La La La Lies

So -- let me tell you a little story.  It's about me.  That is, it's about my sudden understanding of something I've known for years and was just never actually aware of.  I don't know whether these small epiphanies that I keep having as I age are standard human behavior, and therefore nothing I need to worry about, or whether I am showing myself to be a strikingly obtuse individual who merely thinks she is intelligent (also, no doubt, standard human behavior.)

This is an example of how a person with a fully functioning brain can go through life looking at fact A, and also at contradictory fact B, and merely whistle a happy tune.

You may already know the story of the stalker I had when I was young and living on my own for the first time. It was a very frightening thing for me, also for my Loved Ones, and resulted in my moving several times in rapid succession, in nailing my bedroom window shut, and pushing my dresser in front of my bedroom door every night. It wasn't until my third move put me on the second floor of a lovely old building with only one outside door and very creaky stairs, that I calmed down enough to put the butcher knife (under the edge of the bed) back in the kitchen drawer.

Okay. So after I had moved from the second location, and was busily pounding nails into the woodwork, a young woman (we'll call her Shmeesa) whom I had known from her babyhood but hadn't seen in many years, turned up at my door with my sister Rose. It seems that Shmeesa was also being stalked and it seemed to be by the same person. He had apparently told her on the phone that he was someone who had known me since my childhood. This sent the whole thing suddenly from “Random Nutjob” into “Beyond Terrifying Psycho”, especially since the childhood we had shared had been a rural American Christian one, and Religious + Wacko = RunRunRun. It's one thing to have voices telling you what to do, but when that voice is the Supreme Being, it's a whole other ballgame.

Anyway. Shmeesa ended up moving in with me for several months, bringing me up to date on the strange and dramatic life she had led, and confiding in me about her rape and her brain tumor and her car accident. She convinced me that since the police were not "doing anything" about the stalker, we should get a private investigator (and that's a whole other story, o my god) and just generally kept me fearing this obsessive psychopath.

Fast-forward several years, to me finding out from three or four independent sources that young Shmeesa was a Dreadful Liar. That she had no brain tumor. That her claims of nights spent in the hospital were no doubt merely nights spent on the tiles. That no one else seemed to think she had been raped. Etc, etc, etc. This was, to some extent, corroborated by Shmeesa herself. ("Oh, yeah, I guess I lied a lot when I was younger.") I was pretty much stunned, but eventually allowed myself to accept it and move on.

This all happened about thirty years ago. And yet! It was only last week that it dawned on me, in an absolutely shattering way, that this also meant my stalker was merely some random guy on the telephone who finally broke in to my house, and was then stymied by my moves. Frightening, yes. Years-long psycho-religious obsession carefully nurtured over time and finally acted upon, rendering every relationship I had ever had with any male potentially life-threatening? No. NO!

So -- I guess this is a happy ending. I'm mostly feeling stunned chagrin, but I will probably feel happy about it eventually!

A Used-Up World

There is a chill in the air this morning!  42 degrees here at the coast, where I'm once again sitting up in the World's Best Bed.  It is so much nicer to wake to this freshness, this feeling of a new start and a new atmosphere to start in, than this past summer's sensation of a used-up, leftover, worn-out world, when the morning dawning only brought fat, hot, listless air, warmer than your body, and smelling stale and re-used.

Dishes and Sheets

I'm at the Retirement Home, sitting up in The Best Bed with a cup of strong, hot coffee, and some cinnamon toast (fresh potato bread!) listening to the occasional bird call overlay the deep silence.  It's not that it's really silent, if you concentrate you can hear the distant surf, but in general the constant same sound of surf sort of wipes out the smaller sounds of distant car engines and makes the air feel silent.  If that makes sense.

Mom and Dad have left for Mom's daily radiation treatment -- in Longview,  An eighty mile drive for a five minute treatment  (tooth grinding noises.) 

Fortunately, tomorrow is the last day of this particular round of treatment, and when the next one starts, there will be a radiation treatment center in Astoria, which is less than an hour away.  Mom is beginning to show signs of the treatment -- sort of a wobbliness that is new, and a tendency to lapse into waking-coma -- that is, staring with out-of-focus eyes at nothing until you speak to her.  Could be merely weariness, I don't know, but I'm very sensitive to every little thing -- she's my mama!

