a month of sundays

Give or take - that's what it's been since last time I posted here.
Likely enough time to write a short story
or complete a piece of art - though sadly - I have done neither.
Positively enough time to clean my house, weed my garden
and get rid of that outdated government peanut butter
that's been riding around in my car with me
since I pulled it at work several weeks ago.

But I have not done any of those things either... not one.

I have, however, given 5 tubes of blood
and had CT scans of my head and my heart.
I've also had a thyroid sonogram
and an echocardiogram of my heart.
I've done (and 'passed') a treadmill test,
had my mitral valve prolapse assessed
and peed the River Nile (thanks to Lasix - my new best fiend.)

After all that testing, the only thing I know for certain
is that doctors really need to hire better decorators.

Oh – and my brain is “normal”.



bs

You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone

I miss the possums.

After several long work-weeks spent slogging up a seething, toxic river
of combustible human agitation, I have begun to miss the old days, and to see
the beauty of simple problems like a basement full of razor-toothed rodents.
In fact – those moonlit May nights of releasing puffy babies into the wilderness
seem downright ambrosial to me now.
Along with the heat of summer, the chaos of change has descended on the Inferno.
There have been staff changes, resident changes, interior and exterior building
changes, and several changes in the surrounding neighborhood as well.
And while the interior chaos is most upsetting and intense, the arrival of
our new next-door neighbors has been running a close second.
They arrived en masse; a rank crew of stringy-haired nut jobs who cannot
seem to communicate without screaming. Adhering to a grueling daily schedule,
they rise around noon and gather to stoke the old home fire before vaporizing
until around suppertime. As dusk approaches, they slowly resurface, slipping out
of nearby storage sheds, shuffling across the back parking lot or climbing out
the rear windows of their studio apartments to rendezvous on the back porch.
Some carry pillows, others carry booze, but all of them arrive bearing armloads of junk,
which they pool and pore over while blaring 80’s rock.
They love their music.
They may be a little light in the selection department (if I ever hear Bob Seeger again -
in this, or any lifetime - I will immediately have my ears surgically removed),
but they’ve definitely got the volume thing goin’ on.
If a quick search of public records hadn’t revealed the pesky little issue of their lengthy
criminal histories, it might be easier to shrug off their most annoying behaviors.
But watching convicted felons (theft, domestic violence, assault, rape of a child,
possession…) act the fool is less than amusing when they’re engaging in such behavior uncomfortably close to a place full of vulnerable women and children.
In an attempt to assure the safety of all involved, the proper authorities have been
alerted, but the apartments in question are considered private property and what
goes on there is the sole business of those living there.
So, until a crime is committed (witnessed, reported and responded to
in a timely enough manner to result in an arrest), we will continue to be a captive
audience for some of the best bad street theater this town has to offer.
To date, all the wildest acts have included the same stupendously blasted woman.
One day she came staggering across the back lot, her long gray hair pasted to her back
and her pants totally unzipped (but held up the big bunch of belly hanging out front).
She disappeared into one of the apartments, but reappeared a while later,
apparently charged with taking out the trash. After hauling a plastic bag halfway
up the sidewalk, she began an argument with someone back on the porch - which
culminated in this edifying exchange: “Cuz I’m motherfuckin’ drunk, muuutherfuuucker.
So if you don’t take the motherfuckin’trash to the motherfuckin’ can, I’ma motherfuckin’
fuck you up, motherfucker.”
Upon hearing this, open-pants woman began ripping at the trash bag, scattering debris
all over the walkway. When a wooden drumstick tumbled out, she snapped it up and
started pounding out a complex drum solo on the fence and the raised edge of the walkway.
This may have triggered a flashback, because she paused, raised her head toward the porch
and said, “Remember that time – hey - that time when you thought Phil Collins was your father… but he wasn’t? Heh heh heh….”
Late in the week she was booted off the porch and stormed out into the back lot,
where she shuffled around screaming “Whores and thieves! Whores and thieves!”
and howling like a wounded animal.
Five minutes of that was as much as I could stand,
but I could still hear her yelling as I went back into my office.
The struggling women I work with have mixed feelings about all this drama.
They can (and do) laugh about it – but time away from that kind of life has given
them new eyes, and they are uncomfortable seeing their old behavior from the
other side of the fence.
And so am I.
It’s true that our neighbors are prime examples of who not to be,
but that angry wretch in the filthy clothes – she tugs at my heart.
What turn of fortune put her there, shoeless and bloated, offering herself as trade
for something to drink? "I know you like me, you just don't want to admit it.
But I'm fun! And if you got the wine, I'm so fine."
And what turn of fortune put me here, one step across that imaginary line
I have to believe separates us from them?

