the new Christmas spirit, part 6

This one's written in earnest. I love you, Mom and Dad.

P.S. Think of "Tender Tennessee Christmas."

Back-at-Home Christmas

Come on, fortune slip, tell me of romance strong and bright
Can’t you hear the prayers of every single heart tonight?
Match.com’s calling, Christmas love falling, somebody said it’s true and deep
But it doesn’t matter, joy's not a ladder
I’m gonna choose to keep

Another tender back-at-home Christmas, the only Christmas for me
Where the love circles around me like the gifts around our tree
Well I’m told there’s more gold in a man’s hand to hold than alone I will ever see;
but a tender back-at-home Christmas is the only Christmas for me.

Every now and then I get a wand’ring urge to see
Maybe New York City, lots of singles there like me
There’s a parade there, I’ll have it made there
Bring home a guy for New Year’s Eve
Sure sounds exciting, awfully inviting, still, I think I’m gonna keep

Another tender back-at-home Christmas, the only Christmas for me
Where the love circles around me like the gifts around our tree
Well I’m told I’m not bold, that love has no foothold, it’s a lonely way to be;
but a tender back-at-home Christmas is the only Christmas for me.

Well I’m told there’s more gold in a man’s hand to hold than alone I will ever see;
But a tender back-at-home Christmas is the only Christmas for me.

the new Christmas spirit, part 5

Sleigh Ride

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, whee!
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!
Outside the snow is falling, the weather is calling to me;
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!

Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup, I’ll go!
I’ll soak in the show
I’m riding in a wonderland of snow
Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup it’s grand
With a frostbitten hand
I’m riding along to the song of a wintry fairyland!

My cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy am I
I’m huddled down in the sleigh bed like a nice little daybed outside!
I’ll take that road before me and tell a story or three
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!

There’s a party somewhere for all of the married folks
But I’ll head down to the pub for some cold beers and smokes
I’ll be singing the songs I love to sing without a single stop
While across my sweater the Guinness will slop – slop slop slop!

There’s a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy
When I’m hit on by a really old and bearded guy
It’ll really be like a picture print by Vincent Van Gogh
These wonderful things are the things that set my heart aglow!

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, whee!
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!
I’ll take that road before me and tell a story or three
Oh yes it’s a lovely day for a ride in a sleigh with just me!

the new Christmas spirit, part 4

This one's bitter.

The (New) Christmas Song

Dinner heating in the microwave
Jack Frost nipping at my nose
Money gone that no skinflint can save
Kinda hope the choir members froze

Everybody knows
Christmas specials and some mistletoe
Give me thoughts of suicide
In my bed stemming tears as they flow
I sleep alone and wish I’d died

If only Santa on his sleigh
Would bring me my true love gift-wrapped on his sleigh
But instead I know, deep down, that I
Will toast my parents’ health and try hard not to cry.

And so I’m offering this simple phrase
To all us single gals tonight
Although it’s been said, many times, anyways:
Merry Christmas – we’re all right.

the new Christmas spirit, part 3

Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’?
In the lane snow is glistening
A beautiful sight, I’m happy tonight
Walking in a winter wonderland

Gone far hence is the sparrow
On a fence is a scarecrow
He’s single like me, but I’m warmer than he
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow I can build a snowman
and pretend that he is Parson Brown.
He’ll say, “Are you married?” I’ll say, “No, man!
I’m happy hitting bars all over town!”

Later on I will slouch in the crook of the couch
I'll stifle a groan, 'cause it’s better alone,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

the new Christmas spirit, part 2

C'mon! Celebrate!


Oh the weather outside is frightful
But my cat is so delightful
And since I’ve no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Oh it doesn’t show signs of stopping
And my knitting keeps me hopping
The heat is turned way down low
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

While I watch TV every night
I eat Stouffers and drink cheap wine
No one calls me but I’m all right
'Cause everything I have is mine!

