Nine hundred thousand birds

They were so loud I heard them from inside the house, and when I opened the door to look the sky was black with them for as far as I could see. I don't know what kind of birds they are – I just know they're small and dark, and enormous flocks of them pass through this time every year. This is the biggest group I've ever seen though. When they fly together they ripple and swirl the way a long silk sheet would if you held it up in the wind – one of the most beautiful sights I know, and something that always reminds me of when I first moved back to Northern California, because fall was my first season here and they were everywhere that year.

This morning they were in our big sycamore and a couple of big oaks across the road. The sound they made when they (seriously!) exploded out of the branches was like nothing I've ever heard before – yes, seriously! I've never heard anything like it. Maybe because I've never seen that many birds all start flying at the same time before. Standing on the porch fifty feet away, I felt the wind their wings made.

In a way I guess maybe it could have been a little scary too. Birds are kind of wonderful, and also kind of creepy. A certain famous horror film comes to mind. If they did decide to get together and do something ... luckily, in addition to old Hitchcock flicks we also have the expression "bird brain." Not to mention the Ginsberg tune of the same name. Remember that?

Anywho. For anyone who might have been worried, I'm feeling a lot better today. Being sick really does a number on me. Plus, I realized this morning – when I woke up with a mini-panic attack, just like I used to do when I was starting to get Sick (as compared with plain old lower-case sick), that I haven't really exercised at all since last week. It's funny – when I used to "suffer from depression" people used to always tell me I ought to try exercising more, for the endorphins, and I never really believed it would make any difference. But wow – it really, really does. Good to know.

I'm still going to look into finding a therapist, though. Jason was right – maintenance! I have been Not Dealing with some stuff I need to deal with, and I'm still not feeling up to Dealing With It on my own. And now that I'm feeling at least a little bit more like myself, I've suddenly remembered that I don't have to do everything myself. It's okay to ask for support.

For about six years before I started writing here at Tinarama, I had a different online journal that I subtitled, "It's Cheaper Than Therapy!" I was reading through some of the archives of that journal (no longer online, sorry) the other day and remembering how much I used to depend on journaling as a way to stay clear with myself about what I really thought, what I really wanted, and what I was really doing with my life. I found myself shocked, as I read, at how very clear I was in that journal, how frank and open, and I realized that by censoring my journaling in order to put it online in a more public space (this one), I've actually started losing some of my ability to see myself as clearly as I can when I think nobody I know is reading.

So in addition to getting back into counseling for awhile, I'm also going to start doing more private journaling again. It is cheaper than therapy, and I like it, and I miss it. I loved reading those old entries and remembering how good it felt to be clear and purposeful and not dependent on anyone else's opinion of me to show me what I "really" look like. If I make a point of paying attention to myself, I know what I look like.

I know I sound horribly, cringe-inducingly self-conscious and self-absorbed when I talk like this. And as another long-term friend pointed out to me not long ago, I know I also frequently sound like I'm defending myself, or trying to convince myself I really am "okay" ... And maybe I am. I'm okay with that, though. Everyone has their soft and tender spots, fears, insecurities ... these are some of mine. I'll be kind to you if you be kind to me.

Sicko

I haven't seen the movie yet but I'm having the experience – I am sick, sick, sick. Two weeks of working late and working weekends was not enough to bring me down, but working all those hours surrounded by other people who insist on coming to work when they are SICK – that, my immune system could not tolerate. And then I did it myself, simply because there was still so much work to do – I broke my own rule and went to work sick. Which only made everything worse. Oh well! At least I did finally get everything done.

I rewarded myself by taking a day off yesterday though, and again today. This is the worst cold I've had since ... the last time I had a cold, I guess. That was last winter, and it took me almost two months to get completely clear of it. I now think that was because my blood sugar was so astronomically high then, though of course I didn't know it at the time; high blood sugar inhibits healing of all kinds of infections, which is why diabetics so often end up losing toes, feet and legs to amputation – even the tiniest little blister or abrasion can become life-threatening when the body isn't able to heal it.

Cheerful thoughts for a bright and blustery winter afternoon, eh? Or is it winter yet? I guess not yet. It's still fall.

