Fear

 Barb!  I'm sorry your response didn't get published!  I got all kinds of spam at one point & closed open comments: sometimes new comments slip by me!

So much good advice, for which I thank everyone.

It was never an option to break my book contract.  I know too well that my real professional future rests on the notion of publish or perish.  My brother means well & wants me to be secure & solvent.  I do, too -- just as soon as I turn this book in.

& I know we are all overwhelmed by blogs -- but I think I will take a chance on the newsletter, which I intend to call the f chronicles.

As well as posting ads for tutoring, editing, dog walking, baby-sitting.

& I'm terrified.

But there is humor in the situation.  What placard, I'm wondering this drizzly morning, would Daisy and I huddle behind begging for money?  "Help a writer finish her book"?  "Willing to work -- later"?

I've also been mulling over how to convince people to subscribe to the f chronicles.  I have a vision of a five-minute infomercial:

In this once-a-week, finely crafted two-to-three page letter you will be invited into process of the Promethean struggle of one woman to combat relapse and become abstinent, battle the dogs of depression and the dogs of Brooklyn Heights, write a book about dating and own up to her failures and possibilities.  For the price of $5 a month, you will have access to a closed blog where you can discuss the chronicles of f, offer her advice that will make her squirm, criticize her choices and ask why she has never trained her dog to heel.  

And if you send your $5 payment to Pay Pal in the next ten minutes, you will have the unprecedented opportunity to sign up for the f chronicles for only five dollars a month.  That's less than a grande latte and is guaranteed to make you ask for that latte with skim milk!

Listen to what readers of the f chronicles have to say:

"Frances Kuffel should shower more often and take yoga -- and I enjoy telling her this on a daily basis!  It's so much fun to boss someone smart around!" - Susan K., Glenwood, IA


"the f chronicles are better than Ambien!" - John M., Jasper, AL

"I hate her food plan but I'll be damned if I let her lose more weight than me!" - Sylvia T., Visalia, CA


Act now and Frances Kuffel will send you one of her very own tchotchkes!

*

OK.  Back to Friday, April Fool's Day & the sound of rain on a sheet of plastic outside my window that is beginning to feel very much like the first round of torture at Guantanamo Bay.

There is some truth here.  Upon reading feedback, I think once a week with time to respond is a good way to go.  I think readers should have the chance to subscribe for one, three, six or twelve months, & I think the prices need to reflect that commitment -- $5, 12, 25, 45?

I can promise there is going to be some tough going because I do not WANT to be abstinent and I do not WANT to go back to the Rooms.  But I have never said 12-step programs are the only prescription and I've never said they are by any means undeserving of criticism.

& I also promise I will cheer the fuck up.  I spent two or three months this winter with unbidden thoughts of suicide tapping me on the shoulder &, at its worst, it was because I'm so tired of myself -- tired of fighting, tired of being alone, tired of being afraid of everything.  I can't live like that any more.  I've have a three-day nervous breakdown, slept a lot, pondered much -- & this post is to announce that I am seeking courage, hope, adjectives &, ultimately, 1,000 subscribers.

We can work out a deal on referrals, too.

Look for announcements here, on Facebook & on franceskuffel.net for further action.

Aren't those the scariest of all words to commit to cyberspace: "further action"?

I think I'll start by brushing my teeth.

Waking Up

One of the reasons I don't blog as often as maybe I should is that once in a while I write something -- like "Fred" -- that I want to hang like a Picasso lithograph in a millionaire's living room.  However, I am in desperate need of shaking off some difficult years so today I'm going to tell you what I've seen and the conversations I've had.  It's a rare opportunity because I'm substitute dog-walking & out for three or four hours...

In other words, I want to document a day in order to wake up from my ongoing stupor.

*

8.20 a.m.  Daisy eats a half a powdered sugar doughnut on Love Lane that someone didn't pick up.

8.50 a.m.  Recycling day is tomorrow.  Unwanted furniture is starting to line the curbs.  Tuesday is the day Brooklyn Heights collectively outgrows Ikea.