I offered to drive her to her appointment today or tomorrow, but she instantly turned me down -- then recollected herself and thanked me politely, but said that she "needs Daddy" to be there with her -- it keeps her able to bear it!  I was hoping that with the passage of time, she would be getting more accustomed to it, and thus more able to bear it, but no.

Even with the worry of Mom and the Cancer Treatment, relaxing at the Retirement Home is so much more relaxing than relaxing at home in the apartment.  Something about the bed, perhaps?  Or the stillness? No traffic noises?  I'm feeling very calm and peaceful.

I've got some dishes to wash, and some sheets to fold, so I'll be on my way rejoicing.

Heroes and Villains

So I'm at the Retirement Home, for the first time in MONTHS, since I've had car difficulties and scheduling difficulties and all -- I think the last time I was here was in April.  And now I have my new Toyota Camry, Opal Whitely, which I was thrilled to drive up here in, and thrilled to show my parents.  

When I arrived, it was still very bright outside, and we began unloading the car, while my dad was looking at various aspects of it and asking questions, and my mother was admiring its cleanliness and beauty.  She sat down in the driver's seat, and awkwardly thunked her elbow against the door frame.  And broke her humerus clean through!

Leaving aside the feeling that her bones must be made of barley sugar, and how can she walk around?  and all that sort of thing, it was a big hairy deal, since a) we did not know what had happened, just that she immediately passed out, and b) when she came to, she was incapable of telling us what was wrong, and she didn't know, anyway; and c) their car was not running, due to a split radiator.  

So, on the one hand, it was perfect timing that I was there, with a new car which had been recently minutely inspected by Mechanic Bob, and was able to assist my dad in getting her up and into the car.  But on the other hand, if I hadn't been there, it would not have happened at all!  So am I the villain or the hero of this piece?

Forty-five Degrees

In the library where I now am, not my regular-home-library, nor even my every-weekend-and-occasional-other-times library, but a nearly-new-and-almost-foreign library, there is a corner, just one, with two long thin windows on each side of it, sort of facing one another, at a forty-five degree angle, or some sort of degree angle, I guess I don't actually know what the facing-each-other angle is, but the corner is a forty-five degree corner, so I was just guessing.  

Anyway, a few inches beyond the outside edge of each tall thin window is the ten-inch wide end of a bookshelf, standing out from the wall.  It makes a great little sitting and reading spot, which, if I were forty years younger (O my god) I would immediately take advantage of and never leave.  

I would sit cross legged completely inside this little space, lit by two tall thin windows and enclosed by two bookcases, and read to my heart's content.  Even now, forty years older and forty million pounds heavier, I am still tempted to give it a try.  Pretty sure I would fit, but the thought of attempting to arise from my cross-legged posture -- dear me, no.  Horrible idea.  I wouldn’t be able to lever myself properly, and would get completely stuck, or my dislocatable knee would dislocate when I was halfway up, and freeze me, bravely trying not to shriek, in a ridiculous and extremely undignified position.

Sigh.

Dentists and suchlike

I don't remember if I told you or not -- my longtime and beloved dentist retired, and sold his practice to a younger man.  I like the system they have there, but I'm not sure about the actual dentistry.  Perhaps I should say, the actual dentist.  

The man has very large hands!  (he's a very large man, easily six foot six or so). He is very careful and asks me frequently if I am numb, or if I am experiencing pain, (which can only be answered with a yes or no, by the way) but I think the difficulty is with his hands.  He has very large hands, with thick fingers. I'm sure they are very good for all kinds of things, but not for fitting into the mouth of someone, along with a drill, a spray of water, a suction device and his assistants's fingers.  It's been over five hours, and the dull ache in my jaw, face, nose and cheekbones has increased to a dull throb.  I feel I should go home and take anti-inflammatories.

I know most people have far worse stories to tell of their dental experiences, but I have been utterly spoiled by Dr. Belusko, who had thin hands with long skeletal fingers, and who never hauled on my cheeks, facial muscles and tongue, ("Can you get ahold of her tongue and hold it out of the way?") while doing his careful and beautiful dentistry.  Whaa-aa-aah!

