July 2006

The day he first told me he was starting to disappear I didn’t believe him & so he stopped & held his hand up to the sun & it was like thin paper in the light & finally I said you seem very calm for a man who is disappearing & he said it was a relief after all those years of trying to keep the pieces of his life in one place. Later on, I went to see him again & as I was leaving, he put a package in my hand. This is the last piece of my life, he said, take good care of it & then he smiled & was gone & the room filled with the sound of the wind & when I opened the package there was nothing there & I thought there must be some mistake or maybe I dropped it & I got down on my hands & knees & looked until the light began to fade & then slowly I felt the pieces of my life fall away gently & suddenly I understood what he meant & I lay there for a long time crying & laughing at the same time.

Like a ghost don’t need a key
Your best friend I’ve come to be
Please don’t think of getting up for me
You don’t even need to speak

When I’ve been here for just one day
You’ll already miss me if I go away
So close the blinds and shut the door
You won’t need other friends anymore

Oh don’t leave home, oh don’t leave home

If you’re cold I’ll keep you warm
If you’re low just hold on
Cause I will be your safety
Oh don’t leave home

And I arrived when you were weak
I’ll make you weaker, weaker still
Now all your love you give to me

When your heart is all I need

Oh don’t leave home, oh don’t leave home

If you’re cold I’ll keep you warm
If you’re low just hold on
Cause I will be your safety
Oh don’t leave home

Oh how quiet, quiet the world can be
When it’s just you and little me
Everything is clear and everything is new
So you won’t be leaving will you

Oh don’t leave home, oh don’t leave home

If you’re cold I’ll keep you warm
If you’re low just hold on
Cause I will be your safety
Oh don’t leave home

It seriously weirds me out when the temperature outside my body (i.e., the world around me) is hotter than inside my body.

I have accepted that we are selling our house and we are moving. This part, really, I am okay with. A little excited, even.

The rest of the process sucks donkey balls. Cleaning and packing and purging. Finding a place that we like that also meets our various requirements. Choosing a location. Dealing with realtors. Driving around hell’s half-acre looking at houses. Trying to decide what we’re willing to compromise on and what we’re not willing to compromise on. Worrying about whether our house will sell (or not). Changing our minds 420 times in the process. Should we just rent? No? Yes! Maybe. No.

I have so much stuff to get rid of – which is good! – but I don’t want to just dump it at Goodwill. At the same time, it’s easier and faster than putting it up on Freecycle or Craigslist – load the car, drop it off, go home. No dealing with random strangers who want to come tomorrow but, oh, can’t make it ’til Friday, can I do it Monday instead, will you drop it off, sorry I didn’t show up..

Gah. Big, fat, hairy GAH.

I am car-free today. For part of today, at least. Coffee is taking my sweet little Cybele to work with him and I’m going to hang around the house until his car is ready for me to pick up at the shop. With any luck, it’ll be ready with enough time for me to go grocery shopping since I didn’t do it on Friday and Coffee didn’t want to do it on the weekend with me. (Wah wah wah..)

I am out of ingredients for my cabbage sammiches, you see, and I am out of spicy peanut satay tuna and bocconcini cheese, and that leaves me with exactly NOTHING that I want to eat. Nothing other than chocolate-covered Sugar Babies. I’m not saying I can’t sustain myself on a few boxes of those. We all know I can. I’m more saying that Coffee doesn’t want to come home to me lying on the floor all sweaty and delirious from the sugar high and have to carry my ass upstairs while I clutch at my stomach and moan a lot and beg him to shoot me.

(Out of curiosity, is there an actual age when the urge to behave like “an adult” kicks in? )

Perhaps I can fashion a few meals out of the three almost-empty boxes of Cinnamon Life that Coffee has been saving, combined with a box of graham crumbs and some already-open pasta sauce from the back of the fridge! I can add in a few single-serving packets of KoolAid (cherry) and three or four squares of bitter baking chocolate – just for flavour. A can of chickpeas for garnish and, well.. we’ll call it “Dana Surprise Casserole”. Do you suppose I’ll need to put that in the oven, or can I just stir it around with a pair of take-out chopsticks and call it done?

