"Please Update Your Blog"

So wroteth a Facebook acquaintance and I found myself in agreement.  Lately I've come to Car on the Hill with agendas (which I had to look up because it seems as though the word should have a Latinate ending -- but it doesn't).  I still have one but I think I can do it in tandem with "What Fat Women Want" over at Psychology Today.

I am thinking about the Seven Deadly Sins and how some of them -- greed, pride, avarice -- have sort of become virtues.  What, then, are the Seven Deadly Sins for the 21st century?

The first -- but not necessarily the greatest or the worst of the New Deadly Sins -- on my mind is Shame.

It it is of particular pertinence to Car because it's one of the reasons I've kept my posts either general or political.  While I was working on the book formerly known as Sex and the Pity (now referred to as Love Sick, but it needs a subtitle), I didn't want to tip my hand. While I was teaching I didn't want to draw my classes into this part of my life.  While I was depressed, I couldn't write, didn't want students or faculty to know or, also God forbid, affect my chances of getting a grown-up teaching position for which I had submitted many applications. Ditto eating, admitting disappointments, et cetera and so forth.

And a lot of those reasons revolve around shame. 
 
My Microsoft dictionary defines it as "a painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace".  The fourth meaning is "a great disappointment".

There is, of course, much that looks familiar in that paragraph.  What feels alien about it, however, are the words "painful," "strong," and "great".  Because I rely on my Car readers to sort of identify with me, I'm going out on a limb by saying that those big adjectives are mostly negated by sheer familiarity.  Shame should also have the adjective "perpetual" or "chronic" added somewhere to its definition because it takes an unusual blip on my emotional radar to become aware of how much shame I live in.  If, for instance, I laugh too loudly or ask for help or make no plans to see anyone besides family when I go back to my hometown, I may feel a sharper twinge of an emotion that is my second skin, but ordinarily my painful, strong, great emotional state is mostly a sinking nervousness at the idea that I have to leave the house or wake up in the morning or pick up the telephone.

So far almost everything I've written could go on my Psychology Today blog where I might earn a teeny royalty some day but I've confessed enough here to make it Car-appropriate.  Let me be even more specific.

I hide.  I sneak around my very small world beyond the Bat Cave trying to be both invisible and very big -- very big by telling jokes, saying please and thank you, telling amusing stories, apologizing for being in the way.  For invisibility I rely on side streets, waiting until dusk, turning off my emotions, wearing oversize clothes, and staying inside as much as possible.

I had a run of abstinence this summer that did not seem to produce weight loss and I fear with good reason that I may now be as big as I was when I began to lose weight lo! those many years ago.  As a dog-walker, I do not dress up.  As someone in debt, I no longer have my eyebrows, hair, nails, etc. done.  I feel tremendous shame -- embarrassment, disgrace, disappointment, in that order -- over what I look like.

Next Wednesday I fly to Seattle to stay with friends I've come to conclusion are obligated to like me anyway.  The following week, I go on to Missoula where I will once again not see old friends.  It's the end of a tiring summer -- I wrote some 30,000 words (some of which have been knocked down, causing me more shame) and walked a lot of dogs in 100-degree heat.  I have failed my own dog and find myself unable to get back up on the novel bandwagon after my agent rightfully nixed the 120 pages I gave her.

The other thing about the definition of shame is that it needs the word "compound" in it.  Shame inflates itself.  If I can walk Hoadie for an hour a day, why don't I walk Daisy?  (Because I can't stand leaving my house unless I have to.)   I know I have the bones of a story, the talent to write it and all the time anyone could ask for, but I'm frozen with fear that I can't make the final leap into a new chapter one.  Why?  I'm afraid of failure and afraid of my sloth, one of the traditional Seven Deadlies. 

And in between all of this, I am teetering, yet again, on the border of depression when my life has no meaning and all I want is to go back to sleep.  I am terrified of another bout.

Any good news in here?

I think so.  I think there are some major sins beyond shame that are making themselves apparent: fear, frozenness, a certain kind of weakness that manifests as giving in too easily and for which I need a better word.

Which is, at least, a project I can work on teasing out.

A Gift

I have been walking a Jack Russel mix this summer because his owner is heavily occupied in taking care of his wife, who is in hospice care for late stage cancer.  His dog had never had a dog walker before so I report to Mr. Smith (the names here are changed) his various achievements and events.  Hoping to amuse Mr. Smith and, perhaps, his grieving family, I wrote the following.  It seems to have succeeded in adding something sweet to a most trying and sad time.  I'm up to my eyeballs in dogs and deadlines, so I thought I would post this for you.

The Adventures of Hody

By

A Friend

I came to know Hody in the heat waves of July, 2012.  His Male Human calls him a Jack Russell but conversations with other interested parties leave me thinking he is part border collie as well.  Consider his coloring: it is the border collie’s white with black splotches and freckles, like an exceedingly good portion of Oreos ice cream.  And his ears do not stand at constant attention as he walks, which a terrier’s do.  On the other hand, his demeanor is all terrier.  He is determined, quick, stubborn and larky.  Then, too, he is as huge as a Jack Russell and as playful.

In fact, most of Hody’s day is marvelous play or delicious naps.  In his profession of playing and napping, he has proven himself an ambassador, comedienne, man of medicine, gourmand, hurdle racer and lover.

My acquaintance with Hody is mostly in the context of out-of-doors.  He makes a fierce noise when I pick him up, sometimes for joy and sometimes because he likes to pretend I am a robber and should be warned sternly away from his home.  His Male Human prefers to put him in his halter because Hody is so soft and glossy to the touch.  When I perform this maneuver, I place the halter on the floor, then pick up his paws and place them inside, praying he doesn’t decide to dance in the seconds it takes to click the halter closed.  Then we snap on the leash and out we go, in a stately manner, as far as the threshold of the building, when he bolts into the broader space of the sidewalk.

Sometimes he has a bodyguard or two waiting for him.  He is thrilled to see who is waiting and bolts over so that they can perform their Maypole dance of butt-sniffing.  My own dog, Daisy, is always one of his regiment of protectors and they see each other at least once a day.  Still, they have to inspect each other’s orifices in case one of them is really a cat or a squirrel that is in Daisy or Hody disguise.

With the leashes untangled, the time has come to make a most crucial decision: where should Hody pee first?  Recycling bags (from which odors are neither absorbed nor washed away) are ideal, but so are the fringes of grass and ivy poking out of fences and tree railings.  The only thing that is better than recycling is recycling with another dog’s piddle on it.  It is an ecstasy of ownership.  This place is mine, Hody grins as he trots off the next stop, his black ears bobbing like a baby’s hands waving.

But I forget myself.  There is one thing that exceeds even peeing on pee on recycling.  That is peeing over his bodyguards’ pee on recycling.  When Daisy and Gertie escort Hody out into the world, I have to pause a long time for this business because Gertie must co-sign each of Daisy’s signatures and then Hody trumps them both.  They get in line behind Daisy and are quite impatient to prove themselves as worthy a gusher as Daisy.  What the black and yellow Labradors produce in quantity, however, Hody exceeds in frequency.  Sometimes he teases me by sniffing so seriously at a spot that I’m sure and event will occur, only to shrug his little terrier shoulders and continue his bob-bob-bobbing along down the street.

