Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

OK here we go again. I have called the voters of West Virginia crackers. Yes, I know. It was wrong. Just because 22% of West Virginians when polled, by a complete stranger, felt perfectly fine saying race would be an issue for them in the election, doesn't mean all West Virginians are crackers. Pollsters estimate that if 22% admit that race would play a role in their vote, probably translates more accurately to 40% give or take a few percentage point. I know every citizen of West Virginia was not polled--it was a sampling. But since my mother's family comes from small town Texas, and never hesitated to express their racism, and I have always thought of them as crackers, family yes, but crackers none the less, still it was wrong of me to paint my portrait of the fine upstanding hard working white citizens of West Virginia all as crackers. But to all those crackers out there, you know who you are. I assure you I am not black, but even if I were, it wouldn't be cool to send the clan to my house to burn a cross on the front lawn. Even so, I think Hillary went way out of the way to fashion herself as one of them. The unelites. The regular folks. White folks. Hard working white folks, just like them. Their kind of people--those hard working, hard working white voters of West Virginia, whose racial mix is 89.61% white, undoubtedly hard working, mostly at Wall Mart, or however you spell that store I'll never set foot in. They have a black population of 7.49%. Jesus, that's small by even Utah standards. I know the times they are a changing, but my god, how long will it take for even the most inbred, ignorant, white trash bastards to get the clue that it isn't any longer cool to proudly declare yourself a racist to perfect strangers? But to those of you living in West Virginia, you have my apology. it doesn't make me like or respect Hill and Bill, but if calling a cracker a cracker's a crime, I'm guilty.

Olbermann Earns Pulitzer

Keith Olbermann has been delivering Special Comments for a long time now and every time I hear him do it I worry that he will be fired, or that he will disappear--maybe to Gitmo or worse. But tonight was maybe his best. He usually brings me to tears with his courage. But tonight I share his sputtering horrified outrage at the stupidity at the President, who gave an interview and said that he'd "given up golf in honor of the sacrifice of our troops and their families." And Olbermann has footage of the President playing gold at another course several months after the day on the links when he had his epiphany that it would be a good idea to give up golf for the troops. Holy shit!

Attention Must Be Paid--This Is For You, K

Hillary started this race as the presumptive nominee from the moment she started thinking about running. When was that? Probably in the last few months of Bill's last term. They left office with huge debt, mostly lawyers fees. By the time she actually started the race for real, during her first term as a Senator, she was thinking strategically. She's female, and therefor needed to be seen as Commander In Chief material. Tough, hawkish. So she voted for the Iraq war resolution without even reading the classified material available to Senators. Mistake number one. Actually it's mistake number two for me, since she blew our chance at single payer national health care in Bill's first term. Whatever, just for arguments' sake, I'll let that go for now.

Then after it was obvious to everyone that the war in Iraq was a mistake, John Edwards stepped right up, apologized for his vote, and said it was a mistake. Since we are a forgiving nation, we forgave him. Hillary, knowing her vote was a mistake took months to admit that mistake. It was only in one of the late debates that, when pressed on the issue, she reluctantly said she wished she'd had a do-over. Not exactly an apology, but admission of a mistake. I'd give her half a point for going that far, but she was pissing me off so much by then, it hardly registered. For months she had been trying to wiggle out of taking any responsibility for that colossal mistake. She justified and rationalized and made a right sickening spectacle of herself as a stubborn woman unwilling to say the simple words, "It was a mistake, I was wrong, I apologize." Too little, too late.

Then she came up with the "3A.M. Phone Call" ad that reminded all of us older, film buff voters of the Birth of a Nation association with the Clan. Little white children asleep in their bed, mommy checkin in on them in the middle of the night, and the voice over question, "Who do you trust to answer the phone at 3 A. M.?" Not that scary black man, luring in the bushes, waiting for the chance to slip in and steal one of your precious baby's for God knows what....
If you are young and naive, you might think it was the "terrorists" her ad was referencing. But we older voters saw it for the racist crap it was. Terrorists do not strike a family in a middle-class neighborhood and steal the innocents. Terrorists blow up buildings in the middle of the day, so they can get big coverage on the news. They want all the world to see their work. It was sleazy ad, and cynical, and it was another mistake.

Hillary was so convinced her place as our nominee was inevitable that she and her campaign strategists did not count on her having to campaign after Super Tuesday. Well, not so fast, Hillary. The Clinton Machine did not take Barack Obama seriously. After all, they were the beloved Clintons. Who the hell was he, but an upstart, a nobody, a kid with a slim resume as a one term Senator, and a nice speaking style? Big mistake.

Then there were the lies. for now the only one I'm going to mention is the infamous, sniper fire raining down of the airfield in Bosnia, a place too dangerous to send the President. What the Fuck? There was plenty of file footage of that trip--Sinbad was there, Chelsea was there, no snipers anywhere in sight. She was met on the tarmac by a little girl with a poem to read to her and flowers to present. The was a greeting party. It was relaxed, leisurely. Plenty of press coverage. How stupid was that lie? And when confronted with the evidence, she said, "So...I made a mistake." How arrogant is that? It was not a mistake. It was a lie, told several times in several settings--early in the day, in a prepared speech, at a St. Patrick's event. And then Bill goes out there and says, the press is ganging up on her. "Poor Hillary! She is sixty years old, and she made a mistake late at night, exhausted. Just once. And the press is against her, bla, bla, bla."

And after her blow-out victory in West Virginia, with a population of poor uneducated, openly racist crackers, we have today, John Edwards endorsing Barack Obama, at a packed venue in Michigan. Game, set, match. it's over, babe.

Star Wars, the Epic Campaign--The Reinvention of Hillary

The Wizard has posted a video clip taken from the famous You Tubes and it's playing at his place. And after watching it I got to hear Hillary's best speech in the Universe, according to Howard Wolfson, or however the hell you spell that screaming hack's name. I always scream back at him when he comes on touting Hillary's great chances for a comeback. Did I say that right? For a comeback??? She was never supposed to be the underdog, and all this playing the gunslinging, boilermaker drinking, tough and scrappy hard working white girly from Scranton, dodging bullets over Bosnia, etc, etc, etc.

Made me think about Vigilante and his hard on for them gun slinging, hard drinking, tough broads...... Has she won your vote, Vig? Was it the best speech in the Universe? I heard a lot of begging for money, and not a hell of a lot else. How about you?

Hold You Breath...Here It Comes...

News Flash... Hillary Clinton is about to give the biggest best most important speech in the history of the world!!!

Margin of two to one!!! Where is this? West Virginia? We're waiting for combustion!! Lift off!!!

Where is this? Oh yeah, West Virginia!!! Oh the crowd is shouting... What's that? Yes we can??? Where have I heard that before!!! Si, Se Puedes??? Sounds familiar. Crowd plagiarizes slogan from Obama!!!

Oh, ho-hum. It's back to writing about my damn crazy life.

My Later History With Guns

When I realized how vile and full of shit my family was, I rejected all their values. I threw out the good with the bad. And some of the bad I didn't understand had become who I was. I was foul mouthed, just like my mother. I was sometimes cruel, just like my mother. I chose terribly flawed men, just like...

I gave up gun slinging. But I became a seducer, just like my dad. I lived in denial, just like my dad. I could go on and on, but I'd rather not.

Still the young men liked to take me out to the gun club. I shot skeet. Sometimes I beat them at their own game, sometimes I let them beat me. Then I seduced them and left them in the dust. I might let them fuck me for days on end, but never make a sound. Must have been a bit like fucking a corpse. Still, they professed their love for me. Sometimes I played dumb for awhile, then I ripped their guts out with my razor wit.

I did not want "love." I was dying for love. I killed myself over and over, but never with a gun. I tried to gas myself. I lived, goddamn it. I tried pills, and lived again. Spent some time in the looney bin for that one.

I dated a married man who took me shooting. He saw my talent with a gun and insisted I own my own. We went gun shopping. I bought a Browning semi-automatic, hand gun. Can't remember what caliber--probably a .22. It held a clip. That I remember. The kind of gun you didn't need to be too accurate with. Wave it around and hold the trigger down and you'll kill whatever is in the way. I lived alone. He thought I needed protection. Dumb fucker. One night after I had gone to bed, he came knocking on my door, drunk and sloppy. I told him to leave me alone--"Go home to your wife. I don't like sloppy drunks." I shouted this through the door. When he started begging, I went to my closet and got my gun. I opened the door and pointed the gun at his face. I said, "Get lost! Do not come back. Do we understand one another?" He nodded and left.

I married my boss who was gay. I knew he was gay. That's why I married him. I was nineteen and he was thirty nine. He had never had sex with a woman. I had had too much sex with men. We did not discuss what our relationship would be like. I was the house model in the designer department he bought for. His boss was homophobic. I wasn't. I assumed I'd be cover for him, and I could do what I wanted. It would be just like before, only now I wouldn't have to pay rent, and he would have cover. But he thought he was "in love" with me. We got married, and imagine my surprise that he, too, wanted to fuck me. I did not pull my gun on him, but it was a marriage made in hell for both of us. I stayed a year, like I said I would, and then I took my gun and my great wardrobe, and moved to San Francisco.

It was 1964. I lived above Golden Gate Park, a few blocks from the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. I got a job as the house model for the couture floor at I Magnins. I saved my money and put money down on a one way ticket to Italy on the luxury liner The Michelangelo. I left my gun in San Francisco in early 1965. That was the last gun I ever owned.