Oh the evening is slowly dying
But I never (really!) thought of crying
'Cause in the morning, to work I’ll go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

for the papercut in paradise, for the lizard skins in ypsilanti

Winter is here, and I don't know about you-all, but that means papercuts. Horrible nasty ones, like all the papers are lying in silent wait until that one moment you're not paying quite good enough attention, and they metamorphosize into knives and slice your skin to the bone.

For years I tried everything I could think of. The best, thickest, creamiest lotions, from every brand-name store I could imagine. My pocket money ran out, and the papercuts ran on. My hands began to look like I spent my free time arm-wrestling with cats or weeding briar patches or juggling razor blades.

Until I found it. Or, rather, received it in my Christmas stocking. Santa, aka Mom, was smart.

I got a little plastic tube of Vaseline.

Papercuts betware! Petroleum jelly is your Kryptonite!

Ladies and gents, this stuff is magic. And if you buy it at Wal-Mart from the travel section, a tube costs you only ten cents. If you object to Wal-Mart, you can go to CVS for a slightly bigger tube at a dollar-fifty. A little tube lasts for months; "a little dab'll do ya," as my mom says; and it's also usable on chapped lips or other parts of the body, like elbows and heels. It provides a protective coat that doesn't soak all the way into your skin and doesn't dry out and doesn't go away unless you wash your hands. It's scentless, so if you're like me and hate all the fission-powered scents out there that rock into your nostrils and blow your sinuses apart like atom bombs, you're safe. This is the perfect skin care tool.

Of course, there's probably something deadly and terrible about it that will give me cancer of the fingers in thirty years. But in the meantime, my paper cuts have diminished by something outrageous like ninety percent. My pocketbook isn't gasping from the punishing prices of Bath & Body Works. And my hands look like hands again.

the new Christmas spirit

Unattached for the holidays, hooray! But because every Christmas song has to do with boring old-hat things like love, companionship and family, I thought I'd add my own touch...


Dashing through the snow
in a one-horse open sleigh
o’er the fields I go
screaming all the way
Bobtail’s bells don’t ring
The reins are quite a fright
I don’t know how to drive this thing
but at least I’m out tonight!

Chorus
Single bells, single bells
single all the way
O what fun it is to ride
in a cold two-person sleigh!
(Repeat)

A day or two ago
all the couples took a ride
just because I lived solo
didn’t mean that I would hide!
I was feeling pretty swank
till the traces came undone
I flew into a drifted bank
and walked back home alone! Hey!
(Chorus)

settled

It's winter again. Outside it's cold and snowing, and on my walk to the post office to get the office mail I realized that I really need warmer shoes, so, despite my renewed hatred of shopping, particularly at this time of year, it looks like a trip to Ye Olde Malle looms inevitably in my immediate future.

I enjoy the cold. I love the briskness of the stark clear nights when every wisp of humidity has evaporated into the freezing atmosphere and you can see every star. I love the heavy snowfalling air on the swirl days, when visibility retreats shivering to the end of your nose. I really love that I live less than five minutes away from my job -- though I don't love the nagging knowledge that I'll have to shovel a path across the yard to my car in the mornings. But it's winter, it's snowing, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, and it's so much better this year than last year when we were wearing T-shirts until January. This feels normal. It feels right.

It also reminds me that I've been at this job for just over sixteen months, and it's hard for me to believe I've ever worked anywhere else. I came in this morning after our Thanksgiving break ready to rock and roll, and I've already accomplished a bunch of little things around the office, and I'm preparing to roll up my sleeves and dig into the paperwork. I like getting up in the morning and coming to work. The office is always fast-paced, the clients are usually irritating, a lot of the attorneys are rude, but the fly-around stress is enjoyable for all of that. When I go home at the end of the day, I feel that I've done something.