“Hod,” I say when he is, near the end of a walk, as I confess I call it, shooting blanks.  “You’re yanking my chain.”

“Walker,” he says back, “there are only two important things in life: what is in front of your nose and that you leave as much behind in this world as you find.  And if all you can do is go through the motions of giving yourself away, that’s enough.”

“Did you acquire your knowledge of philosophy at Harvard?” I asked him recently, but he only grinned and climbed a stoop to be adored by a man watering the geraniums in his window box.

Because I live nearby and have a dog as well as walking other dogs, I have a large acquaintance in the neighborhood that Hody has been delighted to share.  He is now a notorious Lothario, having no use for boys but a healthy desire to get to know any girl he meets.  He is especially fond of Sophie, a mix of hound and some other beautiful race, who appears (but is not, in reality) to be about three times as big as Hody.  She bows to him and he crouches to her, then pounces so that they meet in an embrace of rapture, his legs hugging her waist as hers rest momentarily on his shoulders.  After this greeting, it is time to get serious again.  There is another Maypole dance and then Hody mounts her.

“That’s my boy!” his Human Male crowed when I told him of Hody’s dalliances.  “A true Smith.”

A few days later, I extolled Hody’s exploits to his Human Female Family Member.  “Oh, no,” she lamented in horror.  “What will people think of the Smiths?”

I looked at Hody, who wagged his upright tail complete agreement with his Human Male’s pride, which is only proper for a dog of great heart.

In this way, Hody has become acquainted with Grace, a bull dog, Talullah, a Bassett-Rottweiler mix, Sandy, a golden retriever, Lucy, a gray poodle, and numerous flings.  So far he has shown no interest in his bodyguards but this is perhaps professional discretion on his part.

I have introduced him to Schuyler as well.  Schuyler is a whippet who is used to being picked on.  He is so fast that other dogs chase and chase him and sometimes, when Schuyler decides to rest, those dogs gnaw on him as a piece of prey.  Schuyler is, therefore, a suitable young man for Hody to play with because he dodges behind his Human’s legs while Hody snarls and lunges, then comes out to bow when Hody gives up on his objections.

They can play this game forever.

Hody’s only true enemy is a German shepherd.  He does not like that German shepherd at all.  I have a rule about the dogs Hody dislikes and I am forced to remind him of it at least once every other day: if the dog is too big to eat in one sitting, he must desist from attacking.  His Humans do not have refrigeration space for a German shepherd, you see.

In his role as ambassador, Hody has welcomed Spanish, Italian and Dutch visitors to these American shores, as well as tourists from Out There Where There Are Yards.  Many visitors come to his Promenade in order to photograph the fence that keeps us from falling into the fascinating but frustratingly forbidden rushing cars below.  Daisy patrols the benches in advance, making sure there are no crackers or hamburgers in Hody’s way, and Hody follows, looking for a hand and listening of the kick-kick sound that dogs know Humans think is Dog Talk.  Ears are good, butt is best, and in this heat wave it is always pleasant to sit under in shade under the bench in order to beg to be released from the persecution and sadism he receives from me.

There is a last piece of business Hody must perform outdoors.  We will not delve deeply into it but suffice it to say that it is very exciting when it involves leaping over a tree railing, pacing around and around the tree so that my arms are wrapped around the trunk trying to keep hold of his leash, and then, when I am either dizzy or holding the leash in the crook of my little finger, enjoying the sweet relief we all prefer not to speak of.

Because life is never dull, going home is as much a joyful profession as going out for a walk.  Sometimes the Human with the Cookies in His Right Pocket is outside the apartment building door!  Sometimes the Human with Suzie is there and they to sing together.  But at the very least there is cooler air inside, followed by a welcome home cookie and the laughter of his very own Human Man who is ready with his Almost a Rabbit that must be killed after so much marking up the neighborhood and teasing of the Human Walker.  The Human Man tosses the many-tailed Almost Rabbit and Hody bounds off to retrieve it, shaking it and breaking its Almost Rabbit neck, growling menacingly in case the Almost Rabbit should decide to fight back.  Hody can kill Almost Rabbits for hours but at some point even Hody –

            – must –

–        sleep.

That, of course, is most comfortably done in bed, and in a proper bed, with lots of

pillows and cool sheets and warm blankets and Human Adoration.  A pillow is a nice extra mattress but every dog knows that the best place to rest one’s head is on a Human Limb (although it is very comforting to snuggle deep against a Human’s side as well.).  Part of the joy of Hody’s nearly perfect life (German shepherds and not being able to jump up and drink from water fountains like Daisy) is that his Human Woman is always ready to be a headrest.  When you are as big as Hody, and as abused by a Walker, you need the warmth and tenderness of a Human in order to restore your acuity for hunting, and this the Human Woman provides as she pursues her own dreams of fresh fields, splashy puddles, Real Rabbits and the occasional snow.  Each sleeps better for the other until it is time to eat or hunt or claim the streets again for his own.

Question of the Day...

Who are your favorite bloggers these days?  Most particularly, who's writing well about diet, health, cooking, body image, women's issues & books?

(For once this is Not About Me!)

 

Now Trending

in

Francieland

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-fat-women-want/201206/wanting-it-yesterday 

 

Click & I might get a tiny royalty which will help Daisy & me move West, away from New York City.

 

After the Rain...

comes oppressive tropical heat & humidity.  The dog walker's question is always what X season is going to be like.  If this summer is like today, I think I will turn choleric orange of irritation and restlessness.

A friend and I were just talking about the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, sampling two sets of adjectives any 12-stepper knows: "happy, joyous and free" and "restless, irritable and discontent".  We agreed that we're stuck on ad in the latter.  I'm writing this post, once again, in some effort to have done something writerly with a day that feels, with an hour of it to go, wasted and certainly itchy with wishing for anything except reality.

I just came back from walking dogs and had sundry thoughts out on the muggy streets.  They are mostly empty except for tourists, and the tourists were oohing and ahhing and saying they'd want to live in the Heights.  One young girl said, "I'll buy you a place."  The dogs and I happened to be walking toward the mansion where Turman Capote rented the garden apartment and wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood.  It just sold for $12 million and I was ever so tempted, if only lassitude and ennui hadn't gagged me, to tell them what it would cost to live here.  What a snotty thing to even think but how perfect for someone who has an ungreedy landlord and lives in a Bat Cave.  I can't afford to live here. 

The smell of the climbing roses on 70 Willow was almost solid in the thick air.

I remembered the two summers I was both thinnest and employed by the nastiest woman I've ever met.  I would trek off to Starbucks with a manuscript (these were the days of being an agent) and read in their air conditioning, then go to Saturday night Mass and wander around in a cloud of discontent.  I was thin -- I was making a good living -- I was funny, had great clothes, and was nice and I was wandering around the neighborhood wishing I had a boyfriend or any friend, mystified that I did not.  I felt I deserved one after losing so much weight.  In fact I felt owed all over the place -- the pretty clothes that I couldn't really afford, the shiny new job working for Satan, weekly manicures, a big social life, and having a facial and massage once a month.  I didn't seethe with this sense of entitlement; I was disappointed.  I was disappointed because I didn't feel I deserved any of that stuff.

Eventually I would drop my manuscript off at home and go have dinner by myself.  Alone but among other people.

