"All I want," she sighed, "is..."

Let me start off by thanking you for your understanding, advice and support. Further, I'm feeling a little grayer after so much blackness. Getting a very small cold that's kept me away from the nursing home has also given me a small space -- very small because I've been sleeping like it's my new profession and I am not abstinent. There hasn't been room for the Great American Novel in the gap my cold gave me, or even room to do the laundry or bathe every day. But I'm in less despair than a week ago.

Just before I set out on the afternoon dog rounds, I was sitting in my kitchen not enjoying the taste of my coffee and whining to myself. "I don't even know what I want," I said of today's soporific atmosphere.

That was immediately and transparently one of the stupidest things I've ever said.

I want to be abstinent, I retorted.

I want a bunch of money.
I want to be thin.
I want to start chapter three of my novel.
I want to get Pam's situation under control.
I want some energy.
I want to be in [my 12-step] Program.

Those were the items that came to mind at the moment. Here are some more:

I want to live in a home where I can give a dinner party.
I want my body not to ache.
I want a television that's not snowy and a DVD player in both my computer and my television that works.
I want Barak Obama to win the election. I want him to get us the hell out of Iraq. I want him to make Brian Schweitzer Secretary of Energy.
I want to go on a real vacation.
I want my debt to be less that five thousand dollars.
I want to know if my Missoula friends are still my friends.
I want lilac bushes.

I have no illusions that these things will make me happy-with-a-capital-H-Happy, but they would certainly promote comfort, satisfaction, community, existential meaning, and hope.

What have I done as I've slowly (and I do mean slowly) pulled myself up out of this dark place? I ordered most of my Christmas presents. I figured out how to make some stuff on Cafe Press. I've given reasonably good dog. I've eaten what I wanted, or thought I wanted, at night.

As I look at this list, I'm struck by how achievable they are. I'm pretty powerless over Pam's recovery in and of itself but I can coordinate things to facilitate it. I'm quite powerless over the election and I wish the Obama people would stop emailing me forty times a day to "call my friends and talk them into voting" for him. They have in their records my zip code. I live in a zip code that sports Obama placards in twentieth-story apartments; I don't know anyone here who's not voting for him and I won't risk yet another family schism by talking about it in certain quarters.

I'm utterly powerless over the appointment of Schweitzer to a new cabinet.

I'd say the big stumbling block in the way of everything is lack of abstinence and lack of energy.

I wonder if they're the same thing.

Saturday Night Fever

Do people get married, in part, so that they don't have to fret out the weekends quite so alone? Is that why they go on to have children?

I'm sure I've written about the challenges of weekend nights before but I have to take another swing at it, I'm afraid.

I am writing a book. It is a painful book. I have "finished" plumbing my story of the triggers of relapse & it sent me into relapse. It's time to start the new chapter, the focus of which will not be me.

For once.

The problem is, I don't wanna. I don't want to live any more in this pain of food, eating, weight, belly flab, self-esteem & lack thereof. I don't care if it's my pain or yours, I want out.

But I can't go out until I make more solid progress on the book. In fact, when offered ballet tickets for Friday evening, I had to turn them down because a) the three people I'd have liked to see it with were unavailable, & b) I couldn't think of anyone else I wanted to make conversation with during the intermission.

I went to my 12-step meeting yesterday after some weeks' absence, an absence I'm not proud of & which helped trip me up in reliving parts of my life. The only excuse I can offer for my snottiness at the meeting is that I had a lot to ponder from the reading & the guest speaker's story. Other than that, there is no excuse for why I sat in my chair during the break, brushing off the one or two people who approached me. I told myself I didn't want to be disturbed by people I frankly don't like very much. Some of the truth is that the people I like were talking to other people -- & I was afraid to approach them & too snotty to try. A couple of people are in that Room because of my book, & that gives me pause as well. Everybody knows me as much as I know myself, or more because they have the objectivity to interpret what I can only report &/or feel.

I left the meeting full of shame & was met by a glorious day. I took my camera, Daisy & her currycomb out & ran into acquaintances from the dog world on our way to the Promenade. They had just returned from buying cocoa mulch & plants for their garden & chatted about their low-key birthday plans of only two dinners. That tete-a-tete broke up & Daisy permitted me to feathers a bird's nest with her shedding coat a bit before we went home & had lunch.

At which time it was time to write.

Only I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn'tcouldn'tcouldn't. So I crawled into bed & finished an ancient NYer & napped the afternoon away. At 6.30 I took Daisy out for some fetch & then it was time to think about winding up the day.

The day?

What day?

I had zip for shit to say of having accomplished anything, & my attitude had, unwittingly, turned to envy & snottiness & envy & then hiding in sleep & a magazine & the book I'm reading. Hiding = food. I ate too much of the wrong stuff for dinner & got to wake up yet more ashamed this morning.

I'm coming here this cool windy morning that reminds me of Montana simply to prove to myself that I can string some sentences together. I'm laying it out here that I've GOT to get a life & for whatever reason, I don't have the energy to do so right now. When I finish this post, in not very many minutes, I'm going to have some coffee & a cigarette, then put on The Doors for the sake of "Break on Through," which is what I must do today if I'm going to get to tomorrow morning with any self-respect.

On Saturday nights, I just don't like myself at all.

Saturday Night Heifer by Rob Scotten, available at http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.poster.net/scotten-rob/scotten-rob-saturday-night-heifer-2108207.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.postershop.co.uk/Scotten-Rob/Scotten-Rob-Saturday-Night-Heifer-2108207.html&h=361&w=450&sz=21&hl=en&start=55&tbnid=Y8izvQnyYlm43M:&tbnh=102&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsaturday%2Bnight%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Is rhubarb mousse food porn?

Food porn? I think not, or not quite.

There are three ways to make the rhubarb mousse in my previous post.

1. By the book:

4 egg whites = 60 calories
1 3/4 c. sugar = 1,347 calories
1 c. heavy cream = 820 calories
1 package unflavored gelatin = 25 calories
4 c. rhubarb = 66 calories

Total calories: 2318/289.75 calories per portion

2. My modified version:

4 egg whites = 60 calories
1 c. heavy cream = 820 calories
1 package unflavored gelatin = 25 calories
4 c. rhubarb = 66 calories
1 3/4 Splenda = 0

Total calories: 971/121.375 calories per portion

3. Completely modified:

4 egg whites = 60 calories
3 c. sugar/fat-free Cool Whip = 60 calories
1 package unflavored gelatin = 25 calories
4 c. rhubarb = 66 calories
1/4 Splenda = 0

Total: 211 calories/26.375 calories per portion