Interesting Invitation

“I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.”
~ Bob Dylan

And Now My Life Is Complete....

....because I just downloaded Live at the Iveagh Gardens by Josh Ritter from amazon, and it has him doing "Moon River" on it.  Yes.  That is indeed all it took.  I love that song.  I love that man.  I love the notion of it being played live in Ireland.  I am now going to wear a hole in that portion of my hard drive.  What are you doing with your Saturday night?

The Act of Cleaning

The trouble with living alone is that it's always your turn to do the dishes. ~Author Unknown

If the shelves are dusty and the pots don't shine,
it's because I have better things to do with my time.
~Author Unknown

Don't cook. Don't clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum - "My God, the floor's immaculate. Lie down, you hot bitch." ~Joan Rivers
________________________________

Many parts of my life right now are up in the air or broken.  Since I can't control them, I am falling back on an old standby, imposing Type-A-ism where I can.  I cleaned out my classroom thoroughly yesterday afternoon, throwing out three trashcans full of old papers and projects, putting away misplaced objects, and generally neatening the accumulated mess of a semester.

Today, I turned my attention to the house. I washed all the bedding, sunned the feather mattress.  I washed all the dogs' blankets and sunned their beds, too.  I did regular laundry, vacuumed, did fixtures, emptied the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen, put out the trash, mowed the yard to shred the old pecan leaves and the last of the dead grass, and started working on the endless piles of things inside.  I put away about a million coats and sweaters, countless books, and migrated all my shoes back to my closet.  I threw out tons of junk mail, but I am not done.  I feel better, though.  It does not embarrass me to live here now.  

I wish I could keep my house like this all the time.  It gets sacrificed, though, to other things.  When I come home in the afternoons, I usually am in survival mode with stuff like daily chores.  It's patch and feed and wash what has to be done right then.  I don't like it so much, though.  I wish I could have a more gracious home sometimes. 

Then I look at some of the other things I get to do instead, and I sort of don't worry about it so much.  I think that I really need to clean out some things on a permanent basis over this holiday, though, do a big purge of things I don't use at all.  Simplifying will help me keep everything neater and less stressful.  The more of that I can do in every area of my life right now, the better.

When Did It All Become War?

All I do these days is put out fires and wage war.  This is not what it was supposed to be.  This is never what I imagined doing with my life.  It makes me physically ill, this running from emergency to emergency.  There are these deceptive periods of peace when the klaxons are silent, and I think, "Wow.  Finally.  I can put away these weapons at last.  The last of the enemies has been vanquished.  It's done.  It was hard, but maybe it was worth it now that we can just move on and all the stupidity is over."  That's when the bottom always drops out.

I get lied to directly.  This makes me unable to trust...well, anybody really.  I keep looking for the hand that will come with a slap behind the complement.  Because let me assure you, friends and neighbors, in my experience, it's always, always coming.  Everybody hurts you eventually.  They just do it for different reasons at different times.  It never gets any easier.  Some of it is forgivable; some of it is not.  The decision to pick up the pieces and go on or throw out what's left is just another kind of fight.

There are other battles, too, ones I probably created for myself, others caused by misunderstanding, pride, and a lack of communication, but I am too tired to untangle the Gordian knot of it all.  Then there are the fights I can't win at all, the ones where everybody involved just loses and loses and loses....  It hurts.  It all hurts unbearably.

I would like a storyline where when the thing is defeated it stays dead.  I am tired of reoccurring villains.

I would like a storyline where I have some sidekicks or a co-hero.  I am tired of fighting it all always alone.

Screw it.  If I'm wishing, just give me a happy ending already.  Much more of this, and all you're going to get out of me is pure Shakespearean drama, no kisses or crowns, just that pile of corpses left at the end....

Red Ink Burnout

I need to be grading, but this would make about the fifth straight class day of nothing but that, and I'm starting to hate the sight of red ink.  It's starting to make the think of battlefields, corpses on operating tables, and other horrible things.  I need more than a weekend away from this.

