ballookey's mole, getting it ready to mail.  I think it is almost ready -- I hope I can mail it tomorrow.
            my cell phone just rang and it was Keith wanting to know if I wante him to come get me because it's thundering.  Nice of the sweet man to be concerned.  I told him I was near Marquette Scool on Canyon but wad going to keep walking (dodging between trash cans.) 
            It is thundering.  Not a drop of rain has fallen ye, but it could come, all at once. 
            One block to Rolandale.  I've walked 15 minutes, which is good, because Now I will have only 30 to walk later. 
            Someone's blue binky is lying in the dirt.  Too bad.  I'd pick it up and wash it if it were my kid's. 
            The cicadas are going nots.  I downloaded the pictures of the cicadas I too yesterday at R'dale and sent them to
            9:15 PM I am out on my second walk of the day.  Earlier, after I got picked up, it rained enormously hard.  Now it is slightly and hazy, but the moon is out, and stars.  But the trees are still dripping.
            Gtaham was in the car.  He wanted to have a family conference, and wanted me to be there (to support him)l  but when I found out what he wnated, besides $500, I couldn't go along with him.  He wants us to buy him a car and insure it.  The probablems with that are that 1) we don't have much money and have to support ourselves for the rest of our lives somehow and 2) It's illegal for him to drive one of our vcars.  He wanted to take the Blue freighter to begin with.  Well, he's specifically exxcluded from our ploicy befause of his DUI and arrests and speeding ickets.  Keith says he thinks it would cost $3,000 to add him back in.  and that would only be for the insurance.  There would be gas, maintnance and if we were to ctually buy him a car, , there would be the const of the car and if it were newer than the blue freighter, the insurance would be higher. 
            Because the sidewalks are badly floored I am walking in the road at ight in the dark. 
            Keith is depressed and I am somewhat angry.  When I was a kid, I did not expect everything to be handed to me on a silver platter.  Graham feels so entitled.  He doesn't seem to understand our financial constraints and how hard his father is already working to support him in school and the fact that because of his mother's death and other factors, including his own DUI to the tune of $10,000 we don’t have a big cushion to fall back on.
            If we have to keep dipping into my savings, we won't even have that.  We've taken a LOT out of it already.
            Tuesday, September 2, 2014, 4:33 PM I am headed for the post office on foot, delayed in my leaving by trying to get a box to return ML's Comcast modem.  And a few other problems.
            at 1:00 this afternoon, I was still in my nightgown because I had a horrible sleepless night last night and was up out of bed until around 2:45 (with no sleep at all untl after that) so then I was zombified, anyway, at around 1:00, I hear loud insistent banging.  I run downstairs and open the closet and put on Susan's blue raincoat like a bathrobe and go to the door--it's pouringoutsude, no one is at the door, but I see a van with it's door open standing in the rain, maybe it's Kristina's car--it is. I go to the back door and Gram is there, squinched under the little overhnd and balancing int he doorway trying to stay out of the rain.
            "I just gotta get Kristina's cell phone charger," he says. 
            "I take it you didn't go back to school yesterday."
            "No, I'm going now."
            He runs upstairs and back down, "Goodbye forever," he says.
            "I hope not FORever," I say and he is gone.  I take off my coat and hang it up, close and lock the front door.
            Now I am going to finally mail the mole.  The one I've had since June or maybe before. 
            It rained all morning, hard hard hard hard.  Now it is it sunny.  There are leaves down on the sidewalk, yellow leaves.
            Also green leaves and branches.
            ML called and was very confused about Dr. appointments.
            I talked to her a long time.  TRying to straighten things out.  Not sure I acceeded.
            A shiny gold motorcooter, a big ne, driving by a black woman, has music really loud and is stopped in the street bear me.    I wish I had a spy camera. 
            Now I am in line at the PO, a fairly long line, but it suddenly moves up about 4 people.  It's cool in here.
            I get out my decorated envelope.  A lady standing near me asks if I bought it like that or if I did it--when I tell her I did it she says it's very creative..
            4:56 PM I am off again like turd of hurtles.    Walking out and away for another 6 minutes or so, so that by the time I get home, I'll have walked 15 minutes.  The traffic is busy on Mack and this isn't my favorite time or place to walk, but I finally mailed the mole. 
            I was at 14:55 at the PO and the distance to the next stop along Mack which is Jo-Anne Fabrics, seems horribly far and at the same time tempting to stop and buy myself some little treat so I tun on some side street, but even here the traffic is terrible. 
            The football players are practicing on the field next to where I am walking and the whistle keeps blowing it's making me tense and nervous. 
            I just want to go home, but I keep walking.
            I walk past tons of oniony chivy things.  And something very sweet, a cloud of nectar.  Now it is time to go back, but instead, I turn on another side street, hoping to get away from the grinding traffic, ths shouts, the whistles, 
            I let out a long breath.  It is quieter here, though I can still hear the constant shistles and shouts of the coach.  Boy am I glad I don't have to do that!
            On the next street , though, I will have to turn back, because the street I ma on is curving away from where I need to to go next.
            EXCEPT that the next street, Belanger, (hi John Bellinger) has no outlet.  How do I get myself into these fixes? 