My Early History With Guns

The first picture of me holding a gun and aiming it is when I am eight or nine. The gun I'm holding in the picture is my mother's Luger pistol, a spoil of war my biological father brought back from his adventures in World War II. I am a thin, long legged girl with shoulder length hair. The picture was taken at the city dump in Willamina, Oregon, in the summer. My new dad and I are out of school and shooting rats at the dump. He leans against our ugly green station wagon, a cigarette dangles from his lips, and when he isn't aiming a camera at me, he is holding a bottle of beer. I'm a good shot by then, but I don't remember when I held this gun for the first time. It has a fierce little kick that I have learned to control. I am standing there facing my dad with the gun held in my right hand, arm extended, head turned to the right, shot by the camera in profile, squinting slightly as I aim. My left arm hangs so nonchalantly at my side. I have very good posture. I'm wearing shorts, a camp shirt, and have espadrilles on my feet. It would have been so easy to swing that gun in a quarter arc and shoot my daddy dead. I remember thinking the thought, and then letting it go. And to this day I think it was an opportunity lost. I would have many more such opportunities as I grew older. But then as I grew older the penalties for me would have gotten so much worse. I learned that there were always consequences for me, just never for the adults in my life.

My father took me quail hunting, pheasant hunting, duck hunting, deer hunting. I was a fine shot with a .22 caliber rifle. But on most hunting trips I was the human equivalent of a hunting dog. Flush 'em and fetch 'em. When we spent part of our summers at my grandfather's cabin up Mt Aire, We went porcupine hunting. That's when I got to fire the .22 for real and I was a damn fine shot. So was my mother. On dull days at the cabin, we would take target practice with tin cans. I was always fiercely competitive. Whatever I set my mind to, I got good at.

Later, in my teens, guys trying to impress me would take me shooting, and were always shocked that I could handle a gun as well as they, and was almost always a better shot. Such is the cocky chauvinism of boys.

For All You Mothers

I have met some wonderful Mothers in this adventure in blogging. To all of you on this Mother's Day, Happy Mother's Day to you! And if you had mothers who treated you with love, respect, and kindness, this will be a day you probably love.

For those of us who had mother's who were our worst nightmares, and lived to tell the tale. I salute you in your bravery and your strong sense of survival. I urge you to write it out of your system. For there is nothing more empowering than to make your truth known and, in the telling, finally your own.

For those of you with mothers still living who tormented you with cruelty and neglect or alcoholism or worse. I can only say that mother's day just might be the hardest day you live through each year. Good luck on getting through another.

Death Turns Us All To Trash

The last funeral I went to was my teenaged cousin, Andy's. He was maybe the only member of my family I really believed loved me. He and his teenaged girlfriend asphyxiated themselves in his parents car in their garage after their senior prom. They had permission to go to several parties and weren't expected home until the wee hours, so nobody was shocked that they weren't home at seven A.M. when Andy's dad got up. By nine or ten, Uncle Bart, my cousins father was getting nervous, and went to the garage to see if the car was back. That's when he found them. They were naked and embracing and had that odd shade of color that carbon monoxide poisoning imparts to the corpse. Since it was an unusual death for two kids, autopsies were performed. She was several months pregnant. I think there were two reasons for these suicides: her parents were Catholic, his father was Jewish, and the kids had come to his parents (the more progressive parents) to ask for help acquiring birth control. These were the good old days when birth control was illegal. The irony was that Andy's father owned one of the chemical/pharmaceutical companies to make the first new contraceptive since the the condom. Andy asked for help and his progressive parents. They declined this help-- since the girls family would not approve, they couldn't help. And so it goes.

I had just returned from my year in Italy. And within a few short weeks of coming back this death happened. My parents had divorced while I was gone, so when I came home it was at my mother's request. My dad was living in Kansas City where his sister and her family lived. My mother had moved back to Salt Lake. I was asked to come to Kansas City to the funeral, but my mother refused.

I was horrified at the stupidity of the adults all the way around. My Aunt and Uncle were rich enough to keep the reason for the deaths out of the paper. So there was a lot of hypocrisy going on. Much pretending. I had wanted to stay in Italy, but due to my mother's request I came back. One of the many major mistakes in my life.

It was a nice funeral, but after the service as others where leaving the grave side, I ran back and threw myself on my cousins freshly filled in grave site. I started crying and couldn't stop for a couple of days. It was in that time of grief I decided to confront my father for his sexual abuse of me when I was a little girl.

We met at a down town bar. He was already there with a pitcher and his glass half empty. He was jovial, and weary at the same time. We were polite, until I make the statement he'd probably been dreading a long time: "Why did you have sex with me when I was a little girl?" He opened his mouth to say something, and I said, "I need help. I'm not doing so well. I want you to pay my psychiatric bills and help me with tuition."

"I didn't do anything to you, you didn't want. I never hurt you. You were a very seductive child."

"But I was barely seven."

"Did your mother set you up to this?"

"I've never told anyone. I kept your secret."

"You know what you are? You're a little gold digger. You just want money. This is blackmail. I'll never give you a penny." He starts backing his chair away from the table, but before he stands up, he leans forward and hisses in my face, "If you ever tell anyone about this, I'll have you locked up forever. And if you think mental hospitals are a romantic place to spend the rest of your life, think again. I can do it, too. Who do you think they'll believe? You, a young woman with a very checkered past, or me, a highly a respected psychologist., and your grandfather, a respected physician. If I were you, kiddo, I'd keep my mouth shut.

That was the last time I ever saw my dad.

I do not remember how I got back to my Aunt and Uncles house, but I was crying and soaking wet when I walked in the door. My Aunt who thought food would fix anything, started whipping up a meal out of the funeral leftovers. My Uncle called the remaining kids into action and they took me upstairs to get dry and changed. And finally, with all this accomplished, we sat around the kitchen table, and I told them the story of my life with Brian, her brother.

No one doubted me for a second. My Aunt said I needed the kind of therapy that rebirths you, re-parents you. If I would stay with them, as their child, she would pay for it all. The only condition was that I had to stay with them. I was through with conditions.

I went home to my mother's place. I told her my story and asked her why she didn't do anything to stop him. She arranged her face in what must have seemed to her like shock and horror, and said, "If I'd ever know what happened to you, I'd have killed the bastard." Then she ran from the room, up the stairs and slammed the door. It all sounded like bullshit to me.

I have never been to another funeral. Yes, I've had friends and family die, but it all happens without me. Not much of a slight to the dead, I imagine.

When asked, in my younger days, what I would want for a funeral, I'd say, "I want to be bagged in a hefty sack like the leaves and out in the garbage can for Tuesdays pick-up."

That was pretty much my stance on death, until I discovered my mother's plans while going through her papers, after I found out most of her brain had died from little strokes. There in her papers, I found her will with her signed contract with the University of Utah--she had donated her body to them for whatever they wanted. Jesus! What a wonderful thing to do with a corpse. Not only that, they write out the death certificate, and do pickup and delivery.

So now, I too, am a body donor. And nobody has to worry about how to fit me into a hefty bag.

Well I Don't Call Myself Utah Savage for Nothing

Sometimes I'm a complete ass. Not only that, but I'm savage about it. And what's worse I am sometimes both unrepentant and unforgiving. If I were the killing kind, I'd have been locked up long ago. I think my weapon of choice would be a switchblade. I found one when I was a kid and it appealed to me far too much, and after watching me get real good at flipping it open and throwing it into the bark of a tree with amazing accuracy, my dad took it away. Might of been the only smart thing that rat bastard ever did. See what I mean? My dad's been dead for years and I still hate him with a white hot intensity, and it's not because he took my knife away.

Well, what with my big mouth and my nasty temper, I got myself in a bit of a pickle in the blogging world. I have lost real life friends because of my impetuosity and nasty temper. And in truth, I'm mostly pretty unforgiving when I think real damage has been done to someone I love by someone else, or even by my friend's own bad judgement. I will give my friends plenty of do- overs, but if they just keep doing the same stupid shit in the same old way, I eventually gut them with my eviscerating tongue lash, and forget they exist. Oh, I may miss them, think about the good old days before I knew the truth, but once that bottom line has been crossed, I'm merciless.

I have committed a serious blogging faux pas . Perhaps the equivalent of a throwing down the gauntlet. For awhile, when I was married to my third husband I took fencing. It might have saved his life, as it was a mighty fine outlet for my hatred of him. But now, here I am traipsing from blog to blog, thinking I am making friends everywhere. And being a somewhat passionate woman, when I really like someone, I hate like hell to find them insulted, especially if I think the insult is stupid, gratuitous, petty, or nit picking. And being a rather literal woman, sometimes the finer points of irony are lost on me. I don't think of myself as humorless, but some subtleties just might pass me by. Just saying.

So now we get to the meat of the matter. Lets say, blogger S writes a short story, and kind of hides it like she is slightly shy about sharing this fine piece of writing. I read the story and think it's really good. And in the comments thread, blogger P makes criticism that doesn't make sense to me--like there's too much description of the layout of the house (which there isn't) and blogger S has used the main character's name too often (which she didn't). I jump right in and call bullshit--because that's what I really think it is. Then this critic P tries to justify his criticism by giving an actual word count, I shit you not, which trips some switch in my brian and down goes the gauntlet. I say bring it on motherfucker. Well, actually I said, are you kidding? A word count to make a petty point that is bogus to begin with? Are you shitting me? So I take blogger P to task for the small minded pettiness of his criticism. It gets a little heated and pretty soon he is calling me stupid and an idiot and not worth his time, and then I say, "Yo mama!" And I swear if we were actually in S's living room (which we sort of were) and I still had my switchblade, I 'd have gutted him right then and there.