We had a nice enough Thanksgiving, even though I ended up working most of the weekend. I finally bought the new computer, which will be good – it's a 24" iMac, less than a year old, that I got from someone who wanted to upgrade to the new silver iMac, the one I tried and rejected because I don't like the highly reflective slick glass screen. It cost me a thousand bucks less than the comparable silver one would have, runs the same OS and software, and still has two years left on its warranty.

I also bought a new mattress, though it hasn't been delivered yet. After doing way more research than any normal person should, I decided to spend about twice as much as I would have on a conventional mattress, and get a natural latex mattress with an organic cotton and locally-grown wool cover. It has all kinds of certifications to prove it's nontoxic, fair-trade, sustainably grown, blah blah blah ... and it's comfortable, and it doesn't smell funny, and the people I bought it from were nice, crunchy folks who seem like they're genuinely trying to do a good thing with their business.

Spending all that money all at once makes me feel nervous. I'm glad to be able to work at home again though, and looking forward to sleeping well again, I hope. It's been a long time.

It's awful how being sick and exhausted makes everything seem so totally un-do-able. Yesterday I didn't even have enough energy to watch tv – all I did was sleep. The fact that I feel bored and restless today, in addition to feeling exhausted and depressed, could indicate I'm on the mend. I can imagine wanting to do something, but I can't seem to get myself up off the couch to actually DO it.

Even though I know it's normal to feel depressed when you're as sick as I've been (or is it?), every time I feel this way I start to get scared that I might be falling into another serious depression. It's that time of year. And I do seem to have been feeling kind of rotten for such a long time. Not being able to breathe doesn't help either. Plus, I found out on Monday that I will probably have to cancel a trip I had planned for next week, because I have to fly to Las Vegas for a press check.

Anyway, I'm thinking I might want to start seeing a therapist again. Even if I'm not getting depressed again, everything seems to affect me so much more than it should, and it seems like it's getting harder for me to rise above the negativity I keep finding myself surrounded by, at work and at home ... I just don't feel like myself lately. And I kind of want Me back.

Pushups

So the other day I was trying to do some pushups, and I found out something embarrassing. From the knees I can do any number of them, but the real kind of pushups – from the feet – I can only do two of those.

The knee kind don't really count, do they? I mean – they're better than nothing. But they're not really real pushups. So I've set myself a goal: five real pushups by the end of the year. It's not an enormous improvement but I think it's achievable. And once I've achieved it I can always make a new goal.

I've been working late all week, eating dinner (one chicken andouille sausage, a cup of raw cabbage and a handful of roasted cashews – yum – seriously!) at my desk and riding home around 9 instead of my usual 6. It's actually really nice. There's no traffic to speak of, I'm easier to see at night than at dusk (because of all the lights), and by that time the wind that blows through every afternoon – known locally as the Petaluma express – has calmed down so I'm no longer riding directly into a hurricane.

The down side is I'm so brain dead and exhausted by the time I finally get home that all I want to do is feed the dogs and go to bed. So that's what I've been doing.

No movies, no music, no reading – just quiet time in the house, and then sleep. In a weird way it's actually very restful, kind of like those old media fasts I used to do before I started sharing a house with Mr. A. I've realized I really need to do one of those again soon; my brain is so full of media right now that it ... well, I don't know what. It's too full. That's the point. So full I can't think.

I'm dreaming in Illustrator and InDesign.

Tomorrow I'll be picking up Mr. A from the airport, and if I don't have to work this weekend I might get a chance to get away from the computer for long enough to clear and reset my mind, at least temporarily. What about NaBloPoMo? I've decided not to be orthodox this year. But I will at least think about posting every day. And if I happen to have to go online for some reason anyway, I will go ahead and update.

My new nieces

Since my brother-in-law already posted this photo on their family website, I guess it will be okay for me to post it here, too. Aren't they beautiful?

IKEA scores two for two

In the letdown department, that is. The pillows are not quite up to snuff; I had forgotten how crunchy and noisy feathers are as compared with all down. And they're now using cheaper hardware on those drawers, so even though the item name and number and even the drawers themselves are still the same, the new ones don't glide as smoothly and effortlessly as the ones I bought last year.