8.55 a.m.  Long talk with dishy doorman.  He has a hard, hard body.  The squirrel he rescued and was tending in the outside lobby of the veddy exclusive building he works for had run away.  "Probably to die," I said.  "Animals are like that."  He told me that "in the country I come from," they have all these saying about donkeys because when a donkey is dying, it will break chains and knock down fencing to get out and go off to die in private.  "Remember Solomon in the Bible?" he asked.  I nodded.  "He has a donkey's jaw.  Think about that.  Why not another animal's jaw?"  His "country" is Romania so we talked about the Roman Empire and how he can understand about 20% of the janitor's Spanish and the fall of Communism.  I liked it.

9.10 a.m.  A hoary man sits down backwards on a bench outside Harry Chapin Playground and begins to do sit-ups using the backrest to keep his knees from lifting.  First thought: Innovative.  Second thought: I would never have the nerve.

9.25 a.m. A frisky young malamute mix decides to eat my hair, wash my neck and pierce my ears.  "I can give you his leash and he's yours," his frustrated owner said.  Later I saw that she had her notebook out on a picnic table and was working, her dogs wandering quietly around and under the table.  First thought: Daisy would jump up on the table and sit on a computer in the dog run.

9.30 a.m.  Honey Bear, part Australian cattle dog and a notorious herder, got humped and herded by a Pyrenean mix.  The owner took Pyre to task but I was laughing and laughing at the well-deserved comeuppance.

9.38 a.m.  For no real reason, the thought occurs to me that, today, I am close to my inner serial killer.

9.40 a.m.  The first pumpkins of the year, on a stoop on Willow Street.

9.45 a.m.  Ran into the former nanny at Zeke's house, pushing a wise and somber three-year-old and tugging two toy dogs behind her.  She still sees the kids at Zeke's house and told me how the youngest has grown up in the years since Zeke was put down.  "Why don't you take me out for sushi?" he asks her every time they se each other.  He must be...four?

9.55 a.m.  Hunky Doorman walks part of the way with me and Honey Bear and tells me he now takes his coffee half-cappuccino/half-vanilla.  I tell him I used regular canned coffee but dump about a tablespoon of cinnamon in before brewing it.  A short conversation about the virtues of spices and the use of them to kill oneself by eating too much ensues.

9.57 a.m.  An elderly gentleman has brought a folding chair outside to read his newspaper in the sun.  This pleases me.

3.35 p.m.  Honey Bear, Daisy and I are about to turn onto Pierrepoint Street but first pause to let a woman with a double-decker stroller go by.  Inside are two enchanting Kate Greenaway tots, one about three, the other possibly 18 months old.  Blonde as Alice falling down the rabbit hole.  "Hitler would approve," I murmur to Daisy.
3.40 p.m.  The golden retriever barks up a storm when I step out of the elevator but it's all show.  She won't get off the bed, merely rolling over on her back for a belly rub.  I seduce her with a cookie.
3.42 p.m.  The Not Quite As Hunky Doorman tells me I don't have to leave Hunser and Daisy leashed to the fence so far from the building entrance.  I tell him I was walking the golden when the brouhaha began over dogs and elevators in that building.  It's a CEO sort of building and the owner of the ground floor apartment on the south side is, as Not Quite says, a bay-itch.  She demanded that no dogs be leashed outside her window because of the pee.  (A dog won't pee in a spot it can't get away from, but never mind.)  Then she complained about dogs in the elevator.  (She lives on the ground floor, but never mind.)  "So," I summarized, "I figure it's best to keep the dogs as far away as possible."  It's my last day filling in for Mike so the point is moot.  Still, he tells me the bay-itch complains all the time about the ice cream truck outside the Promenade Playground across from her aparmtent.
3.46 p.m.  The rag and bottle pickers are out, going through trash to find whatever they can resell.  Remind me not to throw out a shirt in a bag that has bills and stuff in it.
3.55 p.m.  We meet Hudson, a black English Lab.  Black Labs practically make me lactate and Hudson is a perfect specimen, not as fat as a lot of English Labs, with a perfect otter tail.  His owner is throwing balls for him but he takes time to wink conspiratorially at Daisy.
4.10 p.m.  I look up to see a large family hanging over the fence of the dog run.  The dog run is the local zoo -- the fence is often lined with people watching the free play of the dogs.  This family is dressed to the nines.  Out-of-town Jehovah's Witnesses who have come to marvel at their organization's HQ in Brooklyn Heights.  I'm glad Daisy jumps up on the water fountain to drink rather than trying to nose Hudson away from the dog pan that is at the foot of the fountain.  They point and laugh and I think about how they've been hearing the party line all day as they looked at printing presses and whatnot.  They need a little comic relief.
4.13 p.m.  Honey Bear decides Hudson needs to be corralled from his wanton ways of chasing a ball.  She nips his butt.  Hudson.  Doesn't.  Like.  It. 