            The next road, Calvin, appears to go through.  It is still quiet here, I can no longer hear the coach yelling and whistling.  But now dogs are frantically barking at me when all I am doing is walking past.  I am headed back toward Mack and the mass of rush-hour traffic.  I would have wlaked earlier, but I got hung up trying to help Keith with ML's comcast modem etc.
            He's hungry and anxious for dinner.  I told him to defrost some fish because I am maing Bouillabaisse. 
            I come out by the flower shop, and near the post office,  Ironically, the flower shop has hedge bindweed growing in their hedges.  Past the Blufin Sushi.  Past the lock and key stoe. 
            Because of the work on Mack, the traffic is worse than usual.  It's narrowed t a single lane on either side and no parking. 
            I walk through puddles.  Trees drip on my, but the sun is hot and the cicadas are going.
            Past the cleaners and Jagged Fork.  One of the guys from Village market asks me where the thrift store is and I put my finger to my lip and look stupid. 
            "You don't know" he says, "okay, no problem."  Thrift store?  What thrift store.  Should I know?
            Past Carlisle Law, I see a store   It's a resale store.  I tur around and point it out to the cute guy from Village.
            Wednesday, September 3, 2014, 4:20 PM I am walking backwards on the same sidewalk I was walking on yesterday, along Mack, past the resale store, past the jagged fork toward the post office.  And the traffic is all backed up because of the construction.  Keith was trying to be nice by suggesting that he drive me to the store and take home the food and put it away so I could walk directly from Village, but what he doesn't understand is I have timed all my routes from home, not from Village, and I don't like walking on Mack during rush hour.  And walking home, one way, would screw up my timing also.  I am tempted to just walk home, be he seems so sad that I don't to upset him, especially when he is trying to be nice, so I walking along Mack with the idea of walking the long route.  The problem is that since I rode to the store, the long route will be a little short unless I do something to lengthen it. 
            Oh well, I will, by the time I reach home, have walked 40 minutes or so. 
            I did another painting in Aya's mole last night, one of the fish swimming out of the aquarium.  Tomorrow, I have Brian Powers.  I will bring that painting and there is my visit with the girls (or their visit with me) and Graham's manipulating us to give him a car to talk about.  And his missing his first day of class.  And all the pressured on Keith. 
            I am crossing the road on a walk light and a woman rolls down her window and says, “I am sorry,” twice.  I have no idea what she is talking about.  I finally realize she's blocking the cross walk.  I smile and say that's okay, maybe a little uncertainly, because I'm not even sure that's what she means.
            When I get to Jo-Anne fabrics, I’ve walked 115 minutes.  I go inside and look at the art supplies.  Keith may have wanted to drive me to Village to get me home sooner, so I want to stay long.  I have to push the stop button on my stopwatch FIVE times to get it to stop.  I end up buying some Loew-Cornell fine point pens for $5.99.  When I leave the store, I peep around the corner and a mail truck is hurtling at me.  He stops and waves me to cross, so I cross, but I didn't want to cross, because that means I am walking n the wrong side of the road. 
            The traffic of course is bad. 
            But now I am in Moross, headed for Chalfonte, and the traffic is bad here, but the sidewalk is far from the road.  Not far enough, but farther than usual.
            I want to be working on a novel rather than all this nothing drivel.
            Or a Cowbird story or a poem.  The problem with a Cowbird story is that writing the story is only the first step.  Then, there is posting it, making illos, editing and re-editing and editing yet again.  I suppose it is good experience, but then there is reading everyone else's stories.  Which is OK, too, but it all takes time away from my novels, my books for Frankie and my other projects.
            Cowbird is NOT my life.
            It occurs to me that there is no lettuce or spinach for salad--maybe some old romaine from tacos?  I stopped buying spinach because it was so crappy I ended up throwing much of it away. 
            I feel kind of like lying down.
            I feel kind of depressed.
            I feel a little overwhelmed and low on energy.
            I see a girl (young woman?) on a bright candy-apple red motor scooter with a side car and a kid in the side car.  They are both wearing helmets. 
            The cicadas are buzzing and whining.
            Loudly.
            I am reading That book I won by Leslie Stella.  I'm in bad shape.  It's called Permanent Record.  I suppose I could write a book review.  But I'd prefer to wait until I finish it.
            I could write a book review on Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly.  It's been sitting on my desk waiting for me to review it.
            *            *            *            * EJ end journal
            *            *            *            * Begin letter to Tom
            Thursday, September 4th, 2014, 2:12 PM
            Dear Tom,
            Thank you for you nice long letter and the book.  Is that a loan, a book you want back?
            I am over at Pier Park talking a walk, and I just got grabbed.  Apparently, I just walked into a filming scene.  I got escorted around.  I asked what they were filming and was told "I just can't say."  Reminds me of when Keith, Gail and I went to the old Zoo on Belle Isle and walked into a filming scene, which was "Real Steel." We thought it was some third rate movie, but we went to see it and it was better than we expected. 
            Anyway, here I am at Pier Park.  It's very windy and the wind is blowing my hair as I walk out toward the water.  To the water.  It looks like the ocean, Lake St Clair, in a way, all that water, and you can't see across to the other side.  There's a huge freighter approaching, a great Lakes Freighter and they are often ocean going freighters. 
            It doesn't smell like ocean though.  It's a little similar, but no salt smell, and not as strong.  There's a fishy, plant note to the odor. 