I didn't notice the new hardware until I had them all put together and installed and was sliding one in and out trying to figure out why it didn't automatically slide closed like the old one – and a little piece of white plastic fell into the drawer below. I looked at the slider on the old drawer to see where the plastic should go, and found that there was no plastic on that one. The whole assembly has changed. What used to be all metal with a long, enclosed slider is now only about half the amount of metal and a short section of ball bearings surrounded by plastic. But of course by the time I realized this it was too late to put them back in the package and return them ... and anyway, even if I could have done that, I still need the drawers – and these are the only kind that will fit. So I'll live with them, but I'll also be writing their customer service department to let them know I don't appreciate the change.

On the brighter side, they might not be as nice as the first ones, but they're adequate for what I needed, and now that I have them installed I have a place for the contents of three giant boxes of papers I've been collecting for the last couple of years. I spent most of the afternoon sorting, discarding and organizing everything in those boxes, and shredding anything with my name on it that I didn't want to keep.

I also trimmed the hedges, cut some roses for the house, made two delicious meals for myself, and took Tater for a long walk. All in all, a pretty productive day.

New pillows

I will make up for my lack of an entry yesterday by writing a postscript to my entry from earlier today, in order to mention that in addition to the drawers, I also bought two new pillows at Ikea today (I guess to be correct I should spell it IKEA).

They're filled with duck down and feathers, not goose down, and I could see before I even unwrapped them that the construction is not exactly heirloom quality ... but for twenty bucks apiece (on sale!) I'm hoping they'll get me through until I get around to revamping my entire bedroom.

Normally I wouldn't spend any amount of money on something I know is not exactly what I want, but maybe if I like them I'll end up keeping them after all. Otherwise they will go the way of all other substandard pillows in our house, and become dog pillows.

Last time I bought pillows I spent a lot more money than I thought I should on beautiful fabric, special pillow protectors, goose down from Hungary, etc. etc. ... and they've been great, but now that they're past their prime I guess I'm seeing them for what they really are – not so much a symbol of how I want to honor and take care of my precious Self (because doggone it, I deserve it!), but as a basic, utilitarian (and eventually flat, flabby and possibly drool-stained) object I need in order to sleep well and be comfortable. If I can achieve that for forty bucks, why spend four hundred? Or however much a nice pair of beautiful goose down pillows costs these days?

Probably as with so many things the solution will lie somewhere between the extremes. I do have my doubts about the duck down and feathers, but am willing to be convinced. And either way, my current pillows are long past ready to be retired, so the dogs will be scoring at least two new additions to their respective lairs. Though I'm pretty sure Tater will be the only one who takes advantage of the opportunity – the Jeeps shows more irritation than interest and pushes them out of his way whenever I've tried to turn him on to the pleasure of pillows. He does love his electric dog bed heater, though.

Okay, so I missed a day

I'm not displaying the NaBloPoMo button this year anyway, and couldn't figure out how to make the official website let me sign up to be listed as a participant, so I'm not going to get too upset about skipping a day.

So, why didn't I post last night? Because I was too busy eating more pizza than I should have, drinking more diet cream soda (with caffeine, I found out too late) than I should have, and deconstructing the pageant scene in Little Miss Sunshine nine hundred million times in a row while simultaneously drinking lots of water and running on the treadmill in the middle of the night to work off the carbs in all that pizza, that's why.

And even after all that running I was still 20 points higher than I like to be this morning. So now I know – one slice of pizza is fine. Four slices, not fine. Even when the whole pie is only 12" across, and is made in the fashion known locally as "New Haven- style" pizza, meaning the whole wheat crust is only slightly thicker than a fat-free baked tortilla chip, and equally crunchy.

Anyway. This morning's high was not sustained, as I spent the rest of the day buzzing around helping Mr. A get ready for another week-long training in Southern California. This afternoon I drove him to the airport and then on the way home stopped to pick up some additional drawers for the Ikea cabinet we installed last year. As anyone knows who's ever been to Ikea, that place is good to burn at least a couple hundred carbs just walking in the door ... it's exhausting, and I've never been to one yet without getting good and lost at least once, and spending a half hour or more just wandering around trying to figure out how to get out of the place with my stuff.

And yes, I know Ikea is evil, and I would not want one in my own town ... though there would seem to be very little chance of that happening. We're too far off the freeway.