Or even getting back to the joy of delivering information and facilitating discovery would be good, the part of teaching I actually love.  This holding pattern I'm in right now waiting to be able to give exams is a little slice of Purgatory.  The kids are understandably bored (the ones who are bothering to come), and I am just trying to stay productive.

However.

There are only so many papers one can grade before even the sight of a pile of them starts to make my skin crawl.  But it's not going away, is it?  Therefore....

Discipline!  Hand to sword!  Another repetition!  Again!

(somebodybreakmeoutofhere,K? iwillgiveyouacookieorsomething...)

Patience, Please

I close my eyes for a while
And force from the world a patient smile...

"I Gave You All" ~ Mumford & Sons

___________________________________

I'm afraid I must call on your patience and your gentleness tonight.  If you were here with me, I might even go so far as to sit down beside you, take your hands in mine, lean on your shoulder, invite closeness instead of sitting across the room, instead of keeping the space that I'm more comfortable with between us.  

It's been one of those weeks, one of those times when I hurt.  When I'm tired.  When the spring inside me is at low-ebb.

My precious students have been trying to make me laugh today, and I love them for it, but that's not really what I need.  What I need is stillness and that uncanny understanding that you have of me that lets me take off all my masks and lay down all my swords for just a few essential moments. 

Starting the Day

Nightmares all last night.  It's not hard to know where they're from.  They were filled with endless bits of the situation from yesterday that I could not resolve.  I woke up several times, something I do not usually do, and this morning, I don't feel especially rested.   I'll manage.  At least the heat, which was being coy last night at one point, stayed working well all night.

Today, though, is a new day.  I want it to be a good one.  I'm going to put on my Great Gatsby shirt, have a pineapple and yogurt smoothie, hook my iPhone to my car stereo, and go face whatever the day brings me.  I don't have a better way to armor my soul these days.  It will have to be sufficient to the demands of the day.

Broken Feathers

What do you do when you can't save them?  When what you are by your nature is a builder of nests and a strengthener of wings and you have to stand by and watch them plummet instead?

Is this what Daedalus felt like when he saw Icarus falling?  I feel like am reaching out and grabbing nothing but handfuls of  feathers when I need to be pulling a body to safety somehow.

Yet the choice to fly to safety is not mine to make.  Though it breaks my heart, I know some not only have to singe the tips of their wings but also to lose them altogether before understanding comes.

It's just that I've seen this happen too often, and I know that not everybody survives the fall.  The ocean that waits down there is not soft when the crash landing happens.  It just wants to swallow down, cover over.  It is relentless.  As that old painting by Bruegel shows, all too few bystanders will turn away from their own little pursuits to extend a hand, either.

I don't want them to fall at all.  I want them to turn away from this madness, this futile and destructive insanity, this pretend command of things that are as destructive and unstoppable as hurricane winds, that will rip through their fragile, beautiful wings like a typhoon through a paper kite and start learning how to soar again.

My heart is broken.

Moooooon

Have you seen it?  That moon is insanely beautiful out there tonight, like something you could reach up and pluck from the sky with your hands.  It's the thing that has been making my kids nuts the past few days, I guess.  Right now, it's doing the same to me.  I totally understand the dogs running around in the yard at top speed and barking at things and the cats staring out into the dark with bright shimmer-saucer eyes.  It all seems like a good idea to me.

Crazy moonlight somehow increases my need to go, to get out and move.  I went to Jackson yesterday for no good reason, just because I couldn't stand to be in the house and that was the grand plan I devised.  I literally went, bought some Christmas ornaments at Pier 1 (my excuse for going...and I did need them for this and that, ornament exchanges I am involved in, etc.), ate at Kismet's, and drove home.  I felt better for the travel somewhat, less like I wanted to shred things with my invisible claws.  Right now, though, that feeling is back....  I would get out and just go drive around and see what there is to get into, but in this neck of the woods...well...that's probably not a good idea.  And.  I don't feel like having to shoot rednecks by the light of the silvery moon.