            And there are the boats, the clanging of metal, the halyards, the furled sails, and the motorboats pounding along bumping on the waves, and the sun bright off the water.  I'm at the pier.  It's not a marina, but all the rich people have their boats here.  Now that Labor Day has come and gone, the boats will start disappearing.
            I walk here every Thursday, through the park-like area, up and down the pier and docs, across the beach and past the pool.  The waves are slapping on the pier, the buoys bending and bobbing and swaying in the wind.
            There aren't as many gulls or swallows around as usual, maybe because the wind is is so strong today. 
            There's a muskrat that lives here.  He has a home in the rock scree under the docks at the end of the pier.  And ducks, today there are ducks, and foam along the pier from the battering of the waves.
            The big freighter is getting closer.  Little flotillas of green-billed ducks swim away as I approach, ad then back into the shelter of the pier.  They might want to swim into the harbor, which is little calmer.
            From here, looking south, I can see the silhouettes of the sailboats at the next pier.  Looking in the other direction, north, I can see the tower of the Grosse Pointe Yacht club. 
            In spite of the wind, it’s a little hazy on the lake.  I take a shot of the freighter and a gull and a guy fishing. 
            I think you might like it here, although getting here would definitely be a journey.  It takes us two days to drive Maine and two days to drive back.
            Or you could fly.
            Once you get here, you could stay at the Rolandale House, for free.  And you would have the house to yourself.  Well, to yourself and whoever came with you.  I'm not sure how long we can afford to keep the house.  Our expenses have been skyrocketing, with Graham's DUI costing us $10,000 and his tuition and rent and books and food and clothes etc, and with ML, Keith's Mom newly in assisted living, we have her expenses, and Keith's brother, Paul --Keith is his guardian, he's handicapped.  ML used to take care of him, but is in no position to do that any more at 92 and getting confused and living in assisted living without a car or license.  Keith is working sometimes 4o hour weeks and sometime 58 or more-hour weeks, and he will be 69 in October.  He's being dragged down by all the expenses and pressures.  So like I said, we may have to sell the Rolandale house, although we may not get much for it.  Or else we may have move there and sell the house we're living in.
            Meanwhile, Keith is mowing three lawns, Moran, Rolandale and his Mom's, which is huge.  And taking care stuff at 5 houses, Moran, R’dale, his Mom's house (she only recently vacated it, that is moved out--it isn't empty), her new apartment, graham's apartment and Paul's apartment.
            I am sitting up on the observation deck in the breeze.  My hair is down and getting tangled by the wind.  That freighter is much closer now, so close that I can't get the whole thing in the camera easily. 
            I have some good news, news that I am excited about.  I hope it's OK that I tell you.  I am sure you won't post it, but if you share it with Rita and Rosy, please ask them NOT to post it to facebook or anywhere yet.  (Although by the time you get this letter, Erin herself may have posted it, but as of now, she doesn't want it shared.  She is pregnant.  YAY!  I'm going to be a grandma again.
            My little grandson Frankie, who is 3 1/2 and will be 4 in November, is such a joy.  He is so smart and cute and talented and wonderful.  I'm not prejudiced or anything, ha ha ha. 
            Sara, Erin and Frankie just recently came to visit us and stayed at the Rolandale house.  It was Frankie's 1st visit and the girls' third visit.  I was so happy to see them, but they could not stay long.  They arrived Thursday night, stayed Friday and Saturday, and left Sunday morning.  We went to the Zoo on Friday and to Pier Park twice on Saturday.  The zoo was a bit overwhelming.  It's a very big Zoo.
            Graham asked us to buy him a car at around 9 PM on Labor Day--so that he could drive to school in Kalamazoo.  He had classes the next day.  There was no way we could buy him a car at that hour, and we could lend him one of ours because he is specifically excluded from our car insurance, because of his DUI.  Because Keith refused to drive him (Keith gets up at 4:15 and he would not have arrived home until 2:30 AM), Graham missed his first day of classes.  He chose to come home from school without making arrangements to get back.
            He is now going to Kalamazoo Valley Community College--we're assuming he flunked out of Western Michigan.  They don't give the parents the grades any more and Graham never tells us anything.
            Needless to say Keith is very upset about all this, as I am, too.  Keith had just written Graham a $500 check for his rent and when he refused to give Graham the car, Graham went off in a huff without the check.
            He seems to think we are wealthy and doesn't realize that Keith gave up his vacation and is working extra hours to help keep Graham in school.  As the stepmother, I don't want to come down to hard on Graham, but he's pissing me off treating Keith like that.
            It makes me a little sorry for the wretched way I treated the folks when I was a teenager and in my early 20s.
            I suffer from terrible insomnia.  It may hereditary (sometimes is), as Mom had it too.  Insomnia kills brain cells and can lead to dementia.  I'm afraid I'm already suffering from it. 
            I try to meditate nearly every day, but often fall asleep or go into a dream-like state.  Only rarely do I have what feels like a remotely good meditation.  Also, I am only doing T’ai chi occasionally, I keep wanting to do it more get swept up in the trivia of daily life.
            Graham drinks a lot and smokes pot.
            Keith is trying not to drink because of his health issues and not drinking makes him very sad.
