Drawrings!

From another notebook, these are all dated 1995-1996.
(double click on the pictures to see them full-size)


Self Portrait

Sun Needs A Lady



That's all for now. I scanned a couple more, but I've got 30 days of daily posting to go.
I'm going to mining those 10 journal books like you won't believe.

Ever wonder what Salome was like in her 20's? Well, just you wait.

Corn Chips and Garlic Cottage Cheese Dip

Cue 35: Show some skin (name your scars):

I have a scar of my left temple where I rolled off the edge of my bed and into my white enameled nightstand. I stumbled out of my bedroom where the babysitter shrieked over the blood and pressed a cold washcloth to my head. No stitches, just a puckered circle of skin, which as I’ve gotten older has moved away from my temple toward my hairline.

I have a number of tiny circle scars on my arms and legs (probably about 5 in total) from a particularly horrifying incident when I was 12. I was playing tag with my brother, his friends and a friend of mine in a vacant lot across the street from our house. I jumped over a log and stepped on a yellow-jacket’s nest. I was stung 31 times. My quick-thinking grandmother was living with us at the time and poured me a baking soda bath. I pulled the stingers out one by one, wincing and sobbing with the pain and the swelling. My mother came home with Benadryl and when I woke up, my father was home with ice-cream.

I have a small straight-line scar on my hand near my right wrist and a similar, but much longer scar across the upper part of my right arm, from a particularly playful cat with claws. I love these scars, they are the ones I’m most fascinated by.

I have three scars on my belly and lower abdomen, from my appendectomy in 2000. One is a half-circle inside my belly button, the others trail down to my hairline.

Mixed Salad Bar, Corn Velvet, Pasta with Pesto, Chicken, Broccoli, Olives

No one cares what I had for lunch.
In anticipation of NaBloPoMo, I bought Maggie Mason’s book, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. You could say that I have some fears of running headlong into the wall of writer’s block, and you’d be right.

But I made a commitment, and I will honor it.
I am so intent upon honoring it, in fact, that I am typing this blog entry on a Southwest flight from Nashville to Seattle, after a three day business trip.

Also, in honor of the book, from whence my ideas are sprung, I will heretofore be titling any posts taken from the cues of the book by stating what I had for lunch that day.

Cue 42: Make Your Timeline

Age Unknown(a): sitting in a high chair, eating a huge slice of sugared tomato as sunlight filters in and makes everything glowy.
-Note: My mother hotly disputes this memory, as a raw tomato is to her as haggis is to me. My father thinks my grandfather, his dad, who died when I was 8, had given me this treat as it was his favorite.

Age Unknown (b): shoving across the parquet-tiled entryway of the house on Lindshire Lane, on a small push seat with wheels that was painted like a lady bug.

Age 5: Early morning, my mother is pulling up a dark-blue velour short and tank set with red piping up my body as I stand in the living room. It isn’t even light out, my cousins are there and we are going to an amusement park for the day. I remember the day being fun, but mostly I remember that my mother dressed me in the living room this day, in front of my family. It doesn’t bother me.

Age 13: My birthday party. I’m wearing neon dangly earrings and I’m now officially a teen. I’m heavy at this time in my life, and I get a jean jacket and a boombox. My family is all around me and I’m miserable and self-conscious, but I adore the acid-washed jean jacket.

Age 14: I enter high school after a particularly troubling junior-high experience. I’m determined to be popular this time, after being the laughingstock of my previous school. I decide that I can be popular just by acting as if I am. I have permed hair, am still heavy and wear glasses. Things do not work out the way I planned. I am thrust again into dorkdom, where I will languish until junior year. I get out of dorkdom by getting fairly smart and making good grades and becoming heavily entrenched in the yearbook department, editor my senior year, as well as the theatre department. And before you scoff, I wasn’t popular because of Theatre – that is a negative on the scale of cool at my high school, but by bolstering my confidence. Something I love to do, I do actually quite well. Lead roles sophomore through senior year.

Age 18: I leave my hometown to attend college at UC Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz, CA. Within two weeks of being dropped off by my parents, I call home and tell them I will never again live in Ohio. I mostly keep this promise. I get into a group of really great people, dorm neighbors and classmates, and I happily am accepted and have a vibrant social life for the first time in my life. I again join the theatre group and receive a lead role my first audition, which everyone tells me is unheard of in the school.

Age 20: I begin a bad habit that I will keep for 6 years, on and off. I lose the companionship of my close friends, who can’t bear what I am doing, but gain something that will carry me through so many more years…..I start writing prolifically and will continue this for close to ten years. I am still in theatre, but less involved, and not working hard enough, being surpassed by other people for roles.