All the way home the traffic was terrible. It was pouring rain, and everyone was driving all crazed and distracted, and I saw three bad-looking accidents between the airport and the exit that takes me out of heavy traffic and back onto the little two-lane canyon road toward my own sleepy little valley. I was five miles down that road before I noticed how much I had relaxed. Maybe it's just because I hardly ever drive anymore, and even if I do I rarely leave the valley, but somehow driving amongst a lot of other cars makes me much more tense these days than it ever used to.

I liked being the only car on the road, driving in complete darkness around the curves through heavy fog and drizzle and every once in awhile seeing in the distance the friendly-looking lights on the front of someone's barn.

Of course there are houses too, and the whole area is actually pretty thoroughly populated with humans, but compared to Sacramento, San Francisco or the East Bay, it's pretty quiet up here. And maybe I would get used to it if I lived in a city again, but for me the country, and this little piece of land I live on in particular, is the only place I feel like I can really breathe.

Score of the season

Today someone at my office mentioned that she had just bought some great comfy easy chairs and cafe tables from the guys at the coffee shop next door. It went out of business recently and they were selling all their furniture and fixtures. My friend and I went over to see if anything good was left, and I scored four giant heavy Italian terra cotta planter pots with gorgeous fat rolled rims and a lovely patina – two of them containing good-sized, beautiful, healthy (though currently leafless) Japanese maple trees – plus all four saucers – for fifty bucks. Yay, me!

As luck would have it I had driven to work today instead of riding, because I had a several errands to run on my way in to the office. The nice guys from the cafe loaded them in – one on the driver's seat, one on the back seat, and the two containing the trees lying on their sides with the trees sticking out the back. Then I v-e-r-y carefully drove them home, spilling only about three or four gallons of soil as the pots rolled around ... and as soon as Mr. A gets home, or maybe tomorrow, we will make an attempt to get them out and onto the ground again without dropping them. Because they are BIG. And very heavy.

Sometimes it is nice having access to a large SUV, even though I hardly ever drive it anymore. I have read accounts of people moving their whole apartments, including things like mattresses and couches, by bicycle ... and I applaud those people. I myself have used my bike to move some pretty impressive things around town, such as an extra-large lasagna in a glass pan that I strapped onto my back rack a few weeks ago to take to those friends whose baby came so early, and who had just finally brought him home from the hospital.

(Speaking of him – I went by to pick up that pan tonight and drop off some more food, and he's looking great. My friend mentioned that he was actually supposed to have been born today – not in August. But he's doing well, nursing like a champ and starting to put on a little weight.)

Anyway – the secret to carrying a giant lasagna in a glass pan on the back of a bike is this: in addition to the bungies, you have to have some padding between the bike rack and the bottom of the pan. A folded up fleece jacket will work, as I now know; I rode about a quarter mile with everything rattling in the most alarming way before I realized I was going to have to make some adjustments, and luckily I had the jacket in one of my panniers.

It also helps to stick the pan in some kind of container with slightly higher sides, such that the bungies aren't stretched tight across the top of the lasagna itself. If this happens, you will have a terrible time getting the cheese unstuck from the foil when it comes time to actually eat the lasagna. But it still tastes good.

Here is my recipe for Special Nourishing Post Partum Vegetarian Lasagna.

1. Boil the lasagna noodles like it says on the package. Whole wheat or spelt pasta is especially good, if you can eat stuff like that, though when I make this for myself now I use layers of spinach leaves instead of pasta. This increases the iron content and reduces the carbs by about a million.

2. While the pasta is boiling, get the sauce ready. Chop up a bunch of tomatoes and add whatever herbs you like – fresh basil, oregano, chile peppers, tons of raw garlic. Bottled sauce is great too.

3. Wash and chop whatever vegetables you want to use. I like spinach, zucchini, onions, carrots & mushrooms (these last three I sautee in butter first to sweat out some of the flavors), chunks of winter squash (these would have to be cooked in advance), asparagus (if it's in season). Anything you like will be good in there! If you eat meat you can add that too – chopped up chicken apple sausage is one of my favorite things to add. Or I used to do a version with fish and a tarragon-based white sauce ... I was the only one who liked it, though.

4. Layer everything in the pan – sauce first, then vegetables, then ricotta AND fresh mozzarella cheese, then pasta or spinach. Make three layers, with more sauce on top, and finally another layer of cheese (unless you don't like cheese).

