If the Brakeman Turns My Way

When panic grips your body and your heart's a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind till you're breathing in reverse
And all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse --
When every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out.

Got a cricket for a conscience, always looks the other way
A cocaine soul starts seeming like an empty cabaret --
Hey where have all the dancers gone? Now the music doesn't play
Tried to listen to the river, but you couldn't shut your mouth
Better take a little time to level out.

I never thought of running
My feet just led the way

Mixed-up signals, bullet train
Cars get switched out in the crazy rain
I could meet you any place
If the brakeman turns my way

All this automatic writing I have tried to understand
From the psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan
So I'm headed for New England or the Paris of the South
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out

Are your brothels full, O Babylon, with merry middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes from those deep opium dens
All this death must need a counterweight, always someone born again
First a mother bathes her child, then the other way around
The scales always find a way to level out

I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away

Mixed up signals, bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain
I could live to any age
If the brakeman turns my way

It's an old world, it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
And I'm a repeat first-time offender
Who has rewritten history

Mixed up tea leaves, phantom pain
Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain
Getting better every day
If the brakeman turns my way

Mixed up signals, bullet train
Cars get switched out in the blinding rain
And he'll be smiling as he seals my fate
When the brakeman turns my way

~Conor Oberst

I BEG your pardon?!

This is getting ridiculous.

I did laundry yesterday, which necessitated a trip to the downtown grocery store for quarters. On my way out I saw a guy I thought I knew through work, and said a bright and cheery hello (the guy I thought he was is married, so think friendly not flirtatious). He looked up. Wrong guy. I'd never seen this one before. But I could practically see his ears perk up. Crap.

I hurried out of the store muttering about needing to get my eyes checked. He followed me out (by the way, this guy is in his late thirties, at the least, kind of a hick, pockmarked face, bit of a creepy vibe) and asked my name and said I looked familiar and did I live in town?

I gave him vague answers, thinking, Oh no.

Oh yes.

He proceeded to ask if I were single. I said, "No." He said, "Oh, you got a boyfriend?"

"Yes." No, dummy, what else does "no" mean?

"That's too bad. You're a good-looking girl."

What am I, a prize sow? "Thanks."

"Do you date?"

Whaaaaat? "Not on my boyfriend." (I was too shocked to be as rude as I wanted to be looking back.)

"Oh, so you're faithful, huh?"

Duh, you fuckwit. "Absolutely faithful." (What kind of girl do I LOOK like?)

"Oh. Well, at least you're faithful."

Not that you'd get any anyway, creep. "Yup. Bye."

I got into my car while keeping a suspicious eye on him and thought, I just got PROPOSITIONED. In the GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT.

Sometimes the burka sounds appealing.

odds and ends

We had an earthquake early this morning.

Now, to people who really have earthquakes, like in California, this one was maybe an earth-baby-hiccup. But around here it's rather significant, because, well, we just don't have them. The earth stays put.

I seem to be the only person around here who felt it. It woke me from a sound sleep, adrenaline shot through my body like electricity, I was sure someone had just landed on my bed and I was thinking desperately how hard it would be to get to Harriet...and then it registered that my bed was shaking, it felt much like some giant person had grabbed up the posts at the foot of my bed and was rocking it around, and I heard all the glass clinking and then I relaxed and thought, Oh. Earthquake.

So, after my initial terror had subsided, I tried to go back to sleep, but of course I couldn't, being shoved around as I was. And then my response turned to annoyance. I was annoyed with the earthquake. I was trying to sleep, for crying out loud. And here it was 5:30 in the morning and I had to get up soon! BLAST you, earthquake!

Needless to say I am quite tired today, having turned in rather later than usual last night for no discernable reason. I was reading The Time Traveler's Wife and didn't feel like putting it down.

[Side note: This spell check doesn't recognize "discernable"; it wants me to spell it "discernible." Fortunately, thanks to online dictionaries -- because I was very disturbed by this; "discernible" didn't LOOK right -- I discovered that my way is also correct. Maybe it's British? This is what comes of reading so many British novels as a child. I learned to spell and write well by reading. You are what you eat. Also my vocabulary is rather better than spell check's, again because I read and it doesn't.]