I wish I knew somebody else who had this same lunar weirdness.  I need a playmate.

After a Lot of Sleep...

There is such a thing as counting chickens before they hatch.  Or before the eggs have even been laid.  Or before you even buy the setting hens.

There is such a thing as building fortresses so strong and protective that you forget to put in doors to let yourself out.  It's true you're very safe that way, I guess, but you also starve to death very slowly, comfortable in the righteousness of your safety....

This is not D. again.  No matter whatever else it ever does or does not come to be, no situation will ever be exactly that again.  The person in question is not him.  Once the panic has passed, I can see that.  The similarities are there, but they are superficial.   I can't keep judging everybody by that yardstick, assuming everybody plays by his rules..  If I do, then...well...I suppose the past always wins.

The other side of the equation is not the me that I was in those days, either.  I don't know that this is a good thing all the way through, but I think for the most part it is.  I know myself more thoroughly than ever I did then, what I want, what I will and will not endure, what I need and what I can offer.  I regret some of what is gone, some of the sweetness I think I probably used to have, some of the trust that is never coming back.

In any case, I have to start allowing whatever amount I have left to be the thing with which I lead.  I have to stop looking for demons in the dark before I have seen positive signs of the cloven hoof.  While everything inside me is screaming that this is going to get me slammed through the floor, is begging to run back inside and brick up all the remaining doors and windows, I'm tired of living this way, and the air in there is stale and dead.

So.

(God help me.)

Maybe I will try to choose to start to trust somebody after all.

Maybe.

(did I leave enough wiggle room in that? ...yeah...)

Cyclical

The worst fault you have is to be in love. ~ William Shakespeare

You're an angel, and I'm gonna cry

'cause I can't have you

and I'm not gonna try.

"You're an Angel and I'm Gonna Cry" ~ Chris Thile

And I'll throw you in the current that I stand upon so still
Love is all, from what I've heard, but my heart's learned to kill
Oh, mine has learned to kill
"Love Is All" ~ The Tallest Man on Earth

______________________________________________

I have suddenly awakened and found myself in the middle of an unexpected nightmare.  It's like a rerun of something from years ago, from the old bad days of D.  When the realization hit me, I almost literally couldn't breathe. I felt the walls all closing in on me.  It had come on so gradually, you see, that I had not felt it closing its grasp around me until it was nearly too late to do anything about it.  

Oh, it's not love, not yet. That takes a long, long time and much more.  However, that doesn't stop me from knowing it's full of danger.  All the signs are there.  All the archetypes are on the stage and costumed appropriately.  Everybody is mouthing the right lines, me included.  I can see that idiot with the wings and the bow trying to sneak around in the rigging.

Right straight to hell with that.

I made a promise to myself a long time ago, and even if it means ripping my heart right out of my chest and stomping it into shattered shards on the floor, I will not walk down that road again.  Not to worry, though; my heart has learned all too well how to kill.  It was taught that lesson at the hands of the master.  

What completely flummoxes me is that it crept up on me.  Was I just so stupid, just having so much fun that I closed my eyes, or God help me, am I just that much of a fool?   It does not end happily for me.  Ever.  Do I forget my history?  Do I forget my scars?  I need to put myself in a convent somewhere high in the hills where I will not be tempted by these things.  The cycle spins, and apparently I learn nothing.  Yeah.  I am a fool.  The Queen of them all......

Favorites

I am taking a bit of a break to drink some tea and try to wake up a little.  A case of weariness has wrapped itself around me like a big blanket, and I am fighting to stay awake.  Even my desk looks like a good place for a nap.  In an effort to get my brain doing something, ANYTHING, here are a few of my favorite things.  (And I deeply apologize if you now have Julie Andrews twirling around in your head.  Unless, of course, you know, that makes you happy....)