            I am walking past the gardens, the rose bushes, the lavender, the black-eyed susans.  The kids are back in school, so it's pretty quiet here, even though it's now 3:00.  They may start showing up soon.  I hear some creaming, but it's probably the little kids who don't go to school yet.
            There is not a single kid on the beach.  A few lone pails and a football, but no people.  One little kid is coming out of the locker room in bathing suit, so she maybe down here soon.  The wind and waves have piled up more lake weed than usual.  I walk along the beach in my sandals, wishing I were in bare feet but the beach is short and I have a lot to do.  It's not like the long beaches in Maine.
            A little boy pulls on a stalk of ornamental grass at the edge of the beach and breaks and he falls on his butt.  "Are you okay, Jeff?" his sister asks.  She's a year or two older. Still very little.
            I walk to the very end of the park.  It's not a big park, and the only way I can walk for 45 minutes is to walk on the piers and docks.  I skipped one of the long docks because I was eager to get to the beach whole it was empty. 
            The little kids come over to talk to me.  They are waving sticks and grass stems (long ones).  The little girl tells me that Jeff is her friend, not her brother and that she also has a cousin named Jeff.  They rattle on and on until I suggest they climb the "mountain", which us a huge pile of sand on the beach.  Meanwhile, the other little girl is out in the waves with a woman I would guess is her grandmother.  (I'd better not make assumptions, since I was wrong about the one little girl being Jeff's sister.)
            I am working on a book for Frankie, which I am writing in rhyme and painting the illustrations.  I am hoping to get done by his birthday (November 7).
            I am glad to hear news of Rosy and Jaison.  I hope you will give them my love.  Also your sweet grandsons, my grandnephews.
            I hear from Tanya fairly regularly.  She called me to talk about T'ai Chi, and seemed interested in learning it.  She also said she would like to come to Maine over Columbus day weekend and be there when we were there, if we were coming.  I hope we can come.  The last time I asked Keith about it, he said he thought we could still manage it.  He hates taking time off from work because it's losing a day's pay for him.  If he doesn't go on vacation, he gets paid twice, cause they pay him to work and still give him his vacation pay, IF I understand correctly.  I was always so eager to have vacation when I worked that I took it anyway.
            We had a deal like that with sick leave, if we didn't take any, we got a bonus.  What that mean was people coming in sick and infecting other people in order to get the bonus.
            Stupid.
            Scott Carter also mentioned wanting to come and visit you, he really likes you guys.  He wants to maybe bring Vanessa along, if I understood what he said. (?)  He has been feeling very down alone, isolated, depressed (and suicidal.)
            I walk past the little kids' fancy sprinkler park.  Frankie enjoyed that when he was here.  Took him a while, though, to get into it. 
            Well, I've walked 46 minutes and am headed back to my car.  I am going to the health-food store next.
            I left the car windows open and parked the car in the shade to help avoid that getting into an oven situation.
            Pier Park is a "gated" private park with a guard, and I am parked near the guardhouse.  We pay for it in our taxes rather than as a membership (or we wouldn't be coming).
            3:31 PM, Now I am walking toward the heath-food store, which is kind of sucky compared to the nice ones you guys have.  I don't think people in Grosse Pointe or nearby Detroit care about organic foods etc.  I get some fermented cabbage, some unsweetened coconut-hemp milk and Lundberg rice chips which I want to eat with fermented salsa.  I am trying fermented foods because I’ve read so many good things about them and theyseem to be helping.
            6:14 PM, now I am over at Rolandale in my studio office.  I have to come here to download the Psion upon which I was writing this letter.  Now I am going to email the letter, so far, to myself over at Moran because I have to reread your letter and make sure that I covered everything I wanted to say in response to the letter.  Then I will print it and mail it.
           
            *            *            *            * ELT End letter Tom
            *            *            *            * Book Review, Revolution
            Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly
            I so totally loved A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly, that I was actually a little afraid to readRevolution.  I was afraid I might be disappointed, because A Northern Light was a hard act to follow. (I totally loved it!)  I was pleased that this book was so different, and I loved the beginning.  I was immediately absorbed in the issues of (), the protagonist.  Her going to paris with her estranged father seemed like one more difficulty for a girl who was already in trouble in multiple ways.  When () found and began reading Alexandrine's diary, I was really bummed out.  I wanted to know what was going to happen to ().  For me, the diary, unlike ()'s story, was a slow starter.  I had much more trouble empathizing with Alex than with ().  That may be a shortcoming on my part.  Evenually, however, I got sucked into that story, though I kept wishing for more of ()'s story.  I hate reviews with spoilers, so I would prefer not to say too much about the plotline, but I do have to say that what happened in the catacombs upset and bothered me, especially when the authored seemed to refute what I suspected was the reason or cause of it.  The story did resolve itself in the end in a pleasing and acceptable way.  I liked the book a lot, but not as much as A Northern Light.  I would still recommend it highly.
            The book made me interested in the French Revolution and also in music and I tried to look up Malherbeau's Fireworks symphony, to listen to it, only to discover it was part of the fiction, sadly.  Or gladly.  I am reading another book with references to the French Revolution and that's helpful.  I enjoy books where I learn something if it's not shoved down my throat like codliver oil.  At one point during the book, I was so excited about all the incredible things that Jennifer Donnelly seemed to know and weave into the story that I told me husband she was genius, and was wishing I could write like that.