In celebration of spring I decided to dress up for work today -- flirty, flouncy brown skirt, matching brown-lace-edged brown camisole, lightweight burnt orange shrug (that ties just under the chest -- very cute, very slimming), strappy hemp sandals, big bronze bangly jewelry, makeup.

So of course I was asked out by yet another man old enough to be my father.

This gentleman, though, I actually like -- I won't go out with him, but he's harmless and sweet and has lived something of a rough life and seems to be mellow and tired and worn down by his years. He reminds me of Smoky Lonesome from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe -- quiet and hard-luck and devoted. So I tried to let him down gently. I know, I know, guys need straightforward direct answers or they'll be encouraged, but I couldn't be mean to him. He's kind of frail in spirit, a little broken (though still a man -- he did ask, after all). So I finagled my way out of it, hopefully without hurting his feelings.

Auuggggh. I need to get out more, be seen more. These older men (and when I say older, I do mean old enough to be my father -- in their fifties or higher -- which isn't old when I think about old, but it's old when I'm considering match qualities) seem to appreciate a little more what they see -- a fresh, pretty young woman who will keep a fine home. The men my age tend to be busy with other concerns...and, again, I don't get out much, and I've just dated the wrong guys, the kind that I generalize about and piss off decent men. So -- sorry, decent men; my stereotypes stem from my consistent disappointment in the dating arena. I haven't met you yet, or I already know you but you don't live here.

Sometimes this Old Man Fan Club discourages me -- I really hate hurting people's feelings, and I know how hard it is for most guys to approach a girl, and my gosh, can't I attract someone who didn't graduate high school the year I learned to walk? -- but sometimes it's encouraging too. Like the proprietor of the inn we stayed at in the Caymans for my sister's wedding. He was married, French, courtly, but very very taken with me, gave my father lavish compliments about me, and toward the end of the evening (it was one of those dinners available to all the inn guests, to enjoy good food outside on a tropical beach night and socialize, and so he was of course the host) he bowed to me and said to my dad, "Your other daughter, I know she is getting married. But my money is on this one."

I repeat that to myself, like a mantra, from time to time.

is he yours?

I'm tutoring this kid who lives in the dingy apartment next to the office with his mother and her live-in boyfriend and his younger half-sister. I volunteered to tutor him because he's one of those mischief-oriented kids that still seems to have a good heart, and he gets woefully neglected, emotionally, by his "parents."

It's a challenge in many ways -- J. seems, subconsciously, to have already made up his mind that he's not good in school, and that his life is the way it is and that's how it always will be. He doesn't seem to realize that education is his ticket out. He's getting Ds and Fs in most of his subjects, but he doesn't bring his textbooks with him (from the way he talks, it sounds like they have to stay at school, which I think is weird). I'm not used to kids this young (he's fourteen) being completely internally motivated -- usually adult/mentor/teacher approval still gets kids going at that age. It's saddening.

I don't think he always tells the truth, but usually it's so that he doesn't show himself in such a bad light. I mean, the kid honestly breaks my heart, especially because there's nothing really I can do about it but be there and be firm.

It's the being firm that's the biggest challenge. He's spent the last few weeks trying to rearrange the schedule, and I've had to force myself not to yield, because I know that if I do, he'll take advantage. It means he gets a lot less tutoring time than he needs, but I remind myself that these are his choices and I'm not actually responsible for bringing his grades up and getting him to like school -- not least because I'm not getting paid. It's taking him awhile to realize that last-minute requests won't get him anywhere -- at first he would ask if we could spend our tutoring sessions on different days of the week, and I told him that unless he gave me a lot of time, I couldn't; and then when he tried again I finally decided that I can't rearrange my schedule at all. It's one of those basic responsibility things. Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's that or nothing.

Tonight's was funny -- I've told him in the past that I get off work at 5:30, and so he usually doesn't come for his tutoring until sometime after 6:00. I wait. Then today he came in at 5:10 and asked if we could tutor early because he had to leave at 5:30. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or throw something. I told him that I don't get off work until 5:30; that's my job, my boss was still working with a client and I had things to finish up. I told him I'd check with my boss (I tutor him in the office -- the front one, with lots of windows), but I didn't end up interrupting him about it; instead I got a little irritated that this poor kid expects me to cater to his schedule. Sorry, I'm a grown-up. I call the shots.