Age 21: I drop out of college because my bad habit is more important. I work low paying jobs and write so much that I fill close to 10 notebooks with poems. I begin performing spoken word around the city of Santa Cruz, and am met with some unqualified success in the arena.

Age 23: I am back in school, off the habit mostly, and am accepted into the Education Abroad Program at UCSC. I enroll for my senior year of college at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. I have completed every course required for my graduation, which leads to much beer drinking and traveling, although I do attend most classes and take a Russian Literature course with a professor who makes the books come alive like they have always done in my heart. I love the course, sit rapt every lecture and discuss at length some truly astounding literature. I also sleep with a college professor (different class, though just as interesting), which makes me feel like I’m very grown-up, but actually reflects that he is pretty immature. Albeit fascinating, and a published author. I break it off and go back to my college boys.

Age 24-25: I am back from England, living at home in Ohio. I work as a data-entry clerk for an insurance company, entering claims daily until I am promoted (through family connections) to a member eligibility clerk, where I enter family information. I drink heavily, am absolutely miserable, and one day announce that in 5 months’ time, I’m packing up all my belongings and moving to Los Angeles to become an actress. In 5 months’ time, with $5,000, I load up my belongings and drive to Los Angeles. Along the way I stop to see a dear friend in Austin, TX, whose very talented sister takes beautiful headshots of me, and then on to Vegas, where I sit down at a blackjack table and meet a man from Boston. I continue to Los Angeles, now dating the Boston guy.

Age 26: The Boston guy and I live in San Diego, and we’re engaged. I answer a random administrative assistant classified and get called into a cool company. I get the job.
I marry the Boston guy amid serious reservations, and the marriage is rocky and unfulfilling.

Age 27: The Boston guy and I move to Los Angeles, where I intend to be an actress. I stay at the same job – moving to their LA area office. I work for different people now, I get involved in an aspect of the company that ignites my interest. I never go on a single audition, I commute 2 hours and 30 minutes a day (combined) and work my ass off at this new job.

Age 29: My marriage is ending. I accept a job transfer to Seattle, WA, unhesitatingly. This drives the final nail through my marriage. I’m relieved and delighted to have a chance to start over. I move to Seattle.

Age 30: Living on my own for the first time in my life, I am set up with the Pope by mutual friends. Love at first sight. I wake up the morning after having met him and open my mailbox to find my divorce is official. We have a tempestuous relationship, we’re off more than we’re on, but we’re deeply connected and always get back together. I buy my first home, a condo.

Age 32: The Pope and I have bought a house, we live together with our three cats.

Age 33: The favorite cat has walked away from us, shortly before I find out we’re being transferred to Edinburgh, Scotland. We are now a house of four, but a loving little stray is on her way in.

Oh, and FYI

Dear Lady Vesuvius Ass,

It is officially official. You need to see a doctor. Also, please look under the dictionary under thoughtless, disgusting pig. You will find a picture of yourself there, snapped next to the horrifying sight of the toilet after you've visited.

You are a cretin,

Salome

Dear Sears,

HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Take that you bitches! One year old fridge issue is that THE COMPRESSOR is broken, and I DO read the manuals, so that would be covered under the 5 year warranty for sealed components, HMMM???????

Thank You Mr. Nice Repairman Who Knew When The Jig Was Up,

Salome

Conversation:

Salome: What do you think the problem is?
Repairman: Oh it is definitely the compressor. You can tell by the way it whines and clicks on and off, futilely.
Salome: You don't say.....Is that what you're officially diagnosing the problem as?
Repairman: Yes. Absolutely. I'm just ordering the parts necessary.
Salome: That would be covered under the 5 year sealed warranty outlined on page 6 of the manual, right?
Repairman: It depends. You have to read those carefully, because they are worded oddly, and unless it specifically called out exactly that the compressor is covered, it isn't covered.
Salome: Read this with me, then. "blah de blah blah, including refrigerant lines, condenser unit and compressor, no charge."
Repairman: Well, again it depends on the wording.
Salome: Seems clear to me.
Repairman: (looks up at me, sighs) Yes. It is fully covered by the 5 year full warranty.
Salome: Glad we agree. See you in two weeks with the parts necessary.

Hiya Titles!

Titles are back, but I am off again.
Work thing on the East Coast until Friday night. Back Sat and Sun and then off again on Monday until Thursday the 1st.
I am tired of traveling, but on these short weeks between travels, too geared up to go again so nothing is accomplished.