            *            *            *            *
            Silly story idea (for Robert);  The hangnail from hell.
            *            *            *            * end book review.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

20140809 Walking Home from R'dale via CVS

20140809 Walking Home from R'dale via CVS
            NOTE:  get free 8 x 8 book offered by Choice privileges before coupon expires.  Find an record expiration date.
            Saturday, August 9, 2014, 6:54 PM I am walking home from Rolandale, later than I meant to be because I had various issues.  Problems.  For one thing, and this was the last of a series of problems, I went to open a new file for my walk home and the card on the Psion was full.  I had already shut everything down after other annoying problems, and had to turn it all back on again to download the files from the card so I could use the Psion.  I won't even wastte my energy describing the other problems I had and dang it, I forgot to start my watch and forgot, worryiung about the time, to go home the long way.I still haven't started my watch and I am almost to Balduck Park.  It may take me about 5 minutes to get here, ut I almos totlaly missed the 15-minute leg up to Chester and Moon. 
            I need to calm down and get centered.  After a string of hassles makes m late, I tend to get somewhat frazzled.
            The cicadas are buzzing very loudly and the icecream truck is cranking out it's little ditty that startedDisappearing.   It's not particularly hot, either (I mean from the sound of the cicadas, you'd think it was nintey degrees.)  It's actually fairly cool. 
            The sun is low in the sky as the the season turns toward winter, and I am in the shade of the trees at Baalduck, and there's a breeze. 
            There are a lot of big shiny fancy cars parked along Balduck (nd a woman in an evening gown).  There is some event over on the othe3r side of the trees, but I cannot see what it is.
            I turn off the stright route hoe to walk to CVS and look for barrettes.  I should have gone there first, rather than Jo-Anne.  I'd like to arrange my walk so that it comes out to 45 minutes, but that will be difficult, since I already messed up twice..
            I walk under a catalpa tree, following two boys with a basketball.  I suddenly feel southern. 
            The reason I would like 45 minutes but not more than that to complete myw alk before I get without keeping Keith waiting for his dinner any longer than necessary.
            I walk through a huge cloud of strong, skunk pot snoke, drifting out of one of houses behind VCS.  CVS!
            A thin black man in a car-racing cap says good evening to me, and I return the good wishes.  It's a pleasant evening, I say, and he says, it sure is, ma'am, aand I say have a good day, he he says, you do the same.  I feel bad that he called me ma'am (I didnt' call him sir.)
            I have arrived at CVS.
            I look at the Goody hairclips and barretes but find none I likel  There's a second display, equally feeble.  I leave empty hnded and disappointed.
            Now I amw alking through the bank parking .ot with the goal of extending my walk bu crossing Mack and walking down one of the side streets and then around.  BUt if the wrong side street, it might shorter rather than longer.  I've only walked 23 minutes, according to my watch.  Of course, I forgot to turn it on, probably for 5 minutes, but that's still only 28.
            There are some bushes in flower here that are related to hibiscus, but I forget their name.  I hate forgetting things. 
            I am at the corner of Webster and Tourraine. 
            Not streets I know well.
            I think I am coming out by the Christian Science Church, which will take me maybe ten minutes to get home (once I get there.)  That may be good enough.  Or close to it.
            I've passed a number of gardens filled with achiacea and sweet pears and roses and black-eyed susans.  Hostas, too.
            No, I'm not at the Christina Science Church, but at Richard.  I mean Brownell.  Which is not as good, closer too home.  Well I'll head home and see how I do. 
            What I really wanted to do is spend my walking time working on my novel, or some other way doing something useful, but I'm stymied agin. 
            I hate talking about how long it will take me to get home and other meaningless things when I could be doing something useful, but now I am at the 67 and a half minute mark, approximately.  I've walked 32 minutes, so that would be about 39 1/2 minutes when I et home and if I add 5 for the time the watch was off, I'll be 30 seconds short of my 45 minutes.  Of course, I don't know if it was excatly 5 minutes that I missed.  Oh well, I can't believe it matters that much, I walked up and down the stair at both houses and out to the garden and so on, probably good enough.  I'd walk further, so I knew for sure, if I wasn't worried about getting dinner started.
            I see two people walking by, a mna and a woman, and I think about the novel i thought I might work on in November.  I am thinking of cannabalism, of what would happen in peacable neighborhood if there was some catastrophe and people were starving.  They might kill each other to steal their food or even to eat each other, if they were desperate enough.  Our being old and somewhat enfeebled (compared to young people) is a disadvantage.  I do not know if aresenal would be of of any use protecting ourselves. 
            Maybe I am walking slowly, but I have now walked almost 400 minutes.
            Nowember is creeping up fats and I've done almost no work on my outline for my novel.
            Sunday, August 10, 2014, 5:58 PM i am walking home from Rolandale again.  I just did  avery dumb thing.  I asked keith to drive me to R'dale and was going to a little cleaning and a little work around the house and maybe a little writing. 
            He waited for me to go up the driveway, close the gate and disappear before he frove away, and I reached for y keys and they weren't there.  I ran after him yelling, wait, stop, but I guess he couldn't hear me.  He had the radio on.  I didn't have my keys because I didn't load my powets, duh.  So now I am walking home.  If I decide to go back to R'dale, I will load my pockets and drive my own car.  Not because is his fault or anything, it clearly isn'tl it's my fault.  But I couldn't drive my car without my keys.