bs

Independence Day

Independence from what, I'd like to know.
If the chuckleheads crowding my Main Street were any indication,
last night was a celebration of freedom from sanity and common sense.
Drunk guys were lobbing M-80's from rooftops, drunker guys were arguing
in the back alley and the drunkest guy of all was offering his view of women
to the entire town.
He began well - something about the beauty of women - but soon slid into
an unattractive rant that ended with this:
"Titties and ass, that's all they are. They have those titties, so men have to work
day and night to give them everything they want. Why is that?
Why?
Hey - men have titties - what about that, HUH?"


What indeed.


bs

Dark and beautiful

It seems like years since I've gotten on here - mired as I've been in my ridiculous work snafu.

But I did the difficult deed today - confronted my fears and my peers as well -

and tomorrow the sun will likely still be shining.

I think I know now what a 'whistle blower' feels like, and it's not a fun place to be.

Summer has arrived yet again in great Northwest,

bringing cornflower skies, light that carries heat

and everywhere the heady scent of nicotiana, mock orange and sweet cicely.

Recent days have been bittersweet.

I have been moved and motivated by the blogs from Bookworm and Fossil Guy -

they have become my standard for facing life head on and living every moment.

I am clearing out closets - in my house and in my head -

getting rid of the unnecessary and the unused, making room for whatever comes next.

I have also been motivated to seize the day by events in two opposing corners of my world.

Here on the West coast, a friend of mine was found dead.

She overdosed on alcohol and ocycotin; dying alone, in someone else's house

as strangers in the next room partied on without her.

While on the other coast, a friend in Florida heads

toward the bone marrow transplant that just might keep him alive.

And in between,

beneath the same sun and moon?

All those I know, and the millions I do not,

continue their dance

to music dark and beautiful.

Choosing moments of their own

and holding on

or letting go.

With thoughts of T, gone at 25.

And M, still reaching for 30.

bs

Goodnight, you king of New Jersey

I will never love another the way that I have loved you.



bs

discomfort

I had a blog here about work - but after the maintanence man
attended the house meeting tonight, I suddenly freaked out
and took down my post.
I don't feel comfortable writing (or talking) about work anymore.
I don't really feel comfortablable working at work some days either.

I wish I knew what to do.



bs

Christufuh....

Sayonara Muthafucka.



"Tragedy... Like a pebble in the lake. Even the fish feel it."
-- Christopher Moltisanti

This just in

Question:
How many Bush administration officials does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Answer:
None.
There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day.
Any report of its lack of incandescence is a delusional spin by the liberal media.
That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say about its going out
undermines the lighting affect.
Why do you hate freedom?

moon over my attitude

It's official: the baby possums are not cute anymore.
They are getting creepy, they are legion, and they need to GO AWAY.
I got another one into a box tonight, luring him with tuna as suggested by the
Animal Control/Wildlife agent I talked to. She said, "The legal solution to the
possom problem is catch and euthanize. I can't tell you what to do, but that's the law."
The law?
Euthanize?

As if.

Since getting rid of them has apparently become part of my job, I've got
to figure out something. I was told I can get a trap at the local hardware store,
but what the hell?
It's not like I have a lot of spare time to devote to possum wrangling,
and hauling them around in my car is starting to bum me out.

I did relocate the one I caught last night, setting him loose in the woods near my place.
Angry about ending my work night that way, I opened the box and somehow,
as I tipped the little creature toward the damp earth, all the annoyance and
anger I've carried this week slipped into the darkness with him and disappeared.
Gone.
Maybe it was the velvety night sky, stretched out above me and dotted with stars.
Or the astonishing smell of blooming elderberry, so delicate, so sweet.
The moon was almost perfectly round, bright and buttery yellow and I felt, as I stood there
with my empty cardboard box, a benevolence so profound I was humbled.
Comforted.
Hushed.