Man, my life is HARD.

EDITED TO ADD: Scurvy Averted! The garage called less than an hour after we dropped Coffee’s car off and told us it was ready for pick up. HOW SWEET IS THAT?! .. I may make the Dana Surprise Casserole anyway. I was kinda’ getting psyched for the fabulous taste sensation of chickpeas and bitter chocolate.

I’ve been slackin’ n’ whackin’* here on the ol’ blog – and, to continue that theme, I’m not going to be around today. I’m venturing with Lena to the United States of America to indulge in some consumeristic behaviours at the local Target / Tops / Walden-Galleria Mall. Can you hear Torrid whimpering for mercy already? Yeah, me too. Wheee!

(* No, I don’t actually know where the hell THAT came from..)

I’m never sure of my own preferences on this, so I’m asking you:

When you leave a comment on someone’s blog (like, say, mine) do you want the person to reply via email or via a comment on the original post? (Assuming, of course, that a reply-comment/email makes sense..)

I’ve always described the inside of my mind and body as being a bit like a blazing fire. Energy and passion and sparks of enthusiasm. Certain things would always stoke that fire and passion – an urge to try something new, an urge to travel, an urge to dance/sing/shout. Sometimes the flame would fade a little and I’d need to add some kindling and things would bounce right back to a full-burn.

Lately I feel like the inside of my mind and body is a cool, dark cave. Not unpleasant or terrible, but a bit like my passion and enthusiasm is curled up in a comfortable spot and entering hibernation. I don’t feel depressed, but I don’t feel the usual drive and motivation to explore the world. I feel peripheral to everyone and everything, but not in a way that makes me feel desperate. I feel a little bit hollow.

I can’t figure out how to rekindle the inner glow. I’m not sure how to proceed. Meh.

Maybe it’s part loneliness and part limbo. I don’t know what’s coming next and I feel reluctant to engage.

Maybe I just need some chocolate?

–
Edited to add:

Let’s be honest: I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing. I’m wandering aimlessly. I don’t want to find a corporate job just to add direction to my life, and I don’t want to give up the freedoms I’ve got. I can’t bear the idea of dedicating myself full-time to stereotypical ‘wife’ things like cooking and cleaning and doing laundry (although I do those things) but I feel like I’m just wasting all the time in the world by not having some passion crackling inside me. I have a heap of projects and creative stuff and ideas to play with and none of it provokes me in any way, shape or form. I NEED PROVOCATION.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The dreams you have in the coming nights may be disturbing. Eagles may be dive-bombing warm and fuzzy little sheep. Lions may be pouncing on gentle deer and big bullies may be stealing the lunch money of cute little kids on the playground. You should not, however, view these dreams as bad omens. If you respond to them correctly, they will not turn out to be prophecies about literal developments in your waking life. And what is the correct response? Toughen up the part of you whose feelings are too easily hurt. Strengthen the protection that surrounds your vulnerabilities. Stand up for yourself with a courage that is graceful, not macho.

(Freewill Astrology)

Torrential downpour. The rain is loud enough on the windows and eaves that it drowns out the sound of thunder behind it. I can barely see out the windows, though the sky seems to be white instead of the usual storm-cloud-grey.

At 2:30 I changed out of my jeans and t-shirt and into my jammas. I’ll have to change back when it’s time to walk the dogs, of course, but it feels like the sort of afternoon where one should be comfortable and appreciative of that comfort. Jammas, it is. Feet up on the sofa. Books surrounding me. Pen and paper handy.

All that’s missing from this ideal is a warm blanket and my even-warmer husband. I am already struggling to stay awake, so it’s probably good not to be snugged under my duvet. Consciousness could elude me for hours.