• Flowers:  Gerbera daisies and yellow roses .  
• Beverage:  Unsweetened green tea and Diet Mt. Dew (although at present, I also love an eggnog smoothie....)
• Types of cuisine:  Mexican, Thai, Japanese, and Italian
• Places on Earth:  Nara, Japan; my family's pasture and country shack; the high-ceilinged library at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
• Hymns:  "It Is Well With My Soul," "In the Garden," and "Angel Band"
• Items (as in, I have them with me all the time):  Fountain pen, iPhone, handkerchief
• Word:  luscious  (most of the time)
• Sound:  rain on a metal roof

I suppose there are more categories, but some things that seem obvious to include would be impossible for me to select.  I could no more select favorite authors or musicians than the man in the moon.  I have similar problems with movies.  I can select a broad range of what I like, but I don't like to try to pin it down to one.  It feels wrong somehow.  Maybe that seems strange.  I don't know.  

I guess if there was anything somebody wanted to know in particular, that person could use that little feature down at the bottom and ask me.  Trying to fight off the tired with this isn't working.  I think I'm going to fold up shop and go home for the afternoon.  Maybe that's what I need.

It's Official....

 I got my notification from TGC today.  My travel country is BRAZIL.  I read the email on my iPhone after school, and I literally squealed, jumped up, ran to the door of my room, remembered that everybody was gone, and had a little moment of panic.  There was nobody to tell!  Thank God for social media...  (ha)  Then I called home.

I have wanted to see Brazil for years and years.  I have had several wonderful friends from there, been fascinated and enchanted by Portuguese forever (it's just the most gorgeous language...now I have a reason to make myself learn it - YAY), and getting placed there is almost too good to be believed.

This is just fantastic.  I don't know all the details, but I am definitely in Snoopy dance mode.  Now to the fun part leading up to every trip....the research and the PLANNING.  Boo.  Yah.

Uh-huh, Okay. Alright, Then.

It's been an odd pair of days.  I didn't feel much like writing yesterday.  You're getting a list now.  It's the end of the semester, so I'm pressed for time, and I'm running low on sleep.  I still feel good, but there's been no shortage of contenders trying to take that away from me.  Well.  To paraphrase my sage grandfather, "Never, never, never let the b-------s get you."

In the past two days:

• I had a student suddenly and unexpectedly opt to do a front roll through my classroom door instead of entering it the normal, upright way.  No.  There was no reason why.  Yes.  He did a beautiful roll....
• I have been told that I look like a porcelain doll.  No.  I don't know why.  I assume it's because I am so very pale.  Apparently it has been much discussed....  (Is this a good thing?)
• I was mistaken BY STUDENTS for a student when I went through the lunch line today in an attempt to get a pimento cheese sandwich.  (Oh, and the lunch line thing?  NEVER AGAIN.  I will totally cut up the middle next time.  WTF was I thinking?)
• My dog Chewie flung his green squeaky duck in a fit of exuberance.  I don't know where it is.  I am terribly, terribly afraid it is IN the Christmas tree.  Sigh.  Finding it is this afternoon's project.  He looks so sad now that it is missing.
• The first person figured out what my pendant is today.  I didn't even have to tell her.  She just knew.  She laughed and laughed.
• I have just about worn a hole in the new Black Keys album.  God, they're good.  They're keeping me awake when I drive, bless them.  They're almost better than caffeine.  (Well, realistically not, but you know.)  I love that the last song on the album keeps saying, "Oh....don't let it be over...."  They kill me.
• I have come to love my new iPhone even more than my old one.  I am trying not to feel like I'm cheating on an ex by saying that.  How do we come to have the attachment issues to electronics?  It's ridiculous.  (But I'm whisper-typing this and tilting the screen so Minerva never knows she's Minerva the Second....)
• The hat I bought at Chimneyville has paid for itself already.  It's purple and gorgeous, and every time I put it on, I feel gorgeous (if not purple), and I don't hate getting in the car at whatever ridiculous hour it is or going out to stand bus duty.  Definitely money well spent.