A lovely Saturday

It is the perfect Spring morning!  Warm and breezy, nothing like the chill buffeting winds of yesterday, delicate sunshine, high blue sky, new pale green everywhere... So perfect that no one is on the library this morning!  Of the thirty computers here, five are occupied, and that includes me.

Had a bad night last night -- I haven't been sleeping well for several weeks, but that's usually more or less okay -- but last night was a misery of wakefulness.  At one point, at about two am, I turned the lamp back on, and read for awhile, but so sleepy was I that I mostly just held the book with my eyes closed.  Still could not drop off.  I think it was because I wasn't well in my little tum, and that gave a rather nauseated flavor to all my thoughts, so they all felt bad and anxious and worrisome, and as though today was going to implode into a dreadful day of distress and disaster.

However, when the alarm went off, and I woke, the day was perfectly friendly, and everything that has occurred has been quite lovely. 

I would like to know what the problem is with my sleeping, though.  I mean, I have always had the occasional white night, but as a rule, twice a year was the most frequently that occurred. Not since my bout of insomnia in college has it been this long without an uninterrupted night. 

In any case, it is a beautiful Spring morning, tra-la, tra-la!  My Norwegian friend Marit is already on her Easter holiday, as apparently everyone in her country has two weeks off at Eastertime.  Why don't WE?

The rain rain rain came down down down....

The snow started at nine this morning -- much earlier than the four-in-the-afternoon the TV news weatherpersons were predicting.  It was still raining, heavy wet rain, with melty snow mixed in -- dime-sized flakes hitting the windshield, about five or six, splatting wetly over my viewpoint, before the wiper blades wiped them away, and again, and again. 

It didn't feel cold outside, was the odd part.  Still felt warm enough that I am wearing my little coat, my car coat, not the long woolen overcoat I wear in the snow.  Carrying my giant umbrella, but that's just because both my smaller umbrellas have broken spines, so I've got to either figure a way to fix them, or make up my mind to throw them away.  Don't want to throw them away, either of them.  One of them a beautiful royal blue Klimt design that my dear Jessica gave me, years ago, and the other a small compact fold-able one of Black Watch plaid that I just particularly like.  Still, I'm not sure they can be fixed.  Why aren't there umbrella repair shops?  It ought to be very easy to remove and replace a broken spine, and think of all the business you would have!  Perhaps I should learn the art of umbrella repair and open my own place.

Anyway, the snow continued for about an hour, and has now completely stopped.  Still raining, however, very wetly, and mirabile dictu! -- it feels significantly colder than it did this morning.  Isn't that odd?  Unlikely?  Isn't snow merely rain in the cold?  So how does that work?  And another question I have about rain -- the size and velocity of the drops seem to have little or no rhyme or reason to it.  Sometimes a tiny, misty droppage of minuscule drops, other times large fat drops falling without much impetus behind them, other times the drops are driven down as by a powerful wind, but the winds aren't blowing downwards, they are blowing east or west or north or south.  The size and velocity of today's rain has changed several times, and who knows why?  Is it the pressure in the air above?  Do some of them contain particulate matter that are pulled downward by gravity?  Who knows?  (Well, I don't know -- someone does.)

As I finished making one of my clients his lunch today, his roommate Myke blew in from grocery shopping, fresh and wet, with his arms full of bags. 

"It's a very wet day out there," I observed.

"Sure is," he replied, setting his bags down.  "And I love it.  I love the rain in all shapes and sizes."

"Me, too," I said.  "That's why I live in Portland!"

"Yup," he said.  And we smiled at one another.

November Sunday

Sitting in the nearly empty parking lot of the Midland Library (it's a large library that sees a lot of use) before it opens, eating my weekend breakfast of an English muffin sandwich with bacon, egg and cheese, and a small carton of milk (it's funny, when I ask for milk, they nearly always respond with "white milk or chocolate milk?"  As though those were the two types of milk!) and marveling happily to myself at the nearly steady stream of cars circling through.  They are all dropping their votes in the large Ballot Box which is in the back of the parking lot.  Keep voting, people, keep voting!