4.25 p.m.  The wind shaking the lime trees on Willow Street makes me think of Flathead Lake, which makes me think of a comment my shrink, Dr. It's Never a Cigar, did not pick up on.  "If I was rich I'd be sitting on a beach at Flathead," I said in response to something.  "It's the only place I am truly myself."  I thought about that as he tried to drag some Totem and Taboo truth out of me.  It was too simple a statement.  I feel myself when I'm traveling, especially abroad.  And when I'm writing.  I should write a book cataloging people's various authentic selves, I think.  I would call it The Wind on Willow.

9.15 p.m.  Daisy grins broadly when we walk out the front door.  Recycling night!  All those bags to either rip open (I had to prize a bag of fried chicken out her mouth from Monday's garbage) or pee on.  My girlie-girl: lifts her leg especially for plastic.
9.16 p.m.  We're expecting a mini-heat wave but I wish I had a sweater on.
9.17 p.m. No, we are NOT going down Love Lane to find more powdered sugar doughnuts.
9.18 p.m.  What do you mean, you forgot the cookies??????
9.21 p.m. The blast of grilling beef at Heights Cafe hits us.  My stomach growls.
9.28 p.m.  Am I even hungry for dinner?  What would be good?  Ham and cheese roll-ups?  Yogurt.  I'll have yogurt.
9.29 p.m. Three boxes of Milk Bones fall on top of me and bounce into my basket.  What I do for love.
9.31 p.m.  I didn't bring enough money with me & have to pay by debit, which is not what I planned on doing.  Visa can wait another day.
9.35 p.m.  Theseus is tried up outside Starbucks so we go over to say hello.  Another black English Lab but as hyper as a popcorn machine.  Daisy takes advantage of the diversion to try to crawl into a trash can.  There are big black bags of garbage outside Pick-a-Bagel.  Montague Street the night before trash pick-up is Daisy's heaven.  It could only be topped if I had a Sanitation Services guy for a sleep-over boyfriend.
9.45 p.m.  Despite barking at a man with a CVS bag and a Pomeranian we make it home, but only before Daisy looks at me with the Cookie Question after the Pomeranian squabble.  No way.  "Do you want love?"  And yes, she does, going between my legs in the Tunnel of Love that reassures her everything is OK.

I'm having yogurt, oats and a banana for dinner.  My father is tucked in with his beep-beep channel hopping between National Geographic and a Rocky Marciano marathon.  I soaked my feet before shaving them tonight (no, I am NOT a hobbit) and did something to the plunger that drains the bathtub.  Tomorrow's second move is already mapped out: call the super.

*

What if I'd gotten cereal and pastry tonight, or ice cream?  Would it have effaced a day of conversations and mental photography?  Which is really me -- the sugar freak or the walking blogger?  Somehow it's a question that matters very much.

But not quite now.

And so to bed.

Public Confession

I had a b-a-d week & it all culminated in acting out yesterday.