That's it.  I have a little left to do here, and then I'm getting out.  I am going to SLEEP tonight.  I am just so tired, and it's so cold and horrid outside.  This would be a wonderful night to curl up with somebody I love and pretend there's no world outside.  Shame that's not an option, really....

Putting a Foot Through

         In this world
 we walk on the roof of hell,
        gazing at flowers.
- Issa
_______________________

I've been working on student papers this morning, but I had to stop just a minute and write. This haiku by Issa has been a favorite of mine for a long time because I think it says a lot about what life really is. We have no idea about what is going on under the surface. We walk around on a thin crust of what we assume is safety until we accidentally fall in a crack or put a foot through.

One of my students' writings just broke my heart. I so want to just wrap my arms around that person and hug that one. It happens here so often and not on purpose. It is never a deliberate thing. It was just a matter-of-fact revelation that made me come back to Issa again, made me both appreciate the flowers, the fact that we get the moments of beauty, and also made me grieve for all the pain everyone has to endure that creates that gaping cauldron that constantly seethes just beneath them.

Those Who Walk Alone

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
― Albert Einstein

Christmasy

I finally decided to force myself into some Christmas spirit.  Last year, I had none.  Double none.  I barely got a tree up, and I put out none of my Christmas collections.  This year, I decided to try to trick myself into some cheer by decorating the house.  I thought if I surrounded myself with the accouterments of Christmas, maybe I would start to feel a little of the spark of it inside, too.

With that philosophy in mind, I went to get my tree this afternoon.  I am a hard-core girl power advocate.  I can do it ALL ALL BY MYSELF.  I can change my own flat tires, jump my own dead batteries, and all that, but by all that is holy, next year, I am taking some hapless man with me to deal with this Christmas tree thing.  I don't care if I have to guilt him, con him, marry him, feed him, pay him, or what. I HATE trying to cut down my own tree.  HATE it.  This is the second time I've done it, the first being the year Dad had his heart attack, and it wasn't any better this year.  In theory, there are guys with power saws on the tree lot, but they are never within five hundred miles of me and the tree I pick.  It took me about fifteen minutes of hacking at the poor cedar I picked (I always get cedar; I like the smell) to fell it, and then I had to haul it to the "sleigh" because Billy and Bubba were still power sawing somebody else.  I was not in a "merry mood."

I have been going to this place literally since I was a child, though.  My parents have known them forever, and I have run over those hills for things that have nothing to do with Christmas trees, so I wasn't in a bad mood long.  I got a Diet Mountain Dew in their new cafe and looked over their gift shop.  They had a Santa hat shaped like a jester's hat.  Well, you just know that I was going to have to have that...  I paid for my tree, had it tied to the top of the Cruiser, and came on home.

I took the time to make a playlist on iTunes that I called "Chrimma" and set it spinning and then I started fighting the tree for the second time today.  (Going to find a man next year.  Oh yes.  Going to find a man.  Not for anything romantic necessarily.  Just for the freaking TREE.  Although, I suppose I could promise him something romantic in exchange if needed if that's what it takes.  You can see what I've been reduced to here....)  I finally got it in the stand, brought it in the house, and it started wobbling.  I lay down on the floor to adjust it, and it wobbled even more.  This is after about fifteen minutes of wobbling in the stand outside after I made the required "second cut" with my little saw at home.  Then the thing I had been trying to prevent happened.  It fell.  I shoved it hard when it started going over, so I did not actually wind up with cedar on top of me, but it was a near thing.  Again, this is not a situation designed to raise "Christmas cheer."