            So hear I am, at least remembering to go home the long way.  I'm walking home again and have 40 minutes at my disposal to work on my novel.  Or on any useful project.  I'd prefer to work on my novel  But I ned to figure what's going to happen. 
            Oddly, the one thing DO have in my pocket is my cell phone.  That's because I'd intended to pyt it on the charger, but forgot.
            We stayed in bed late, had a late breakfast, a very late lunch, and I guess we'll be having a late dinner.  I worked on removing the gutter form one of the paintings I did for the book I am making for Frankie, Frankiue and Noh have a party. I was hoping to finish the book and have it in hand when Frankie comes to visit, perhaps on the 23, but it seems unlikely that I will be able to manage it.  The problem is, it's in less than two weeks, and they probably need a week at least to get it ready and mail it, which gives me less than a week to completely finish it, which, with everything I have to do, seems unlikely. 
            There are two sets of things I have to do, no more than two, really.  I have to get all tha art ready, I have to get all the text (poems) ready, and I have to do the layout.  I have to evaluate how many pintining remain to be done, and make a decision whether to even try.  I have to remove the gutter from the picture sthat were donen over two pages.  This is slow tedious work.  And some of the poems need to be written or revisedm  A further problem, wich I cannot deal with now, is that Frankie is wearing smething differnt in every picture.  If or when I send it to a publisher agent, or put it on one of the book things where you can sell your own books, I probbaly have to have Frankie wearing the same thing i every picture except maybe thhe last one (PJs)  But that I do not have to worry about now. 
            That's quite an undertaking.  It would be quite an undertaking even if I had nothing else to do.  But I do.  One of the reasons I wanted to go to Rolandle was to clean for compnay.  So, I have that to do, at two houses, both of which are bad. 
            And ML wants me to drive up to get her and take her to her house to "poke around."  That will essentially be a whole day gone.  She wants to do it this week, which will take time from my prep for getting the book ready.  But if we waited and did it next week, that is, the week S and E may be arriving, I'll be in a frenzy trying to get ready for them. 
            After they leave, we have to get ready for Sarah and Steve arriving on September 10.
            None of that would be that big a deal if we were more natirally tidy.
            We're not..
            I hope when I get home, Keith hasn't gone out for a bike ride and locked the house!
            I suppose I could try to call him.
            SO, the first thing I need to when I get home is evaluate what remains to be done on the book.  That is, Frankie and Noah have a party.  Then talk to ML about when she wants me to take her to to her house.  The ideal time for me would be on the cusp between finishing the and orderiing the book, if that's feasible, and the frenzy of prep.  THere may be some overlap there.
            To further complicate things, I'd like to take Athina to Cranbrook before she leaves for college, if she is leaving for college. 
            I am walking along Balduck park and there are parties, picnics and ballgames going on and cars with hurtfully loud music bass thundering so loud it thrums in my chest and it's icky.
            I will be glad to get away
            SO OK, step one, look at the stroyboard for Frankie nd  Noah have a aprty and determine if I am going to attempt that or not, step 2, call ML. 
            Sara and Frankie and Erin may not even be coming.  But I hope they are coming. 
            Also I want to write Marie Rivet and tell her to stay two nights so we'd have at least a day to show her around Detroit.
            'm feeling reluctant to call Keith warn him I'm on my way home and please don't lock the doors.  The reason I am reluctant is because we give Graham such shit bout forgetting his keys and I would prefer not to put myself in the position if being as careless and forgetful as Graham seems tto be.  On the other hand, if I get hhome and I'm locked out, that could be a serious problem if no one comes home for a while.
            I am out of Detroit and into GPFs.  I am relieved to be away from the loud music and the kids riding and running in the raod and cars zooming close to them.  Here it is quieter and that's OK with me.  The kids walk on the sidewalk and the drivers are generally more caustious and considerate.  Generally.  There are nice people in Detroit proper and idiots in GPFs. 
            Other differences: almost no trash here and the houses and yards are kept up better and there are no boarded houses, at last on the streets I normally wak on.  The area is more affluent. less povery.  The black people who move in here mostly behave more quietly. 
            I hate to say this, but I have to use the bathroom, and I sure hope Keith is home and the door is unlocked.
            If Keith is not home--duh--I was thinking I'd drive back to Rolandale, but I can neither drive nor get in the house without my keys, duh!  His car is here, but he may have gone out on his bike.
            Monday, August 11, 2014,8:19 PM  I am out walking.  It rained hard all day and has just stopped, but the trees re dripping and the sidewalks are flooded.  I do not know if it's a lull or if it will say stopped long enough to walk.  The light is funny, kind of greenish, and air is full of fluttering bugs, some kind of ephermera petera, maybe.  It's getting greener and greener.  aand yellower. 
            I am wearing a raincoat and my widest brimmed lat, a felt hat  acott gavce me.  I was walking on the sidewalks, but they are so flooded I have moved to the streets.  Someone is coming down the street twoard me, so I step int the grass and water squelches into my choes.