I desperately needed to be at my mother's memorial service in Missoula on Sunday. I needed to hear what the co-founder of the "alternative Catholic community," which I call Our Lady of Off-off Broadway, said about the years of working with my mother in the Church. I needed to remember my mother with friends from high school who have the same context as I do for her. I needed to see how my father reacted in the moment.

But I had a dog to board, a promotional video to do & a flutter since then of more interviews for Angry Fat Girls. My publisher is optimistic about the fate of the book. I am cautiously hopeful.

Not only, then, could I not go and everyone set the date in stone, but I didn't hear from anyone except my high school friends about the service or about being missed. I went to Mass with friends, who held my hands during the prayers for the community. We met another friend of our age for brunch & laughed ourselves silly at all the old Catholic stuff which we share an obsession with. I was happy until I got home & saw the emails from friends about the service, at which point I fell apart again.

Something burst in my heart yesterday morning & I blasted off a phone call about the timing of the memorial. I think Christmas is going to be cheaper this year because of it, and my publisher is seeing if the last line of the acknowledgments can be changed.

& so began my day.

What was big became venal. Daisy took a dump in a pile of leaves at dusk & I couldn't find it & didn't search very hard for it. Later, Henry took his dump & I was deep in conversation with a friend about how death opens up thinly healed family dynamics. No one saw & I didn't venture out to the ed of the dog run to pick it up.

I always pick up poop that can be picked up. I am insistent about this because dogs are in such danger of being hated in the city as it is.

The grocery stores had none of the free local broadside newspapers I need for the Italian greyhounds's crate but two copies of the New York Times were lying around the vestibule so I took them.

Petty thievery! The only thing I can say for myself is that given the state I'm in, the dogs were lucky to get a good walk & play time, and that the greyhounds are lucky I went over to feed them & clean their crate. This morning I washed dishes that were two days overdue. I finally put the toilet paper on the roller. I'm blogging instead of playing Monopoly, which I downloaded. Maybe today can be a little bit better. No transgressions today. Keep "forgive us our sins as we forgive others" in the front of my brain. I didn't yell at Henry when he broke my favorite bowl today. I've picked up poop. I wrote my sponsor. I am trying to be somebody in the wake of feeling my family regards me as no one.

But, Lord, I wish I had some gumption to take on a bathroom shelf or noodle around a new book proposal or walk over to the office supply store to buy bond paper. Beyond hurt, anger & bouts of impatience with the dogs, I am empty.

One Foot in Front of the Other

I'm sorry for the silence. I got back from Arizona on the 10th and went straight into dogs and cleaning my apartment in anticipation of my nieces' arrival on the 15th, then showing them as much of New York City as time, tickets and energy permitted until Friday morning. I slept most of yesterday. Writing this blog looks to be the crowning personal achievement of some very draining weeks: I go back to Arizona on Thursday for ten days. This will give my brother and me a chance to catch up on our parents' situations -- there are many -- in person, and to be there in case Mom's next nursing facility discharges her earlier than we would like.

I'm walking around these days with my heart in my throat and sometimes in my nose, that tickle of tears coming. We have a lot of changes to make for my parents that are going to be difficult. Mom's fractures need time to heal. We're getting on managed care waiting lists in Montana so that they'll be near family. We'll have to pack up their house and put it on the market. Dad has had to accept that he needs outside help at least a couple of days a week. Medical facilities have their own agendas with Medicare reimbursements that they toggle without sharing records and even my niece, who is a hospital social worker, can only guess at what help or hindrance those records regarding rehabilitation progress contain. We're all exhausted except for Mom, who is slowly losing her mind.

My abstinence is in pieces. My favorite dog, Henry -- Mr. Happy -- is moving to the `burbs in August. I'm out of cigarettes (quitting lasted 8 hours yesterday until I was making reservations to go to Arizona at 11.30 at night) and Zoloft and the place I order my antidepressants from has not returned my email or phone calls. I have not had much Daisy Time and will have less in the months to come. I have to pull myself together today. Get a two-week supply of Zoloft (the withdrawals are horrible), get my food in order, speak to my sponsor, start writing my blogs, start paying attention to the gifts instead of the broken-ness of my life.