Now I remember: I am surrounded by beauty.
It is everywhere I am, informing every hour I live and breathe;
filling up each day with a million small reasons to abide, to persist,
to press on.

staff infection part 2

Where was I?
Ah yes… my job.
There was a time, not so long ago,
when I ended my workdays more energized than when I began.
I really loved every moment I spent at work.
These days, however, I’m often exhausted before I ever leave my house.
I am not sleeping well, I’m eating strange things at strange times,
and I’m cranky, sluggish, frustrated and drained.
I know that the social service fields suffer a huge turnover.
People burn out and are no longer able to meet the enormous demands of their jobs.
Trauma, tragedy, ignorance and poverty can be soul-crushing.
And when you spend your days offering support to human beings
that have fallen through the cracks in the cracks of the basement of life,
the endless, yawning need is overwhelming.
Yet, all of that – exactly that – is what fuels and sustains me.
I genuinely love tilting at windmills; rising to the occasion
is a meaningful goal that makes the rare victories so sweet.

The basic facts of my job are these:
I work ridiculous hours for a ridiculous wage, in a building that should be condemned.
On any given day, I spend at least 8 hours being referee, nursemaid, policewoman,
counselor, parole officer, mother, paralegal, reference librarian, cook janitor,
teacher and more to roughly 16 people ages 1 to 41. I have at my disposal
an aged printer/fax machine, a local-service only phone, a flashlight, some NA
and AA literature and a first-aid kit.
There is a huge protocol manual (5+ years out of date), a “handbook of rules
for clients” (which I cannot use my own experience or knowledge to enforce),
and miles of paperwork I must fill out and complete each day so it can go
into files that few people will ever see. I deal with issues and events that can be
so distressing I sometimes hide in the bathroom, where I cry with my face in a towel.
I can handle the lousy conditions of my workplace and the wide-ranging demands
of all the clients that I serve. I can deal with the concepts of futility and neglect –
I can even handle having to buy my own supplies….
What I cannot stand, what is bleeding me dry,
is the gray ceiling of mismanagement
and all the anger, distrust and misery it creates.

And here is where my tale of woe always has to stop, because to vent
in any meaningful way, I need to be specific. But my work is totally
confidential; I can only vent openly with…the very people who are
(and are creating) the problems.
Which is just not going to happen.

So, instead I will close this blah-g with something I can bitch about: rodents.
Baby possums to be exact; they have invaded the building.
They are so super cute with their soft little petal-shaped ears and their bright
little black-button eyes. They look like cuddly bedtime toys - until they open
their little mouths revealing rows of teeth that look like razor blades.
Last night, as I was doing paperwork, I heard an odd noise and looked up to see
the most aggressive baby sitting in the hallway, eating a piece of paper.
After an awkward chase involving brooms, trash cans, some Cracker Jacks and a lot
of shrieking, we got him into a plastic bin. I slapped a lid on him , put him in my car
and took him out to the woods near my house. I know it was likely a bad idea, but I had
to try and save him from poison or the alley cat that has been chasing he and his siblings
around in the alley out back.
I worried all the way home about predators he might encounter – the coyotes and the cougars, and any number of owls. He was perfectly snack-sized, and completely unused to the wild, but I knew that his options back in town were pretty slim to none.
As I was letting him loose I noticed that he had Cracker Jacks stuck all over him, and I felt like I was tossing him to the lions. Like: Hey, look at him! He’s not only tasty – he’s frosted!
I hope he can make it, or that I never know it if he can’t.

This is why I make the little bucks.
It’s not fair, but somebody has to do it.

bs

staff infection

My job is making me sick.