5. Cook it at about 350 until it looks and smells done, about 30 minutes.

I still don't consider myself much of a cook – or at least, I wouldn't call myself a person who "loves" to cook – but I am getting the hang of a few things lately, with a lot of help from Mr. A, who is an excellent teacher – exacting, adventurous and highly enthusiastic in the kitchen.

In other news, we've had a few more poop incidents this week, including one that ended with me on hands and knees in the dim light of early morning, scrubbing away in the cold to remove all traces of a trail of poopy footprints the genesis of which I prefer not to relate in any great detail (you're welcome) except to say that they were not mine. I guess this is just what it comes down to at the end (as well as the beginning) of life – socialization and memory become unsustainable and we're left with just our basic functions. Eat. Sleep. Poop. Love. Hopefully there will be someone kind to clean up after me when I reach that point in my own life.

And I guess it could be considered kind of apalling to allow a dog to shit in your house ... but he isn't totally incontinent, and anyway, what are we supposed to do short of putting him down – make him live outside? He's too frail for that. Even confining him to the kitchen would be an unbearable insult to his dignity, I think; when I was cleaning up after him the other day he kept hanging around, staring at me, obviously embarrassed and upset over what had happened. In any case, and fortunately or unfortunately, it isn't something we're going to have to deal with for long.

It seems like I've been anticipating this situation forever – he was already ancient when I first met him, and that was more than four years ago now. It's strange to see it finally starting to happen.

Caffeine free me

So it's been a couple of weeks now (I think) since I said good-bye forever to my beloved Diet Pepsi Jazz, along with all the other caffeine I'd gotten used to having every day. Well, almost all. I'm still allowing myself one cup of something in the morning, and that seems to be enough to get me started and out the door, at least until I drop that habit too. And I do seem to be sleeping a little better again.

But I still need a new bed. The one I've been sleeping on for the last ten years was great when it was new, but it started out squishy and has only gotten squishier over time. That was great too, at first. When I bought it, I had just left my marriage and most of my stuff behind, and had been sleeping on the floor for several months on a flattened old worn out crib-sized mattress from the thrift store. So when I had enough money to buy a real bed again, I wanted one that was super thick, soft and comfortable. The one I chose had not one but two pillow tops, one on each side – so really, you could say it had a pillow top and a pillow bottom.

And therein lay the problem. With pillows on both sides, there was nothing to support the springs inside. According to the people at the new mattress store, that's why nobody makes mattresses that way anymore – it was a 90s experiment that turned out to be kind of a dud. All the same, I loved it while it lasted, and it did last about nine years before it started to blow out.

So now it's time to choose again. The latex is awesome, but expensive – about two grand for the one I have in mind. Or, I could get a regular mattress with springs, and spend the extra money on linens and pillows. Either way I'll be picking something this weekend, and then – sleepy trails to me. I can't wait!

Two more of us

My sister had her twins this morning. They were still a little early, but not as early as they would have been when she went into labor a few weeks ago (thankfully they were able to get it stopped), and it sounds like their extra time in the cooker did them good. They weighed in at 5 lbs. 3 oz., and 5 lbs. 13 oz. – not bad! I haven't been able to catch my sister on the phone yet but my dad says everything went well and they're all doing fine.

With the addition of these two new little girls, I now have eleven nieces and six nephews.

Also today: I finally hooked up with my friend the Mac guy and took a good look at the new silver iMac I've been thinking of buying. I have to get something now, and fast – I don't know if I mentioned I just picked up a new client, but I did, and I need to have all their stuff ready to present by the end of the month.

I didn't like the silver iMac. The glass screen is way too glarey, and the reviewers were right – the color is weird. Or at least not consistent. I think instead of this brand new first-generation silver iMac I'm going to take a used white iMac he has coming in from another client who's upgrading – it's the last one they made before the new silver one, so it's basically just like the one I have at my office except it's newer, faster and has a 24-inch screen (instead of the 20-inch). AND he's going to load it up with all the software I need, and transfer everything off my old iBook (the one I'm typing on right now, which is at least six years old now and too small for design work), and upgrade the memory, all for several hundred bucks less than I would have paid for the new silver one with a smaller screen.