He kept coming and going for a little while, and then was waiting for a blank CD I'd told him he could have, taking up space in the entryway looking pathetic when our last client came up to the front office to pay. I asked J. if he could come back in a couple of minutes -- I have developed that reticence about talking finances in front of kids that I found strange when I was a kid -- and he pouted and left with the exaggerated slouch of the disappointed child. The client, while fishing around for her wallet, asked me, "Is he yours?"

I must have had a sort of stunned look on my face, because she faltered and said quickly, "Your brother? A friend?"

I explained the situation, we left on good terms.

Now granted, J. looks much younger than fourteen, but even so I don't think I look old enough to be his mother...although in tiny backwater towns, that's probably the norm, women my age having ten-year-olds. Plus with the way I nudge him around, trying to teach him some of the manners his own mother has neglected to instill, I suppose we interact a little that way. And I've been told plenty of times that I'm rather maternal with children (I love kids. To pieces. Even the problem ones).

Still...it was odd. Having committed to chastity from a very young age and stuck to it, I still think of myself in terms of "not old enough" to have kids. Well, more and more as the time goes by it's getting to be, "but I want one," rather like you say, "I want a pony," when you're six. But still. I'm far from motherhood and I know it.

Nice to have a stranger think I'm capable of it, though, when it comes down to it.

i believe you have my stapler

The stapler in the front office should have joined the Army. From there, it would have been a shoe-in for the Special Forces.

It's invisible.

The consarned thing in real life is the color of oatmeal. This is The Perfect Camo. All of the flat surfaces in the office are either brown or the same bland beige, and it blends right in wherever it sits. I can't count the number of times I have almost pulled my hair out looking for it when it's sitting quietly right in front of my line of vision. And I never see it.

Think about it. Stapler as assassin. There's a future in this, I'm sure.

I just looked around to prove my point, and had to sweep the same area three times before I saw it. Right next to my elbow.

I'm going to hunt up some red electrical tape and give it a bandanna.

Next in Tales from the Quipped: The Story of the Copier from Hell.

thinking

and thinking, and thinking, and thinking.

Although the time for thinking, alone, is just about over. The time for action has arrived.

I'm very much torn between two polar options. First and foremost, though, comes the necessity of getting this stuff figured out. This means therapy, whatever the cost. This also means a trip to a certain kind of doctor, to see about getting my hormones straightened out. My feminine cycle takes me all over the place, usually nowhere good, like maybe a trip to Mordor or a date with Dante touring the Inferno. What a vacation. Time to get this over.

I think I'll put off big decisions until some of that gets settled.

Meanwhile, I have to relearn fun stuff. Finally the weather is getting nicer, which means walks and more time outdoors and vitamin D and all that wonderfulness.

And I have to figure out something with my moldy little hole of a house. It was a good sort of lifeboat considering where I was jumping from, but it's a bit on the rickety, better-off-razed-to-the-ground side, so...I'll try to hang in there till October, when my lease runs out, and then move somewhere new. Again. Goody.

If you're a new reader, you've caught me at an interesting point in life. Sorry.

Things will start swinging upward soon.

the weight

It's like living in a pressure chamber.

Everything tries to hold you in one place. Compressed, you exert Herculean efforts just to accomplish what a normal person wouldn't think about. Going to the kitchen for a glass of water eventually seems too hard; you sit in your chair, thirsty, but you don't care enough to slake it. No matter where you are, what you do, what you think about, you feel it. The weight. The pressure drags down at your mind and your body, until the best and only escape is a yielding. The one thing you can do well is to sleep. But you never feel rested.

There's no pride in fighting it. You wake up tired, you fight it tired, you surrender to it tired. Even if you work up a momentary flare of anger, a small scorched free-breathing space in which to get something simple, like dishes, done, it collapses on itself in a little while and you survey the results of your effort dully. It doesn't matter. You might hate it, you might hate yourself for suffering it, you're always acutely aware of the abnormality of what you're going through, that other people aren't like this, but you don't see a way to fix it and you barely care. You mind, horribly, but you don't care. And underneath it all is a deep, strangling, inarticulable fear -- fear of people, fear of yourself, fear of the void, fear that there's no out -- and sometimes it makes you restless, irritable; but there's no getting out from under the weight.

