NOTE: While I don’t deny that I could also be in some state of denial about one thing or another at present as well, the denial I was embracing at that long-ago time is something since uncovered that has led to much inward gazing, so I reserve the right to judge myself, at least a little, about having been in that state once.

Fast-forward a few years, to a time when my creativity and emotions were brimming and wanted an outlet. This became it. Into these pages I poured my life: all the messiness and uncertainty, all my hopes and idealism, all my love and my pain.

I’ve been aware, over the past two years here, of a good many of you who read my journey. I think of you as friends, more than friends really, because you’ve dived into my depths with me at times, or ridden my heights. I know too that some of you read because you are looking for something, something to report to someone else or simply something to report, something to use, perhaps, to hurt. I’ve been aware of this. It’s had an effect on me. I’ve spent less energy here of late because I’m less comfortable letting my passions and pain ooze onto a page where it’s not simply embraced for being yet another part of me, another facet to the unending complexity that is me.

And if I no longer find joy in unearthing all the beauty (even the beauty that others find ugly, or twist somehow into ugliness) that is me here in this venue, it’s time to stop.

This is my last post here.

Thank you, ALL OF YOU, for being here and sharing these bits of my life. I shall miss you.

Love,

Me.

This Other Thing involved nature, a group of wonderful people, and a co-created spiritual weekend.  It was much like last year’s event and yet nothing like it at all:  last year’s Other Thing marked, for me, a huge letting-go of so much, and the beginning of yet another series of huge transformations and transitions that have continued unabated since then.

NOTE:  It’s a funny thing about change.  We tend to think of change as a good thing, like It’s time for a change! or maybe A change will do you good!, and I for one embrace change in theory and in practicality (except when it’s you insisting I change, in which case there is kicking and screaming and general mutterings of resistance).  But we are always in a state of change, and sometimes change has, well…repercussions.  Ones that don’t always feel good to you, or to other people.  We all are catalysts for change both within ourselves and for others, and sometimes It Just Sucks.  Even though in the end it’s all good.  So when I say Yay!  Lots of change this year! I fully acknowledge that that change came replete with interesting repercussions at times for me and for others.

So last year’s event was intentionally a transforming one for me.  I went there open to change, and change I got.

This year my focus was on fine-tuning some of that.  I’m already headed now in a very different direction than I was a year ago, and there are some things I want more of.  So it’ll be interesting to look again in a year and see how that turned out.

And no, I did not ask this time for big change.  I have learned that lesson, thank you.  But change there will still be.

Even if I have to talk like Yoda all year.

So.

Knife + salsa + green onions for salsa + me = experiencing life with part of my finger missing (I saved said part in case anyone is interested in it).  And a surprising amount of blood!  And typing with one finger instead of my customary two.  Amazing how that intensifies the tedium of typing and makes it even less appealing than usual.

Also apparently alcohol does not dull the pain as much as I hoped it might. Not that I would know.

So am I milking the whole scarlet fever thing?

Um…nah.

Come here, let me breathe on you while I am still contagious so we can share this lovely experience together.

Except I must have superpowers of bringing back dead diseases.  Things were too boring around here anyway.  Plague, anyone?

My tattooed torso is covered with sunburny redness. Also my neck and earlobes. Arms. Okay, my entire skin hurts and feels two sizes too small. All because Typhoid Eric is a veritable petri dish and likes to get close and breathe streptocacaprophylactic on everyone.

Let me tell you about scarlet fever.  The number one thing to know about it is that it’s highly contagious.  I could breathe near you right now and you would be swallowing shards of glass within 3 days and wondering why your skin hurts within 5.  Guaranteed.  Also.  You need drugs for this.  The kind that kills off those little warring feudal sonsabitches in your throat before they start invading other places like your kidneys.  Scarlet fever is related to strep throat, the thing that the pediatrician sticks a long long q-tip down your kid’s throat for (I seriously want a pack of those q-tips; they look useful).

[was trying to insert a joke having to do with Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter but I couldn't quite put it together, so pretend that I did and you got the joke and now you're laughing companionably, pleased with yourself because of your fondness for jokes made from obscure literary references]

Two comments:

1. Since losing custody of health insurance I have been to the doctor 34 times as frequently as when I actually had health insurance.