Mostly, I think, I have to realize not only that this is what life is and that food doesn't solve it, but that This Is What Life Is. Parents age, and they die. Dogs move. Separations occur. I suffer from depression, food and nicotine addiction. I have talents. All of these things require day-to-day responsibility and acceptance. And none of them are the end of the world. At worst, they mean periods of great grieving -- but my life will probably move on if I'm not hit by a truck or something. There will still be lilacs each spring, Neapolitan mastiff puppies, yogurt, naps.

And yet...Mom! The woman who made me dolls from hollyhock flowers. Who read me fairy tales and told endless stories from her childhood. Who was a dead ringer for Madeline Kahn and sooo elegant.

It's OK to have a breaking heart.

A Paws for Station Identification

The revision of Angry Fat Girls is due on Friday, 120 hours from now. I'm now working from a list -- have I established this point? Have I defined what this term means? Have I overused the following words? What is the arc of the story? My next task is big but I confess I've gotten to the point that it's all one blur unless I'm in the task. & that task is for after taking Daisy out for a run and writing this post before the feeling fades in the petty irritations of the guy who gave me & Dais a dirty look yesterday and not wanting to go grocery shopping.

It's good, every once in a while, to have a heart-stopping moment of near death. I had one on Thursday when Henry slipped his leash, ran into the street & got hit by a car.

Time stood still. He screamed. He scuttled back to me on three legs, holding his back right paw close to his hip. I grabbed him & held him close, then backed away to feel his leg. We were a block from a veterinarian & I turned in that direction, hoping he could make it there. By the time I looked back he had walked out the pain in his leg and was smiling up at me. Henry has the best smile.

We went home & I began fretting about what to do. I mean, he had tread marks on his rib cage. He began hacking & I began poking around his belly to see if it was hard, was there internal bleeding. He'd smile again and roll over for a belly rub. Finally I stopped in at a grooming shop, the owner of which was a vet tech for many years. "I always err on the side of caution," he said and advised me which veterinarian to take him to.

Terrible person that I am, I saw my hopes of going to Prague being pissed into the gutter. "Bring him by," Tom said. "I can take a look at least." I hustled Henry over. He jumped up on the counter & began eating cookies & Tom laughed. "If you see any lethargy take him in," he said, "but there's nothing wrong with this dog."

Then came the email I had to write to his people, in which I said I'd understand if they fired me. Mr. Henry wrote back serenely and thanked me for the update.

The relief was another moment of time standing still, & the relief was hours long -- a long walk taking him home, waiting for his owners, laughing weakly together about our concern as Henry humped his bed & Daisy humped Henry.

He's alive and alright!

I pulled my guts together to tell them what happened and I've been absolved.

Daisy is alive. I'm alive. Kids are practicing African rhythms in the basement of P.S. 8. The iris are blooming. I'll finish this revision in a week. I'll go to Prague. I'll go to the movies before I go to Prague. I could walk forever. I think my skull is touching the sky...

It lasted over night & into Friday, fading slowly. I remember that as Henry, Daisy & I waited to cross Old Fulton Street on the way home Thursday night, I had the sudden thought -- or even premonition -- I'm going to get married.

Relief is one way to live in the moment, although the cost for that kind of relief is so dangerous & so challenging to all my selfish desires to appear perfect & have my treats that I can't recommend it. By the time I stopped to talk to Tom, I was the worst dog walker ever. It was only when Mr. & Mrs. Henry & I were talking over what to watch for that Mrs. Henry asked if he'd been rubbing his ears as much this week. I had called their attention to his habit of going down on his head first & they'd been using his ear drops since. "His ears looked pretty bad last week," Mrs. H. said.

Oh, I thought. I forgot that I KNOW these dogs. I know when Hero's going to take several dumps in a walk & I know when Boomer will pick out a random stranger he thinks should be sprawled on the pavement. I know when Henry wants love and when his ears are bothering him.

Relief: Life vs. guilt. But when life wins out, it's s-w-e-e-t.