I finally cursed/coaxed it into a stable position after taking the stand completely off and putting it back on again (easy to do now that it was horizontal).  Then I broke out the new big colorful LED lights I bought on sale after Christmas last year.  It's just chock-full of lights now, just the way I like my tree.  They don't do fancy flashy things, but I found last year that my migraines don't really like the flashy ones anymore.  I haven't put ornaments on it yet, but I may get to that later on tonight.  To me, the lights are the nice part, anyway.  They make the tree.  I like to have all the lights off and music on and just look at the tree with the lights sometimes and unwind when I'm tired.

I moved from the tree debacle to putting out the Santa and nativity collections.  This year, I didn't put out all the pieces I have.  I chose my favorites instead.  Many of them are special because either I made them, got them on a trip somewhere (like my Waterford nativity from Ireland), or somebody I love gave them to me.  I don't know why I forget how much of a pleasure there is in just the unwrapping and remembering that goes along with these collections.  That is probably actually the greatest joy of them to me, looking at them and thinking, "That one came from Mrs. Ruth.  I made that one when I still worked at Fleur de Terre...."

I'm going to go now and get my Santa plates out of the cabinet for the first time in two years, put some leftover eggplant parmigiana on one, pop it into the microwave.  Then, I'm going to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation like I do every year the night I put up my tree.  I'm going to take my Christmas back from the things that try to pull me out of it, try to destroy it.  It is totally my choice if they get to do that.  I think I choose, in spite of falling trees and all other difficulties, Christmasiness.

Chimneyville Again

Every year, I look forward to Chimneyville.  Almost from the time I'm stepping out the door and headed back to the car with my arms loaded with my loot, I am anticipating going back, in fact.  It is one of the highlights of my year as far as seeing wonderful and unusual handmade things.  This year was no exception.

I got up a little late, left my house a little later, and wound up having to fly to meet my friend on time.  Once again, I was struck by the fact that frequently it's not how many horses one has under the hood but what one is willing to do with them.  I was only about ten minutes late in the end.

My best friend and I ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant we both like and headed over to the Trade Mart.  I knew there were three artists I particularly wanted to see if they were exhibiting.  They are the ones I go to every year, moon over, and most years, buy from.  I also love to look at all the others, though.  There is such unbelievable diversity in the crafts presented.  New artists come in every year, too, so one never knows just what you will see.  It's always a nice mix of new and old.   It makes me feel humbled and happy just to know that there are people in the world who can do these things, who can take their hands, apply them to raw materials, and produce wonder.  When I come away from a really great crafts exhibition, I always feel just a little more hopeful about the world.

My friend and I are profoundly creatures of habit.  We always go the same route through the booths.  Today we took our turn to the right, and we started looking.  It wasn't long before we came to the first of the three I had hoped to see there, Sam Clark.  Sam Clark makes, among other things, these fantastic dragons.  They do different things.  The most wonderful ones read books.  I LOVE them.  They always look so clever, amused, and knowing, everything you'd expect from a dragon.  I have a small red one I bought two years ago, and a "micro" one I got last year that I keep at school.  This year, because of the state of my finances, I knew I probably was going to be in that hellish situation of having to look but not touch with his stuff.  It's not that his prices are extreme; quite the contrary for the level of detail on each piece.  It's that I'm so obscenely poor right now.

Imagine my delight when he had a new line of pieces that he has added that are functional, bowls and containers, teapots and vessels of all kinds.  They have his gorgeous line drawings on engraved into the surface of the clay.  And...I could afford one that had a dragon on it.  I got my dragon after all!  I was grinning from ear-to-ear.  It was like fate took pity on me today.