The peach of the day, however, was an old Ford pickup truck, very large, which had originally been blue, but was now 90 percent rust.  At least 90 percent.  It had a two-by-four fence around the bed, rickety and broken down on one side, and was making a dreadful racket -- blap-blap-blap, very loud.  The driver was a tiny little wrinkled-up lady -- barely big enough to see over the dash, and you could see her head tipped sharply back to manage it.  She maneuvered the monstrous beast (blap-blap-blap) through the parking lot, and up to the ballot box, and her tiny hand on her scrawny arm came shakily out of the window and slowly, carefully (shakily) deposited her ballot envelope.  I wanted to stand up and cheer.

Private Property

So I came out of my house Saturday morning, at about seven-thirty, and saw a grey-haired woman sitting in the gazebo, with a raincoat on, and a coffee cup from the bakery next door. She was shaking out a tiny folding umbrella and seemed cross. I called out, "Good Morning!" She looked up and gave me a decidedly dirty look, before pointedly turning her shoulder toward me.

Now, I'm a fairly shy person, at least I used to be, and it still flavors my behavior from time to time, but this was my house, my yard and my gazebo, and I was beginning to suspect that she had no right to be there. So I skipped down the steps and headed on over.

"Isn't it nice after the rain stops?' I said chattily. "You still need your umbrella for all the drips, though!"

"Mmm-hmm," she said, on a high note, and without looking at me.

"Who are you visiting?" I asked, sitting down beside her. She looked at me like I was insane.

"I'm not visiting, I live here!" she snapped. I did a double take.

"What? No -- unless you just moved in?" I asked, gesturing toward the apartment house.

"No -- I live in Alameda -- wait, is this your yard?" she asked. I nodded, with raised eyebrows.

"Well, for heaven's sake," she snapped, getting up and gathering her possessions angrily. "You shouldn't be here -- I mean -- how is anyone supposed to tell?"

"By the sign on the gate that says 'Private Property' ," I said sweetly. She stomped down the steps and headed across the grass.

"Sorry!" she called over her shoulder, not politely. I almost felt bad.

I am really not

Okay -- I find this strange -- or at least remarkable.  I had an "aha!" moment last year, when I realized -- for the first time -- that something which  had happened to me in the past put me in a well-known statistic.   

Okay. That was strange enough.  That I, who sort of pride myself on my ability to look at things and see how they are, could have skipped lightly over this event, even though I thought about it every so often, just never called it by its name.  And in fact had said aloud, several times, and to myself, several more times, that I was very lucky that I did not, in fact, belong to this statistic.  I feel weirdly ashamed, as though I did it on purpose, although I assure you I did not.

But here's the part that seems freaky to me now.  When I read articles online or in the news about these statistics, and other sufferers from it, I get very anxious and start shifting in my chair and breathing in little gasps, and want to leave the room.  That's the way that "trigger" stories make people feel who know that this happened to them.  And I didn't know, until just recently.  So I feel as though I must be making these reactions up.  But I am not.  I am really not.

Hot Times, Summer in the City

Merciful Heavens, 84 degrees at 8 in the morning!  How is this possible?  How?  How, how, how?  You see, it's turned me into Rowsby Woof!

I am pretty much living in my bedroom these days, since I have a window unit air conditioner in there.  This is nice, and means I sleep through the night pretty well, but it would be better if I had a chair to sit in.  Reading in bed, or watching  a movie on one's laptop in bed is not as comfy as one might think.  And yes, there is a chair in my bedroom, but it is invisible under the pile of clean but un-put-away clothes. 

I do love the open, beckoning emptiness of the Banfield freeway on these early weekend mornings!  It is all swooping curves, and I am always called to speed.  The few cars that there are are all speeding as well, so there isn't any risk of suddenly coming upon a fifty-five-mile-an-hour-good-little-driver.  There are other risks, of course -- as witness:

This morning I was in the far left lane, doing about 75, and had no one in front of me, so I was getting ready to move back into the center lane.  There were about five cars in my current sight, before and behind, all well-spaced.  I turned on my signal, waited a few moments, and started moving right.  As I did so, I was aware of a flash of movement behind me, and then a long, loud, I'm-extremely-pissed-off car horn.  A small, shabby little sports-type car shot into the far right lane, at an angle that showed he had come from behind me in the far left, all the way across three lanes, and then without a pause, shot left again, across the middle lane and into the far right.  No signalling, or anything, since that requires a hand off the wheel.