Oops.

This is not my foot.

It's not my foot because the labeled fourth metatarsal of my foot has a stress fracture, known as a march fracture. I've been walking around on it for a while -- which is why it's called a march fracture to begin with -- thinking I'd done something to my little toe again until I noticed how swollen my foot was and started poking around to see where the tenderness is. A consult with the `net and my father has confirmed what I can't quite bring myself to pay someone else to confirm only to be told what my father told me: wear a stiff-soled shoe and stay off the foot.

I can, however, wear the stiff-soled shoe and I've taken the week off from dog walking, which is a lurching, pausing, pulling six or seven miles a day.

My manuscript is open in another window, as well as a new document to begin outlining it in order to see where I can impose more of the story line. I just walked Daisy and my foot's throbbing a little. I have better sympathy than usual for my former AFG cohorts who have knee problems. I'm not used to picking and choosing what walks I can take and regretting running into a good friend on the way back from Key Food because we lingered and talked.

Right now I'm avoiding that outline. I think Angry Fat Girls is a more important book than Passing for Thin. It's reality whereas PFT is true for so few women. But it's been a painful book to write and isn't my foot enough pain???

Well, no. If, in fact, I pay someone to diagnose and possibly treat this, I'd better keep working through the soul-pain since I'm not making any money off the foot-pain.

It's one of those times that I feel like I did at my highest weight and was so debilitated. It makes me feel like I weigh 340 pounds. Weirdly, I had more of a social life then. I fought the pain my back, legs, feet were in. But I also fought the physical pain with food and fought for a social life with food as well. I'd come home from seeing people feeling inadequate -- inadequate because I so disliked myself and inadequate because I couldn't taste the food we may have eaten together and certainly didn't get, for me, adequate amounts. I'd stop by the all-night deli and have my real meal at home in bed. In some ways, eating after socializing was also prolonging the pleasure on the literal gut level.

Maybe it's not so weird that I've become skittish about leaving home and mixing with the world in the last few years. I've been in the food most of that time but I've lost my innocence about what I do with it as well. I haven't learned enough about being a myself in public to be relaxed about it.

Emphasis on "being" because I act like myself but am not, quite, myself in most settings.

When I was a young poet, Dick Hugo asked how it was that I wrote such precocious poems. I told him that "I" didn't. I had a sort of role I slipped into that got me past my tongue-tied-ness; I acted up a storm of confidence in putting pen to paper.

It's an apt description of me in social situations as well.

How much does it have to do with weight? Everything and nothing. Obesity debilitates some of my confidence and a lot of my genuineness because I have to act harder to get beyond the place of crumpling outsiderness and self-flagellation that being around people stirs up.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this or where I'm going with it. Bea responded to my last post about using fat to absorb the slings and arrows and I immediately thought, "I use food, not fat, to do that." There is an Easter brunch my closest friends are hosting and my hostess called last night to discuss what she was serving that I can eat and what she could make for me instead. I told her I'd bring stewed fruit and a salad, things I can eat. I don't think I resent making the offer or having the conversation or being the imposition...but I'm aware that this is the first party I've gone to since getting clean and I'm going to have to act graciously, consciously, soberly -- and possibly even funnily and interestingly.

I'm exhausted already. I wonder if my plaid dress fits and if I have hard-soled shoes to go with?

I think this abstinence is going to include chucking some stuff out. I can feel the radiation of blame from my friend over the situation that arose last week and I have a certain proactive response to it that refuses either to be her target, if it comes to that, or to have the self-pity fest I've held at other ruptures in our acquaintance. On my side of the street, I've tried hard to be a good friend. Period. What I did in my efforts doesn't matter because they're score keeping. I'm sticking with "I've tried hard to be a good friend". If sniveling is required to be forgiven, then chuck it.

Holy Week.

What an ironic time to be working toward finishing my Third Step and outlining my book.