            I read an article in the Times that running as little as 5 minutes a day could extend your life 3 year (plus hopefully improve the qulaity of it.) so I have a new goal of running 5 minutes a day as part of my 45 minutes.  My funning isn't very fast, but if I keep at it it may get faaster.
            It's drizzling anbd getting dark. 
            Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 8:21 PM, I am walking home from R'dale the long way.  Like I did yesterday, or, I guess that was the dsay before, but who's counting.  It's been rining again.  Thunder, lightning, downpour.  The tech center was closed, Keith was late to work becase of flooding and stalled cars blocking the road and then had to work late and the tech center may be closed also tomorrow when the shit hits the fan, and he may have to work late again and I have to take ML to her eye doctor and to her house and then I have my writing group/class at Ewald. 
            I am feeling agitated and probably will not be able to sleep.  I mean, I haven't been sleeping for the last couple nights, anyway, and I wasn't even agitated.  I'm upset with myself because I have too much to do and not enough time.  It would help if I slept at night, bit a lot of the fault is my own.  Like wanting to get Frankie's book done to have it for him when he coes.  That's probably a stupid goal and not really doable. 
            I need to order birthday gifts for the other grandkids and water the plants at R'dale and clean both houses for company and  and and and.
            Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I was up pinting the lastest picture for Frankie and Noah ahbe a party.  Tonight, at dinner, I apinted just a little bit more of it.  But then I went up and started walking on Disocvery at Little Hog Island which I want to bring to class tomorrow night.  Chapter 2.
            What I'd like to do right now is work on TUB, Taming Uncle Beast, but I have't figured out what's happening next yet.
            I walk through a cloud of marijuana smoke at the corner of Rolandale and Canyon.
            Rhe crickets are singing.
            I rememnered that I wanted to run 5 minutes a day so I ran.  I had to eep pushing myself, because otheresie, I slow down to a walking apce even though I'm supoosedly fogging.  It was a little easuer than uesterdau I have the wrong shoes on. 
            I saw a firefly.  I walk past the dead birds of dead bird alley.  It's getting dark in Detrout ,, and after dark, it doesn't seem as safe as it does during the day.
            Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 1:38 PM I am at the eye doctor with ML.  They are testing her periferal vision.  She is supposed to stare at an ornage light and click a button when she sees the white lights in her periferal vision.  They turned the lights off as I was writing this and it got pitch dark in here.  Now they are doing the left eye.  She has to wear a patch on the other eye.
            Then she had an EFG vision test and then two eye pressure test.  She says, "Oh, my poor neck, it doesn't like to be shoved around.  They were forcing her neck forward. 
            2:20 PM Dr. Valise says her eyes are about the same..
            Basically what Dr. Vaise thiinks is that there has been never damage which can never be repaired or recovered.
            Thursday, August 14, 2014, 1:09 PM I am sitting in Brian Power's waiting room.  I ran out of the house thinking I was late, and didn't remember to bring him a zucchini, which we have a plethora of.  I didn't have time to shoer or do my hair or wash the breakfast dishes.  I was working on  chapter of Disappearing.  It was the one where Terry relizes she's "disappearing" while still alive and working and married to and living with Claude.  I think it needs more work still, but it is better than it was.  I think it is central to the book.  Thus the title.  Terry chooses a different way to disappear.
            What I really did, the real me, is to disappear into myself, and into my life and spend more and more time away from Pater, legitamately.
            So meanwhile bck a the ranch, it's a hurry up and wait game.  I am still waiting for bP.  He came through from outside into his offoce with cell phone in hand and lit up.
            2:20 PM, I am at Pier Park where I plan to walk for 30 minutes, then walk 15 more at home to VM, but first, if I can remember, get some sauerkraut.  I'm not sure if K is working late, he called, ut I forget what he said, or I think he called, maybe that was yesterday. 
            I should walk extra today.  I didn't walk at all yesterday, or do any exercises.
            I got an email on my cell phone while I was talking to BP.  Probably just junk, soemthing from gmail.
            I wanted to talk about Claude, Peter, Bruce, Chuck, my father, Keith, me.  But BP got off on trying to sll me on something called UMBOUND which was written up a couple days ago in the NY Ties.  I already said I'd check into it, but he kept on blabbing about, wasting my limited time.  I worked so hard on chapter 5 of Disappearing this morning, which is what I wanted to talk bot with BP.  I did read it to him and we did talk, briefly about4, before going of on a diatribee about unbound.  I think he thinks it might help me.
            I need to help myself.
            I am not saying there is no chnace that unbound will help me.  But if prople are donating money to read the work of authors, those authors better be more confident than I am about being able to produce.  A COMPLETED novel, that is.  I can produce writing, but so fat, I have failed to produce a fully completed novel.  I have some first draft novels.  I even have a tenth draft novel, Froh Haven.  But ebven that, my most nearly completed novel, needs more work. 
            I would like to keep Sissy at age 11.  I dont' really want to get into sex and romance at her age.
            So last night, I fell asleep wondering who, if anyone, killed Billy Owens in Discovery Little Hog Island, and this morning I got up and spent the enture morning working on Disappearing.  Both of those novels are somewhere around 2/3 finished in first draft.  Each of them has a sticking point.  (or more than one.)  They may actaully be half or less than half done, depending on how much has to be deleted or left out or changed.  And then there is Death Angel, which is also more than 3,4 done int he firdst draft version.  I wrote all the way to the end, but left out some of the middle.  I left out the red herrings.  I may want to restructure it anyway, but it is probably closer to being dne that the other two.  And then there is TUB, Taming Uncle Beast, which I wish I were working on right now instead of thinking ABOUT the novels.