I was shaking my head at the memory tonight.  I'm almost a month abstinent and commented to my sponsor that I don't feel I've lost weight.  If I put a battery in my scale, I would kneeling in prayer before it every day, so I can only go on how clothes fit and comments, the latter of which which usually fuck me up.  Better to rely on clothes because a shirt that fits is an 8-hour satisfaction but doesn't lead either to complacency, self-consciousness or boasting.  I did that the first time around.  If a decade of struggle and depression have taught me anything, it's that I have a fragile and manic-depressive ego.  I hope I haven't jinxed myself even by writing about being abstinent.

I think I was wishing I was thin tonight.  For a moment it promised an answer to my restlessness.  For once I stepped back into those days of being thin on a three-day weekend when one tends to feel more an outsider than usual and I knew it would not make me happy.  Cooler, more energetic: yes.  But happy or hopeful: not a chance.

In a sense, then, big deal if I have or haven't lost weight.  And so what if I am such a toxic brew of cravings, disappointment, perspiration, loneliness, self-pity, irritability and bitterness.  I don't have much else to do and I did not speak to the gregarious out-of-towners.  I'm tempted to end this by saying I have the air conditioner on and sugar-free lemonade powder in the kitchen, so life isn't really so bad.

But you know?  Sometimes life sucks. And the sole positive thing I can say about that is that if you think life is sucky because you're fatter/older/poorer/lonelier, it was probably sucky when you were thinner/younger/richer/engaged.  At the same time, however, if you feel like it's all a bunch of waiting for nothing, you're neither wrong nor alone.

P.S.  I was also thinking about words that should be banned from the language.  "Scent" is one of them, ergo the roses smelled -- "odor" is almost as bad.  Same for feral, creosote and bespoke.

The Petty Complaint Department

One among thousands of problems I face every day is the dreaded short space of time between one true obligation and another.  As I begin to write this, I have forty minutes before 1) leaving my house, 2) going out in the rain, 3) meeting a friend to) get on the A train and 4) see First Position.*  What do I do in the meantime that will have some meaning?  I’m showered & in non-dog clothes so I don’t want to clean.  If I got going on the revision of Sex and the Pity in the next thirty-seven minutes it could be damaging to leave it.  I am sick unto death of computer games.  There are numerous small things I could do – transfer money and pay a bill, put earrings away, clean my desk – but there is every chance that by the time I get back and walk dogs, I will be psychically exhausted.**  I’d like to do, or at least begin something, that counts toward my real self...whatever that is.

As I was being scalded in the shower, adjusting the hot and cold water knobs which are, for some reason, reversed in my bathtub, waiting for the “water-saving” shower head that was foisted upon us all by law a few years ago, my eye caught a note on the cream rinse bottle.  “Turn off the tap,” it touted, while conditioning your hair.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I thought.  I am the very victim of male thinking right now.  The “water-saving shower head” takes forever to adjust to a tolerable temperature, thereby wasting water.  It takes at least twice as long to rinse my hair under it as it would under a hard spray, and if I’m, say, coloring my hair, it takes about five times longer.  If I had one finger to shower in cold water, I’m sure it would water, but in the ordinary course of things, it’s a waste of both time and water.

And now I’m told to turn off the tap while I condition my hair.

First off, does anyone really condition her hair?  If she does condition her hair, would she spend five minutes slathered under the stuff without doing something else in the shower?  Surely she’d take that time to shave her legs or loofa her back.  What kind of idiot just stands there?

If I were to turn off my tap, it would take three minutes of fiddling with the hot and cold to find a tolerable temperature. 

And does anyone really shampoo twice?

I am being admittedly sexist when I say that it took a man to think this stuff up.  A bald man.

And who at Maxwell House wants to take credit for the design of their coffee cans?  They have base and rim of metal but the tube is made of cardboard.  The crime in this design is twofold. 

First, the rim juts out so that it’s nearly impossible to shake the last coffee grounds into either the new can or the pot.  I know, I know: there’s not many grounds left so what’s the big deal? 

The big deal is Anne Frank.  She could – and would – have collected those grounds until she could make her papa a weak cup of coffee after dinner on the first day of Chanukah.  I resent my right to thrift and apocalyptic generosity being thwarted.

Second, how do you recycle said coffee container?  I am a slave to recycling, always fussing at it downstairs where my busy neighbors dump wine bottles in the baskets clearly marked paper and their newspapers in those clearly marked plastics.  For whatever reason, New York City recycling wants milk and orange juice cartons in with the soda bottles, but this is graphically clear as well.

So I looked at this coffee container and estimated it was more cardboard by square inch than it was aluminum and duly tossed it in the paper recycling.  When I saw the bags outside, it had been moved to metals and plastics.  Would it be too much to ask Mayor Bloomberg to pronounce upon where such mixed messages belong?  Or might Maxwell House take a look at oatmeal packaging which is all cardboard except for the recyclable plastic lid?

The above ate up the time I had before leaving for the movie.  Twenty-four hours later, I have combed through the private information I store in a big coffee can (a Café Bustello can, made entirely of aluminum) by my desk and cannot find a recent letter from World Financial Capital Bank.  (I keep everything with account numbers to burn in a friend’s fireplace.)

A month or so ago, I opened a bill that I expected would either be about $90 or $7.50, depending on whether the company had received the items I returned.  Instead it was more than $150, with a second charge marked “bath” after it.  Bath?  I’ve ordered nothing for the bath.  I went online and this bath charge was not among the purchasing history that went back some months.  I called my credit card.

A nice woman took my information and said there would be an investigation into the bath order.  In the meantime, they had received my return and that had been deducted from my account.  She couldn’t access my order history so I could only tell her that this bath-thing didn’t appear.

A few weeks passed and I received a letter from the World Financial Capital Bank, which seems to own every merchandise card out there.  How could I have not saved this?  My students fresh off the boat from Gabon could have written a more understandable business letter.  At least one boner included something along the grammatical lines of, “You are responsible for any other charges, Due on your remaining balance.”  Then, from what I could puzzle out, the letter went on to say that the bath charge had been removed not because there had been a mistake but because the package had been returned as non-deliverable.

Funny thing, I’m here in the Bat Cave for about 20 hours a day.

This was my latest but not my only run-in with WFCB because this winter I had received a yearly fee bill for a card I thought I had closed, do not possess and had never called to open.  I called, explained to the person that I wanted the account closed and the fee removed.  He kindly said it was taken care of. 

A month passed.  A bill came from the same company came, now twice the amount because the yearly fee had collected both interest and a late fee.  I called once again and was assured it would, now, be taken care of.

This month they asked me for Daisy and my Barbie collection.  I called once again, this time to find out that Capital One had taken over that particular credit card.  I explained yet again and have been assured that, this time, the charges have been removed. 

The ironies are rife.  They had, in fact, closed my account upon my initial request but had not gone through the rest of the motions they assured me were to follow.  Someone out there, they thought, was either rich, lazy or dumb enough to send in Busy Gal Barbie and a yellow Labrador to an account that doesn’t exist.  Credit card companies are as bad as Zimbabwe email scammers.

The next irony is that I got a letter from my Discover card sharply reducing my credit limit.  I use that card for big purchases and emergencies; there’s never much activity on it.  At first I thought, oh so what.  Upon re-reading the letter, however, I saw that their reasons were late fees and nonpayment.  My pride was injured.