I have grown up with the knowledge that I never wanted to enter the business world. I don't like all the phone calls and the emails, the ladder climbing and the futile ambition -- I don't like career. My bent has always been toward writing and the arts, which, sadly, no longer pay the bills. When I decided against teaching and decided against grad school, I felt a little lost, a little desperate -- I knew I didn't belong in the fields I had rejected, but I knew also that I didn't want a business career, and I didn't know where that left me.

So I bounced around just paying the bills. Looking back, I can't quite believe I did what I did, working nine months doing two part-time jobs in basic retail without health insurance -- I would never, ever do that again. But I learned so much, and really came into my own then, and I'm glad I chose it, and glad too that God was so vigilant and gracious during that year, and the years that followed.

I was so unhappy in my job doing events at the Center. It was everything I hated about business, combined with a whole lotta other crap I've blogged about before. But even without the negative environment and the nastiness and the conniving and the politics, I just didn't like the job. But I felt well and truly stuck -- what else was I supposed to do?

And now I'm here. I do secretarial work, sure, and it's not glamorous and there's no ladder-climbing, which matters to some people, but it's important work, it's stable, and I love it, and I love my bosses. I can't imagine doing anything else. I am fairly certain, as certain as one can be in life, that I'm going to be here for a long number of years, and that thought energizes me.

The bottom line is, I'm proud of my job. I hear people sneer at it when they think I can't hear, or demean other people in secretarial positions in my presence ("so-and-so is only a secretary"), and I know plenty of others who hold back the criticisms like levvies hold back the sea even if they don't say anything, who think I'm wasting my time and talents doing menial labor when I could be doing something so much better. These people don't have to say anything; their opinion comes screaming across the emotional barometer like a hurricane-force wind, even as they say faintly, "Well, I'm glad you're happy..." while their eyebrows contradict the idea that my happiness in such a job is even possible, any more than my happiness as a prostitute would be possible.

But I'm proud of my job. It takes a lot of mental acuity to do it well, and a great deal of attentiveness to someone else's style and someone else's needs, and a knowledge of someone else's habits to the point where I can know what he's going to need, whether a document or a file or a cup of coffee or someone on the telephone, before he knows it himself. It takes a tremendous amount of skill, a deft application of known factors and creativity, to make oneself an invisible presence of crucial importance for the smooth functioning of an office. And I can do just that. I can be there at his elbow with a cup of my excellent coffee just when he's becoming cognisant that he wants some, I can put the files for his next appointment on his desk and he never notices, I can have received a telephone call from some company we subpoenaed saying one little phrase was wrong and have it corrected and ready for him to sign before he even gets the message, I can receive entered orders back from the Court and have them served on all the interested parties before he's even seen the mail.

I can also get away with a lot. I know how he works, and so I know how to interrupt him when he's busy with something important. I can bug him about certain phone calls or documents that need to be made. I can make suggestions that he ordinarily wouldn't consider, and he'll consider them. In short, we work well together, and it's usually fun, and almost always rewarding.

If he were a horrible boss, the job would be thankless and wretched. But he notices, he always thanks me for everything, so my bid to be invisible never quite works -- which makes it, therefore, a challenge, a goal...and a cheerfully sneaky one.

And I'm smart. There are a lot of dumb secretaries out there. I've met them. Dumb and drab. But he's leaving more and more of the documents in my hands, giving me less and less instruction, and it's because, as he told me early on in the job, "You have a brain and you use it."

I'm no lawyer, but I'm getting snatches of the law, and it's fun and interesting, though nothing I'd choose for my own career. I like where I am, much as I liked chiefing makeup crew in my college theater days -- it's background work, but it's no less important for all that. And I prefer making others' performances possible.

I also have the opportunity to connect with other background workers like myself. Some of them are truly fantastic, and the ones who aren't make themselves the butt of good jokes. The really good ones know their place, know that they're not the lawyer or the judge, but know even better that the lawyer or the judge couldn't do his/her job without that competent, friendly secretary taking care of the small stuff.