Normally I would be nervous about buying a second-hand computer, but I've known and worked with this guy for seven years and totally trust him to set me up right. It's still a lot of money, but I've been needing to upgrade for a long time and I guess I'm finally ready.

And another thing /Six months in

Last night when the Waltons were eating that soup, I noticed there wasn't a single throwaway, single-use container anywhere in sight. When Grandma poured milk for Elizabeth, she poured it out of a white ceramic pitcher, not a plastic jug. The napkins on each plate were blue and white cloth – not paper. And I don't know if you ever noticed this, but when the Waltons go to the store, the candy comes in jars (not individual wrappers), they take their own grocery basket, and they save the paper that's wrapped around their stuff. And the string.

In other news, I saw my doctor today and got my latest A1C. Just to recap, when I was diagnosed as diabetic back in April, my A1C was 12, which corresponds to an average blood glucose level of over 300. That's not good. Today my A1C was – are you ready for this? – 5. A big five-oh, and that is very, very good – as good as a non-diabetic person. In fact, you don't even start being considered possibly diabetic until it reaches 5.8.

He said this is the most dramatic turnaround of a newly diagnosed diabetic patient he's ever seen in his practice, and I don't think he was saying it just to make me feel good. I really have made some pretty remarkable progress. I've worked hard and made some big changes, and even though I know it's possible that these things may not always be enough to keep me healthy – because this is a degenerative disease and over time a lot of people just deteriorate no matter how "good" they are – I'm going to go ahead and let myself feel proud of what I've accomplished in the last six months.

Not that I'm really scared anymore, or pessimistic about the future. Everything I've read says that with normal blood glucose control (which I've now achieved), a diabetic person has no more risk of life-threatening complications than a non-diabetic, and a lot of what I've read lately (though this assertion is considered controversial) also suggests that keeping blood glucose in a very tight, non-diabetic range can actually stop the progression of the disease by preventing further beta-cell burnout. In other words, if I can keep my glucose normal, I might be able to save my pancreas.

That makes me happy, and hopeful, and not just because of my pancreas. It's also because I'm seeing once again that I'm not deluded when I try to assure certain people in my life that change is possible. For them and for me.

Sometimes this journal makes it uncomfortably clear to me that in a lot of ways I'm still just as stuck in my same old neuroses and bad patterns as I ever was ... reading back over things I said last year, or even five, ten or even twenty (even thirty!) years ago, sometimes it seems impossible that I could ever really get over the things that bother me. For instance, maybe I'll always have this intense social anxiety, and maybe it will always prevent me from being able to be everything I could have been if I hadn't always felt so afraid to step up and interact with people, take advantage of good opportunities, etc. etc.

But then, maybe that won't always be the case. Maybe if I keep trying to work with that innate tendency, I'll be able to gradually move myself in a new direction, just like I've done with my broken glucose metabolism. Because it's still broken. I've been able to keep it from hurting my health by doing manually what my pancreas is no longer able to do (keeping my blood sugar low), but I'm still diabetic and will always be diabetic. It's part of how I'm made. If I were to go back to living the way I used to live before, my glucose would shoot straight back up again.

So the point is, I do have this issue that makes it harder for me to have a healthy blood sugar. But it's only harder – not impossible.

Maybe it could be somewhat the same with my anxiety. I don't have to expect that it will ever be "cured," but if I change some of my behavior (even though I'm still scared), maybe I can get it under control at least enough to allow me to do some of the other things I've been too afraid to do for so many years.

It scares me even just thinking about that! But I was scared at the beginning of "my diabetes journey," too. And look at me now.

Waltonspalooza Part II

Or is it part III? Anyway, I'm on another small Waltons-watching jag. This time I am determined to figure out the floor plan of that amazing old house they live in. And yes, I know it's only a set, and not a real house at all, but I still love looking at all the details, and pausing when a particularly interesting scene shows up.

For instance, Mama Walton (Olivia) was just dishing up some soup, and I noticed a great detail – the soup is in a giant white and red transferware tureen, and she's serving it with a mismatched ladle – a big white ceramic one with a flat bottom and a green handle that looks like a piece of asparagus! I also noticed there's dust on the siding and a water stain under the window, and I think I've about got it figured out how that screened porch by the cellar is attached to the rest of the house (on the side, not the back – I think). Now I just have to figure out where that little door next to the kitchen stove goes, and that other door on the far wall of the front room. And do the parents sleep upstairs, or down?