I thought it was only a lack of sleep,
or maybe the way I was eating once a day;
and then mostly crackers and cheese, or soup.
So I've upped my protein and my fiber as well,
eating Luna bars and Cliff bars and tuna and tofu.
I've been trying to get more sleep, and succeeding some of the time,
yet I continue to feel tired, and depleted and worn down.
Last week I began a breakfast routine, forcing down a bowl of healthy cereal
instead of jamming the usual french press coffee IV into my arm and heading out the door.
So far, I've found I can tolerate Mini-Wheats and Raisin Bran, though both leave me feeling
a little like I chowed through a bale of hay. I also like Crispix, though I'm afraid I like it mostly because it is closer to Count Chocula (sugar-wise) than it is to Muesli or Grape Nut Flakes.
This morning I had a bowl of what may be the worst cereal currently available on the planet (uness they've found a way to turn old shoes into nuggets, or tweed overcoats into frosted O's).
Uncle Sam... the toasted barley/flax seed nightmare that sums itself up nicely with the question written on one side of its box: Why Uncle Sam?
Why indeed!
I dunno why, but I can go on for days about why not.
Brown like soil, like bark - like poo.
Little and hard and woody and bland, with a hint of something burnt to keep your taste buds interested (in getting away from the load in your mouth so they can live another day).
If you can't find this item on your grocer's shelves, spread a layer of wallpaper paste on a cookie sheet. Paint it brown, let it dry, and then shave it into flakes. Add some tiny, dried black beetles (to approximate the flax seeds) and you've got it. And if, when you add milk, it turns into a chewy version of its former, pasty self - you're in U.S. heaven.
But - as usual - I digress.
And while I think my forays into healthier eating and deeper sleeping are fine and necessary changes for me to be making, I still believe my job is making me feel toxic and ill.
I've got an infection - a staff infection -
and I'm starting to think that quitting might be the only cure for me.

On that note - I just looked at the clock.
Unless I plan to start quitting now, I need to change
(out of my pj's and into a better attitude)
and head off to the salt mines.
Stay tuned.



bs

I left work late last night - delayed by one little undone thing after another.
I probably would have stayed later, but after carting a big old TV up
to the second floor, I was absolutely finished.
My nightly drive was mostly dedicated to the rueful realization that I am not
as strong as I used to be. The TV had been left sitting on the landing between two
steep flights of stairs and when I first picked it up, I nearly fell backward down flight one.
Because I had an audience, ego (and maybe a miracle) propelled me forward – but it
was a humbling wake up call I was compelled to replay again and again as I hauled
my middle-aged ass toward home.
Out here in the boondocks, most people are in bed by the time I get off work and, as usual,
I was the only driver on the road. Gliding along, nursing my psychic wounds, I had made it
about halfway through denial and was headed toward humility when a white car blew past me doing an easy 100 mph. The driver appeared to turn and look at me before abruptly fishtailing back in front of me and pulling away. I had time to think – shit, where’s a cop when you need one? - and magically, flashing lights appeared in my rearview mirror.
Slowing down and moving to the side of the road, I expected the cruiser to sail past me,
but instead it pulled behing me, hanging there for an oddly long moment. So I hit the
shoulder of the road and came to a full stop - just in time for the to cop rev up his engine
and blast around me (making that the third time in one night that something like my life
flashed before my eyes).
There are numerous curves near the end of my road home, and as I moved back onto the highway I tried to keep my route firmly in mind: okay now, big lazy curve, wide left turn lane, big curve, little curve and I’m basically home. I could still see the taillights of the speeding car – we were hitting the curves and straight-aways at the same time – but the cop had disappeared. Or so I thought until I came to the wide left turn…where the cop had slowed and was obviously debating whether to turn off or go straight. I flicked my lights numerous times, he pulled toward me and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself driving 45 down the middle of the road, shouting through the open passenger window of the cop car driving along next to me.
The cop was hollering something I couldn't make out, I was yelling, “THAT WAY! THAT WAY! THAT WAY!” and pointing out my window like a madwoman, and then… it was over.
The cop screamed off into the night, silence returned and I headed up the road toward home.
Sitting in my silent driveway, a little shaken and glad to be home, I noticed my daughter’s car was gone. Intending to use my story as a dire warning about the dangers of late night driving, I picked up my cell phone to call her. But before I could pull up her number, my phone rang and it was my daughter on the line with a story of her own.
She too had been heading home, coming down the other major highway that runs from town to our neck of the woods. She too had been ruminating, mostly about her current state of poverty. Just as she thought, “I need to be careful – if I got a ticket right now, I’d be screwed.” a cop pulled up behind her, lights flashing, and followed her for a while. She too pulled over – even though she had not been speeding – but as she slowed to a stop, the cop roared around her and took off into the night.