Fingers Crossed

Thank you from the bottom of my benighted little heart for your responses yesterday. That I could write about how I've been feeling was, in itself, a sign of my hope that this blip of depression would end soon. It has also been fascinating to me that I can see it, note the symptoms, chart my progress & wait it out rather than giving into it with a full black-out of the soul & communication.

Three things happened yesterday that made me actively resent the intrusion of the Gray Beast.*

I didn't take the dogs down to the Hill because of heavy rain. I had skipped it on Monday as well, telling myself that my fall had made me too shaky but really because I didn't have the energy. I was feeling guilty about their time cooped up in the Bat Cave but at least I was very present for them, cuddling & instigating. Daisy had claimed the prime spot on my flopped over futon, next to me, sprawled so no one could get near. Henry, however, wasn't having any & forced half of himself between us. I reached up & pulled him over so that he was lying sideways on my, his butt on my knees, his head lolling over my shoulder. He slept for twenty minutes that way.

All the dogs are affectionate, & Boomer & Daisy will sit in my lap, but none of them would relax and sleep stretched out on me like that. It was such an act of love & trust. I held very still & put my book down so as not to disturb him.

The rain ended around supper time & I took Daisy for a walk. We ended up at the big park where there is actual grass (the Hill is ground up bark) & a playing field of Astroturf. I took her leash off & she shot off in a million directions, sniffing, playing the puppy, then rolling ecstatically on the wet playing field, throwing herself down to writhe & wiggle over & over again. That, my friends, is what happiness looks like. I appreciated her happiness even if I didn't feel happy myself. It reminded me of what happiness can feel like.

The last thing is maybe a writer's thing. I spoke one good line & thought another yesterday.

I was walking Hero & met Gerry & Molly, who we joined for a block or two. Hero peed & I praised her, trilling when she looked at me expectantly, "Oh, what a pee! You are a cham-pee-n!"

Gerry said, "It was definitely a ten. She could teach us a thing or two."

"I'm a defecator from way back," I retorted.

As Daisy was prancing around the playing field, two people stopped & began doing serious stretching, knee to ear stuff. I sighed to myself that I really resent public acts of yoga.

& then I thought, Damn: what do I DO with such good lines???

The Black Beast woke me up this morning after a bad night's sleep. You've mistreated the dogs, it said. You've been eating way too much food. You're so fat -- you're always going to be fat & you're going to get fatter yet. When are you going to get a manicure for the wedding, h'mm? How are you going to pay your bills? Do you know how much your back is going to hurt by the end of the day? You should really pack up blankets until the new storage bags get here -- the house is a mess. Speaking of messes, when was the last time you showered? When are you going to get keys made & buy cards? Do you KNOW how much money you've spent on clothes lately?

Yadda-yadda-yadda.

I finally, in my second cup of coffee, said, "Enough!" I'd get the dogs out today. I'd try to keep my food by the book. I'd keep my to-do list minimal so that I wouldn't have so much failure at the end of the day.

More to the point, I told the BB, I'm staying in the minute. I'm going to do the next right thing, one after another. I know what they are but I forbid anybody in my brain to talk about it before the minute has arrived. AND, I told the BB, I'm going to thank God for every walk I have to do, for an aching back that means I did the walk. I'm going to thank the guy for everyfuckingthing that happens to me today because no matter what it is, I can react to it properly.

I went into the bathroom to get dressed & realized as I was pulling my socks on that I had been spraying my wounded knee with antibacterial stuff but hadn't actually cleaned the thing.

That is what depression is, I noted. It's not disliking oneself, it's ignoring a seriously skinned knee.

I got out the hydrogen peroxide. It stung; the wound needed debriding that badly.

So is it any wonder that when, twice today, I got dog shit on my hands, I minced my dogs along until I could get to the nearest soap & water & wash up? That's what reacting properly is.

The dogs were smiling & filthy when we walked out of the dog run.


*The Gray Beast is without affect -- with no voice. It's a tactile Beast, preying on me with a heavy gray net that blocks out life & light. The Black Beast, by contrast, is auditory. It has a snarling voice of accusations, reminders, things to do, recriminations & dour predictions.