Time works differently for the person suffering from depression. A minute is an hour, an hour is a day, a day is a year. You live in a suspension, and the solvent is nothing, and eats you down in a haze of dull pain. Every single endless moment is exactly the same as the one before it, and will be exactly the same as the one that follows. Hope is something for other people. Emotion is something for other people. In here, in your glass tube, you live with the nothingness. That's all there is. The bad part is that you didn't choose it. The worst part is that your choice to make it better won't make any difference.

It's called a psychological disorder, depression. We're fortunate to live in times when we're no longer quite labeled crazy for suffering it. You don't feel crazy, of course; I guess psychologically disordered people seldom feel crazy. But you do feel abnormal. Subnormal. Something is wrong, and you know it, and you don't know what to do about it, and you don't really care.

I've read what other people, more scientific people, have to say about depression, and it's very informative stuff. These articles tick off all the symptoms -- including a few I didn't know about -- and list causes and treatments and perpendicular problems that often lead to, or are led by, the disorder. Interesting, of course. But they don't capture, in any way, how it feels.

It's a debilitating condition. Even when you know that all the things you're thinking and feeling -- about your hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, indifference, insignificance -- are absolutely untrue, it doesn't matter. You don't care because it doesn't matter. You don't want to be alone, you hate being alone, aloneness is frightening, everything you want is symbolized in an embracing pair of arms -- but you don't want to talk to anyone. You seclude yourself because rousing yourself enough even to push the "send" button on the cell phone is too much effort, your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth when people ask you how you are -- how do you tell them? there aren't any words -- and you don't want people seeing you this way: You're proud, and terrified, and deeply ashamed, and they can't help, and nothing matters. And the danger with that is that you start to behave purposefully in ways that are self-harmful, because none of it matters anyway, so why not? It might at least let you feel alive for a little while, put the pain somewhere other than where it lives in your head.

This is why depression coincides so much with alcoholism, drug use, self-mutilation, suicide. All those things are bad, but they could possibly bring a temporary relief. A lightening of the pressure. A lifting of the load. I don't know this from personal experience, really, but I can understand the mentality behind it. Even suicide, the final act of despair, is (don't worry, I'm not suicidal) a kind of victory, because you did something, when one of the hallmarks of depression is the inability to do anything at all. It's the wrong thing, but it's something, and it might seem better than living with nothing.

That's not how I feel. I want to live. I'm sick of living my life this way. I'm sick of the dullness, the emptiness, the unending void, the tired listless pain, the isolation, the seclusion, the yawning eternity of every passing moment. I don't care that it's genetic. I don't care that it's the dark side of giftedness. I don't care that all the odds are stacked impressively against me, I'm sick of being this way, I miss that simple joy of living I used to have.

Yesterday's Gospel reading centered around the first part of John 10. Thank God for the Easter Season, when all the Gospel readings come from John, because I love John, and verse 10 in particular caught at me -- slammed me, really, but I've been numb for awhile and only felt it as a kind of aftershock: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Reading that, I saw the page get all blurry. I haven't had a more abundant life in a long time. I've had an empty, flat, stale half-life. And that's not what God has intended me to live.

So I started thinking about it, only half-listening to the homily. I thought about one of the best verses in Scripture to describe the effects of depression: "All your waves and breakers have swept over me" (Psalm 42:7b). I thought about life to the full. I thought about Luke 9:23: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." I wondered, on a sort of wandering thread of thought, if my cross is depression, at least for the moment. It's heavy enough. I thought about "daily." I thought about Christ falling to the ground under the weight of his cross. I thought about heaving my bone-crushing load to my shoulder every day, denying its power over me, denying its intertwination with the core of my self, denying the force of its inertia, and dragging it after Christ.

I thought about a different kind of surrender, a different kind of fighting. I thought about a lighter burden. I thought about living, and hope, and promises made by a God who cannot break them. I thought about a shepherd calling his sheep. I thought about green pastures and still waters and my soul's restoration. I thought about goodness and mercy following me as I follow the shepherd. I thought about being hemmed in, behind and before, and the freedom that comes from that security, that inescapability. I thought about breathing without effort, I thought about seeing in color again, I thought about joy.

The destroyer has had his fingers at my throat for too long. I've often thought that what we term mental illness or psychological disorder back in Christ's day was affliction by personal intelligences of evil. And Christ drove them out. With astonishing authority. I could cry, sometimes, wishing it were possible to catch at the hem of his robe and be freed from all this, wishing it were possible to hang onto his ankles and beg him for mercy, wishing it were possible to feel him stoop and lay a hand on my head. (And surely I am with you always...) And still the promises are true.