There are so many good lessons to be learned from this show. For example, I just glanced up and Mary Ellen is holding a beautiful supported headstand (salamba sirsasana) on the patchy front lawn, talking to Olivia. The Waltons were into yoga! And here's this guy pulling up in an ancient old truck totally loaded up and over the top with junk – old pans, milk buckets, wheelbarrows, galvanized tubs, shovels, and other useful items. They were recycling way before recyling was cool!

I'd love to know what it would feel like to live in a society of people who thought things like that were worth saving. I was thinking about that yesterday when we were at the dump again; it's so depressing to live in a time where everybody always just wants to throw everything away. I'm not saying I want to be desperately poor – but why should you have to be poor to care about not wasting everything? Why does everyone seem to think it's so great to surround ourselves with stuff that's literally designed and intended to become garbage? I don't think it's great. I think it's deplorable.

Anyway – I know it's just a silly old tv show but it still makes me feel better to spend a little time on Walton's Mountain every once in awhile.

This day begins and ends with fire

I think I'm finally catching something. Everyone at my office has been coming to work sick for weeks, hacking and snuffling and blowing their noses all around me and then wanting to lean over my shoulder to show me something, or borrow my pen during a meeting ... I'd avoided it so long I was starting to think maybe I wasn't going to get it this time, but this morning I woke up groggy, achy and mildly congested. Sleeping on the couch all night didn't help; I sort of fell over sideways around 9 o'clock last night and never quite managed to get up again. Mr. A brought out my blanket and pillow and I spent the rest of the night curled up like a fortune cookie. I just couldn't bring myself to go back to my saggy worn-out mattress in the cold.

So this morning I felt kind of lousy and out of it, but I had to get up anyway because today's the day we were going to rent a truck for a dump run, a load of fire wood, and to pick up some amazing 20-foot-long redwood 6x6's my old friend Beautiful Hands Man had offered to let us take off his hands. A day like that calls for a hearty breakfast, so I cooked up a good one – veggie omelet with sausage, avocado, salsa, and toast. Except the toast was done a little before the omelet, so I put it on a plate and stuck it back in the toaster oven to keep warm. Then, just to make sure it didn't cool down too fast, I turned the oven back on for one minute.

Next thing I knew there was black smoke and that hideous scorching smell, and when I looked in the door of the toaster oven I saw red! It's the first time that's ever happened to me in more than 35 years of cooking.

Luckily the toast was small and so were the flames, so I just grabbed the whole plate with an orange dog-face silicon hand puppet for grabbing hot things, and quickly set it out on a table on the back porch. Only the top piece was burnt, but the others had absorbed that unbearable smell. I tried eating part of one piece that didn't seem too bad, but it was so nasty I had to spit it out.

So that was the first fire.

The second one I just finished dousing with water and it was the nicest fire I've had outdoors in years. Mr. A has put together a nice little outdoor room back between the two apple trees and the redwood and a big eucalyptus, with a long wooden bench along one side and chairs and little tables, and several 6-foot potted redwoods we really need to get into the ground this year. I pulled out the mini-Weber and loaded up a box of firewood and built the first fire of the season and lit it. The sun had just gone down and I sat there watching the stars come out and petting the dogs and tossing little sticks and scrap wood onto the fire until just now – about three hours.

That was the second fire.

I love watching fires burn. I've been lucky to have had a fireplace in almost every place I've ever rented, and to have one in the house I live in now. It's so much more relaxing to watch a big piece of wood burn down to nothing than it is to watch television in the evenings, or even read. In a pinch, even a candle can work, if you can slow down enough to actually watch the wax melt.

With the wood it's especially satisfying because over the course of an evening there are so many different pieces that burn. I like to watch one piece as it turns black and catches fire and then really starts to break down and disintegrate, and then suddenly you notice you're not even looking at that piece anymore because it no longer quite exists – so you watch another piece, and then another, and eventually the shape of that first piece is completely gone, not even the outline of a duck's beak remains, or the curve that looked like somebody's elbow.