A young girl, maybe 23-24, with floods of wild blonde hair whipping around her face, projected herself out of the open window of this car up to her waist, to turn back toward me and give me the deluxe double finger.  She held this position, shaking her hands toward me and screaming something (much too loud out there to hear, and anyway, my windows were closed) and then retracted herself, and the car shot away at a minimum of eighty-five miles an hour -- we were all doing seventy, seventy-five, and he passed us like we were going backward -- in big triangular swoops across and back across, all without benefit of signal.

I burst out laughing, it was just so ludicrous.  It also made me feel oddly nostalgic about being that young -- that moment-oriented -- that the interruption of your wildly illegal and tremendously dangerous freeway shenanigans would have been enough to infuriate you to that extent.  I was never that young, thank goodness.

Last weekend I took a day off and spent three days in Rogue River with my aunt and uncle at their gorgeous, opulent and extremely clean house on the river.  It is a large and very plush dwelling and there was not a scrap of dust anywhere in it.  The upstairs, where my cousin and I always sleep, was completely unused by the family, and still, perfectly clean.  It was a lovely visit, extremely relaxing and very enjoyable.  Spent most of our time just sitting in their luxurious living room with glasses of iced tea and talking about our lives and our shared memories and our jobs and our families.  My aunt is a very careful and excellent cook, and she and my uncle both refused any offers of help, so my cousin and I just lay back and luxuriated.  I didn't want to come home!

We took a trip up to Crater Lake, so I have now seen this Oregon landmark -- hadn't until then!  It is extremely beautiful.  Very serene, with no background noise of rivers, since it has no input and no outgo.  The water is an even, full, blue and very calm.  And it's huge.  Lots of tiny, rapidly-darting chipmunks with very bright eyes, who all flash across the paths and up over the rocks at a ridiculous rate of speed.  Very relaxing to stand and look.  And all the walls and buildings are made of stone, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the thirties, and very beautiful.  Plus, since this lake is in the top of a volcano, exploded off and crumpled in, about seven thousand (!) years ago, you have to wind your way up and up into the mountains to get a look at it, so we were high among the pine forests.  It was a gorgeous day, in spite of the heat -- 102 degrees, I believe -- and anyway, their car is very well air-conditioned.

A Smile on My Face

This is perfect weather -- absolutely perfect.  The sky is thickly overcast and glowing white, the air is crisp and a tiny bit too chilly, and there were tiny raindrops in the air for a moment -- just a moment -- on my way to the bank!  When I walked out the door at about eight, the air I took in was gloriously fresh and promising, with none of the oppressive stickiness I am expecting later in the day.  It is still cool enough in my apartment to necessitate a robe upon arising, and I reveled in my new bathrobe, soft and light and dark navy-blue, and perfectly comforting.  Ahh....!

I'm currently wearing a gauze skirt, to attempt to battle the coming apocalypse of heat, which I had to mend before wearing, since last time I had it on, my key ring caught in it as I was picking it up, and tore two long straight lines through it.  It's always worse when you do it yourself -- you know, hurl a glass to the floor as you are trying to catch it, smack yourself in the face with something you are trying to heft -- it's no doubt all very salutary and lesson-teaching, but it's also very frustrating.  In any case, the two tears lent themselves very nicely to being mended and are hardly visible now. 

I've just finished a book that I truly enjoyed.  I was laughing repeatedly -- aloud! -- throughout the first two chapters, and snickering later on, and I wept very sadly all through the last chapter.  So it has the whole, "I laughed, I cried" thing going for it.  It's "A Man Called Ove" by Frederick Backman, and I put in on my library list because of another book he wrote called, "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry," which was charming although not as satisfactory as "Ove", in spite of the title.  It had some real cleverness in it, however, as well as some spots that left me feeling unfulfilled -- and it was festooned with blurbs about his best-selling book, "A Man Called Ove."  So I put it on my library list some months ago, and had completely forgotten about it when it turned up.  I advise a look!