Then just the other day, I was visiting blogger A who wrote a lovely piece , the topic of which currently escapes my memory, and when I went to leave a comment about her lovely piece there was blogger F followed by blogger R. So far so good. I can't remember what blogger F's first comment was since it didn't push any of my buttons, and blogger R said something lovely and used the word "catharsis." Then following hard on the heels of blogger R, blogger F comes back and says, "Don't use the word catharsis, it's hackery." Well, button pushed, by god. I happen to really like blogger A and blogger R, and have a lot of respect for blogger F. But no one insults my friends and gets away with it. So I go on the fucking rampage. I wake up this morning and call my post Catharsis, which kind of makes sense since last night was the Indiana and North Carolina primaries and I had to stay up really late to find out just how close it was in Indiana--it was a bit of a nail-biter. Then I go to A's site and she has written a lovely post on Catharsis, giving it's history--she is far more elegant than I. Then everywhere I go I find a way to work either catharsis or cathartic into my comments. So now I'm wading knee deep in petty bullshit, and creating a little ill will with blogger S who is a close personal friend of blogger F. So now I'm begging forgiveness. Please F, except my apology. S, I didn't mean to insult your friend. R, I know you are capable of using your own razor like wit to defend yourself if you ever need defending. Did I forget anyone? Oh yeah, P. Well in P's case I was completely justified and I don't take back a single word, even the "Yo mama!"

Catharsis

I'm trying to process my feelings after staying up half the damn night waiting for the Indiana results. Until I get my brain working, I suggest you take a trip to Anita at Anitaxanax. You will find her in my blog roll. She has written a lovely post on catharsis.

Hoping for a Knockout

Well it's your turn Indiana and North Carolina. For god's sake vote smart. Don't fall for the easy, cheap pander on the 18 cant a gallon gas tax B. S. because everyone, everyone knows it won't get through congress and if it did, by some dead brain virus, make it's way to Bush's desk, he'd veto it, and it might be the only smart veto he ever did. Not a single economist thinks it's a smart thing to do. it's purely political, and places, once again, Mccain and Clinton on the same wrong side of a stupid issue. Please vote smart. Please look past this summer, and into the future. If you want change, vote for Obama. If you want the same old shit vote Clinton.

Gas Tax B S

Hillary's pandering on the gas tax break she says she can deliver, is the worst pander I have ever heard. No one supports this phony crap but John McCain. Bush would veto the proposal in a New York minute, if it ever got through Congress. There is not an economist in the land, left or right, who thinks this is a good idea. Only morning Joe, Bill O', and Rush are rooting for the voters of Indiana and North Carolina to buy this load of bullshit.

Let's Drop The Big One And See What Happens

I always loved Randy Newman. I think he's one of Americas great songwriters, and I suppose his voice might be an acquired taste, but it always appealed to me. If I had the skill to find a video clip of his performance of this song, now would be the time to do it. Because I think it's what George W Bush is getting ready to do.

What better way for him to give his successor the finger on the way out of the White House than to drop the big one on Iran in the last days of his presidency. If Hillary's the new President this would be a good thing since she dropped the big one in her last debate with Obama, slipped in ever so quietly between inane questions about flag pins and "do you love America," while Hillary says she's cool with OBLITERATING IRAN!!!!..... No follow-up on that one.

We know McCain is cool with obliterating Iran, since it's where AL QEADE IS FROM!!!!

I'm a supporter of Obama from many reasons, but now, lately, it's because he's the only SANE CANDIDATE RUNNING!!!

PS Tomcat from Politics Plus was kind enough to post the link for this song. I dare you to listen to it twice. If you don't have tears rolling down your cheeks at the end of the second go through, there's no hope for us.

Depression Creeps In On Tiny Cat's Paws and Downs a Boilermaker With the Boys

It was a bad news good news kind of week for me. My shrink gave the Ok to put me back on my "normal" level of antidepressant. That cheered me up no end. Didn't fix the creeping depression exactly, but that takes a little time. But now I have this whole new array of "heart" drugs and I don't know what's making me feel this way. Maybe it's Hillary's fault.

Lately I've come to fear her about as much as I fear John McCain, George Bush and Dick Cheney. She has become the ten headed hydra. A new face for every little media market. In Pennsylvania she became the "daughter of Scranton," drinking boilermakers with the boys. She claimed she could bowl--thank you Ellen for putting that lie to bed. Yesterday, not paying close attention because I'd rather read your blogs than watch the "news shows," I heard her sounding like a hick from Padukah, talking for all the world like trailer trash. It was just background noise, but still, it set my teeth on edge. I started screaming "Wellesley Girl, Yale Law School, former First Lady sounds like trailer trash! OMFG! Who is this Hydra!" She's really starting to scare me! Wants to OBLITERATE IRAN! And no one in the "news media" has asked her to clarify that statement from the last debate, tossed off in a brief lull between why Barack doesn't wear a flag pin and some other inane bullshit questioning his patriotism.

Why aren't we talking about reinstating the Draft, if we want to put obliterating Iran on the table? Why is this conversation off the table?

Mending a Heart

Very little has ever interfered with my appetite. About the only thing that keeps me from wanting to eat is actual nausea and or vomiting. So far so good. No loss of appetite, no shortage of things to eat. Oddly, throughout the months of having atrial fibrillation, I had no clue that I should feel like crap. I thought I was fine, except for the fact that my psychiatrist had lowered my dose of antidepressant, and I was slipping into depression. I know the symptoms of an oncoming depression. The first thing to start to go wrong is mental acuity, the brain becomes sluggish and slow. And then there is a physical slowing down, which I notice most in my fingers, since they feel leaden and clumsy. The fact that this slowing down is systemic doesn't bother me as much as the fact that typing becomes almost impossible. And then I get pissed off. In the literature on bipolar disorder this irritability is a red flag that the patient is transitioning from "normal" into either hypomania or depression. So the mental health professionals watch for these changes--forgetting that we all have plenty of reasons to feel irritable at least once a day. Another thing they watch for, especially with a patient who actually has had a major psychosis (complete with hallucinations) is too much happiness. It was my being "too happy" that made my psychiatrist decide to cut me down to regular happiness by decreasing my antidepressant. I have learned my lesson--in future I'll be just barely happy enough when I go into her office.

So now I'm wondering if my irritability was a reaction to feeling fatigued, because my resting heart rate is at end-of-marathon levels all day every day. This also might explain the leaden feeling in my fingers--the only muscles I exercise every day. I did notice that on a leisurely walk around the block with my old dog, my thighs burned--this I chalked up to my incredibly sedentary life, and resolved to walk an extra block now and then. So now that I know why I'm so lazy, my dog and I just stroll slowly up and down the alley behind my house.

Now I have a whole new array of pills to take, and god knows what these drugs are doing to my mental acuity, my happiness index. But, happily, I've finished the anti-coagulant that had to be injected subcutaneously into my belly. Thank god that's over with because it was a twice daily reminder that my belly is fatter than I'd noticed before. I was also glad to learn that if I had to inject myself, or anyone else, I could do it.

This is what we (my cardiologist and I) now know, after I swallowed their little camera. There are no clots in my heart--this reduces my risk of a massive stroke and or heart attack. We also know that paddling me with the jolt-your-heart-paddles, did not jolt my heart into a normal rhythm. The only result of the paddling is burns and bruising on my chest and back. Next up is a procedure to repair the hole in my heart the little camera found, and zapping a nerve that might be causing the abnormal rhythm. For those of you enthralled with the space program, it just might be a teflon patch that fixes the hole in my heart. Thank you space race for teflon and Tang. For my many ex-husbands and discarded lovers who will be saying, "I always knew that bitch had a hole in her heart," I say "Fuck you."

Home Again, Home Agin

Well, the hospital is a hell of a place for the sick. My instructions were to come in at ten A.M. with an empty stomach. By eleven I saw my nurse who told me a wonderful rhyme for the first of May, which is, sadly for us, snowing and very cold. The rhyme is: "Hooray hooray, the first of May, outdoor sex begins today!" That did it for me. The fact that I had waited an hour, fasting and pissed off about it, vanished in an instant. I have terrible veins, tiny and rollers. But she hit one on the first try, but since I'm on blood thinners made one hell of a mess as she changed tubes. They hooked me up to the constant EKG thingy, pulse ox thingy on the finger and a blood-pressure cuff that kept a constant read going. Pulse was high--141 today, but oddly not as high as yesterday. You take your good news where you can get it. Pulse oxygen is normal. Well thank god for small favors. Then there I stayed wired up and beeping for two fucking hours, until the cardiologist could get to me. Once he came in I was told that if they found nothing bad with the little camera they were going to shove down my throat to get a closer look at my heart (looking for blood clots), then they would shock me with the paddles to try to reestablish normal rhythm. Good new, bad news. No clots. Three times shocked with the paddles and no normal rhythm. But I love that Versed. No memory of any of it and still, an hour later, a little buzz. So it's three more prescriptions, and the next round of tests to look forward to. It could be much worse. I could be drooling and brain dead.

Little Camera

Well, I'm up, bathed, and dying for a bowl of my morning latte. But not today. Today I go to have a little camera swallowed or shoved down an artery to look at the arterial chambers of my heart. I was a little discombobulated yesterday when they enumerated the procedures we would be embarking on to stop my fibrillating heart. So I not real clear on what, exactly they're doing exactly. Wish me luck.

More later, I hope.

Atrial Fibrillation

I'm fibrillating like crazy. Resting heart rate of 157. This has been going on for months, maybe a year. This should give you some idea of how healthy I feel. Aside from the burning in my thighs when I take my dog for a little walk, I'm healthy as a horse--in the sick sense of no viruses, no bacterial infections, nothing that would make me feel "sick" enough to go to the doctor. So the fibrillating has gone undetected until I went in for a follow-up after getting an MRI and carotid ultrasound to get a baseline. I wanted these tests because I had a little episode that I thought might be a small stroke.