A big shout-out to Discover, the only credit card whose operatives not only identify themselves by name but by location.  We went through the problems, which I had to explain in exactly this detail, the representative put me on hold for less than a minute and then came back with a reinstated credit limit.  We laughed about the situation and I once again praised Discover for being the most co-operative credit card company I have dealt with.

But thanks to WFBC, my credit rating is probably about 200 right now. 

It’s bad enough to be a day late because I couldn’t haul my ass out of bed – it’s bad enough not to have the wherewithal to shower every day – it’s bad enough that I pick the yucky deli container someone didn’t rinse out of the paper recycling – but I’ve been hopping mad at the illogic behind what I do manage to do.

* I am s-l-o-w-l-y emerging from this long, long semi-death that includes incredible social anxiety.  Each of the above is an impossibility.  I already feel like throwing up.

** Psychic versus emotional exhaustion.  Topic for another post.

Apology to ED + Everyone Else

Is it the food or is it the depression?

I've had enough days away from food to be able to say yes to both.  It's strange waking up & not regretting what I ate the day before but that's not enough to keep me from going back to bed, back to sleep, back to non-caloric oblivion.

Is it the results of the food or depression?

Again, probably yes to both.  My body hurts in ways it hasn't for 14 years.  I'm detoxing.  But while I see no point in binging, I see no point in anything else either.

Most days -- it seems to be running at 3:1 -- I feel like an elephant in a collapsed circus tent.  How hard would it be to bathe?  Too hard.  Do the dishes?  Too hard.

So I go back to bed.

Is it depression?

Yes.  I wake up exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open for what must be done in the morning.  I forget things -- keys, filling out deposit slips, phone calls, transferring funds, paying bills (I have some nice late fees this month when my one purpose in life is to pay off debt: good show).  I swing between days of being hungry but with no desire to eat -- it seems like such an awful lot of trouble -- and days of having little appetite at all.  Walking to the grocery store and interacting with clerks requires a nap just thinking about it.

But the food, the weight and the depression are my three ring circus.  I can write this only because the food is down and because I caught an extra 5 hours' sleep this morning - afternoon.

I think I bottomed out when I realized that eating a pizza quite literally made me pass out.  When I came out of the coma, I threw out the left-over pizza only to pick it out of the trash the next time I woke up.

It can't help my depression to have that fresh in my mind.

Thursday morning I woke up, abstinent, with few dog obligations and a lunch date with you.  I swam out of bed, had some coffee, sleep-walked Daisy and fell back into bed.  It had been two days since I'd last bathed or brushed my teeth.  I don't remember the last time I washed my hair.  I slept deeply until 4 o'clock that afternoon.  I was too limp to turn on my computer and figure out where you were staying to call and cancel. I'd left my phone off the charger and my cell phone was dead as well because maintenance is not high on my list.  I couldn't call until the next day.

When people ask how overeating hurts anyone besides oneself, remember this post.  It murders energy.  It plays roller coaster with self-esteem.  And then, if one is prone, as I am prone, to depression, I can't show up even for apologies.  My dog needs much more walking and play time.  It contributes to my inability to call my 94-year-old father.  It s-t-re-t-c-h-e-s my response time to paying clients and friends depending on me.  I have nothing to say and thinking is an activity best not engaged in.

And the only thing that will help me out of it is medication, abstinence from sugar and flour, and twelve steps.  I trust the elephant handlers and circus guys will get me out of the tent.

I want to say I've hated myself or hated being myself but hate is an emotion I don't have the energy for.  I simply wait.  For the odd "good" day, for more better days, for my body not to hurt so much, for my interests to return.

Frozen

I don't want to think about how long it's been since I posted a real blog here but I was just saying to myself, as I had a cigarette as the ultimate delay tactic before I brushed my teeth, which was on my list of things to do, "I bet I have a thousand things I should do."  I thought it would be kind of fun to see if that's true.

Because when my brain is buzzing, I tend to freeze up & get absolutely nothing done at all.

And because I am so easily overwhelmed, I have to break big chores into small ones, so this adds to the list.  I don't clean house, I clean a shelf, for instance.

Let me also begin by noting what I have actually done of practical use in the six hours I've been up & what is not negotiable in the next six hours:

• Walked two dogs.
• Not eaten.
• Done a phone Stepford meeting.
• rolled $3 in pennies during said-meeting.
• brushed my teeth.
• I have another three dogs to walk.

Brava.

Now for the bad news.  I wonder if this will be good for me or bad.