2. Ow. Hurty throat hurt. Can’t talk.

I used to get strep on two major holidays a year and while growing up could be counted on to make Easter and Thanksgiving extra special. It became no particular big deal to anyone after awhile (except me) and after doing that for a few years and especially after being confined to the couch for an entire mono-ridden month of my 4th grade year, having nothing to entertain me but Dick Van Dyke and Andy Griffith and a box of Red Vines (plus the whole colored fairy tale book series by Andrew Lang), I suddenly stopped being sick anymore.

So this thing of fever and throat issues and especially antibiotics is a little foreign to me. I wonder if they bled me enough? I was serious about the leeches; it’s hard to get really good quality leeches these days.

My eyelids itch now.

Oh, and I breathed all over my laptop so don’t get too close to your screen there. Sorry!

This is what I did:

1.  Spent $100 at vet for thick white fluid in small bottles meant to be handily squirted into cat’s mouth twice a day, and also for an entire case of prescription canned cat food that of course looks and smells identical to regular cat food but costs four times as much.

2.  Chased Blood-Dripping Peeing Razor Blades in Inappropriate Places Cat around the house in a vain attempt to deter said cat from leaving bright red spots on the rented carpet whenever he headed purposefully for a corner.

3.  Told landlord, “Sure, bring someone over tomorrow to have a look at buying the place!  What do I care!”

4.  Ran around insanely throwing things into drawers and closets.  Looked at said rented carpet with loathing.  If I issue them green glasses at the door, the green will cancel out any red they see, right?

5.  Met with patchouli-scented petsitter who will happily inject said cat’s mouth with said white cat-fluid twice a day (for a fee) while I am away later this week and next, since I know damn well that 12-year-old boys will not.  At least not the one I know.

6.  Taxes!  Something about taxes!

7.  Regretted not having sent in those estimated self-employment tax payments all last year.

8.  Work.  Because “working from home” means, uh, working.  From home.  However to the unaided eye, “work” can look an awful lot like “doing something on a computer.”  So I’ll clear that up and just say I spent 3 hours at work.

9.  Painfully swallowed more than 4,600,000 times.  Because someone came in the night and filled my throat  full of shards of glass and strep-laden steel wool.

He wasn’t quite himself over the weekend, choosing to nap some and whine a lot. Wasn’t particularly hungry either though he asked for snacks constantly. No fever. I’ve seen sicker. Though he was sporting a nice red rash all over. If this is Scarlet Fever then no biggie. The Ex took him to the doctor today and he was duly swabbed and dosed for strep, and strep + rash = Scarlet Fever.

My throat hurts just writing this.

However! You know I’ve been writing over at Workitmom for awhile, and the whole experience got a lot more fun a few weeks ago when Karen Rani of Karen Sugarpants joined and made us all in awe of her marathon training. I kid you not! I have such a crush now. Though I admit I had to get over the whole “Karen R. and Karen M.” thing. I thought I left that behind in like 4th grade, where there were FOUR Karens in my class and I swore I would rename myself to something better REALLY SOON.

(I am still open to suggestions. Please add yours.)

But hey! Workitmom is celebrating the big Oh-One and there are contests! And prizes! (More appropriately referred to as the Birthday Bash Giveaway!) And did I mention PRIZES??! I’m thrilled to be a part of this great community resource for working women. Really! Go see!

Also: (bad segue? You be the judge) Ass Cork Cat, now known as Blood-Dripping Peeing Apparent Razor Blades In Inappropriate Places Cat, is also on antibiotics. Guess how much fun it is to dose a cat with that?

2. Yesterday my mom used her normal tactic of getting off the phone, which is a “Well, I’m sure you have to cook dinner now….” trailing off uncertainly and with plenty of martyrdom.

My response: “I don’t cook anymore. The kids know where the kitchen is.”

Silence. Looooong silence.

“Are you serious?”

(I was, but only sort of and only once in awhile.)

“Yes.”

More silence.

“Okaaaay. Well, I’m sure you have to go now anyway.”

That’ll keep her guessing for awhile.

3. Last night Serena and Eric were running around the house, making a circuit through the livingroom and kitchen. I felt like running so I got up and joined them (Eric is a definite obstacle to making any sort of speed through the circuit).

Serena: “I’ve never see you run in the house before!”