So where I am is perfect for me. I'm paying the bills doing work I enjoy and believe in. And meanwhile I have plans for my computer and my fingers and the words and stories that flashpoint through my busy brain, and those aren't career goals; they're Alpine ambitions, divine callings, and I do keep the two separate, and they fit interestingly well together, like pieces of an insane puzzle that match just as your head is starting to ache and your eyes begin to cross.

So for the time being, here I stay, well and proudly.

worried friends

If I don't check in with John about once a week, hilarity ensues. Here's a voicemail left for me this weekend:

Oh where oh where could my Sarah be?
Oh where oh where could she beee?
She might be missing and I would be sad
Oh where could Sarah be?

If I don't hear from her in twenty-four hours
I'm gonna call the policeandmakeamissingpersons repoooorrrrt
Oh call me back or I will be blue
Oh Sarah please call meee!

After I laughed till I coughed, I played it for all of my friends. And I called him back.

office machinery

Copier and I are having issues today.

I've learned over the past year, mostly, how to deal with its quirks and foibles. I've learned the appropriate moments for sweet-talking it, the appropriate moments for threatening it, and the appropriate moments for dousing it with curses. I know how to push down the back hinge so the paper won't jam feeding through, and how to grab the paper with the speed of lightning if I forget to push down the hinge. I know how to fiddle with all its knobs and dials with the smooth skill of a nurse or a horse doctor.

But today we're having problems, Copier and I. It doesn't have a name yet because it keeps switching genders. I'll have to pick a gender-neutral name for it...one that is easily switched from male to female. But for now it's just Copier.

And it HATES me. Today it's pseudo-jamming -- not actually jamming but you can't convince the machine of that, so it shuts itself down and I have to wait three minutes for it to come back on before I can continue copying the massive depositions that I need to get filed and served on the other counsel today. This will of course involve a drive to Court in this bleary head-fogging weather, and I can't get moving until fricking Copier decides to get these things copied without acting like a Pomeranian forced into cold muddy snow.

It's a very familial relationship, this one. I hate the copier passionately, call it all sorts of foul names and threaten it with all sorts of grisly ends, but let anyone else in the office criticize my Copier and I bristle and call it my baby.

Guess I just get lonely in my office and need something to talk to.

Gah! It just jammed again. *$^&%*@^.

Harboring a vendetta against the electric company really gets you nowhere. It's not as if you can change service, so if they screw up, they don't care. The best you can do is use as little electricity as possible.

This is a monopoly in practice. And this is why monopolies are bad. What am I going to do, go Plain?

But I WILL turn off the lights every time I leave a room.

home improvement

Yesterday I washed all my dishes. They really needed washing -- I was running out of them altogether. (Yes, yes, put me in a new environment and I celebrate by living in squalor.) I then tackled my bedroom and hung the ginormous mirror, the little wall shelves, and the pictures. It looks more like my room now.

This move has taken a lot out of me. It's been quite a month. I moved under extreme duress, had only ten days to get all my stuff out of the apartment and into the house, got it done, took no time off from work to do so, went to the Cayman Islands for Laura's (gorgeous, perfect) wedding which involved my first flights (and those out of the country too, fortunately to a laid-back English-speaking island, whee!), and then back home for much sleep and recovery.

So with all of that activity, I'm bushed on all life-facets. Physically, emotionally, mentally exhausted. I'm told that this pervasive fatigue is part of the job here, since this is, after all, my first full year working at the office, and the job's constant demands and high pace tend to drain your resources so that you're staggering around blearily by the year's end. Between Friday and Sunday I got 24 hours of sleep, and I'm still backpedaling.

Which makes me very, very glad for coffee. I stood in my sparkling kitchen yesterday vainly admiring my own coffee as it sat in the glass French press, so perfectly black that I couldn't see through it even when I held it up to the light. So strong that it banished caffeine deprivation headaches instantly, and woke the soul with the aroma of life.