1. shower
2. floss my teeth
3. put some things away in the high cupboards in my kitchen
4. cold water laundry
5. warm water laundry
6. hot water laundry
7. whites/bleach laundry
8. see if my TV/cable is working
9. try to figure out why the VCR portion of my DVD/VCR machine doesn't work
10. find out how to download the lost registration & software for the camera I bought 28 months ago that I infinitely prefer to the camera I'm using
11. watch the Netflix Emma series on my desk
12. call the IRS & find out why I'm paying penalties as well as interest on back taxes which the IRS deducts my payments for
13. having cleared the laundry out of the bathroom, clean the bathroom.
14. collect all the bits of jewelry, pair them up & put them away
15. change the sheets
16. shave the callouses on my feet
17. get a pedicure
18. start farmette box (long story: remind me to tell it when I've finished this list)
19. clean out kitchen cabinets & put all the flatware in place
20. go to the damn grocery store
21. go to the post office
22. go to Capital One & pay bill
23. photograph some shoes I don't wear & list on eBay
24. leave feedback on eBay
25. scan family records & photos for family members
26. take pictures on Columbia Heights of the flower I admired
27. cull Adobe album & delete unwanted photos
28. finish editing photos from Prague
29. look up plane reservations to Montana for grade school reunion
30. can I afford to be off work for a week?
31. figure out how to use my American Airlines miles before they expire
32. put books away in proper places
33. dust books
34. sweep under bookcases
35. read Silas Marner
36. find a video of Ballanchine's Don Quixote
37. get password straightened out with AWP
38. look at job listings on AWP & MLA
39. edit ED's chapters
40. come up with phony French lesson for novel
41. delete the scene I wrote yesterday
42. take stuff to the dry cleaners
43. return call to B (since Christmas)
44. return call to A (since Christmas)
45. write S a note
46. figure out how to work my iPod docking station
47. clean & dust my desk
48. find case for Xmas carol cassette & put away Xmas music
49. blog
50. decide what first book is being used in novel & do some research
51. call G. & set up French conversation lessons
52. put away heaviest winter clothes
53. sew buttons on coats
54. move desk flush with wall
55. file
56. send out CV for adjunct jobs
57. write C. a note
58. put fallen stuff back on bulletin board
59. make CD for K.
60. make CD for Dad
61. write my sponsor
62. pair up socks
63. write new scene in novel
64. read the half a short story I wrote in January & try to figure out where it went wrong
65. read fragments/unfinished short stories & type them into computer
66. write magazine proposals on adoption, Mrs. Schweitzer
67. see if I can speak to someone about curriculum at School of American Ballet
68. take stuff to Housing Works
69. start a daily journal
70. listen to meditation CD
71. write poems about fat boys, tulips
72. dust & clean framed photos
73. start the Shakespeare reading circle I want to do
74. ask G&A if I can come to dinner on Sunday night when I have no dogs
75. write out most used recipes & file in box so I don't have to run from computer to kitchen
76. throw out last quarter's essays
77. burn bills
78. brush Daisy
79. take Daisy to play bally
80. find Stepford materials & arrange on chest
81. go through clothes to donate, sell or throw out
82. cancel prescription at CVS
83. order prescription from Canada
84. make coffee date w/ A.
85. cancel Hulu
86. proofread novel
87. change from flannel to cotton sheets
88. go through drawers in corner
89. find slides to be transferred to DVD
90. copy photos for R, T, L, the Ms
91. write C2.
92. dust dolls
93. put magazines in basket
94. order new shorts
95. put CDs away
96. put movies away
97. find itch-free stuff in bathroom
98. shave my legs
99. read K's play
100. read G's novel
101. make dinner
102. vacuum window grates & spider webs
103. clean windows
104. update money earned
105. update calendar
106. throw out beaten up dog toys
107. make will
108. step work for sponsor
109. charge Kindle & cell phone
110. say the rosary
111. put odor eaters in dog-walking shoes
112. put all the book bags on the floor away -- or better yet, cull a bunch out before putting away
113. pull out chests of drawers & sweep
114. get vacuum cleaner bags
115. rent floor steamer
116. get new sports bras
117. research & write essay on Alcott, Elliot & C. Bronte
118. read Don Quixote
119. go through Writer's Chronicles for short story contests
120. get rid of old taxes & put the last couple of years in bigger box; store
121. write Psychology Today blog
122. open L's Xmas gift from 2010
123. get ticket for School of American Ballet Theater workshop
124. buy new fan for summer; throw out the broken ones
125. list all Ellen Gilchrist books in order of publication & note which I've read
126. ditto Angela Thurkell
127. find other kibble dish
128. take TV tray out to recyling
129. get another filing box for school stuff
130. lather up with hand lotion & wear gloves to sleep in
131. put away last of Xmas ornaments
132. copy photos for J & B
133.  walk Hudson...
134. take Daisy to vet
135. go to Stepford meeting
136. listen to L'elisir D'Amore
137. how much would it cost to rent a storage unit & how complicated would it be?
138. write donations to World Services & Spirit Animal Sanctuary
139. post my disaster-discovery cookie on All Recipes
140. read the Times
141. call Dept. of Health for nicotine patch
142. find something to eat
143. open boxes that came in mail
144. clean refrigerator
145. eat some fruit
146. stop playing games when done eating
147. recycle boxes that came in mail
148. read R's book
149. read B's book
150. say no to book clubs
151. empty out letter holders & throw away
152. put books I'm selling on Amazon out of the way (back of desk?)
153. write P.
154. write J & N
155. make date w/ E
156. clean fingernails & trim
157. put out cassettes & VHS tapes on cool dry day
158. get batteries in watches
159. put away winter shoes
160. wear warmer clothes tonight
161. make date to go to botanical garden
162. throw out stretchy sentimental thing that's all stretched out
163. take out garbage
164. get new flip-flops
165. drink some water
166. make brief novel notes to hang up & refer to
167. bing! how to bring Hartwell/Harry into novel! -- write it
168. make list of all dog client phone #s
169. call J.
170. find video of Mozartina
171. go to bank
172. put away wallets
173. put away purses & backpacks
174. find rosary book
175. what is that black plastic bag way up in kitchen shelves?
176. put change away
177. open mail
178. finish New York Magazine
179. call L.  Does she have my rocking chair?
180. throw out those Rocket Dog shoes
181. get batteries in watches
182. dust penguin head
183. put up recycling signs in basement
184. outline Emma
185. outline novel
186. email C4 for M's address & ask abt baptismal gown
187. find a great box
188. should I make May Day cookies for people who didn't get Easter cookies?
189. start Commit Art page on Facebook
190. email SJ about photo session
191. wash all those dusty dishes that are getting discolored
192. walk down to Blyn Bridge Park
193. put all reference books needed for projects on chest
194. cross off Western Washington U. from application list & DON'T GET DEPRESSED
195. take Prozac

Now Trending in Francie-Land

 The worst thing you can be is...a woman?!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/%5Bfield_blog_ref-title-raw%5D/201203/youyou-woman-you

Letter from the Left

Dear You-All-Know-Who-You-Are:

Please join me in something approximating actual discourse.

In regards to a young woman's testimony that her health plan does not cover contraception, Rush Limbaugh said the following: "What does it say about the college co-ed Susan [sic] Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute," Limbaugh said. "She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."

The day after, he scoffed that if women want prescription coverage for contraception, they owe it to him as a tax payer to broadcast their sex lives on the Internet.

I have become embroiled in this fire storm because I am appalled at the gleefully fact-free nature of Mr. Limbaugh's attack and the resulting mud-slinging from both sides.

Could we establish what the issues are and what the facts are?

Let's start with facts.

• Sandra Fluke must pay for Georgetown University's insurance plan which is underwritten by United Health Care.  This fact has two aspects: 1) Fluke does not have a choice of health plans, and 2) she is the payer, not Rush Limbaugh and not the public.
• Ms. Fluke did not discuss her own sex life.  She spoke as a duly chosen figurehead for Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice.  No one knows how much sex Ms. Fluke is -- or is not -- having.
• Her statement was backed up by surveys of her classmates, 94% of whom think the insurance plan they pay for should cover contraception.
• Much of her statement concerned women suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome.  Despite the very real pain and consequences of this illness, students were interrogated by UHC and Georgetown officials.  In many cases, they were denied care any way.

In reaction to this rather tepid, read statement, Mr. Limbaugh painted a picture of Ms. Fluke as a prostitute and a waster of tax dollars.

Wha???

Of course Sandra Fluke's statement yanks all of our chains.  Contraception is the logical prevention of abortion and abortion is one of the dividing issues in our national social climate.

And of course how each of us feels about the legitimacy of abortion usually influences what social commentators we listen to, what churches we attend, whom we vote for.

But this issue is not abortion.  The issue is that females paying into religious institutions' health plan do not receive prescription coverage for contraception.

And Mr. Limbaugh has equated that issue with promiscuity, tainted it with the brush of tax payers' rights and gilded it with salacious voyeurism.  Which leads to a second issue: is a woman who needs contraception a whore? 

It is those equations and the misinformation that Mr. Mimbaugh promoted to his claimed 20 million listeners a week that I am protesting. 

I would politely ask that this discussion be limited to what Ms. Fluke actually said and to consider the calumny that Mr. Limbaugh passed on as truth.

Then, maybe, we will learn how to argue articulately and productively about abortion, contraception, the left, the right, Sean Hannity, Viagra, aspirin, Bill Maher, the Food Stamp President, papal encyclicals and abortion on their own terms.

Letter to My Sponsor on Day 30 -- Crazy & Crazy/Mad

Hi, Patty, your sponsee writes in a tiny little guilty voice.

I have no excuses except that I seem to hold myself in perpetual readiness to write & my communication skills suffer as a consequence.

I have been very narrow-focused: writing, dogs, abstinence, some of what I've had to do for my dossier.

But before I go any farther into today I have to get off my chest how much I hate people & the terrible resentment I'm carrying that is sprouting out in ugly ways.