(She doesn’t remember the last house where I played soccer with Nathaniel in the kitchen, which was quite large.)

~~~

It’s not easy to move out of the box created by others’ expectations of you, but it’s fun.

I need a new blogentity.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I looked at one of my stupid Pages over there in the sidebar and said, “Fuck! Who was that bitter angry woman who wrote all that shit anyway?” and I stomped around angry for an entire day wondering who it was that broke into my blog and wrote all that stuff. Then I realized that person had been me, and I was no longer that person.

Fine. Change the stupid Pages then.

Right. Not. Because my stupid fucking blog is BROKEN and I can’t FIX IT. Yes, I have Googled “wordpress can’t edit pages delete posts” and I’ve come up with some threads where people tentatively say stuff like “you have to query your wp_options table”, a phrase which causes my brain to instantly snap shut as it requires digging into my database, and I don’t think my blog and I know each other well enough yet for that kind of unalterable intimacy.

I have upgraded to WP 2.5 and that did no good. Right now the message (in red, no less) “YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO DO THAT” is staring at me unblinkingly, taunting me. I never even asked WP 2.5 for anything! We only just met! And already it is telling me NONONO to questions I have not yet asked.

Also I want a new theme. Fine. Because I found my blog twin, and I am still stumbling about stuttering a little at seeing my very unique (but free! downloadable by anyone!) theme I never bothered to customize in use by someone else. Someone else quite like me in many ways, which is totally cool. But still. A little weird.

So I’m getting out. Making changes. This is no longer the ALL of me I want to present.

But the stupid fucking Pages. Will follow me.

So I need help.

Help? Anyone?

First, there is the thing about the neighbors. I have mentioned the neighbors before. There are a lot of them.

Dog-Poop-Catapult Recipients left. Oh, that was a major event! Boxes upon boxes of undefinable objects sitting out at the curb for weeks, trips back and forth to their 600 cars. At first I thought only some of them were moving but no, Big Daddy took his SUV and left also. With all three dogs: Big, Medium, and Yappy.

And then there was quiet.

For a day.

Then the pickup trucks arrived, and the New People came.

I was going to give New People a big bag of apples, and then I got to thinking that maybe they don’t eat apples and anyway isn’t apples a weird thing to bring a new neighbor? So I skipped the gift thing.

He is a karate instructor. She is bigger/taller/more muscular than he is (and he looks pretty buff).

Which explains the sounds I hear at night, like someone is using the wall between our places as a kickboxing dummy. Not that there aren’t a lot of various loud sounds coming from my place from time to time, but every night. Like at 10 pm. THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

He also spends a fair bit of his time on the phone. On the porch. Which is under my bedroom window. While he smokes. Until 1 am.

However, everything balances out:

Day before yesterday, another moving truck appeared behind the house across from me, the house that’s next door but with a strip of grass between. If you’ve been keeping up, this is the house of Judgy Bus Stop Mom. All day as I was in and out I noticed the three-year-old standing on the truck ramp but never saw anyone actually putting anything in the truck. Were they moving or simply storing a moving truck in their driveway?

J.B.S. Mom said hello to me, first time in months! She didn’t mention the large moving truck not six feet from her, so clearly she hadn’t noticed it yet. I didn’t want to give anything away, so I didn’t either.

At the end of the day they were finished levitating their invisible goods into the truck, and it was now out front with a trailer attached and they were attempting to drive a car onto the trailer. I dragged my free stuff that even Craigslist doesn’t want to the curb. J.B.S. Mom was out there watching Husband try to drive the car onto the trailer. “Once you don’t want something, no one else does either,” she remarked to no one in particular. Still nothing about moving. Perhaps no one had told her? I was prepared for a big emotional scene with her crying and sobbing about how much she’d miss me, but I think the strain was getting to her so I let her off with a have-a-nice-life nod and a semi-smile at her semi-joke.

This week Serena had her Worst Day Ever At School (something about a lost mitten; no pie for her!) followed by One Her Best Days So Far At School (something about a friend and plans to play together the next day). Life should be like that. Passionate and intense.

Eric amused himself in the Indian grocery yesterday by turning in circles in one spot until he fell down on the floor last cleaned in 1982.

I now despise Freecycle as much as Craigslist; could you explain why you are upset at me because I wasn’t home when you came to get my crappy FREE dresser, when you never told me when you were coming? And also? Woman who came to get my daughter’s very nice outgrown clothes? Is there a reason you didn’t tell me your six-year-old was INCREDIBLY FAT AND THEREFORE CAN’T FIT IN THOSE CLOTHES so you’re going to sell them on eBay? I know you are so couldn’t you have just been honest about it? And then I would have given the clothes to the 4000 really nice people who emailed me repeatedly and actually wanted clothes their kids could wear instead of making up that bogus story about your house burning down. I wish I had had the balls to just not let you have the clothes.

And today it is sunny and it is warm and I will go outside. The end.