Every woman in my family has died of vascular dementia, and every man of massive cardiac events. I envy the men in my family. They all went along feeling fine, then, Wham, dead instantly. Lucky bastards. Not so, the women. All of them have died the long slow agony of a million little strokes, just enough each time to wipe out a little more of their brains, tiny bit by bit, until they start shitting their pants and forgetting who they are. Anyway, it was at the follow-up to the MRI and carotid ultrasound, during the normal taking of my blood pressure that they discovered an unusual rhythm. Then they did an EKG. Fibrillating like crazy. My doc ordered an echo-cardiogram. Fibrillating like crazy. Then, finally the follow-up with the cardiologist today. Another EKG, still fibrillating like crazy, with the resting heart rate of 157. So I am now on a blood thinner, something else to help stabilize rhythm, and some damn thing I have to inject subcutaneously twice a day. And except for the fatigued feeling in my thighs when I walk, I wouldn't have any idea anything was wrong with me. So, I could stroke out at any time, but I'm feeling fine. I wouldn't mind any of this except that I now have to go through a bunch of invasive tests and procedures that require a babysitter to take me to the hospital to have these outpatient procedures done, since they all require sedation or general anesthesia. Bummer.

All of this to say, I have not seen the news today, since I spent the whole late morning and early afternoon getting baddish news from my cardiologist. I will catch up and get back to you.

I have not written this for sympathy or condolences, since I'm really feeling fine. It's the scare factor more than anything that's getting to me. It's the prospect of multiple procedures that necessitate inconveniencing a friend that pisses me off. And unlike E, I'm not young, I have no children, and if I die now, my affairs are in order. No one will be the worse off for it, and a few friends will make out like bandits.

Obama Speaks to the Reverend

I watched the Obama news conference today with relief. His pain at having to renounce his pastor was apparent on his face, in his careful choice of words. He answered questions with great candor. But the pain never left his face, was obvious in his tone, his careful, thoughtful answers.

His paster seems to have lost his mind. Reverend Wright's performance on Moyers was one thing, then to follow it up with the coup de gras at the Press Club, was like watching a train wreck-- a once proud man gone off the track, a bit crazy with his loss of power, his diminished position. Or worst, like watching a man in the public spotlight show the first signs of some sort of old aged dementia. I felt that way watching Ronald Reagan in his last year in office. Doddering, yet still full of ego.

As soon as the press conference was over, I went to the Obama site and contributed another $25.

Reverend Wright

Dear Reverend Wright,
Shut The Fuck Up!

Make My Day

I just completed my weekly outing. I am back from the grocery store, and have strawberries to put on my Cheerios, and today I was not the only person bitching about the cost of everything. I, who speak the worst spanish in the world, was able to help an old woman with a nina in tow, try to understand the questions the very unhelpful technician, about to withhold the prescription, was asking her in loud, slow English. Abuela gets the drugs! The Underdog strikes again!

Everywhere I went I found someone holding the thing they wanted or needed and shaking their heads about the cost. We discussed food shortages, and the fear we feel about this government. We talked about resistance and it's costs in this atmosphere. We talked about what we were going to do with our rebate--everyone says, pay back taxes or buy gas. Discontent is rampant. I'm not alone. And all this collective discontent cheered me up immensely. While I was in line waiting I looked at the covers of the tabloids and learned that Hillary has a hot young lesbian lover, lots of photos. Ummm!

I came home to find Chris Matthews trying his best to strangle Obama with his egomaniacal pastor who has gone before the Press Club to give another inflammatory interview. "He's an albatross! He'll kill Obama. Obama's toast now. He's unelectable." And once again I scream at Matthews, "Shut the fuck up you fat-headed asshole! You know jack-shit. You wish and think it makes it so. Childish prick, simpleton!"

I feel ever so much better. My psychologist called and said he'd talked to my vacationing psychiatrist and she'd given the green light to boost me back to my normal dose of antidepressant.

The Wound

I have a mother wound that will not heal
It hemorrhages loss and hope like a cracked pipe
A house haunted like the clean bones that I pull
One by one from the hole in my arm like
Blood from the veins I’ve tried to open
Like the jellyfish of a dream that empties
Me of bones and teeth and blood and anything
To say help me someone I die of starvation
For a little real something that feels like
Love might now slow the draining death
Of my mother’s need to be better than everyone
Include me, stinking, loud, sucking child of needs

The Award Goes To ...

To Stella at swiftspeech, my mentor and friend, who inspired me to go beyond my piddling skills and learn something new. Who keeps her eye on the news sources so she can keep us informed. Stella is smart, generous, and kind to new bloggers. She is warm and intelligent in her comments.

Today she has a post up quoting Tom Hayden, "Why Hillary Clinton makes my wife scream at the television." It is just the kind of news I want to hear--it makes me feel less alone in my screaming at Hillary on TV. And to top it off there is a gorgeous painting atop the post. Stella is a classy broad. This E is for you, Stella, excellent one.

BP D Continued

Junior high school was my training ground for looking like I had friends, while giving nothing away. I got good grades--always had, I skied well, dressed well, and hung with the edgy kids. I didn't ask questions and didn't answer them. At home I was sullen and angry all the time. I hated my parents and knew I had good reason. But I looked so normal. At night I would roam around throwing rocks at street lamps. I got pretty good with rock throwing, and hiding in the dark.

By now I knew my grandmother was an alcoholic and my grandfather was a pill popping hypocrite bastard. I refused to attend Sunday dinner at their house anymore. My father was a child molester and my mother was a cruel bitch. I could no long hold my hatred and contempt inside. I had been raised by the queen of the eviscerating tongue-lashing. I had mastered that art at her knee. Now I turned this hard won skill on my own family. I never called any of them out, but I could hold my own in any argument. It became the family pastime. At least once a day Maggy would say, "What did I do to deserve this?" And I would roll my eyes.

My third year of junior high, my parents decided I needed to see a psychologist. Who did they choose? A family friend, of course. Bob Johanson was a colleague of both my father and my grandfather. I knew his screwed up kids. I was by now an undeniable beauty, unsettlingly sexy. I used this power and my wit to seduce and play with Bob. Within several months, we were doing lunch instead of doing "therapy." You might think it was a gutsy move on my parents part to put me in therapy--a girl with such volatile family secrets, but actually it was a pretty safe bet. I knew my dad and grandfather had the power to have me locked up in some little private institution. I thought Bob would give them the ammunition they needed. So I got Bob on my side by intellectual sparing and flirting. It worked amazingly well. He told me I was brilliant.

To be continued...

And The Award Goes To ...

Anita at anitaxanax, who gives me poetry once a week when I always need it. How does she know just the right poem, just the right Poet? To Anita with the courage to play tag with strangers and trust us all. To Anita with a heart so big she can tell the truth, even when it hurts. Anita, this E's for you, soul sister.

Bipolar Disorder

I have had mental health problems since I was in my early teens. Any of you who have read a chapter or two of my book, Maggy, can probably figure out why. (And for any of you who haven't, it is now posted on it's own site called Maggy.)

At first my problems were attributed to adolescence. I was clumsy, moody, angry, and rebellious. When younger I had been an inquisitive child, talkative and curious. But at eleven I withdrew into my own private hell. I had learned that no adults were trustworthy. And because so much of my childhood was unmentionable, I could not reveal myself to other kids. I trusted no one. And it was during this early adolescence that I withdrew into the world of books.

It was also during this time that I began to disobey my parent's in every way I could. I had not been allowed to attend the Mormon Church. When younger I had occasionally spent a Saturday night at my friend Enid's house and the gone to church with her family on Sunday morning. I did not have to conceal this sneaky business to my parents, since they were never up early on Sunday morning. By the time I got back from church with the Olsons and changed back into my own casual clothes and gone home, my parents were just starting to fix breakfast, having just finished their first Bloody-Mary's. But now I went to the Mormon Church every chance I got--which was often. The Mormon's create a social life for their children that is quasi-religious. So, after listening to a small amount of readings from the Book of Mormon, the socializing begins. There were dances every week, and this became the part of my rebellion I lived for.

It was at one of these dances that I met my first boyfriend. His name was Larry. He was sixteen. I was twelve. This put me at odds with my friend Enid, because her older sister was friends with Susan Graham who had a crush on Larry. I didn't care. I was falling in love.

One night after a dance, Larry walked me home. We talked as we walked and Larry held my hand all the way home. It was dark and the gaslit lamp atop a pole in our lawn was the only light. We stood there by that lamp, talking softly. Then Larry bent down to my upturned face and kissed me on my lips. I did not kiss like a twelve year old. I returned that kiss with my own, lips parted, soft tongue exploring his surprised mouth. Then our door opened and my mother said, rather too loudly, "Get your ass in here, this instant."

The next morning at breakfast my parents started an inquisition that went on for hours. The only detail I remember from this "conversation" was my father's question, "Why do you think a boy sixteen would be interested in you?"
"Because I'm a good dancer. Because I'm smart and nice?"
"No! The only reason a boy his age would be interested in you would be to get in your pants!"
This conversation ended when I ran upstairs and slammed my door.

I kept seeing Larry, trying to prove my parents wrong, but in reality, despite the fact that Larry and I did talk about literature lots, did dance often, he really did want to get in my pants. But it wasn't exactly the getting in my pants that bothered me so much, since my daddy had been there for years. It was his wanting to touch my new breasts that bothered me the most. When Daddy was getting in my pants I had no breasts. So Larry's interest in my breasts seemed most to confirm my parents assessment of my worth. And then Larry got tired of my squeamishness and moved on to girls his age.

To be continued...

And The Award Goes To......

E at starspangledhaggis who wakes me up with such honesty and fierceness. Whose love and humor for her child’s safe and happy journey fills me with joy. Who faces adversity with funny wonder at the horrors of illness and it’s treatment. For all of this and more, I send you this award. All you have to do is carry it home.





Is This Thing Rigged?

Is it depression creeping up on me, or is it real?

My friend N, who is a retired history professor, and I went to see Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? Not a movie I’d recommend on many levels, but I’m no movie reviewer. It did succeed on this level—it made me scared. Scared on a cellular level. There were only three places in all of the greater Middle East that were closed, and unwilling to allow conversation to this crazy New Yorker and his small camera crew—Israel, in the more Hassidic areas, Saudi Arabia everywhere, and the mountainous area of Pakistan where Bin Laden might be living.