I'm in charge of coffee-making at the office, too (I know what you're thinking. Don't even pretend you're not thinking it), and that mostly because I'm such an unforgivable elitist that I can't stand anyone else's coffee and have ground down (haHA) the system of the office drip-maker to pure perfection through careful trial and error. And when you hold the pot up to the bright window (or as bright as it gets here these gray November days when there are only like four hours of daylight), you can't see through the gorgeous liquid, so dark it blurs the lines that distinguish brown from black.

Ahh. Monday's best pacifier. Coffee.

Tonight I plan to drag my tired ass home, after finally working up the energy to trek to the stores in Mishawaka on my quest for home necessities like curtain-hanging hardware. And trash bags. It's so easy now to put off whatever I don't screamingly need, because I can get the absolute necessities at the teeny grocery store in town. It's so easy to live my whole life in Michigan just because I don't want to drive down to Indiana. But one must eventually break out of Hobbiton to get those modern goods.

I'm running out of nails, too. Lots of pictures have been hung. And my house is starting to look, a little bit, like home.

old made new

This morning sometime between five and seven I was awakened by the sound of a gunshot.

In my old apartment, I would have mentally bolted upright (though physically remained inert) and tried to calculate how far away the shot came from and listened intently for the wailing of sirens indicating police involvement and therefore the commitment of a crime. I would have sweated in bed until I knew that things had calmed down. I may have arisen and sneaked about my apartment in the dark, clutching Patsy (my shotgun) and peering out the windows.

(Note: Many of you probably already know this, but in the event that you don't: If there's something dangerous going on outside, or you're worried that something dangerous is going on outside, turn off your lights. If you have to look out your windows, make sure your house is completely dark before you do. It increases your ability to see outside, and hugely decreases anyone's ability to see in. Staying away from the windows is better, but a darkened house is always a good idea. Show your face in the window with a light on, even if the light is in another room, and you present a wonderful target.)

This morning, however, I dragged one eye open and concentrated for a second before groggily thinking, "November fifteenth. Oh yeah. First day of hunting season." And went right back to sleep.

Small town living is the best -- I'm so unconcerned for my physical safety (though, yes, I still lock all my doors; I'm not that unconcerned) that I allow my rational brain to kick in before plunging into a world of instinct and my years of training as a cop's daughter.

And where I'm living is closely on the border of country living, so there are always people in the woods. Even the horses across the street were unconcerned by the shot reports. And the cops might be the ones taking a day off to go hunting.

Bodily Betrayal

I can't tell you how many euphemisms we have heard or invented over the years. Here's a shortlist of where I am today...

1. Entertaining Aunt Flo.
2. Surfing the crimson tide.
3. On the rag.
4. Enduring That Time of the Month.
5. On my cycle.
6. Cramping it.
7. Internally bleeding.
8. Under the influence of the moon.
9. Suffering from the Silent/Woman's Curse.
10. Going through the monthlies.
11. DYING.

I love being a woman. But I do dread the monthly moments when my whole body turns on itself like a bad allergy and plunges me into a whole lotta pain. It's like all the alarms and wires are going off: Fatigue, nausea, gastrointestinal misery, bloating, cramps, bad skin, bad dreams, swollen feet, headaches, absentmindedness, depression, irritability, lower back pain, hot flashes, feverishness, lightheadedness, sluggishness. All for one little unfertilized cell.

Ridiculous. Insane. Yesterday I barely spoke to anyone, because anything I did say sounded bitchy and edgy, and I wasn't even mad. There's nothing rational about this, and nothing controllable; you just feel miserable and the mood swings are abrupt and puzzling.

But that's part of being a woman too: learning to roll with it, trying not to be horrible to people, and understanding that whatever you're feeling is all hormonal.

Biological persecution. Blah.