I can bear a lot. I've born this for many years, this internal bleeding of the soul, this crippling emptiness. I've fought it off with laughter, with anger, with companionship, with sheer gut force. Now, though, those tactics don't suffice. My own devices have failed, and I've come to the end of my strength. It's good, I think, that I have; it forces me to lift up mine eyes, and see from whence cometh my help -- my stronghold, my rock and my deliverer, mounted on the cherubim, surging on the wings of the storm breaking over the hills, angry on my behalf, coming for me.

It forces me to community, too. I hate needing people. I hate feeling whiny and dependent. But sometimes I am; sometimes we all are. And that's what people are for. Interdependence. The body of Christ, in its various and surprising forms.

I really hope this doesn't sound like the wandering mind of a crazy person. I'm very much afraid it does. But it's the first breath of hope I've felt in well over six months, and fresh air after being cooped indoors for a long period of time does make one a little giddy.

I'm still tired. I'm still in the pressure chamber. But I know someone has the keys, and I know one of these days I'll be let out. In the meantime, there's the heaving, the carrying of the cross. There's the following. There's the glory of the struggle. There's the shepherd.

There's hope.

semi-delicate matters

Right, so as a female I go through That Female Thing once a month. Men, this is the subject of this post. If you don't care to read further, don't. If you do...well, I warned you.

It's not all that gross, really, what I'm going to talk about. It's just that with each peak of the cycle, I've been suffering, these past few months, horribly intense pain. And it's getting worse.

Yesterday I took about 1200 mg of Ibuprofen just to make a dent in the Wall of Horrendous Pain. At once. More as the day went on. But a person's stomach can only handle so much of the stuff before it starts to complain too, and then what do you do?

I'm a little worried that Something is Wrong. A doctor's visit is in order. At least maybe as far as pain is concerned, he can prescribe something a little better. I've lain awake a significant part of the night these last two nights, almost immobilized and breathless, and today I feel tired and sore. It hurts to sit down. It hurts to stand up. It hurts to walk. It hurts to stay still.

I love being a woman. But this part of it is the pits. And it's making me crankier than a bear just out of hibernation who finds that the salmon aren't breeding. Garrrrr. Of course, that's when I'm not sitting around staring blankly at nothing like the same bear who's been shot with the biggest whopping tranquilizer gun in Alaska and it hurts a lot but he can't really move.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!

so help me...um, what?

People are funny. People are strange.

The unrepresented opposing party in one of our cases was supposed to look over a copy of a document we had prepared. This person was then supposed to come into the office to sign it if the document was acceptable.

Instead, they added an absurd clause to the copy, which they then proceeded to sign and notarize.

Our client brought in the delightful copy, which I looked over.

"Oh, this clause won't work," I said. "I'll have the Boss take a look at it when he gets back from lunch."

I then noticed that the only signatures on the notarized page were the other party's. I squinted, then grabbed the paper up and looked at it more closely.

"Wait..." I said. "Who the hell notarized this? Did they notarize themselves?"

Yes. They had. Now, I might not be a lawyer, but even I know that doesn't work. Because then the language would look something like, "I solemnly swear that all of the statements contained in this document are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me -- me."

It was a good laugh on an otherwise dreary day.

*Please note: I know that "they" and "their" and "them" are grammatically incorrect when referring to one person. I know, further, that in English the gender-neutral pronoun is "he," with the variants "his" and "him." However, I must always protect client privacy, and using "they," "their," and "them" allows me the freedom to tell the occasional story without giving away any aspect of any client's identity. So, in this regard of grammaticality, I plead the Colloquial.

life begins again

For some inexplicable reason, I have lately felt this craving to listen to the music of my high school years. Not the music I actually listened to when I was in high school; most of that was the sort of Christian crap that was allowed in my household (with a few grudging exceptions for Steve Miller). No, the music I've been craving is the stuff I listened to voraciously on the radio in other people's cars -- Nine Days, Oasis, Savage Garden, Matchbox 20, The GooGoo Dolls, Chumbawumba, Barenaked Ladies, Train.