Thinking of it right now I can remember two pieces that were lying on top of each other tonight in such a way that they made the shape of an eel's face. The top one had a nail in it, and part of another piece of wood was still attached to the nail so that it looked like an eye, and I watched that eel's face for probably a half hour as it glowed in and out of orange and black and purple and white ... and by the time I doused the fire an hour or two later, the eel was completely gone. Dust.

It's so satisfying to see how completely the form disintegrates. Nothing recognizable remains of it – nothing. It's so reassuring, somehow, to see something so solid vanish into nothing but ash. So light you can just blow it away.

While I watched the wood burn I was thinking of people I've known, men in particular, and noticed that most of the men I've been with over the years have either hated themselves, or been angry. It's a sad pattern but I can't help acknowledging it. Exactly why I have this penchant for upset men is not completely clear to me. Is it because I'm upset too?

There's actually a third category, too – men who are afraid. Those are the ones I think I relate to the most, which is probably why I haven't ever spent much time with many of those.

Someone told me this week (hi, someone) that someone I used to know a long time ago just got married, and I thought at the time that I didn't have any feelings about it, but I have been thinking a lot about that person ever since. And I guess I do have some feelings about it. Not about that person exactly, because I really have no idea who that person is anymore – it's been almost 20 years since we've had any contact. But it did make me think back on what my life was like when I was in my first years of college, and how I thought everything was going to be. And how it really is now. That's the part I have feelings about.

Or maybe I'm just thinking back because that's what people think about as they age. Their youth. I saw a picture in the paper the other day of these octogenarians all dressed up for a USO party at the senior center and I thought, is that what it's going to be like when I'm old? Eighty-year-old guys in wheel chairs dressed as Sid Vicious? Great-grandmothers in dark roots, breast implants and vinyl hot pants? Isn't it kind of pathetic to spend so much effort trying to preserve a time that is gone? Wouldn't it be more interesting and truly more dignified to continue living a life that's always new? I've known a few really old people who have been able to do that, and knowing them makes me feel a lot better about getting old. They like to reminisce as much as anyone else, but they're not stuck in the past. They've stayed interested in the present, too.

I mean, I still like some of the music I listened to when I was 20, but I don't base my entire identity on it. I've found a lot of additional stuff in the world to enjoy since then. Maybe it's different when you're in a veteran.

Watching hair grow

So one of the more fascinating things going on in my life right now is that I'm trying to decide whether I should hack eight inches off my hair all at once, or an inch or so at a time over the next several months.

Remember almost two years ago when I made the mistake of thinking that getting a perm would help me out of a rut I was tired of being in? Well, I haven't done anything to my hair since that ill-fated day except wash and condition it, and (only very occasionally) brush it, and every once in awhile trim a little off the bottom. I've been trying so hard to protect it from any more damage. It never looked bad (or at least I never thought so, and if you did, please don't burst my bubble by telling me), but it never felt good anymore after the chemicals. It was like the difference between a healthy, shiny, lithe and lovely real live cat, and the slippery stiff mink stoles I used to collect out of the "as is" bin at the Deseret Industries when I was in college. They both look good, but only one of them is really alive.

So now almost all the trashed part is gone, and the part that is new is fabulous – the problem arises in the zone in which the new part meets the old. First, the texture is different. The new part is wavy and somehow now that I'm turning into a middle-aged person is starting to be sort of coarse and frizzy as well. I like it – in fact, it's kind of what I was hoping to achieve with the perm. The other issue is volume: fully two-thirds of the permed part has broken off at the point where the perm began.

Not that I'm going around looking like someone with a half-assed partially grown-out perm. Remember the year of the top-knot? Or the year of the braid? There are plenty of ways to disguise a bad perm while it grows out. But I'm kind of getting tired of the disguises – or not the disguises so much as the maintenance.

On the other hand, if I chop it all off at once, then it will be so short I'll have NO good options for a disguise. I don't like having short hair. It makes me feel naked and overexposed.

So yeah. I know it's all very thrilling. Aren't you glad I'm writing every day again now?

NaBloPoMo returns

Actually, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try to write a post every day this month, but if I don't write one today then I will have already blown the opportunity to decide I do want to do it, so here it is.

Read more posts from other random writers here, or go to the main page to find out what this thing is all about.