            I think I should finish Frankie and Noah have a party, in first draft form, and get it printed in time for his birthday.
            I am sitting at the end of the long curved breakwater pier, the wind bloing my hair.  I do not want to sit long, as I have too much to do.
            It is a cool, crisp, clear fall-like day, windy and bright with scattered clouds.
            I wish I could relax.  I always feel so pressured, to go get suarekraut, to go to the store get food for dinner, to order gifts for the grandkids, sneakers for Rachel, to find adequte beds and bedding for Sara, Erin and Frankie, to clean bother houses, to get enough exercise, to get not only today's walking in, but yesterday's, to get my various projects done, eg Frankie and Noah have a Party, to investigate unbound, to finish my novels, to write a poem occasionally and send some out, ((three kids, about 9, 10 years old, motor by in an inflatable raft.  One says, pointing at an empty space near me, that's our parking place.)), I want to honor my art, my writing, prose, poetry, children's books, my husnad and our relationship, my children and grnchildren, my friend and myself.  I think I have enough love to go around, but there no longer seems to be eough time and energy.  The timelessness of youth is gone.  I feel the pressure of mortality leaning on me.  That adds another burden, the burden to lose weight and be as healthy as possible in order to have more time to accomplish some of my goals.  Being overly anxious abbout it seems counterproductive in my case, because I respond to anxiety by eating. 
            As I walk, I write a new section of Disappearing.  I sit on the observation deck and finish it.  I am happy to have written something for one of my novels, even if it isn't the one I am currently working on.
            The horizon is a black line which I'd say wwas ruler straight, but which curves of course.  It looks straight though, if stare at it in any one place.  Level. Water, at any oen place is "level," but for how far on either side is it "level?"  CB with photo?
            It's after 3.  I strain my brain to try to rmember if Keith is coming home at 3:00 or not.
            But I can’t remember.
            I wish I knew.  (Much later—he was home and we walked tot eh store together.)
            There was a sign saying the beach was closed, but there are still kids in the water.  I was going to wlak along it, thining no one would be there, theyd all be in the ool..  It'sa  coolish day.  But kids are kids and no one seems to be stopping them. 
            I feel sad to walk along the beach with shoes on  I'd like to feel the wet sand under my bare feet.   But I need to leave, sjop for food, see if Keith water the plan5ts at R'dale, work on my painting, clean.  I wish I knew if he were home or not.
            Why can't I remember what if anything was said about that.
            One of the people on me beach is a tanned attractive older teenage boy, like 18 or 19 years old, sitting right at the edge of the water, splshing and mumbling to himself.  He might be absolutley normal and just in a silly mood, or he maight be retarded.  He's very good looking but not acting like kids his age are supposed to act.  And he's alone.
            There are adults on benches and I wonder if one is his guardian or parent, or whether he's a normal kid just having a moment, for whatever reason.
            He has black curly hair, a nice smile, (but he doesn't look at me).  Autistic?  Why do I want to label him?  Because he's not acting normal, whatever that means.  I am curious.  (Nosy?)
            Back at the car, I've walked 35:44.
            Plan to walk to VM later.  When I get home.
            I alsow onder about the men in the admissios booth at PP--they all seem to be retirement age men--are they volunteering?  Getting paid?  Why do they do it?
            When I get to better helath, the road is full of parked cars.  Phew there is one spot left where I don't have to feed a meter!
            *            *            *            * EJ End Journal
            To put in chapter 5 of Disappearing, (the chapter may need to be moved though)
            **            *            *            * Disappearing
            "You should have let me go first," Claude said to Terry on the way home, so that they wouldn't compare my work to yours."
            "They always have an opening act before the main event," Terry said, reassuriny.  You know, like how Foxy loxy opens for the Grateful Dead."
            "But everyone seemed to think that you were the main event and I was an afterthought," Claude said.
            "No, no, I heard a number of people saying how visionary your work was, how it was both grounded and untethered, how it combined the best of the psychelic and shamanistic cultures."
            "I heard people saying it was mysogynistic, abusive, and cruel," Claude said.  "That's what you really think, isn't it?"
            "I really think it is both grounded and untethered, and combines the best of the psychelic and shamanistic cultures. It's deep and dreamlike . . ."
            " . . .  and macho and mysogynistic."           
            "Claude, I didnt' say that."
            "No, but you were thinking it."
            "Even you can't read minds," Terry said, very quietly.
            "What did you say?"
            "Nothing.  I said absolutely nothing.  My lips were sealed."
            Terry jerked the car to the side, almost ran into a parked car, and then jerked it back.  Terry was flung against the Claude and then against the passenger side door.  She clutched the "oh-shit handle," clamped her lips shut, and held on.  But Claude drove like a little old lady the rest of the way home.
            *            *            *            * ED end disappearing


            *            *            *            * TUB Taming Uncle Beast
            what happened last?  What's going to happen next?  Collect all bits and paste into master Ms!
            *            *            *            *