There's something about that 90s music. The power chords, the drums, the wacky incorporation of strings and horns and unexpected classical instruments (all synthesized, of course), the love of falsetto, the scratchy grunge voices. I love it. It brings back memories of plaid flannel and huge black sneakers. A time when it was strangely good to be young and cynical.

And I like the noise. I generally prefer the quiet, generally have no background music or television or an electronic whitewall of any kind in my environment, and when I listen to music, it tends to be quiet and melancholy. But periodically, something in my muscles wants to move. Since I hate what passes for mainstream music these days, I tend to look backward. And play it loud.

But none of that has to do with the subject of this post. The subject of this post celebrates the return of Bones this coming Monday. I haven't allowed myself to think about that show since it took its forever-long hiatus since last fall. It hurt too much -- I can't believe I'm this attached to a show, but every week Bones kind of gets me back on my feet and helps me deal with my life a little better. The relationship of joshing, support and affection between Brennan and Booth -- I guess I soak it in like I can live it vicariously. Seeing that kind of love -- the real kind, not the usual television trash -- gives me hope. All those characters have become extremely real to me. It's just good story.

So pondering the show's return to my living room this coming week gives me an internal feeling like spring (which is taking its good. old. TIME here. Mr. Cold Front? Seriously, dude. Head for the poles. You're needed there, anyway, to combat the alarming shrinkage of the ice caps. You have a JOB to do! You can make a difference -- maybe even save the world! Go save it! Stop wasting your time heckling me -- one little person. Doesn't look good on your resume. Get some ambition already).

In the meantime, there's always Simon. Who apparently can read my body language. Since the completion of my bed-spread-size knit blanket, I've had little to do with my hands while relaxing at night and have taken to the various games of solitaire I learned to pass the lazy early evenings camping as a kid. (Not hours and hours of solitaire, and I really ought to be reading something good, but I've been tired.) This requires setting up the cards on the ottoman where Simon is accustomed to sitting.

This new development confuses him. We've been having issues with him jumping up on the ottoman to see what I'm doing, and although he's surprisingly adept at not scattering the cards everywhere, he's still in the way. So I've been gently nudging him off.

Yesterday I was in the middle of a round when I saw him with my peripheral vision go into run-and-jump mode; so I held up one hand, without even looking at him, while I surveyed the cards. And he stopped. And hunkered down in the middle of the floor. And waited.

I felt badly for taking up his ottoman space, so I finished my game and collected the cards and said, "Okay, kitty, you can come up now!" while I sat back in my chair. He came running right over, jumped up, and assaulted my ears with skull-splitting purrs.

Yeah, yeah, I talk about my cat too much. It's nice to have a creature understand me that well, even if the highlight of his day is when I wake up to feed him funny-smelling pellets in the mornings.

give to Caesar...

I remember last year's taxes. A great big flopping nightmare. Naturally, I waited till the last possible, possible minute before signing up for Turbo Tax online, paid through the nose for it, and spent two blurry evenings throwing papers around until my living room looked like the site of a celebration with oversize confetti.

This year some things changed. Maybe it's that I couldn't afford Turbo Tax this year and decided I'd better get my petuti in gear if I wanted to file myself without too much freaking out. Maybe it's that I only had one W-2 to take into account, and no more Health Savings Account. Maybe it's that I decided to cut to the quick and go for the 1040EZ instead of worrying about itemizations (I never have any that are worth squat anyway).

But it was even MORE complicated than last year -- filing in two states is a PAIN -- and yet somehow it was all streamlined and not terribly difficult. First, thank God for the internet and PDF forms, instruction booklets and all. Second, thank GOD for only one W-2. (I can't stress this enough. Changing jobs makes the next year's taxes suck.) Third, thank God for a couple years in the legal field which somehow makes sorting through the vague bureaucratic language a little easier. Finally, thank God for my mother who listened to my questions on the phone and helped double-check my math.

So I will probably, shockingly, be filing before the deadline. Woo-whee! All I have to do is get a couple of money orders together (ickgh. I hate owing. But I rest assured that in a month or so I'll be getting $600.00 for my efforts, so that's cool) and I'm ready to go.

I like doing things myself when I can, and I suppose in some ways I'm lucky to be making a small single person's income -- the paper trail (paper forest, rather) isn't all that dense.

I must confess I'll miss Indiana's Renter's Deduction. That was always a nice little thing to look forward to claiming.

developments / you knew it was coming...

