Within a couple hundred yards

of our house...

this is what we

have to remind us

that it's good to be alive.

Play

Cat and I went walking this morning...
and we enjoyed it so much...
that we went out walking again...
this afternoon.

Lunch

Miso soup
Seaweed and cucumber salad
Spicy Hamachi roll w/ salmon roe
Hamachi sushi (2 pieces)
Here, just around the block from my office,

but all the while i was thinking of sitting in an igloo chewing fur boots.

River

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

Joni Mitchell

heart worms

i haven't stopped moving for six days.
while i sleep, nautical miles pass by,
deep sea sleep moves over my eyelids
and when i wake, i am somewhere. nowhere
i have been before. on land, we shuffle along.
numbers, hometowns, occupations define us,
not names. i have no name that translates:
catalina del norte. cattle call and we move again,
take in the sights (zapata slept here.) dogs lick them-
selves under small palms with bits of plastic
blown in their hair. eaten from the inside out,
their hearts chewed apart, not like mine,
not figuratively. moving again, rock-a-bye
baby sleep with me. sleep and i will hold
your hesitant half-smile in the palms
of my hands.

Cruises

Suck.

If I didn't have my kids here, I would drink my way through the next 4 days. Of course it would cost me about a hundred dollars a day. Even with those two deterents, I am still seriously considering it as an alternative to throwing myself overboard.

What I wouldn't give to get laid.

on the good ship lollypop

cruise ship observations:

people on cruises eat too much

people cruise in pairs, couples, tandem

people are unpleasant no matter how pleasant their surroundings

example

trepidation

driving back from the company function. a dozen people who do what i do and a couple of people above them buying them $27 entrees, wine and cocktails. that kind of thing. long day. 15 hours in my favorite black suit. not one of the other 3 black suits hanging in the closet. i called cat on my way home and she asked should she have a few drinks lined up for me. it's a long drive. an hour. and there was the gift exchange. i got a sid vicious action figure and a starbucks gift card. there's your dichotomy.

i drove home thinking about razor blades and guard rails.

but when i got home i read about a dream i had. kisses first time like long held lovers. mouth on mouth after a short absence felt like forever. don't you know? just the words are so closer to real than escape.

john

when i was 15, one of the high school jocks, a senior, asked me to prom. i had just got my braces off, figured out what to do with my curley hair and i was working, so i had some decent clothes. but i think i got his attention because he could tell i was alone. he was 4 years older than me and knew everything, where i had yet to be taught. he would only beat me up if i didn't want to have sex or i told him i wanted to break up. after the first couple of months, that only happened every three or four months. i had 4 abortions in 2 years because pills made me so sick, i would throw them up. i always had bruises, usually just fingerprints around my throat because i got those even if i didn't do anything wrong. my mother says she didn't know, but i had my nose broken and the side of my face purple more than once. i think maybe she didn't want to know. after i graduated, i disappeared. i quit my job, packed my stuff up and went to stay with a friend who's family had moved to another part of the state. i made sure no one knew where i was because he always found me. he got bored and found some other girl. i got over it.

Practice

makes perfect.

iously.

mint chocolate chip.

Lost comes in so many flavors.
So does love.

Nightmares

When people ask- and it isn't very often anymore- I tell them I joined the army to see the world or fulfill some sense of civic duty. Neither of which is true. I joined the army so I could support this guy while he went to school. He got out the week I went in.

This picture was taken on Halloween, 1984, just a few weeks before I started basic training. Mark was a Ranger. He was 6'3" and could run jump climb make love laugh like a greek god. He had also seen combat in Grenada, sat in a hole all night with one of his best buddies, dead. He had nightmares, but he lived life bigger than anyone I ever met, before or since. He was the first man who was good to me. He did more for my sense of worth than anyone I've known. Looking back, I know he loved me. After I was in the army for 6 or 8 months, it became clear that Mark had things to take care of and being with me was not the highest on the list, so I broke off our engagement. I got married to someone else 6 weeks later and then Mark went back in the army. Within a year, he was broadsided while riding a motorcycle. He spent several weeks in a coma and has been in a wheelchair ever since. He has a wife and daughter and he's an attorney. We still email and sometimes talk. He's unhappy in his marriage, feels like he's searching for something and tells me I was his one true love.

And many times when I wake in the night and can't get back to sleep, I remember his nightmares and wonder what the fuck is wrong with this world.

because of where you hold your hand

i would love to feel,
to know, your puritan tendency.
table, floor, chair, abyss,
dove-tailed, the pieces find their
kindness (it doesn't hurt-til you make it hurt)
in a sturdy construct of quaker love.
smooth, marbled wood, grain fine as powder,
soft to touch as a woman's peace,
make a place at her breast to stay
a long slow time. on through to the other
side, imagine a way that is not. a road
less travelled, never cut, never cleared
waits for the culmination
of no expectation.

gift

Comes a time
when you're driftin'
Comes a time
when you settle down
Comes a light
feelin's liftin'
Lift that baby
right up off the ground.
Oh, this old world
keeps spinning round
It's a wonder tall trees
ain't layin' down
There comes a time.
N. Young

Ice

Boulder is a town with a lot of money. Downtown are upscale shops, attorneys, architectural firms and nearly every investment firm in the U.S. Boulder also has a laid back, casual attitude and dress code which means if you see a man in a suit he is absolutely, without a doubt, a stock broker. Today I was downtown sitting at a light adjacent to a beautiful new business building which has a small, seasonal ice rink in its plaza. There was a man skating comfortably around the ice with the ease you see in a hockey player. He had his hands in his pockets and he was wearing a very large halloween type afro wig as well as a nicely tailored business suit. It was below freezing, but he looked content. He must have been on his lunch hour.

It made me feel so alone. I watched him skate and I was struck with the realization that I need to find some company. I need a little sweetness beyond what my kids and friends offer. It is time for me to find a man to have dinner and a show and perhaps a romp with on a Friday night. This martyr shit needs to stop. I 'm not asking for much: time or effort or qualities. I don’t care what he looks like or does for a living. I don’t care what he weighs or how tall he is. He doesn’t need to have much time or money or social finesse. I would require a certain level of personal hygiene, I suppose. How hard could it be to find someone with a reasonable level of intelligence and a sense of humor? And he has to be kind. Above all, I really need kind. In fact forget the other stuff. I just need to find a man to spend a few hours a week with me, who enjoys my company. Right now that seems so far away.