Last night I had retired to my bedroom with the door closed and the air conditioner on, since after sundown is when it gets too hot to be comfortable in any degree of dress or undress, and iced drinks do nothing to prevent the trickles of sweat, and had just begun to feel the eyelids closing, when like a sudden Taser-blast, I remembered that my car was still parked in the library parking lot.  My eyelids shot open, and I was suddenly very wide awake.  Why do you suppose memory does that?  Why couldn't I have remembered several hours earlier, while still clothed?  There is an actual physical jolt that goes along with these falling-asleep memories, not unlike those clonic leaps your body makes -- they call them hypnagogic jerks -- just as you are nearly asleep, which always leave me gasping, heart pounding, and very WIDE AWAKE.  What's the deal there?

Well, in this case, I was just as glad to be widely awake, since I had to get up and go and rescue my car, and park it in front of the apartment, and if I had been staggering with sleep, I probably would have gone out in whatever articles of clothing met my hand, with my hair on end.  And several of my neighbors were sitting in the gazebo, where I afterwards joined them, so I was glad to be relatively appropriately clothed.  It's possible that my neighbors would not have been likely to notice my deshabille, since they had been out drinking and while none of them were intoxicated, they all were "flown with wine", which made it funny and delightful to talk with them, but also meant that they might have been just as likely to seize upon my clothing and want to discuss it in every detail.   

I went back to bed with a smile on my face! 

TBD

Today is the third time in a week that my work schedule included "TBD" which means "To Be Determined" (for those of you who don't do initialisms) although today's was the only one of the three which appeared on the schedule itself.  The first two were when clients cancelled their scheduled shifts without telling us this would be happening.  

However, in spite of three or four days to think them up, my boss had only one chore for me to do, which took a total of ten minutes, even though I checked it over and then checked it over a third time just to use up some minutes.  So I spent most of three hours reading at an empty desk.  Read the Residential Books (case histories, etc) of clients, and then read the book I always have with me (at the moment it's Barbara Vine's "The Blood Doctor" which has been unread long enough since the first time I read it, to have vanished back into the mists of time for me -- I truly cannot remember what the twist is going to be, nor a lot of details in the story itself.  Which is almost unprecedented, and also a great benefit to me, since Ruth Rendell {Barbara Vine's actual name} has recently died and will not be writing any more.  So it's almost new!  WIN!) until that shift was over.  This is the break before my afternoon shift.

One of my co-workers had made and brought in for me, two chocolate chip cookies and a slice of what she called "Zucchini Pie" and I would have called quiche if anyone had asked me.  Needless to say, I did not eat it.  The chocolate chip cookies were perfectly fine, although they included walnuts in them, which was an unexpected though not off-putting occurrence, but were fat and puffy like -- like -- can't think of any cookies which are intended to be puffy, although I know I've eaten them.  Anyway, they were quite good, and I ate them with enjoyment, although I'm a little uncertain as to the intentions of the co-worker.  At the moment, I'm just assuming that she is being friendly and making friendly overtures to me, her friend.  Right?

 

Miserable hot day, today, somewhere in the mid-eighties, I'm guessing. It's funny how quickly that sucking misery can dissipate from my mind when I am in an air-conditioned building.

Further Up and Further In!

This morning I had breakfast in the Tardis of restaurants -- the Aslan's Country of restaurants!  Definitely bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.  It was a small, brown, snub-nosed building on the corner of a busy street, with dark reflective windows, so you couldn't see in.  But once inside, it had been laid out by a master hand, with the bar fronting the kitchen in such a way as to give all the room light from the windows, the odd-shaped corners used for the poker machines, and booths around the outer walls.  Light, airy, spacious -- it was a joy to enter, and an even bigger joy to eat in! The hashed brown potatoes were crispy and yet tender, the gravy was sausagey and delicious and their bacon was a thing of beauty and a joy for the very brief time it took to eat.  Next time I'm going to try the oatmeal -- see if they can take it to the next level!

I had breakfast there with Linda, my apartment house manager, chatting about books and marriage and raising boys and baking -- Linda and I have had similar lives in certain ways!  Now that I know where it is, I invite you to come and breakfast there with me!  Tuesdays and Wednesdays -- I'm always available!