A few aisles over, we found my best friend's friend, the maker of mouth-blown glass beads and pendants.  His stuff is fantastic.  I already had two of his pieces, but I wanted something blue (school colors and all that).  As I looked at the selection, I saw some that looked remarkably like eyes.  That looked awfully familiar, and sure enough, when I asked, my suspicion was confirmed.  They were a reinterpretation of the charm worn to protect against the evil eye.  I love jewelry with meaning; symbolism is sort of my life as an English teacher.  I bought one that looks for all the world like a gorgeous blue iris  with a black pupil in the center because, well, you know the thing I have with blue eyes... (ha)

The third artist I love, Peter Rose, was further over.  I have three of his crows (I call them ravens), already.  They make me happy every time I look at them.  His pottery is all wood-fired in the traditional Japanese fashion.  I love to talk to him every year when I go to see his stuff.  It's a little piece of contact with the world of Japanese pottery that I miss so much.  I was all ready to get one of his owls this year since I finished out my trio of ravens last year.  I even had picked out the owl I wanted to get.  Then I turned my head and saw that he has started making "mini ravens."  That was the end of that.  I had to have it.  I will take that one to school.  It's just fantastic.  Again, since it was a small piece, I was also able to afford it without going broke.  It was just a wonderful gift from the craft gods.

As I went through the other booths, I stumbled across another thing I loved:  fountain pens.  They were all from exotic woods.  My best friend laughed at me because I just started making little squeaking sounds as I stroked my fingertips over first one and then another of the lovely polished surfaces.  They were exquisite.  I could have bought at least five that I saw, but one caught my eye more than any of the others:  a "miniature" pen made of a wood called purple heart.  I haven't seen purple heart in large qualities since I was in Costa Rica, but I love it.  Without being dyed or tinkered with at all, it has a gorgeous dark reddish color.  It is going to be my "pocket pen."  I've wanted a small one like this for a long time, and it is everything one could ask for.

Chimneyville is just a joy.  The quality of everything you see, the friendliness of all the craftspeople, there's really just nowhere else I know like it.  I was struck again this year by that personal element.  Because I buy from those same artists every year, they have come to recognize me.  I was a little amazed by that (you know, old forgettable me), but it was really nice.  That's what keeps me buying handmade whenever I can, too.  Whether it is from my favorite folks in Jackson every year or the makers I can connect with on Etsy, I just believe that there is something special about this sort of connection that enriches the item itself.

Take It How You Wish

You're very, very lucky.  I don't think you even know it.

I have a Cuchulain-type of temper sometimes, you see, red haze before the eyes, battle rage slipping sandpaper fingers up the spine and all the Morrigan's magic calling for the end of the offender inside me with the rough, harsh cough of a black raven.

And you, you are redlining it.

It's taken me years, painful years of work to get a leash on this thing.  I have broken bones in one of my hands from the lessons I had to learn to do it.  I view them as both a badge of shame and a medal of honor.  They remind me of where I've been and who I am now.

I won't let this thing in me slip its collar for you.  Not even when it grins its big game pit grin because you keep stabbing it with a pointed stick.  Not even because you won't let it have a minute's rest to recover.

I believe what goes around comes around.  It won't be me who dishes it, though.  I love myself too much for that.

You can take this how you will.

Briefly

I haven't had much to say the past couple of days.  Old battles renewed and much busy-ness, I suppose.  Been elsewhere doing other.  I should be at that now, in fact.  There's just something driving me here to make this brief contact, and I will follow this urging even if it makes me have to run even MORE than I already am this morning in just a moment.

In the past few days I've been away, then, I have:

• Come to value copy paper more highly than gold bullion
• Been told that what I love more than anything is worthless
• Seen the happiness that can come from mini cupcakes
• Been grateful once again that I know how to jumpstart a damn car
• Felt the maternal urge ambush me quite out of the blue looking a friend's baby in a frog hat
• Been berated and belittled
• Actually been able to eat a little
• Had moments of pure joy
• Kept my temper despite all odds and expectations and refused to give in to the urge to put my fist through someone
• Had no migraines
• Had songs stuck in my head
• Pondered getting ticket for the Punch Brothers concert in Birmingham in January
• Graded papers
• Missed people

Yeah.  So how have you been?