Only questions remain. They were posed at the beginning of the film, and it is these unanswered questions that now really scare me. They are all about why we back military dictatorships and/or governments we impose over popularly elected socialists wherever in the world we can. All this has been in the interest of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower warned us of this. And instead, we, since the mid-fifties, in the interest of privatizing everything and consolidating that economic power in the hands of as few as possible, have now turned our backs on our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and are about to give power completely to a couple of families and their cronies. They have their own mercenary army, their NSA. All Hail Skull and Bones.

N thinks McCain will probably win. It is in the interest of power and riches that he win. It is in the interest of ego and ambition that he win. I said, “What if Hillary wins?” He said, “Same foreign policy, same consolidation of power, better economic outcome for the middle class. Maybe.”
“What about Barack?” “I’m worried that both democrats health care plans are run by the insurance companies.”

Reality sucks.

My Worth These Days.

I'm worth a lot more than I thought. Maybe I can make a living. Apparently there is a market for geezer sex. I stole this from Every Thing I Love Causes Cancer. She stole it from someone else, and so it goes. Finally something edifying.

Powered By Sex Stores

From Hope To Bitterness

I woke up yesterday with Hope. Big time Hope. Now I'm really bitter. Bitter and sinking into the mind killing part of depression. Depression turns your brain into damp cotton. The only thing that penetrates the cotton is rage. So stupid and full of rage. That sounds like a full on case of Bitterness to me. And now my hearts arterially fibrillating up a storm, I'm depressed and bitter, and I can't find old reruns of Lawn Order to put me to sleep. My appointment with the cardiologist isn't until next Wednesday. If I weren't so depressed I could take a book to bed, but you have to be just the right kind of depressed to read--it takes a little concentration to really read. But bitterness and depression makes me want to search out a gun show, so I could buy an illegal gun, go to church, and come home and blow myself away. Worry not. I hate going out so much, that even the desire to put a bullet threw (or is it through?) my brian will have to wait until I'm not so bitter.

Busted

God, I hate it when that happens. Vigilante was "kind" enough to point out that I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground. Now I could have said, my ass from a whole in the ground. Or I could say I'm dyslexic, which is almost true, but really I don't know how to spell. Also I don't know when and where to say bear or when to say bare. I'll have to thunk on this some more. I'm sure there are many more such confusions in my vocabulary. Vigilante, with your hep, I'll try to muddle on. In the meantime will you bare(sic) with me?

Depression and Change

I am in despair about the result of the Pennsylvania Primary. I am an old hand at depression and despair. I will survive.

In the meantime I am going to change my blogging life. When all else fails-- change something. So I am starting a blog for my fiction, and this will remain my blog for my political passions and pains. This will be the place I rant and rejoice. I will try to learn a few new tricks. For instance, I'm trying to learn how to do a Blog Roll. I have wanted to learn to link. So this old dog is going to learn some new tricks. It will take some time. Bare with me please.

At Last

I woke up early to catch all the day’s news—got my latte and took the dog out to pee. After we came back inside, I fed him his breakfast and turned on the boobtube to watch this day’s fascinating coverage of, “Pennsylvania finally votes!!!.” I was asleep within minutes.

I have rather scrubbed my concrete floors on my hands and knees, than pay attention to the parade of fools on TV. This is shocking news, since I took the “seven deadly sins test at the Iguana’s site. My only sin is sloth. I tried to read the NY Times. Not even the Times. There is weak sunshine outside, but this is important, damn it. And it’s the same BS everywhere I look for information. And I have been interested all my life. I started this journey toward the democratic nomination with Hope, god dammit. Now I’m bored. I think I’ll clean the toilet. Then Cyrus and I will go for a walk.

Tag, You're It!

Even though I do not know the rules of internet tag, I'm going to try to wing it. As I understand it, I have to write six? was it six? random things about myself. Maybe these things are things I don't talk about much. Little secrets. Frieda Bee wrote six good memories from childhood. Do the things I reveal have to be positive, as in good memories, or just anything, from anytime? Help Frieda, help me now.

1. I have a semi-secret love of South Park. I love those foul-mouthed kids, they remind me of my childhood. The crazy parents, the cross-dressing teacher, the nasty sweetness gets me where I live.

2. When I was seven I charged kids at school five cents to tell them where babies came from. I knew this because my mother told me, in clinical, graphic detail, omitting all the boring "love between two grown-ups who love each other, bla, bla, bla....." So I knew the "He puts his penis in her vagina and stuff squirts out his......... You know the details. Needless to say I got in big trouble at school. My parents thought I was quite enterprising. I made some kids cry with this horrifying info. I bought kosher dill pickles with my sex ed. money from the little store across the street from school and ate them walking home, real happy with my windfall of nickels.

3. My dog eats his own shit. I realize this isn't exactly about me, but still......

4. I have the foulest mouth of any woman I have ever known. I learned all the nastiest words early and have always enjoyed the way they feel in my mouth. I can feign Tourettes Syndrome and scare off strange men who seem menacing to me.

5. Last time I was in New York late one night, I was walking along the street somewhere close to Grand Central Station, smoking a nicely rolled joint. I was wearing a black dress and high heeled boots, just minding my own business, when I dropped my joint. A nice looking young black man coming toward me, noticed that I was bending over feeling around on the sidewalk. He stopped and asked me if I'd dropped my contact lens. I told him I was looking for the joint I dropped, and he put his attache case down and helped me find it. When I picked it up it was out, so I whipped out my lighter, lit-up, and offered him a toke. We stood in the dark and finished the joint, then he said, "thanks, good night," and left. This has been pretty typical of the kindness of strangers. Strangers have never scared me. It was my family that scared me.

6. I used to hitch-hike.

my six taggees:
Scarlet
Phoebe Fay
Liberality
Anita
e. @ StarSpangledHaggis
Gary

Feminism: Have We Come A Long Way, Baby?

I have been a feminist my entire adult life. My mother was one of Utah's pioneering feminists. In the sixties she started the Utah chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus. She was famous for organizing marches and demonstrations protesting the Mormon Church's treatment of women and it's strangle hold on the political life of Utah within the state and in the nations capitol, through it's elected representatives. Maggy won many awards for her work on behalf of women and for giving voice to women's issues. She was the legislative aid to Francis Farley, our first female Utah State Senator.

At one of the award celebrations, sometime in the 1980's, while all these powerhouse women were congratulating one another on the great strides they had made toward equality for woman, I stood and asked the only question of any real relevance regarding the progress that had been made for women--"Why is it that women are making less today in relation to men's pay than they did in the 1940's?" I was not real popular that day. It was not an issue anyone was willing to address when they were so happy to talk about Karen Shephard's election to the Untied States House of Representatives. She served one brilliant term, and then was replaced by the incredibly mediocre Enid Green, the Mormon republican who opposed her. A woman, yes. Progress, no.

So now here we are, almost thirty years later and nothing has changed. Women are still making sixty some odd cents to every man's rapidly shrinking dollar. And now while still making sixty some odd cents to a mans dollar, women have a new hoop to jump through in order to be hireable, and promotable. It is the Beauty Quotient. For an insight into how far we are going backwards, baby, read Naomi Wolf's book, The Beauty Myth.

One last point while we're on the subject--every young woman I meet and then get to know a little, when asked if she is a feminist, says, "No, I'm not a feminist, but I do believe in equal rights for women." Where is the progress in this fear of the label "feminist?"

The Boys On Hardball

Chris Matthews, right now, is turning our presidential primary campaign into a boxing match. Every description of the most recent democratic debate is turned into some trivia drivel about boxing matches of all the late great match-ups from boxing's history. Apperantly if you don't know your boxing history you can't talk on Chris's show. Kind of leaves the female commentators knocked-out of the conversation. Kind of makes me want to say, "Screw You, Chris!" one more time. I have had a hate/hate relationship with Mr. Matthews for a long, long time.

He was on The Colbert Report the other night and nearly made my heart stop. Colbert asked him if the rumors were true about Matthews making a run for Arlen Spector's seat in the Senate. Chris got all moony and serious. His face softened like a young girls, his eyes glistened with such love, such deep adoration and reverence for......himself, I started dancing. This can only mean one thing. For at least as long as Chris is running for a Senate seat we'll will only have to endure him as a candidate. Hopefully Rachel Maddow on the new show in his time slot called Real Women, will treat him as he has treated guests past. She will ask him a question and just as he starts to speak, she will all but tell him to shut up! Then insist that he answer the question! He will open his mouth to suck in air to speak again, and she will cut him off and then ask Eugene what he thinks of Mr Matthew's inability to answer a simple, straight forward question truthfully, implying that Mr Matthews is indeed stupid and not qualified to be dog catcher.

Quaint Customs and Family Values

Utah is a strange place. And since the Pligs are making such great news and causing such controversy and consternation amongst the various cable news personalities, I thought this might be a good time to weight in with my unique perspective. I get to call my perspective unique because I actually have some first hand knowledge of some real Pligs.

Remember April? Not the month, but the youngest child of a Plig family here in Zion. Trying to sort out the history of polygamist families is damn near impossible—everyone is related to everyone else, when you start looking into their past histories—so I’ll just stick to the current history of the members of this particular family. And “I know” means, have met, sat around a diner table with, and (in some cases) have been and (in some cases) am still friends with. If you think that last sentence is confusing and convoluted, you don’t know a Plig family or have Plig friends.

But before we get to April’s family, I’d like to go on record as being in favor of having all the 400 plus children from the Texas compound who have been placed in protective custody, kept in protective custody. None of those kid’s, if released back into their “families” custody, is going to be safe. Children serve several purposes in Plig society—they are potential breeders (that means when the girls start menstruating they are ready to be married off to some old coot with several other wives—since I started my period at eleven, if I had been a Plig child, I could have been married and cranking out babies at eleven). The boys and the girls not of breeding age are child laborers. They clean the houses, prepare the food, work in the fields, etc. Once boys get to the age when they are interested in girls and such, they are mostly expelled from the colony. These are called the Lost Boys. Salt Lake has lots of Lost Boys.