Back from the Land of Weak Irony

It's Day Three of getting off Christmas Sugar and Day Three of Daisy's and my return to Brooklyn from Arizona. I'm not going to apologize for breaking my abstinence but I will say that I feel like shit in the wake of it. I wasn't walking and being back in business with the dogs is hard on my thighs and shoulders. I'm hungry every two hours as my body readjusts. I won't mention my digestion. And yet it feels heavenly after three weeks of that heavy sodden ghastly mulch I was living in. When I'm In The Sugar, there's no sense of "this will be better when". When I get out of it, I know the first seventy-two hours will be hard and the first ten days dangerous and touchy. So I'm countin' days.

It may sound very strange, then, that I will be thinking about thinking about moving to the Land of Nothing when the Book is done. My mother is ailing and my father is blind. They are scared for each other and scared for themselves. They need me and I want to be there to walk them as gently and intelligently through their end time as I can.

There are pro's and con's to this. I realized how much I miss being treated as though I am not responsible for how much the Safeway clerk, cable guy or waiter hates his or her job. People are friendly, smiling, helpful, accommodating. When the Schwann's delivery man brought in food, he stocked the freezers for my parents, roughed up Daisy, said hello in the most jolly way to my parents and breezed on out in the time it would have taken for a New York City or TriState deliveryman to diss his customers for having paid for his services.

I want to collect my stuff and live with it before I, too, face my end times. My china and furniture are spread out between Montana and Oregon and the things I have in the Bat Cave can't be seen OR appreciated for the crunch of space here. It would be nice to have a full size refrigerator and a microwave and fuses that don't blow when I run my hair dryer.

On the other hand, Arizona is as white bread as any place I've ever seen and the last place on earth I'd pick to live. I find the consumption of gasoline, land, and water distasteful. There are no mailboxes on the streets. There are no people on the streets. There is no recycling beyond newspapers. The houses all look the same and even the city offices are in strip malls.

Like my digestion, I won't go into the lack of greenery and the summer heat.

And then there is being home. I took Daisy out five minutes after getting back and five minutes later we ran into Boomer. At seven the next morning we bumped into Steven, Jonathan, Susan, and Daisy's friend, Chance. The dogs were incredibly happy to see me and I laugh at how I drag myself out on Monday morning to be met with, "FRANCES! IS IT CHRISTMAS? YOU'RE HERE -- IT MUST BE CHRISTMAS! DON'T YOU JUST LOVE MONDAY MORNINGS WHEN WE GET TOGETHER AGAIN!?"

The chances of knowing one's neighbors are slim in the Land of Weak Irony. You may only chat once a year, as you're setting up your inflatable snowman in the front yard for Christmas.

But then I arrive at Newark and find that Daisy's crate had been secured with those police ties. "You want those cut?" the clerk asked.

No, I wanted to say. I carry sharp scissors in my carry-on bag.

"Please," I answered.

So she did -- all but one, meaning I had to interrupt politely, collect glares and clerkly suspicion while I cut the last tie off in order to break the crate down. This is what is considered "service" in the TriState area.

And then again, I talked to one of my dog's humans yesterday evening and we laughed about the dogs until we were on the verge of tears. I ran into a friend this morning and laughed about dogs (it's a theme, OK?) until I hawked up a loogie. I cracked another of my dog's humans up at noon. People get me here. People make me laugh here. My acquaintances are, intellectually if not financially, my peers. We're all fulsome Democrats. There are books in our homes and dreams of hilly forests in our citified hearts.

But a gym would be cheaper in Arizona and some of the year I could take Daisy to the lake.

Back and forth. What I do know is that my dream when I finish this book is to rent a car and drive away. I want to visit every important person from my past and make peace with it. I'll take a miss on three or ten people I actively...well, hate, but I'd like to reinstall friendships, colleagueships, sisterships, auntships and cousinships while seeing how they have fared and shaped their lives in the last twenty or thirty years.

It would seem my parents' end times are shaping how I'm thinking about my own initial descent down the slope.