Speaking of cycles, though, reminds me of a conversation I had with friends over the summer as we walked through a park along the polluted St. Joe River and made fun of my former place of employment. The place was in the process of changing its longstanding motto, "Where Miracles Become Reality," to "Ending the Cycle of Homelessness." As we discussed the multitudinous, vast, innumerable administration problems that negate that bold new motto, I laughed and said, "Shouldn't it really be Pedaling the Cycle of Homelessness?"

So yeah, I haven't badmouthed that place on my blog in over a year, and have been extraordinarily careful to be vague and political about the whole thing because I never know who's reading, but hey. Some things are too good not to share.

And I'm proud to have been booted off that ship. Looking back, I can't believe I wasn't fired sooner. Not for bad job performance (almost nobody, outside of a few fiery and dedicated case managers, performs his or her job well at that place and the notion of teamwork -- though not cliquishness -- is dead, and under the circumstances I did my job quite well), but for some of my less politically careful statements (and the desire of someone from a prominent South Bend family to have my position). I actually said during a meeting, "Why are we dedicating so much time and effort to doing these little news articles to inflate this place's good reputation? It's all smoke and mirrors. Why aren't we actually doing what our mission says we're doing? Because then we wouldn't have to be scrambling to make this place look good; its reputation would speak for itself."

Oh yeah. When I told Boss-Man about that one, he sat back and stared at me in a combination of shock, pride and amusement. "And it took them four months to get rid of you?" he said at last.

Nobody was fooled by what happened to me. The people who were actively participating in getting rid of me, and the ones who were in the know and didn't forewarn me while pretending to be my friends, naturally lied their asses off and expressed their "sincere" condolences and offered "to have coffee" sometime because "we're all still friends here," but couldn't look me in the face afterward; and the people who were as ambushed by it as I was -- residents included -- knew exactly what was going on. "It's because you get along with us," one resident told me. "You don't look down on us or separate yourself from us; you talk to us, you listen to us, and you don't act like you're too good for us. They hate that up there. They keep themselves all separate and they can't stand when someone doesn't fit into their little club."

So much for trying to make a difference. I was excited when I was first brought on the job, not only for my position, but for the opportunities I thought I would have to speak up for the residents, having worked closely with them, and help things in that shaky, unstable environment to change. I had a lot of ideas, a lot of passion, and a great pride in where I worked and why. Not for its shining (ha! tarnished and crumbling) reputation, or for the goody two-shoes points I earned from members of the community by displaying my humanitarian work, but for the ways I could labor alongside people and help make their lives better in practical ways and communicate for them at meetings. That's why I was there. Not for some sort of personal prestige and inflated self-image, or for power (a lot of people my age sold themselves out for positions of power there. Power. At a homeless shelter. Ironic?), but for the daily interactions, the opportunities to present ideas that would help the machine run so that the people could focus on what they needed to do, and not worry about their daily living in a fast-running-down and badly organized facility.

So that didn't work. I was extremely naive then about the ambitions and two-faced political natures of the people who work in those kinds of jobs. I was extremely naive about what I could get away with saying and what I "shouldn't" say; I assumed everyone else was as committed and idealistic and driven toward change as I was, and that any kind of reformist statements I would make, any reformist ideas I would have, would be welcomed with willing ears and open eyes and likemindedness and eager hands. I've learned better, the hard way. I've learned that the factions and scheming and nastiness I witnessed in high school don't really stay there when people grow up; some folks carry those things with them. I've learned that goodness is not always a windfall against harm.

Take me back, though, and I'd do it all over again. Because I also learned that conscience is not something to be compromised, regardless of others' disapproval or rationalization for why they behave in the cruel ways that they do. Ask anyone who had a hand in what happened to me, and they'd tell you something different. They'd present the silly list that was read to me the day I was fired as to everything I was doing wrong, which they had been keeping (and in many of the instances, half-inventing, or leaving out distinguishing truths) for quite some time, unbeknownst to me. They'd list all the reasons I didn't fit in, wasn't part of the team, was a really nice girl who tried her hardest but just couldn't hack the job and they regret that they had to let me go, etc. But they'd also know better, somewhere deep down there, even if they didn't really care. Funny how none of them could quite meet my eyes, or even the eyes of my real friends there; when I've had a hand in letting someone go, they good and deserved it, and I was angry and had justice backing me up, and I could look them in the face any day, any time, because I knew I was right. That element was noticeably absent from those who did the same to me when I left my old job.