It's finally here. After months and months of waiting, for what felt internally like years, I can see it beginning. It's everywhere, not quite as subtle, no longer like sorting through a vat of pennies looking for a nickel.

Spring.

Ahhh. This weekend it was warm enough outside to have my coffee, breakfast and journaling sessions on the porch. And sunny. Sunny. Amazing.

Weekend updates:

1. Annie and Harriet

I spent Saturday afternoon playing with my new toy. I did try it at first with the wooden grips it came with (see the picture), but after a few rounds with the .38s it went back into the case and the rubbers went on instead, so now my baby looks more like this. (I just liked the first picture because the blanket they're using for the background totally matches one of the blankets on my bed. Just like home.) If you're interested in a little more info on this model revolver, look here. It's a pretty cool thing.

Of course, the one I learned on, which belongs to my mentor, was a dream to shoot. Perfection. A courteous gun. Mine, being that she's mine, was stubborn and cantankerous at first. Plus I was eight months out of practice with handguns (rifles notwithstanding) and had to get back into the groove, and we had to keep adjusting the sights to fit my eyes. But I did shoot one round where six of the eight shots went through the red. (THAT's my Harriet.)

Naturally I prefer to use the .357s. They have this delightful kick. But they're a little harder to manage with accuracy, and the larger caliber behaves differently with the sights. So...I anticipate lots of practice. (Great big yay.) And I can't stress how WONDERFUL it was to soak in some sun.

2. The Grillmaster's Daughter

My fabulous and amazing parents brought me a housewarming present last weekend: a grill. A nice little portable propane grill that sits easily on the porch.

In my three and a half years of living solo, I've never had a grill. This has chafed in unconscious ways particularly in summertime, when it's too hot to really cook something in the kitchen, and the only thing you want is a hamburger. And they just aren't the same broiled in the oven. Plus many of my cookbooks, particularly my Vietnamese and Thai cookbooks (which rank among my top favorites), have drool-inducing recipes that only work with a grill. I've been staring longingly at the pictures for the past two years, dreaming of the day when I can finally...

And now I can.

Last night's first independent grilling experiment, however, was steak. Thanks to Mom's creative insistence, I have rediscovered Aldi (and I don't have to drive to the suburban strip-mall wasteland of Mishawaka to get there), and they carry individually vacuum-sealed not-too-shabby frozen steaks, some of which I bought last week. I took a four-hour nap yesterday and woke up exceedingly hungry, but without the energy to whip up something elaborate, and I thought, like a little cash register noise in my head, ching: Grill.

While I waited for the grill to reach temperature, I thawed out one of the steaks and narrowed my eyes at my spice racks. I remembered one particularly fabulous meal of steaks prepared by my mother and grilled by my father, and remembered that Mom's simple spice rub was the key to the heavenly flavor. I sprinkled, generously, her recommended seasoned salt and black pepper, and then added a large amount of garlic powder and a few dashes of ground red pepper. I rubbed them into the meat until it formed a thick surface paste with the juices, and threw it on the grill.

Oh MAN. It was incredible. I pulled it off just when the flavor was sealed in, but the inside was still red and tender (I like RARE steaks, the kind they warn you about on restaurant menus, still mooing, as Mom says. I would not stick well by a Kosher diet in that regard). I ate every bite going MMMmmmm. A simple side salad and a slice of homemade bread and I had a lovely meal.

Now I'm going to play around with the grilling a bit more, so I'm anticipating some fun tonight. It's another warm sunny day, and the evenings are lasting longer, and there's just Something About the Outdoors in weather like this. And something about that fantastic grilling meat aroma. (Didn't God talk about the delectable smell of burnt offerings somewhere in the Old Testament?)

3. You Knew it was Coming

It's spring. Really spring. Things are not quite green out, but they're going to be soon. In another week this will be obsolete (Midwestern springs are fast), so, as I do every year (well, maybe not, I can't find it in last year's archives and I'm appalled at myself, I mean, this is a tradition, maybe I quoted it to someone instead), I'm getting it in now. (P.S. scrolling through my archives is weird. So much of this stuff seems to have happened both yesterday and ten years ago.)