Now, if you have been watching any of the news coverage of this “situation” you might have seen the “mothers” pleading for the return of their children. “We love our children,” is the answer to any and all questions regarding the safety of these children. When pressed about the age at which it is appropriate for these children to start breeding, the “mothers” change the subject back to “We love our children.” And have you noticed the lack of affect in these “mothers?” They all look lobotomized to me.

I was going to tell you more of April's families history, but I’ve run out of steam. I was going to clean my house today, but that too shall have to wait. This fibrillation thingy is exhausting.

Today Is Starting Out To Be Excellent

Thank you, Liberality.

The Pope is Ruining My News Day

Can anyone tell me why I have to watch an entire day of Pope stuff? I am not Catholic. Plenty of us are not Catholic. He may be a head of state in a very small way, after all the Vatican isn't really very big, so why does the Pope get to consume the entire prime-time news coverage? I will not go to church, yet I have had to listen to hours of a Catholic church service. I know, I could turn off the TV, but this is a presidential political season and it does interest me. But the Pope? Not so much. This just adds to my already growing bitterness. I knew I felt something really negative about what was going on in this country and finally it has been spoken of and identified, and it really resonates for me. I'm bitter.

Stormy Weather

Yesterday, the only day of half decent weather we've had this "Spring," I woke up early with vertigo. Had trouble working my way hand over hand to my espresso pot to make my morning bowl of latte. Shakily back to bed to take the small handful of pills that is my first part of the breakfast of champions in Savage land. One cigarette and a few sips of coffee and I did the hand over hand to take Cyrus out for his morning pee. If you are a new reader, please forgive me, Cyrus is my enormous dog, not my husband. No more husbands. Words to live by. Sorry if my anti-marriage sentiments offend anyone, but if you read my profile, you probably understand that I'm only speaking from my own experience and claim no universal truths are told here. I'm not even sure I believe in universal truths, but anyway.

So then I fed Cyrus, and took myself back to bed. A little morning news. Then up and at the computer. But my brain is not working particularly well, so I decide to quit will I'm slightly ahead.

I am still whirling a bit. This could be many things. Dehydration, low blood-pressure, high blood-pressure, allergies, ear problem. I drink a large glass of water, a small swig of olive oil (advise from two smart women) and a glass of orange juice. Back to bed to take my blood-pressure. I rest awhile, wanting to make sure the blood-pressure isn't artificially elevated. (Shut up about the damn cigarette and caffeine.) When I take the blood-pressure it's 190/93, pulse 140, resting. Damn.

I'm thinking, boy am I lucky. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow. We'll just see what the deal is tomorrow. Probably allergies. I take it easy the rest of the morning, reading papers and listening to news. I know, I should probably put music on and really chill, but old habits die hard. (No, no, do not give me any damn lectures).

When my blood-pressure got to be in the normal range, I ate a banana, brushed my teeth, and took Cyrus for a leisurely walk. But it was disconcertingly hot and windy. Since this is the first warm spring day, though it feels like early June, which is lovely in June. I really need to spend some time cleaning late leaves that had been lying under snow, now ringed around the ever hopeful tulips--these can't be raked. I notice that overnight the Chinese apricot has burst into bloom. That's a good sign. But the wind is blowing fiercely and hot. I can smell the leaf mold and little else. Tomorrow is garbage day, so I try to fill the brown can (used for garden waste--only that which can be turned into mulch or bark) then take all three cans to the curb. When I get in the house my eyes are tearing and my nose hurts. Mold and pollen.

The house is hot, even with the windows and door open. I turn on the ceiling fan, and get down to my tank top and yoga pants. And so it goes through the news night and posting a chapter of the book I've been writing and editing for twenty some years.

I had a lovely visit with my Administrator, purely social, no technical work. Then to bed and The Daily Show and Colbert Report. No trouble sleeping.

But this morning when I woke up, I felt awful. And it's cold today. My car won't start. Probably a loose battery wire. I want to work outside, but it's too cold, and windy again. Cyrus won't stay outside without me. And he is unusually watchful. Then it starts to rain. I have to arrange transportation to the doctor. My youngest friend insists. I say I'll take a cab home. No, no, she'll pick me up. She insists.

On the way to the doctor's office it starts to snow. SNOW! I see a female doctor who somehow never makes me wait. When I saw a male doctor, I always had to wait. What's up with that. So, I follow her back to the exam room, with only the unfortunate stop by the scale. I always want to strip at this point. Accuracy is important, don't you think? But I settle for dumping my purse and coat on a chair and the notice my boots, (yes Scarlet, my boots), then think, oh fuck it. Who cares. My clothes still fit. How bad could it be? Well, bad. Twenty pounds bad.

Then we get to the exam part. They always take my blood-pressure first because that's my main problem (all the women die of stroke, all the men, sudden cardiac failure). My oldest brother died at forty five of a massive coronary "event." Gramps, behind the wheel of his new Ford on the road home. Luckily he just slowed down and drove himself into a ditch. My Uncle Linton died in his sleep of heart failure--lucky man. The women have not fared so well in the death department. Strokes, not the big, kill-you-in-a-second kind, but the little ones that creep up on you till you're shitting yourself on a regular basis, and can't tell it's you that stinks.

Well, though my blood-pressure was normal, my heart beat was highly irregular. They insist on an EKG. They do this nearly every time I go in, about once every couple of years, usually for that irregular heart rhythm. And usually they don't show anything abnormal. But this time they do it twice, cause it looks a little hinky. Then my doctor comes in and sits down, she looks up at me and says, "You have an arterial fibrillation. This is the first time it's shown up on an EKG, but I think this has been going on for awhile. Where would you like to go for a cardiac ultra-sound?" So, tomorrow I get an expensive test I can't afford. Then I get to see a fancy shmantsy cardiologist for a consult. It'll be a damn long time before I can afford lemons again.

Reality Again

A break for those of you flummoxed by my literary turn of mind. I need to bitch about the weather. It has been the longest winter in my memory. In all honesty that's not a terribly impressive statistic, since my memory only lasts from season to season, still, it's been horrible. Yesterday was chilly. Yes the sun did shine most of the day, but it's been down into the low thirty degrees most nights. Now today it's hot. Not Texas hot, but from fifty and breezy yesterday, to high seventies and hot today--well it's damn disconcerting. And it's supposed to be in the fifties tonight. Usually we have long slow springs, time to get the yard cleaned up, and a garden space of sorts ready for planting. Not this year. Fuck no. This year we go straight from hard, cold, snowy winter to summer, do not pass go, do not collect anything, not even winter-kill, not even late falling leaves left to rot beneath the snow. And tomorrow? Cold and rainy.

Torture Anyone?

I guess I could talk about torture. That ought to make the men more comfortable. Having just written a little piece about when I was almost four and was raped by a 19 year old friend of my eldest brother's I seem to have scared off the men folk. Truth is this little foray into the heart of darkness of America post WWII, Salt Lake City, Utah--this tribute of mine to the greatest generation and it's family values has just begun, and the easiest part is in the past. It only gets worse from here. So buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Oh God, Where Is She Taking Us?

I have heard from a male reader that he is concerned that I am taking him on a trip he finds--how to say this delicately--inappropriate. I could change the subject, go back to writing about politics, or ignore his concern and carry on. But, the truth is, I don't want to lose my male readers. So, what to do? Really, until we move past Pennsylvania, there isn't a hell of a lot to focus on. Yeah, there was the theater of the Patraeus, Crocker show, but it was so predictable that I couldn't get too excited about saying much. Besides all the male bloggers are very focused on the General and the Ambassador. So what's a girl to do? My actual life is too damn uneventful to write about. And frankly I don't care much about China and the Olympics. Until we put our own house in order, what business is it of ours to chastise China for something they did in the 1950's? China is a bully? This is news? Give me a break. My only concern about the Olympics is that a friend of mine is working with one of the news organizations covering the Olympics--she does make-up for the on-camera personalities covering the games, and has had this gig for decades. It's been a fabulous travel opportunity for her. Have powder-puff, will travel. In this way she has made some big bucks and seen the world, racking up some impressive frequent flyer miles. So for her safety I am concerned. Other than that, not so much.

We never seem to care about the real atrocities happening in many parts of Africa. We have turned our backs on the Palestinians--their plight is not in our strategic interests. We have tied ourselves to Israel for better or worse. Nothing much to say about that. It is the third rail of our foreign policy. As one of native American descent, I see the Palestinians in much the same light as I do my own ancestors. But I'm not entirely stupid. It's not real smart to take on Israel.

Catch 22

It’s been a long time since I read Joseph Heller’s masterpiece. But it might be the perfect time to introduce it to a younger generation. After watching the Patraeus and Crocker testimony I keep thinking about Catch 22. We don’t know what victory means, but we’ll know it when we see it. In the meantime, we’ll just keep making the same deadly mistakes over and over in the same old way, and hope for a different outcome. Did you hear it differently? Immediately I thought, Catch 22. It must really exist somewhere in the military bureaucratic code book that is in charge of this SNAFU.

Absolution

Well, it’s true. Confession is good for the soul.

Thanks to those of you who read and have the courage and compassion to comment, I have received some excellent advise and consolation. I called my dear friend. We talked for over an hour and talked about my fear and cowardice, and her love and understanding. We talked about our other friends and we talked about politics. We talked about blogs and the joy I find in this interesting, intelligent community. Now I am relieved of the burden of self loathing and can pick up the pone any time and reach out. Once I get my car running again, I’ll go visit. Worse comes to worse I’ll call a cab. Worse comes to very worse, I’ll start walking her direction and do what I did when I was young and fearless, and stick out my thumb and hitch a ride.