But I'm a little older, a little wiser, as a result -- I learned I don't work well in environments that are centered around politics, because I hate keeping my mouth shut when something needs to be said just to save my own skin or keep from looking bad. I've also learned to read bad signs, and that I can get out of a bad job before it crashes on me. And I've learned that people are even less trustworthy than I thought, and I let fewer people get to know me. That last one's a bit cynical, perhaps, but realistic. It helps to know your friends, and only trust a few of them. I've done some weeding out since then, and my life is smaller, more ordinary, and much more stable.

And I will almost always speak my mind. I see no point in going with the current just because that's the safe thing to do. I never have. And I learned that's probably not going to change, whatever the consequences. Because my conscience is clear -- and that matters more than other people's approval, or good opinion, or job stability.

I am so blessed to work in an environment now where that kind of thinking is the common bond.

grr. argh.

I have come to an enmitical understanding with the dog next door.

He belongs to my landlord's daughter. She's nice, but more than a bit standoffish, and her dog is ugly and mean. Having failed thrice to win him over, I decided to ignore him and let him live in his yard, while I lived peaceably next door.

The problem is, he likes to live in my yard. Either he's a Houdini escape artist, or he is allowed to run freely about the neighborhood. I came home from work on Friday to find him in my driveway, and when I got out of the car, he took issue with the fact that I was standing on my property and charged toward me barking and snarling with his hackles up.

That certain something snapped in my head -- the certain something that asserts itself forcefully in the presence of ill-mannered children and ill-mannered dogs. I stood my ground, calmly stared him down, and ordered him off my property.

Well, he stopped short (he's a scared dog, which is what makes him mean) about five feet from me, still snarling and barking, and then I, still calmly, started walking toward him. He shot off toward his yard and then turned and continued to bark. I very deliberately walked right up to the property line -- no further -- and watched him. He came no closer.

I waited about a minute, then turned to walk back to my porch (all I wanted was dinner, not to have a pissing contest with the dog who thinks he owns everything), and right away he started to follow me with his operatic solo of barking and growling. I turned to face him again. He shot back into his own yard. I turned around. He started after me.

This went on for about ten minutes, with me occasionally chasing him out of my yard. But eventually he got the message, I backed up to my porch and into my house, and that was that.

Until yesterday when I was sitting on my porch and saw him loping into my driveway.

Well, having just finished a quick reading of Julie of the Wolves, I was in a power-aggression mode anyway, and I did what the wolves did. After I leapt to my feet with a loud stomping noise, at which he raced back into his yard and turned to bark endlessly, I narrowed my eyes at him and leaned forward.

And he went away. He circled his owner's car and disappeared onto her porch. I smiled.

Sigh. I must be starving for some kind of confrontation if I enjoy having spats with the neighbor's dog. But it's all about winning, with these kinds of critters. I have been fortunate in never having had a bad experience with a ferocious dog in my childhood, so I'm pretty much completely without fear of canines, and love almost all of them -- but give me one who tries to boss me around on my territory, and I'll show him who's really in charge.

the waves

It's funny how states of mind come and go, weave themselves in and out of existence in a cyclical pattern like the tides.