I did not sleep for a long while, wondering what messages to take from these strange, parallel experiences. Watch out – but for what?
Remember all you mothers of daughters - whatever our story, they will have one of their own?
Be vigilant, be careful – we are all connected and taking the same trip through the darkness,
all subject to the strange and the unexpected?

I have no answers, but I'm open to suggestions again,
and I hope I stay that way.


bs

Coyote redux

I saw you again, you old trickster coyote, down on the cemetery road.
Moving like water, swift through the long grass, trouble in your golden eyes.
I already know all the news you want to give; I’m sick of your generosity.
The world spins, no matter what you do.
Sometimes the real magic is in hanging on.




Dawna Johnson - 1923 - 2007.
The best swimmer,
the wildest of 3,
the final sister.
Thank you for suggesting authenticity...
it has helped.





bs

snapshots of what I've loved this week

Simple math: an empty house + 2 pillows + a vintage pink ballerina blanket + the couch
+ an overcast afternoon x myself = the most perfect nap since 2003.

The solemn onyx face of night peering in my bedroom window, a full moon caught in her teeth.

Succulent bites of browned chicken, coconut milk and red thai curry ladled over sticky rice.

"Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen. "
from The State of the Union speech 1/22/07

The dazzling intensity of my daughter and her boyfriend,
sitting side by side in the sun
and touching one another with their eyes.

"Elia, pack your knives and go."

After weeks of winter gloom, naked trees raising their arms up
through unexpected sunlight as if hoisting the sky back into place.

Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap.

And the kids I work with:
JT's hopeful, 3-year-old assessment of the future: "Soon I will be bigger.
And then, I'll get a bigger head. And then, I will be the boss of me."
Pansy, climbing onto my lap with her sticky hands and milky breath,
sighing, "Don't worry, I hold you."
And Mia, twirling around on the sidewalk behind the building - all stick-thin limbs
and swinging hair - shouting, "Look everybody! Everything is beautiful!"

Directives

Leaving work late each night, I am mostly alone on the streets of my town.
Until recently, I was absolutely phobic about driving - I could scarcely go down
my own driveway at high noon - so these nightly excursions never feel routine.
In fact, the darkness, the empty streets and my own solitude often coalesce into
something almost holy, lending unexpected weight to the idea of going home.
There are mileposts along my nightly route, rain or shine they remain fairly constant
and serve to reassure me I'm still heading the right way.
My favorites are the people.
Rounding the final corner of main street, there is the hood guy, rushing toward town with his face eternally obscured and his hands flailing gloveless in the coldest of weather.
Crossing near St. Vincent de Paul, the old dog-walker takes his time, leaning forward as if he drags a great weight instead of his little, matted mutt.
The shiny-vest people sometimes carry sticks, or slack white bages that flutter as they walk.
They appear near the empty lot, or the sign for the cemetary, and always walk single file with the woman in the lead.
Once I leave downtown proper, the written word appears. I pass the Mongolian Palace,

"Home of the Horseshoe Bar" and the thrift store where this week "Utinsiles are buy one,

get one free". The bowling alley has a big reader board, burning like a beacon at the

edge of town. The messages change frequently, and on foggy nights, appear abruptly
as if shoved before me by some spectral sage:
Get your game on.
Be Safe. Be Sane. Don't be a Statistic.
IT'S A NEW YEAR - HAVE A BALL!
Once I leave town the road opens up, pouring me into the waiting woods,
where I am embraced by the trees that guard my path. Scattered meadows
shine like pools when the moon is out, and on frosty nights,

flash their diamonds as I pass.
Few lamps are lit in the houses I see, all is quiet, and this quiets me.
I feel privileged in these moments, bouyed up by a beautiful,
mysterious joy I scarcely recognize.
The last business I pass going home each night is a small convenience store -
family owned for many years. There is a covered porch on the front of the store,
where old-timers have gathered for decades now, drinking coffee and telling tales.
Two summers ago, a long-time customer (who'd stopped taking his Clozapine)
pulled a gun from his car and shot the owner - killing him on his own front porch
in front of his family and friends.
The hand written messages that once told his story have long since been replaced
by posters for beer and 2% milk because business - like life - must go on.
But I remember the words that hung above that store for months after he was buried
and gone and, while I am not much given to prayer, they often serve as mine
as I turn toward my own destination:

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for everything.


bs