Two weeks ago I filled in for a colleague.  I invoiced a dog & the owners haven't yet paid.  I've left three similarly pleasant messages.  Yesterday the client called my colleague & asked how much he charges for a "pee & a poo," which is to say, not much of a walk but an elimination.  He hesitated because the standard walk is $15 -- who knows when a dog will go for the money shot?  Then she said that she noticed I'd walked their dog briefly -- he's old & doesn't want to leave home -- & my colleague suspects she wants to pay me less.

I'm supposed to walk that dog for three days next week.  I told Aaron he would have to pay me for that dog although I will invoice the others, but after that conversation this morning, I decided to simply let the $75 go & to tell him I wouldn't walk the dog again.  I feel humiliated from calling her, from her criticism which she took to Aaron instead of to me, & for the criticism itself.  I thought I was doing what the dog wanted because it was a complete tug-of-war to get him down the street.

I want to be mean to the client.  Aaron is desperate for next week's substitute so I said yes but never again for that dog.

I'm mad at joggers for clipping my dogs and making them startle & snarl.  I'm mad at joggers who won't break their stride when they come upon a group of people on the street but say, "Excuse me!" in that snippy voice.  I'm mad at joggers who don't stop to look at the fireworks bursting behind them on the Promenade.  What the hell is SO important about joggers???

I hate yuppie mothers in elevators talking loudly & cozy-self-consciously-I'm-my-

kid's-best-friend.  I hate people who know my dogs don't get along with theirs & don't cross the street, despite having one dog to my two or three.  I hate it most when they see me from behind & come up on us anyway -- Daisy spun me 180 degrees that morning for a hated Maltese & the walker just looked at me smugly.  I hate kids who come rattling down the sidewalk with whatever contraption they're using at the moment, see my dogs & start screaming in fear.  The dogs are terrified.

I hate strollers.  Today I moved my dogs to the side because I could hear one coming & the man just sailed by.  "You're welcome," I said in a sarcastic gooey voice.

& this is really weighing (ha ha) on me.

As is the book, which is going through the most difficult tunnel & is due in 10 days when I'll be walking dogs more than full time & I have a weekend of dogs ahead of me.

Prozac messes with my appetite. Yesterday I forgot to eat until night.  It not only suppresses my hunger, it seems to divert my attention from it.  (I had 1 c. yogurt, 1/2 c. oats, some sugar-free apricot jam.)

BUT...

Today I don't have to mix with the world until evening, when I have something like six walks in a row.  I am not going to ask for money again from this client.  I'm trying to let my anger, self-justification, humiliation & hurt go: deep exhale.

I don't have to worry about money.  I have enough.  I haven't opened the check my father sent with all sorts of conditions that make me feel invaded.

There is light at the end of the tunnel in writing about last fall & getting on to the fun ending of the book.

I don't have to walk Crazy Emmett today.  It's just us girls, me & two naughty but adoring Labs.

All the proper recommendations have been requested & accepted.  My dossier is nearly done.

I only have to eat, stay away from joggers, parents, children, occasional clients, other dog-owners/walkers, & write a little today.

& get groceries.

I'm going to go have some yogurt now.  I don't have fruit in the house.

I'm going to have salad, 4 oz. ham & a tablespoon of oil for lunch.  I'M GOING TO EAT LUNCH.

I will probably have yogurt, 1/2 c. oats & a fruit for dinner.

I feel a little better getting all this off my chest.

Love,

Frances

Letter to My Sponsor on Day 20

Dear Patty:

I have this terrific need to write out, as closely as possible, what I'm eating and what I'm doing today. I just finished chapter 7. The book is due 10/15. I have decided that my desire always to write 12-chapter books is not necessary to the continued success of the written word so I may settle for 10. I don't know what to write today but I do know it will be painful.

I'm also going out on the academic job market & have much to in setting up a dossier, polishing my CV, asking for recommendations, pulling together a syllabus and looking at job listings.

I've already walked Daisy, Gertie & Emmett while fretting about all of this.  Then I had breakfast:

1 c. yogurt, 1 c. blueberries

Lunch will be: salad, 4 oz. chicken, 1 T oil
Dinner will probably be: 1 c. yogurt, 1/2 c. oats, 1 banana

I have three afternoon walks, at 2, 2.30 & 3. I cannot do them on time because from the 2.30 gig to the 3.00 gig is a long walk. Ergo I will move everything up a quarter hour: 1.45, 2.15, 3. I'll be home by 4. I need to pick up chicken on my way home. I need to stop at the bank & make a deposit & transfer funds.

Here is what my brain does NOT have room for today: going to Verizon to straighten out my accused non-payment (I've done the paperwork, I just don't have time  today and will not have to walk Gert & Emmett on Thursday); justifying my need for emotional space to an online suitor; how much money I will make in October; more than a few check-ins on Facebook; wondering if I've lost weight & when I'l fit some piece of clothing or how much weight I can lose by Xmas & all that chitter; composing academic cover letters in my head.  Just dossier, transcripts & recommendation requests for today.

I will start, as soon as I finish writing this, with calling the Associated Writing Programs and setting up a dossier file, then calling Cornell for transcripts to be sent, and calling my department head at Berkeley for a letter of recommendation.

Then I will consider whether chapter 8 should include my backing off of dating last summer but having my best friend in NYC coming on to me during his Lost Weekend, or whether that's two chapters. I may start it with how well I'm coming to know one of my dog clients and the sort of crush I have on him. I.e., I may skip ahead a year as a stated & hopefully deliberately artful way of avoiding the aftermath of disappointments last summer.

The job stuff may take up the two hours I have until I leave and I may be tired & crappy feeling after the hike across the Heights + 4 flights of stairs. If so, I will settle for setting up the chapter 8 folder, formatting the chapter, and free writing. I walk Gert and Emmett between 6 - 7 & there isn't much time before I have to walk Sandy, at 7.30,  then Daisy,  then dinner & bed.

I really, really need to say these things because I want to see huge progress today & it may not happen. But the day will be successful by staying abstinent, by taking steps toward two big goals, by showing up for the dogs, by NOT BLAMING MYSELF for the things I do not do beyond these non-negotiables.

Thanks for listening. Much love always -- fmk

P.S.  My first action now will be to brush my teeth.

A Wealthy-Job Creator Says....What Exactly?

 "Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) appeared on MSNBC with Chris Jansing this morning to attack President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, which includes some tax increases on the wealthy. Taking up the typical GOP talking point, Fleming said raising taxes on 'wealthy job-creators' is a terrible idea that kills jobs because many of these people are small business owners who pay taxes through personal income rates.
Fleming is himself a businesses owner, so Jansing asked, 'If you have to pay more in taxes, you would get rid of some of those employees?' Fleming responded by saying that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you 'pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,' his profits 'a mere fraction of that' — 'by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.'"

Dear Representative Fleming:

Re. your MSNBC appearance of this morning, September 20, which has now gone viral: I would suggest that, in the event of higher taxes, you do what I do.  Don't see a doctor or dentist or veterinarian.  Don't eat out.  Don't take a vacation.  Don't own a car.  Sell what you can on eBay.  Buy generic foods.  Give up new clothes.  Take out books from the library.  Make minimum payments on credit cards.  Pay high interest on taxes you can't afford to pay on time.  Forgo air conditioning.  Move to smaller home.  Write loving Christmas cards instead of giving presents.  Cut your own hair.  Terminate Showtime and HBO.