Spring and All

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast--a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines--

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches--

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind--

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined--
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance--Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

~William Carlos Williams

Weather gray, raw, spitting rain. Cold - low 40s. I drove to work this morning determinedly listening to "Chicago" (the song, not the group) in pursuit of an uplift. One of the aspects I consistently love about that song is its flawless chordal compatibility with the ending refrain of "The Transfiguration."

I miss singing. I sing at church on an almost weekly basis, so I do get the good music in a bit, but...I miss the folk tunes, the indie music, I miss singing Gillian Welch and Josh Ritter and splashes of Modest Mouse and The Decemberists, I miss hymns and harmonizing and relaxing on the porch while somebody else plays the guitar (my attempts at self-teaching said instrument have taken a long hiatus).

I miss my piano. I miss sitting down and getting utterly lost in "Claire de Lune," I miss slamming out the Moonlight Sonata when I'm mad, I miss playing with the fabulous musical imagery in "La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin," the delicate longing whimsy in "Wild Rose." I yearn to run my fingertips over the pure flatness of the keys before starting the second movement of Grieg's Sonata in E Minor, Op. 7. I miss the slow building pressure of "Le Cathedral Engloutie." I miss "Nocturne in E-flat major."

I haven't played any of these in so long I don't care to think about it, and my skills have rusted badly, but...I have my childhood upright waiting for me at home when I can finally afford to have it shipped to where I live (when where I live has space that can accommodate it). The piano was such a good outlet for emotion -- and it keeps the fingers strong (once upon a time I could give tireless backrubs; now my hands wear out easily). And playing piano is essentially like riding a bike -- you never forget how. There's just a lot more discipline in getting back in the groove -- like an exercise regimen.

Someday, Gussie Mouseheimer. Someday.

I slept eleven hours last night.

Sometimes you just need that, you know? A periodic crash occasions itself a few times a year, and I usually wake feeling a bit drugged but much better.

I could have slept longer, though. I think fourteen hours would have done it.

Last night I came home, changed into pajamas (I don't understand people who sit around at home dressed to the nines. I wear nice clothes all day, and when I want to relax, I want to do it comfortably -- and nothing says comfort better than a warm fuzzy pair of sweats and my favorite red GCC hoodie), fed the cat, reheated dinner, and watched a couple of episodes of Boston Legal. Business as usual.

Afterward I felt the need to wash dishes...and I couldn't even muster the energy to put away the ones sitting clean in the drying rack. I tried. I stashed two of my Tupperware dishes in their designated cupboards. But my arms didn't want to work. My eyes didn't want to stay open. My spine didn't want to hold itself upright.

I went to bed.

It felt lovely. Today I have that funny pressured feeling behind my eyes that you get when exhaustion hasn't quite left you, or you've slept a little too much, but I tell you, I could do it again tonight and wake up happy tomorrow.

Maybe I will.

In the meantime I walked into a fabulously clean and organized office this morning, thanks to Boss-Man's afternoon away yesterday, during which I overhauled everything. I have so much more room now. Part of it involved admitting I had far too many organizing gizmos cluttering all the flat surfaces, doing the opposite of their intended functions. These I carried up to the supply closet. I also got rid of the typewriter (finally) which I never use because I hate the time-waste of the typewriter.

* * * Tangential remark: * * * Although Indiana, in its desperate clinging to an old-fashioned era that passed away sometime with the advent of modern automobiles, requires ALL of its forms in typewriter format, I have foiled it. I reproduced its forms on the computer, which I learned how to do by playing around with the Michigan forms. I even computerized our oversized mailing labels, which do not comply with any of the sizes recognized by Avery. I HATE THE TYPEWRITER. I don't hate the Idea of a typewriter, but I cannot tolerate the minutes it flushes down the toilet during my workday, when, particularly just before the mail goes out, Time is Of The Essence and any second wasted costs me irreplaceable time. * * * End tangential remark. * * *

I found better shelving for my office supplies, got rid of some unnecessary units, and, in general, streamlined anything I could get my hands on and move myself.

So things seem a little better. Now if I could only work up the energy to tackle the dishes tonight. Whenever I walk into the kitchen they clamor at me.

sometimes, it's already been said, and so much better.

I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
~Psalm 118:17

* * * * * * *

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
~Psalm 73:25-26

* * * * * * *

I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
~Psalm 27:13-14

* * * * * * *

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits --

who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases

who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
~Psalm 103:1-5

* * * * * * *

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
~Psalm 23:6