Confessions

My Administrator has returned. Thank God. Now that he’s back home I’ll probably soon be able to link those wonderful sites that inform and teach me, as well as the sites that make me laugh so hard I think I’m going to choke and die. But more important than the rest of you, I will be able to link Linda at Ramblings of an Ageless Hippie Chick. Linda is the source of the Rebel Grrrl Award. My first ever award.

So here’s my confession. While Phillip was over here tinkering around on my computer, I talked incessantly about my life, my prize, my libido, paying no attention to what he was actually doing, I blurted out, “Oh god Phillip, don’t die or anything, I couldn’t get along without you.” Phillip lives in San Francisco and has never met me, but we talk, often late at night. Today when Phillip initiated a “chat,” my neighbor’s dog was visiting, and the odd sound of a man’s voice inside my house must have made Roscoe think we had an intruder. He got into full guard dog stance, straining forward through his powerful shoulders, and barked ferociously at my computer. I had to send him home, so real was his perception that a strange man had entered without even a knock on the door. See how I keep drifting away from this confession? It’s hard to admit when you know you’re a selfish asshole.

I view the threatening mortality of my friends and loved ones as assaults on my own well being. How dare they! Now I’m starting to view my fellow bloggers the same way. E doesn’t know it, but if anything happened to her I’d be devastated. I’m afraid to read back through her past posts to discover the reason for her having to take cortisone. I vaguely remember something about her mentioning needing bone marrow. The possibilities terrify me.

And yet among my own very small circle of fashionista friends one has MS. She is the Devil Wears Prada of our set of retired models. She was our boss. The woman who auditioned us, determined what we wore, and how we moved on the runway during the biggest shows of the season. When we first met her she terrified us all. I worked more closely with her in the beginning and we got to be friends, got together for lunch, had a cocktail after work, and as I got over the initial fear, I never for a second, lost an ounce of respect and admiration for her. When I lived in Santa Barbara, she, of all my friends, was the only one to come and stay with us for a few days. We became the kind of friends who might work and live halfway across the country, but kept in touch.

And now she has MS. Not only that, but her only child, her grown son, was walking home from a restaurant one night this winter when some total stranger stabbed and killed him. I can’t say this without starting to cry. I can’t comfort myself. How could I begin to comfort her? She is getting close to needing a walker and then a wheelchair. And I am not helping her in any way. I rarely call, almost never. And I have only the rationalization that caring for my crazy mother for five years killed every bit of tender mercy I ever possessed. But there is no comparison. My mother who was always cruel to me lost her mind but her body keep going, long after there was anything of “it” left except the eating, excreting, and the flipping of the bird, the lunatic grin, the mean glittery eyes, and her final words, “fuck you.” The day she stopped saying “fuck you” was the day she stopped being able to chew or swallow, no more shuffling up and down the hall, trying to pinch or pull the hair of some unsuspecting passerby. True to her inner self until the end. Three days later she died. Christmas morning about the time Santa would be climbing down the chimney. Thank you Jesus. I felt her hatred from my birth till her death. But despite every therapists advise to turn my back and walk away from her, I just kept trying.

Now I’m so glad it’s over. My life has never been better.

But I’m not ready to face the loss of a woman I really do love. Smart, sardonic, acerbic, kind, generous, well read, funny. In her case it is the body that is dying, by inches, moment by moment. The mind is as brilliant as ever. And she is now isolated by the inability to hop in her car and take herself where ever she likes. Of all our friends, I’m the one with the freedom to visit often, run her errands, hang out. But I don’t call, don’t go. There is no excuse. Last time I saw her I said, “If there’s anything you need or want, just call.” Sometimes even I can hear the bullshit in my words.

Thanks to All You Rebel Grrrls

Thank you for this honor. I might just have received the Pulitzer for the great delight I feel at having the coveted Rebel Grrrl Award. It took help from my fabulous Administrator, Phillip, to get it from there to here, but here it is. Now I have to go eat my spaghetti.

Still Life

My alarm wakes me up this morning with loud static instead of Morning Edition on NPR. It jolts me out of a dream of my own appalling ineptness as a parent. I go to the grocery store for the usual things: milk, eggs, toilet paper, nail polish. When I get to the grocery checker she says, “ We’re having a special on babies today, two for the price of one.”

I say, “Great, I’ll take two.”

Boys or girls?”

“Can I have one of each?”

“Sure,” she says and reaches for the phone, and I hear over the intercom, “One of each, check stand seven.” A bagger brings two plump, bald babies in disposable diapers, lays them one at a time on newspaper, and wraps them like flowers, heads emerging from the unfolded end, wobbly, like large blooms on slender stems. The two of them fit snugly in one paper grocery bag, and the bagger offers to help me to my car. I decline the help, like I always do, and head to my car, bag of babies grasped to my chest and plastic bag of other stuff hanging from my left arm, keys in that hand. I open the trunk of my car, sling the plastic bag in, and then very carefully set the paper bag of babies next to the tire well, so it won’t fall over. Then I slam the trunk shut just like I always do. When I get home, I unpack the babies and put them on the kitchen floor. Pour milk in one bowl and cat kibble in another, and then I go to work.

I come out of this dream relieved to be awake even with the static. I have a headache and I’m sweating. I’m sluggish and shaky.

I’m the new receptionist at a chic and busy, upscale beauty salon. I’ve been brainless and sullen all day. Slightly paranoid and lazy in a resentful sort of way. I even annoyed myself.

Halfway through my shift at the front desk of the salon today I get nauseated. It’s Friday. The last day of the first week at this new job. Part of my job is to look chic and upscale. Well-coiffed and well-dressed. Another part of my job is to clean up after everyone else, so I sweep hair in my Ellen Tracy silk suit and Donna Karan three inch heels. This is not where I thought I’d be at forty- eight. Living alone in a carriage house with two cats. My God, how pathetic.

Both phones are ringing, and a fiftyish blonde in a taupe silk skirt and T-shirt and lots of tasteful silver jewelry, sits in a chair, scowling at me across a too short distance from my face. Her stylist has kept her waiting for the past half hour. He seems to be having some trouble finishing the perm he started two hours ago. That doesn’t bode well for the tastefully aging blonde or the permee, I think to myself while flashing her a truly sympathetic smile. She makes eye contact and then stares unbelievingly at her watch. She seems to have transferred her annoyance from me to her offending watch.


I can’t get away from the phones long enough to check the supply of clean towels and capes. I notice, as I pass one of the many walls of mirrors, that my lipstick has faded to the bruised blue pink of my lips natural hue, matching in tone the deepening circles under my eyes. I need to make more coffee. I need a cigarette and a nap. The perky blonde shampoo girl is getting surly. She washes coffee cups, aggressively banging them around in the sink, so I’ll notice she’s doing my job. Torpor sets in. Deliveries of hair care products are made, but the manager left and forgot to leave checks. I want to sleep, dreamlessly.

Some pimply, pudgy, sweet faced high school boy comes in and asks for Miss Torkleson’s order. I know nothing about Miss Torkleson’s order. I try to ask the stylists closest to my desk if they know anything about her order, but no one can hear over the noise of hair-dryers and Light Jazz. Eventually I find out no one knows who she is, or what the hell she ordered, or where it might be. It takes me ten full minutes to cover the entire space of the salon looking for clues to the mysterious Miss Torkleson and her missing special order.

When I return to the front desk, the peach fuzzed boy stands to the left of my desk by the ringing phones, shuffling from foot to foot. Two teenage models enter the salon laughing companionable. They smile at me and say “Judith, Hi!” as they pass my desk, not even glancing at the boy turning pink beside me. I sit and look up at him trying to formulate the right question. I ask him if he can give me any more clues about her or what she ordered.


He says, “I think it ends in O and R.”


“What ends in O and R?”


“The name of the stuff she ordered.”


I think to myself, great, that’s a big help, since no product I can think of ends in O and half of them end in R as both phones light up and start bleating. While I’m trying to fit the two women on the phones into the packed schedules of the stylists they want, he stands there, beet red and rocking gently from side to side.

When I get off the phones I say to him, “Are you sure you have the right salon?”


“This is Milano’s isn’t it?”


I ask him if he works for Miss Torkleson, and he says, “No, I’m a student.” As if that isn’t perfectly obvious - - he’s only fifteen or sixteen, at the most.


“Where does Miss Torkleson work? Can you call her?”


“She’s my teacher at Ellsworth High School. Can I borrow a phone book to look up the number?”


My God! Who does this teacher think she is, the Queen of France? He finds the phone number, dials it, and asks for Miss Torkleson. They put him on hold. The color in his face deepens by the second as he stands there, phone clamped to his ear, knuckles whitening around the receiver. After three or four minutes he hangs up and looks up the phone number again.


I look at him and ask, “What happened?”


“They hung up on me.” He dials again. He seems to be trying to hide his irritation and discomfort, but his eyes roll up in an involuntary and universal expression of disgust. He’s starting to sweat. I smile. I hope I appear sympathetic.


I haven’t said aloud any of the nasty things I’m thinking about his teacher, but I grow increasingly pissed off that some prissy bitch high school teacher would abuse her power and authority — would be such a perfect jerk as to send this poor, blushing, pimply, pubescent boy to Boy Hell to pick up some unknown beauty potion for her highness’s hair in the middle of a school day. What gall! I hope her damned hair falls out strand by stringy strand. My every gesture tortures him. Poor little shit — the whites of his eyes are beginning to show above his lower lids alarmingly. I write a brief note to his teacher suggesting that she call and tell us exactly what her order is, and when she’s coming in to pick it up. I give her the phone number and ask her to feel free to call. He leaves shaking his head in disbelief.

I stop at the Smith’s near the salon on my way home to pick-up cat food and coffee and a gallon of milk. It’s 2:15 when I leave the store. I’m trying to get my cats to give up baby-food lamb. Since we moved, traumatically, cross-country, a little over a month ago, I improved the quality of their diets to help them cope with the stress. Now I can’t get them to give up the Gerber’s Pureed Lamb. Fanny sniffs her bowl of cat food and slowly walks away. Phoebe stands there for a while shifting her dirty looks from her bowl to me before she covers the bowl with the dish towel I keep under their bowls, as if hers contains a stinking turd.