Just some well-meant words of advice.

Sincerely,

Frances Kuffel

If you, too, want to offer advice for living in tough times, here is Dr. Fleming's email address:


https://flemingforms.house.gov/Contact/ContactForm.htm

Uh-oh.....

It's been years since I've seen my money market drop to $35.  If I hadn't gone to Montana, maybe it would only have dropped to $500.  There's so little difference that I see no point in blaming myself.

The awful news came just as I began a week's substitute dog-walking for a friend.  After working out the kinks in the schedule to my pace, I've been walking from 7.30 or 8 until 4 or 5 with a one-hour break, with a couple of evening walks to finish out the day.  It will save my ass for a minute when I had counted on it to act as a bridge until I started teaching near the end of the month.

And then my courses were canceled.

I had to make the Call. 

You know the one.  "Hi -- [snivel] -- Dad...."

Is there a more humiliating call to make?

Yes.  The next time I have to do it.

This week has, until the break of Saturday, saved me from worrying too much about it.  There is always a sudden dog to go board with, I reasoned as Daisy & I packed off to do so.  I found 43 cents on the sidewalks yesterday.  At least I've caught up with other things that had dropped to new lows: doggie bags, dishes.  At least I'll have a good three weeks to write five chapters.

Eeeeeeeek!

I have to say that I am tired of having a bad year.  2009 was a bad year.  My mother died.  2010 was a bad year.  Two months in a cast, my book bombed, Zoloft went funky on me.  2011 has been a hard year.  A difficult student during winter quarter, three quarters in a row in which I haven't taught, always countingcountingcounting (Blitzen is six walks this week and four next...150 dollars...can I pay off that Visa yet?).

But this piece of bad news is the worst because I have absolutely no savings.  I was planning to pay a lot of bills this fall.  I was looking forward to the occasional movie or Chinatown back-rub.  I was finally going to be able to relax

                      well, once I got my book turned in.

I still have that little chore.

Ever have a good idea for a book & then see it?  That happened to me yesterday via Twitter. 

And I have so few ideas for new books.

Still.  I am holding myself very tightly to focus on what's going right.  I can actually (with the help of a few drugs) DO the walking.  One of the dogs did not hide in the fireplace when I picked him up today.  Beanie, a shy Lab, comes quite briskly to me, her owner says.  I'm ten days abstinent and the weather went from warm and clammy to cool and dry which means I had to put on my favorite salmon pink corduroy jacket.  The sleeves are roomier than the last time I had it on.  I have to be out & about in a way I haven't been in years, visible & accountable.  I'm enjoying my iPod at last & feel intimate with the music.  The world is full of strange things -- loose change, fragile Christmas ornaments in the gutter, overheard comments like, "Urdu, Urdu, Urdu -- shit, man."

I need to get back into the Rooms but this time I want to change the emphasis in the Serenity Prayer from "accept the things I cannot change" to "courage to change the things I can".  That prayer fucked me up with the initial emphasis on acceptance.  Give me a test for post-traumatic stress disorder and I pass with flying colors from the women I worked for a decade and more ago.  I survived by clinging to acceptance.  I was even graciously accepting of having my courses canceled ("This must be so stressful for you," I wrote my department head).  Several times a week I dream about those women, about begging for my job back at no pay or other scenarios. 

I want to close out 2011 by being able to say it was a hard rather than a bad year.  I want to change things.  I want to have normal nightmares about werewolves and falling and fire.  I want to be the first to have a good book idea.

My Little Town

 It's been a month since I've posted here and I find, this morning that I have lots to say.  In the interests of all of our sanities, I'm going to stick to one subject and try to follow up on the others through the week.  I need to start writing daily anyway, so you'll be my experiment...

I'm slowly -- as I seem to do everything -- getting back into life after being in Montana for two weeks.  I didn't mean to be away as long as I was but I thought some stranded flier might need Tuesday seat into LaGuardia less than 48 hours after Irene & then United gave me $800 in vouchers to take a flight later in the week.  (Can you say Bora Bora?)

This simple series of events pretty much covers my trip.  It extended it, it extended what I most needed to accomplish, and it extended my regrets over what felt like I didn't have time to accomplish.

My relationship with my family was tested pretty severely two years ago after my mother died.  My reclusion and the difficulties of making friends in New York to begin with, meant that this very lonely person needed both to reconnect and, if not to make actual amends, live them.  I stayed with my brother for two weeks and got silently irritated with the situation exactly twice.  I felt guilty at imposing on them but given the number of hours I was there, I enjoyed 99.99% of our time together.  The entire family, except for one grand-niece (yeah, you!) drove to Spokane for another family member's birthday so I got to see everyone except said grand-niece in my brother's family.  I lovedlovedloved laughing and talking with my oldest nephew who is as cynical as I am and almost as psycho.  I met new nieces.  An in-law I've met once was recounting a story about her favorite cousin and my father's head shot up and he said, "Jumbo?  He was a conductor on the NP.  He had a sister..."  I thought that was a fine serendipity and a fitting one for Missoula, with its concentric circles of family history.

I spent a lot of time with my father.  I was confessor to younger family members.  I saw our old house at Flathead but fleetingly: I couldn't bear to look.  I took day trips with one or another of my family to the east, west, north and south.  I had huckleberries, elk, prime rib, corn that had been picked that day.

So much for the slide show.  I also failed in other important reconnects and amends, with friends from grade and high school, from the Writing Community, with cousins.  I thought I was on a shorter schedule.  I found that talking after saying perhaps twenty sentences a day for the last four months was exhausting.  I was ashamed of what I look like.  I was scared to meet some of the people who have hurt me in the past.  I put myself on my family's schedule and agenda and took a vacation from self-determination.  I'm sorry that this is so, K, M, T, L, J, M, S, J, C, F, N, L, L.  I don't know whether you'll read this but I will try to make it up to you next summer, although my brother and I have plans already to float the Blackfoot.

I haven't been back to Missoula -- really and truly there on an out-and-about basis -- for more than ten years.  What I noticed when I stepped out of the airport was the smell of green grass in 15% humidity, and the skytheskytheksy.  I have only ever seen that sky in one other place -- Austin, Texas -- and only in Montana is it that cornflower blue. 

The next startlement is the growth of the town.  I mean, it's really grown, with lots of raw housing tracts, miles of chain restaurants and stores, and a complete rerouting of traffic.  Part of it has been Super WalMartized, another part has been darlingized in restoration, and another part is permanently Outdoor Magazined.  I could spot the latter by the badly maintained yards but neatly stacked inflatables -- inner-tubes, rafts, tents, mountain bikes.  The OMs have too high morals an no time to waste water by changing sprinklers.

I probably could have met up with everyone I didn't see if I'd hung around the Saturday morning farmer's market longer.  At some point my willies came up and said, "Get your fat ass outta here."  My sister-in-law and I lugged out bread and sun flowers and beets back to the car and took off for the corn farm just, perhaps, in time.

Even out-and-about, however, was traditional stuff.  Hamburger with my pa at the Missoula Club, a visit to the Clinic on the former St. Pat's hospital site, pie at Glen's in Florence.  That stuff.  Someone would mention a local favorite restaurant and I would wrinkle up in consternation.  I bought gifts at the airport the day I left. 