Dichotomy Pie

I was just re-reading a Tim Powers novel recently -- in fact, it's my go-to-sleep book-on-tape at the moment -- called "Last Call," in which Scott Crane dresses in drag in order to get onto a yacht incognito.  When they ask him at the gangway what his name is, he realizes that he hasn't thought of one and says, "My name is Dichotomy Jones."

Well, that is lurking around my frontal lobes because I was thinking about a contradictory facet of my nature, this morning, and while trying to decided which side came uppermost, that phrase floated into my mind -- My name is Dichotomy Jones.  
 

Anyway, as I left the house this morning at eight am, I felt a familiar frisson of delight at the quiet emptiness of the streets, and long trailing emptiness of the freeway, and how the bridge was bare in all directions.  It made me think that I would have no trouble being the last human alive in New York City -- no trouble at all driving my 1970 red Ford convertible through the silent, empty streets like Charlton Heston.  I could be the Omega Man, no problem.  I'd love it!

But on the other hand, you know -- I do sometimes get lonely.  Some things need another person involved to be truly enjoyable -- look at the journal of my trip to London -- how many times did I say, "If only Ruthie were here?"  I remember sitting in the chapel of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, listening to a Bach concerto and absolutely overflowing with the need to have someone there to share that incredible beauty with.  Some afternoons while I am sitting in my comfy chair with a good book and a cup of tea, I am still driven to get up and go look outside to see if any of my neighbors are hob-nobbing in the yard, since I am just very aware of my all-alone-ish-ness.  

On the third hand, however, I cannot decide (I have no means of making this decision, since I can't establish the situation which would decide it for me) if this is because I know with the underneath of my brain, that there are other people out there, doing their thing without me.  If I could know that there weren't any others on Earth, would it make any difference?  You see the difficulty.  

It is an absolutely beautiful day, no question.  Vivid blue sky and bright sunlight, fluffy white clouds dotting about, covering about half the sky, but only around 72 degrees, and with a cool breeze.  I'm through with my work for the day, and getting ready to go home and make a Key lime pie, and a coconut cream pie, both specific requests from two of my neighbors, for the Fourth of July barbecue tomorrow afternoon.  Looking forward to it!

Branded!

While driving up 122nd this morning, I pulled over for a fire truck shrieking past, as did the other cars ahead of me.  After it passed, I pulled back into the lane, and noticed someone crossing in the middle of the block, up ahead.  I assumed that it was someone taking advantage of all the cars pulling over, to cross, but not thinking of the speeding emergency vehicle. 

I was mentally shaking my head at this self-absorbed, small-minded stupidity as I slowly increased my speed.  I was expecting the person to walk quickly across the five lanes, and was surprised to need to brake a few moments later as I came right up to the man, still pottering across.  Then, just after he had passed the front of my car, and my foot had moved back to the gas, he bent and picked something up off the street, (I couldn't be sure, but it looked like a wadded up paper towel) and turned around to go back! 

I quickly slammed on the brake again, and he noticed me for the first time, and stopped, standing directly in front of me.  He looked through the windshield at me and I looked back at him.  He was tidily dressed, with very short hair, and had none of the obvious sequelae of mental illness or signs of living rough.  His clothes were older but very tidy and clean.  As we looked at one another, he raised one hand and gravely, solemnly, wagged a finger at me, while slowly shaking his head.  Bad, bad girl.

Heil Who, now?

On my drive just now, I saw a man, about my age, who caught my eye, looking as he did -- sort of intelligent and competent and probably amusing and interesting, and having the right sort of broad shoulders and large nose and wavy brown hair and all -- I was admiring him as he crossed the street in front of me. 

He had a "sleeve" on his left arm, though none on his right, and it was done all in one color in a darkish sort of blue-grey, fairly blurred, so that I couldn't tell what it was intended to represent -- until he passed me and I realized that the large symbol centered on his elbow was a swastika.

It really threw me.  I tend to expect that those who decorate their persons with the symbols of Nazi oppression will look like ignorant racist pricks, and so I will not be surprised to see the Waffen SS or the "88" or hakenkreuz on their idiot flesh.  But this guy looked right, he looked with-it, he looked like a smart, interesting person --  it flummoxed me.  I'm sort of at a loss.