Last weekend I flew to the Cayman Islands to witness my sister's wedding. It was beautiful, she was beautiful, she was radiant and smiling and her husband had tears in his eyes and the reception was lovely and the sunset stunning, and a good time was had by all (except perhaps by his creepy hateful mother who spent most of the reception looking glumly like someone had died, bollux to her). I'm not the biggest fan of the beaches or the suncombed seas; I prefer the quiet mystery of forest, the bark and leaf smell of trees, the stone smell of hills, a sky shrouded in branches and a wind peppered by the whispers of foliage and the chattercalls of birds. But I still enjoyed myself.

And something interesting happened there, walking barefoot on the beach in early November scanning the shores for shells and bits of glass and coral -- a habit long borne of living on the lakeshore at home, one that calms and focuses me -- something happened, sitting in a tropical dress that cost me four dollars at Old Navy and had the courtly French proprietor of our inn offering my father a million dollar dowry if he could have me for a second wife (what is it with me and these jocular polygamous marriages?). Something happened, toasting my sister and watching her move along the dance floor with her husband, with my parents interlocked nearby, and my sister's married friends on her other side.

I was happy alone.

Weddings are usually a signal to my subconscious to plunge itself into a subterranean sea of sadness and self-pity. At most weddings, however happy I am for the bride and groom, the yin balancing-opposite-factor in me gets up next to the Lion and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and starts singing, If I only had a date... Or, if the self-pity is really bad, mate.

But I learned in the Caymans something that all of the rejections of the past couple of years had obscured -- I am a quality woman. The serving staff were more attentive than they needed to be at any restaurant we attended, whether or not I was even wearing makeup. I smiled, I laughed, I was gracious, I was perfectly comfortable in my own skin. I was happy. And when I wasn't happy, it was because I missed being in my own house with my own cat in the solitude that I love. The flights back into the States, which I made on my own, were totally fine, because I was relaxed and believed -- no, reveled -- in my own independence (an unusual state of mind for a new experience -- new things tend to stress me out).

And I returned to my beloved Michigan happy. It hasn't worn off yet. The horrifying grief of singleness has, for the time being, gone. I like falling asleep alone in my single bed between my scarlet flannel sheets (mmm, weather finally cold enough for flannel sheets). I like waking alone in the mornings, enjoying my coffee alone, showering alone. I like my quiet, solitary evenings with my cat. I look forward to having a house settled enough (I have so much stuff, and the new house has less floor and wall space than the old apartment -- much creativity, and some downsizing, needed) to cook my incredible meals in my quiet kitchen with a Yankee candle burning and enjoy the results alone (I'm getting fat from too much eating out -- it's like the restaurant foods pack in unnecessary calories just because -- ickgh).

Maybe it's fall -- it's hard for me to feel lonely or unhappy during the dying of the year. It's hard to feel despondent when all around there's the beauty of the resting fields, the leaves showing their true colors hidden by summer's cholophyll, the smell of vinegar and wet grass and naked bark and the first hints of snow. It's a time to celebrate aloneness and introspection and the pure happiness of being.

Maybe it's that I know that I'm loved by my family, and by the people that surround me. Maybe it's that I know I'm loved by my God, and am grateful just to have been brought to a small harbor of rest. The grief has been long, and turbulent, and hard, fraught with a few sharp hopes quickly dashed in unkind ways, and it's lovely, really lovely, not to care about them anymore, but to feel the goodness of my life, and to realize that, whatever may be, my single state is not a result of some lack in myself. It's a time to focus on my callings and my gifts -- I'm starting to write again, I can't wait to start cooking and baking (it's hummus night tonight, a return to an old favorite; and as far as baking is concerned, my new stove is pure joy), and my home is so peaceful and safe that I can sleep again at night, and relax when I come home.

Of course this tranquility, this unexpected contentment, won't last. It will ebb, to be replaced by the grief, or the anger, or the anxiety, one of these days, and probably sooner than later, because I really don't think (although I'm beginning to wonder) that this solitary state is what I was meant for, and is, most times, uncomfortable at best, and agonizing at worst. But I'll enjoy the peace to the marrow while it lasts. This tide's been a long one coming in.