So maybe it was a visit to Montana but not Missoula.  I think my father will be moving there permanently next year and maybe I'll have the nerve and energy to see Missoula then.  I came home to find that the hurricane took out an old survivor of the 1928 Dutch Elm epidemic that graced several homes with its shade, and that the tree had taken down two other trees, uprooted wiring and busted up the doorway of the 1828 wooden house next door.  I stepped out of the cab from the airport to be greeted by the smell of the sea.  I had a calendar of dogs awaiting me the next day and a pile of catalogues.  A friend had come in and changed my sheets and put a salad and yogurt in the fridge.

I was back in Brooklyn even though I wouldn't say I'm back in New York.

ST. ANTHONY'S SCHOOL - 8TH GRADE 1971

attention!

if you went to St. Anthony's School in Missoula, Montana, & were, at any time, part of the class that graduated in 1971,



PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT

OR

FIND Me OR John D'Orazi

on Facebook.  We are gathering forces
to meet on Sunday, August 27th, at 2 p.m.

Boiled hot dogs will [not] be served.  Bring your own powdered doughnuts.....

& stories of Sr. M. Francesca!

Soundtrack

Nothing has gone right for the last four days. 

As the heat wave roared in, I went to the dentist on Thursday & got a temporary crown which cracked apart within an hour of leaving the office.

Friday the temperature soared to 104 degrees.  Sometime very early that morning I woke up and noticed I was...hot.  And the the cable box was not telling me the time.  I opened the door and was met with complete darkness.  I proceeded to pad out into the street to find a bevvy of Con Ed trucks and patches of the street opened up.  We didn't get electricity back until mid-afternoon.

Very bad for Facebook games.

Yesterday, still in the low hundreds with humidity in the 50s, I opened a letter from my agent & discovered someone had mistaken my request for a three-month extension for the deadline of Sex and the Pity as a two-month extension.

Of course that had to happen on a SATURDAY.  When I can't do anything about it.

The building's elevator is busted.  The door to the cellar is locked.  My laundry is being held hostage & I can't take trash or recycling out.

I do not feel like writing.

The chapter I'm working on, however, is rather musical. I was cool with the first half of this chapter, and now, with some great advice from Facebook friends, I'm facing the second half.  To stall for time, I put a play list of all the songs mention in the book so far.  My fundamentalist family can listen with impunity -- & I hope you will enjoy it. 

I'm even kinda in the mood for a smoke & an assault on the next bit, armed with Owl City and the lamented Amy Winehouse.

Tap on the Shoulder

I don't want to think about how long it's been since I've posted here.  I've had so little to say, you see.

And what an incredibly selfish statement that is.

I'm stalled out in the middle of chapter five of Sex and the Pity, frozen in place by fear of more failure.  More, you say?  The advance on acceptance is a spit in the wind.  Angry Fat Girls, now called Eating Ice Cream with My Dog, sold about three copies.  It's probably not my fault but I'm beginning my second quarter of not getting a teaching assignment and I've done nothing to change that situation other than to walk dogs and try to pick up writing coaching gigs.  (Hint!) 

And I've been frozen in fear itself.  What if I can't write this book?  What if it's horrible?  If I move from my bed I'll have to think about my bank balances and the fact that dog walking thins out in the summer.  I'll have to think about my weight.  I'll have to stay awake, which is hard to do when I can't sleep at night but nap all afternoon under the influence of really bad nutrition.  I'll be awake to the fact that I have no health insurance, few local friends, few friends I'm really in touch with.  I'd have to notice how much I need to sweep and clean and bathe.  And as of about Thursday, I'd have to admit that the molar I broke half of a few years ago is now very painful and that the pain is moving into my upper jaw.

Wait.  Is there such a thing as an upper jaw?

I'd have to admit I should know things like that.

So I've been hiding in bed, obsessing my way through a psychoanalytic biography of Hitler (which makes him scarier than he already was), onto the siege of Stalingrad, on to biographies of Churchill, Roosevelt and, now, Stalin.  I sleep.  I don't walk Daisy enough.  I get up and plug at Facebook games, which I've come to loathe but still involve myself in.  I promise each night I'll stay awake the next day and write two pages, get proper  groceries, and/or update my website with the new book cover and an announcement about editing.

With no results.

It's called a situational depression, one that circumstances such as a death or break-up or job loss can induce.  At times I pull it together and am wonderful.  Then I hide in bed for 23 hours of Stalin purging Belarus.

But I got my comeuppance yesterday and I'd like to think the universe tapped me subtly on the shoulder and that today I'm doing my best to respond.

Last night at dusk, I was skanked out from a day in bed and walking Sandy, an elderly golden retriever, on the Promenade.  We visited with a puppyish Bernise mountain dog and then moved on.  I had sort of unconsciously noticed -- sort of/unconsciously should prove how vague I was -- a woman behind us and when she caught up to Sandy and me I assumed she wanted some of Sandy's prodigious golden retriever adoration.  (I call goldens "barnacles" because they latch on to your side and won't let go.)

"Are you Frances Kuffel?" she asked.  "I love your blog."

I was ashamed.  Primarily I was ashamed of having neglected it for so long.  All the other shame -- unbrushed teeth, unbathed body, gained weight, the gray world of my existence -- crept up behind that, but slowly enough for me to thank her, tell her I've done a couple of pieces over at Psychology Today and that I should come back to Car on the Hill.

She didn't really care, I think.  She was forgiving of my absence and mostly wanted to say hello and that I speak to her in my writing.

Whomp!

I have a really hard time with that Frances hanging in my closet who speaks to people through her writing.  It's incredibly difficult for this Frances, in shorts dirty from the dog run, to respond to...well, they are fan letters, I suppose.  The real Frances is grotty and sweaty and scared and sleepy and neglectful of her dog and her father.  The one hanging in my closet is wrinkled from being smashed in with everything else and unused for so long.

But, um, I guess it's these ten fingers on the keyboard that wrote those books and the blogs and somehow they are connected to something that people want to read.

I resolved to write a Car on the Hill blog.  I began to think very very very very superficially about the possibility that Sex and the Pity could -- might -- have meaning for the spinsters among us who are afraid of men -- or the men who are afraid of us spinsters.

That was sort of a double-tap on the shoulder.  I'd gotten an email from a man I was interested in dating who effused about my work and my answer was so diffident that it insulted him away. 

Sorry, Mystery Date.  I need to dry clean the other Frances and sit her down in front of email when contemplating serious communication.  This Frances is mostly on her way to sleep these days.

I finished my walks around 10 and made my bed.  I turned to pick something up and stepped on my Kindle.  There was a crack.  It didn't look damaged but it's dead.  Right in the middle of Stalin's post-war cultural purges.

The universe had tapped again, just to prove it means it.

Kindle + sugar = all of the above.

I had an Amazon gift certificate so, yes, I'm getting a new Kindle. 

But not until Tuesday.

In the meantime, I found a credit card site that offers a fair deal on medical/dental procedures.  The scariest dogs in the Heights (Ooper will let about ten people touch him and I'm one) need a walker.  Sandy is here this weekend for $120 I didn't expect.  And I hope that what I've had to say here, as whiney-complainy as it is (which is one reason I've avoided coming here, but really only a small reason because I'd have to fucking wake up in order to do this), strikes a chord for anyone who has a wrinkled doppelganger in her closet.

It's OK.  I didn't even iron mine.