Just Like Everyone Else

I have spent a large part of my life imagining it to be different.  I have spent many, many hours dreaming of lives with me as hero, in which I am thoroughly happy, illuminedly beautiful, incredibly intelligent, fabulously wealthy, in which I can speak  dozens of languages, play many instruments, sing flawlessly and read minds.  I've also imagined less perfect lives, in which I am merely fabulously wealthy -- many of these imaginings begin with the words -- "When I am fabulously wealthy, I --"

And even though I knew with most of my mind (I am, actually, quite intelligent, after all) that I was never going to be fabulously wealthy, having no such opportunities in sight, and having been scrapingly poor up to that point, there was always a tiny, subterranean and largely ignored part of my mind that stubbornly said, "But I could be -- I will be -- someday -- maybe."

Well.   But now I am fifty.  By any imagining, my life is half over, and and I have used up the resilience and energy and burgeoning potential of my youth.  I am no longer one of the kids -- I am not a girl -- I am not even a young woman.  I am decidedly middle-aged.  And I do not have any wealthy relatives who are going to leave me a sudden influx of wealth -- my family has been one who took pride in poverty.  I will not stumble upon a buried treasure, since I never leave my little corner of the world, and certainly do not spend any time in locations where pirates or traveling armies or other people with chests of gold might hang out.  My job, although I enjoy it, pays just enough to keep body and soul together, allowing me to save very little (I look forward to an old age which will be similar to my young age -- one of carefully counting my pennies) and avoid all amusements which call for cash.  My library is my best friend.  I eat a lot of beans and rice (yummy!) and drive an old car.  I never buy new clothes.  Or new books.  New anything, really -- they call me Second-Hand Rose!

Knowing this ought to make those daydreams less interesting, less engrossing, less exciting.  I know that they are never going to happen.  (At least, I know it with most of my mind.)  It ought to make me sad and melancholy to think of my life, which is draining away like everyone else's throughout history, never having risen to any of the elevated points I imagined so well and with such satisfaction.

And it's true, I don't indulge in the game of "let's pretend" nearly as often anymore --  this could be because I am no longer in a marriage that was of such misery I had to distract myself in order to fall asleep at night -- nor am I a child-teenager-young-adult who always felt that there was more, there had to be more, it was just around the corner! -- or it could be because I am old.  But when I do, they are just as interesting and comforting and soporific.  No melancholia.  No despair.  Life will end, and my life will end, too.  It will sink like a tiny pebble into the pond, no splash, hardly a ripple. 

I will never be rich.  I will never be gorgeous.  I will never have a brilliant intellect that amazes millions.  And it does not make me sad to know this.  I am, truly, quite happy, a large percent of the time.

And I could be -- someday -- maybe!

Portland Weather at Last!

Glory hallelujah!

It is the perfect day.  Thick soft grey clouds obscure the sky,  it's fifty-five degrees, the air is full of tiny delicate drops of rain that seem to hover immobile until you walk into them -- ahhh!   The greenery of the trees, bushes and grass that I am looking at is glowing like an emerald quietly lit from within -- and just yesterday I was looking sadly at the flowers in our yard which were turning brown from so much direct and unshielded sunlight.   Ahhhhh... my skin is drinking it in -- I can feel my body blinking back online -- systems were shutting down!

Otherwise, how are things?  My house is about three-quarters clean, which is enough for me to feel good about -- still some laundry to do, some dishes to wash.  The kitchen floor could use a good scrub.  You know -- things like that.  But there is no faint odor of garbage in the kitchen, no dust thickening on the tops of things, no piles of what-not accumulating in the corners of the living room. 

Picked up the food box last night, and felt again the familiar feeling of guilt at the sight of a box of no-doubt extremely healthful vegetables.  I could eat a stalk or two of the celery, but three packages?  And there is no way I can consume anything like that amount of salad.  And I'm not even going to try to eat broccoli, cauliflower and artichokes -- those are all my especially hated hates.  Besides, I'm going to have enough to do trying to consume some of the apples,(two bags?!) oranges,(5)  pears (3) and raspberries (three boxes) that are overflowing my refrigerator right now.

A pair of young people just passed by in front of the window, using umbrellas!  Two black umbrellas have just put the finishing touch on my delight with this day.  Sigh of glorious relief and happiness!