I’m puzzled when I unlock my door and Handsome greets me. He’s a large cream-colored tom with orange tipped ears, and blue eyes that cross when he gets close to Phoebe. He has orange freckles across the top of his cream colored, pink tipped nose. He spends a lot of time stalking Phoebe so he can jump on her back and bite her. If he can slip past me, he swaggers into the house like he owns the place. I kicked him out when I left for work. My two stayed in. At least that’s what I thought. Now Handsome is in, and the girls are out. What the hell! Is Handsome more talented than I thought?


Once he dashes out, I notice my backgammon set is open and the pieces strewn across the floor. And I think to myself, how the hell did that cat get the case open— it latches like an old Samsonite train case. My eyes drift up to the window above the kitchen sink, and I notice two small colored glass bottles lying on their sides at odd angles on the sill. A third and larger bottle is gone, presumably in the sink. The grey stone pestle hangs on the edge of the sill and looks like a wilting erection. I guess Handsome tried to get out the window. Poor guy. Trapped in the house.

And then the hair rises on my arms, and muscles tighten along the back of my neck. Something isn’t right here.

I find myself standing there, just inside the threshold of my house, tote and plastic grocery bag slung over my shoulder, keys in my hand, and my heart is pounding wildly. Nothing moves but my eyes. They drift from the windowsill to the antique hutch against the west wall of the kitchen. Two doors on the upper left side, above the flour bin, hang by one hinge each. The flour bin is all the way open. Wow, Handsome. You must have been really upset, I tell myself. It doesn’t work. I can’t quite buy it. I look back to the window, expecting to see the screen missing, but it’s not. Then I see the poker jar. The Ball jar I keep my poker change in is sitting in the center of the pie shelf. Last time I played poker, which was three weeks ago, I put it on the top shelf above the flour bin and closed the door, which at the time had two hinges. It’s not possible for a cat to get a quart jar off a shelf and move it to another shelf. He might have been able to push the doors off their hinges. He might have been able to push the jar and then have it fall to the floor, or into the open flour bin, but he couldn’t have set it on another shelf. I want to cut and run.


I force myself to turn my head toward the bed, which is partially screened from the rest of the living space by an old mammoth armoire. All the photographs and paintings are still on the wall behind my bed. The closet doors are open. And then in a panic my focus pulls back to the typing table, and I’m momentarily confused to see my computer still sitting there where it was this morning. Maybe it was just the cat.

I breathe and take a couple of steps into the room. Then I see the underwear. It’s all over the floor around the bed. Not the socks, they’re still in the bottom drawer of the little three-drawer chest beside the armoire. That drawer is pulled out about an inch and a half. The next drawer up contains cotton bikinis and tank tops. It’s halfway out and nothing seems to be wrong there. It’s just a tangle of faded cotton panties and T-shirts like always, but the top drawer is all the way open and empty, and all my silk bras, thongs, panties, tap-pants, teddies, slips and strapless bustiers are on the floor and spread all over. A small black velvet coin purse with a silver clasp is open and in the middle of the bed surrounded by my set of round Tarot cards, which were in a round basket with a lid at the back of my closet
.
The two drawers at the bottom of the armoire are open. They contain the prints from my photography classes. Almost exclusively figure study. Black-and-white nudes. All female.


One framed photo has been removed from the west wall above the window beside my bed and left in the deep sill of the window. It’s a female torso reclining on her side with her back to the camera. The knee of the top leg is bent and rolled forward in a stretch, which exposes the interior upper thigh of the other leg. It’s a high contrast print, very starkly black and white. Strong light from a window falls precisely on a barely visible tuft of pubic hair. My mother thinks this photograph is obscene.


I notice something else on the bed. The long flat pouch Charlie insisted I carry my passport and large bills in when we went to Costa Rica. I grab it and feel the passport without having to look inside. I clutch it to my stomach as I head for the phone. That’s when I dial 911.

The woman on the line says it might be quite a wait, since my situation isn’t life threatening, and the intruder is gone. She tells me not to clean up the mess until after the police look at it.

Fanny and Phoebe show up while I’m waiting for the police to arrive. They enter cautiously. They roam the house sniffing everything as if nothing were familiar. Eventually Fanny heads for the daybed and Phoebe perches on the bedroom windowsill. I pace for a while noticing more disturbance. My typing chair has been moved and there are huge shoe prints on it. Everything on top of the Armoire has been opened and dumped. I move from there to the solarium, take the two steps down and stand there in the warmth of late afternoon sun. The mattress on the daybed is slightly askew, but Fanny doesn’t seem to mind. She is snuggled into the pillows at the shady end by the west wall, which is redwood. I turn left into the bathroom and see that all the drawers have been opened and the boxes and cosmetics bags have been opened and emptied. Jewelry lies scattered on the top bookcase shelf between the toilet and the sink cabinet. There are two rings and an earring on the floor. I kneel down and start searching the floor. There is nothing else but hair, the odd bit of cat litter, and dust bunnies. I head for the closet to check for my camera.

It’s not where I left it, but it’s there, out of the case, lenses scattered on a bureau top. Film cans opened, but all the film seems to be there. I examine the camera carefully. I have a roll loaded with six shots left, so I start roaming around the house taking pictures. Load another roll of Kodak 35 millimeter, 24 exposures, 400 ASA, and start really looking at things one small frame at a time. There is dust on every surface. In the sink, along with a broken bottle, there are food scraps. Some toast crumbs and four sections of orange rind.


When Officer Crowley arrives the cats split, fast. One of the first things he does is tell me how traumatic a break-in is. He talks to me about the burglary being like rape, a violation. There will be emotional repercussions. Officer Crowley says to me, “Don’t let the man who broke into your house,”-- (and went through my underwear drawer, scattering flowered silk bras and panties like petals across the floor at the foot of my bed)---“make you change the way you live your life.”

We know it was a man because of the size of his footprints on that typing chair. He left handprints here and there on dusty surfaces. I wonder what Officer Crowley thinks of my housekeeping. Dusting is obviously not a high priority for me.

He asks me if I’ve only noticed what isn’t missing, and I’m so grateful for the fact that the burglar didn’t smash and destroy everything, didn’t shit in the middle of my bed, didn’t leave a threatening note, I can’t focus on what might be gone. He didn’t take my computer or TV, VCR, or camera. They seem obvious targets for theft. He even left credit cards. I keep telling myself how lucky I am. I keep trying to focus on the positive. I keep wanting this to be a victimless crime.

Officer Crowley is gentle and patient. He seems a very sensitive man. Not at all my stereotype of a cop. He has a round head with short blond hair, and a round gut. The rest of him is blunt and muscled--short, stocky, solid looking legs. But his voice is soft as if it rises from the great bulk of that belly. I like Officer Crowley. I don’t want him to leave.

He stays for about forty-five minutes. Says it looked to be a random break-in--someone looking for cash or drugs. He says I’ll probably never get robbed again. He says it convincingly, as though we all have our allotted burglaries assigned at birth, and now I’ve finally had mine. Whew! Then he tells me I should get a new door with better security locks and a dog wouldn’t be a bad idea either. He suggests bars for the windows. As he’s leaving, he says a photographer will be by later to take pictures of the gouge marks in the door where the burglar forced the deadbolt. I’m sorry to see him go.

Officer Crowley told me the cats might be traumatized and need tranquilizers. Hah! It’s getting dark now and my youngest cat, Phoebe, has brought into the house, proudly dangling from her jaws, a live moth the size of a healthy sparrow. She drops the stunned creature by my chair and smiles up at me. She’s carried it like a prize bird dog would — undamaged. It sits poised on the carpet, and then Phoebe reaches out one paw, claws retracted, and gives it a little tap. The moth rises and heads for the green gloaming of the solarium. Phoebe sits, still smiling, and watches its flight. It flies low like an overloaded B-52, clears the four-foot height of my yucca tree and crashes into the glass wall. I see a smudge of dust from where it hit the glass. Phoebe looks back at me and then trots off to the solarium to investigate. I know what her plan is. She’s slowly going to torment the moth, making it last as long as possible. When it seems finely lifeless she’ll walk away, disgusted and bored.

Fanny sleeps like a cat in a coma, curled into the pillows on the day bed. She doesn’t even look the second time Phoebe falls from the ceiling of the solarium. The first time she fell we both investigated, now we try to ignore her. Fanny naps and I pace. Phoebe climbs the redwood beams supporting the big glass panels of the solarium’s walls and ceiling. As she gets near the top of the beam she tries to reach the frantic moth with one extended paw, claws outstretched, taking swipes at it, as it hovers against the glass sky. Its wings beat fast; my heart seems to beat to the same frantic rhythm.

There’s nowhere to go but down. The racket Phoebe makes when she lands on the tile floor amongst the dust pan, the half empty bag of kitty litter and the broom is alarming. There’s a momentary silence and then the broom falls over punctuating the quiet with a sound like a hard slap as the wooden handle hits the tile. Phoebe leaps straight up three feet. Then walks sedately on tippy-toes to the toilet for a drink.

When she begins her next assault I decide to intercede on the moth’s behalf. I stand on the daybed and try to capture it in my cupped hands, but I swear I hear a sound that could only be a moth screaming, and it dives for the glass wall that faces the garden and the fence along the alley.

I can still hear the moth bashing its wings against something hard. I can feel the tattering of wings, smell the dust. It lies still for a moment. The moon shines through the glass roof of the solarium creating pools of cold light. I think about light and the moth, the smudged window, the disheveled day-bed, Fanny is a pool of black in the corner, the apple tree a pale ghost in the moonlight through the glass. I look through the lens.