What's gnu with Salome? Funny you should ask that.
I tried out new eyeliner yesterday. In addition to being a really gross color, I think I'm allergic.
Lucky for all you Salome fans, I'm also lazy, so I can regale you with what happens when you buy eyeliner that you're allergic to, and fall asleep while reading your Mary, Queen of Scots biography without washing your face.

You look like you have pink eye all the next day. Thank you, everyone I work with, for freaking me out and sending me rushing to Google every known symptom of pink eye.

I do not have pink eye. I have what can best be described as Idiot Eye, for all the reasons I outline above.
I am taking workout clothes, because the hotel has a gym and I have got some astounding amounts of fat.

I'm harumphy lately. I know a couple of you have emailed asking for dates to visit and things, but I'm funk-ified at the moment. Don't feel like talking, can't be cheery, must just stew in my own disaffected affluvial.

Catch me when I'm back but it might help you to know that I am moving in the "spring." However intangible that may seem. HSMP Application hasn't gone out yet, so it could be early summer. Heck, it could be never. I don't care.

And with that, boys and girls, I'm off to finish packing for this work trip and to read about Mary Queen of Scots. I also need to rest my burning eyes.

Did I mention that Lucy snugged up into my armpit also last night? And even though I slightly had to pee and she released a hailstorm of loosened hairs directly up under my eyelid, I was far too lazy to get up and do anything about it.

Idiot Eye, bestill my burning cornea.

You Are a Werewolf

You're unpredictable, moody, and downright freaky. You seem sweet and harmless, until you snap. Then you're a total monster. Very few people can predict if you're going to be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. But for you, all your transformations seem perfectly natural. Your greatest power: Your ability to tap into nature Your greatest weakness: Lack of self control You play well with: Vampires

What Kind of Monster Are You?

All of A Sudden.....

• No Blog Title Area is Visible. WTF?
• Refrigerator is warm, though it appears to be blowing cold air. Good thing I bought the yogurt that was on sale tonight. Love it.

Dear Woman in the Restroom Who Blew Ass All Over The Toilet Seat:

Honey, you need to see a doctor. Or, at the very least, do not order that for lunch again.
In the meantime, you are a foul pig for not even attempting to clean that up.

Thank you for ruining my afternoon,

Salome

Welcome Back To Me!

Hello. I am back. I just returned late last night. I had a great trip, great business trip and excellent, awesome sight-seeing tour with my mother of my soon-to-be new home city.

But let's just jump right in, shall we?

Dear People On Planes:

Seatmate: I'm trying to watch the goddamn movie. That means shut your goddamn window blind. In the short time that I've been watching the Harry Potter movie, you have flipped up the window blind no fewer than 5 times. This is on my second flight of the day, which means I'm already 7 hours in to rude plane behavior. You'll understand if I am a little irritated by, well, EVERYONE. Thank you for your consideration, and if I may? What you will see the next time you flip the window shade up will be the same goddamn thing you saw the last six times, which is, a bunch of white clouds and piercing, eye-burning sunshine. Because it is daylight, madam, and we're too far above the weather to see anything. By the flight-tracker at the moment, we are somewhere in the vicinity of Armpit, Midwest, USA. I think the sunlight and fluffy white clouds are the best this area has to offer. Please don't flip the shade up again, I'm feeling slightly murderous.

People across the aisle: Window-seat Husband. See previous note for what you can expect to see when you flip the shade up. Except that if you do it tandem with my seatmate again, I'm going to fly out of my seat and punch you. That might be interesting to you. But of course, you might not even notice, seeing as how you and your wife have been screaming at each other over the sound of your headphones for the last three hours. We have two more hours to go, and then it will be a full 14 hours that I've been dealing with rude people who have no class. Please don't become an air-rage statistic, sir. I can only take so much.

Dear wife across the aisle: Thank you! Thank you so much for jamming your suitcase into my backpack, over and over and over again, as you removed your newspaper, replaced it, removed it again and replaced it, all this time above my head because you're a pig who uses more than your fair share of overhead compartments. You are lucky that the specialty whiskey tasting glass I'm smuggling home to my husband is safely in my purse at my feet. Had you broken that glass, there would have been fisticuffs. You may have 20 pounds and a foot on me, but I have the heart of a lion, and it hasn't been fed in years.

I mean what I say,

Salome

Dear Edinburgh, Scotland:

You are so lovely. So lovely. Your city is breathtaking, and your history is something I am so proud of, not being from here notwithstanding. Your inhabitants are lovely people, so kind and so friendly, and your city has so much to offer. Thank you for making me feel so welcome, and for the lovely time you have shown my mother, who is more dear to me than I could possibly say. She loved you, and I loved you the more for it. If you weren't so expensive, I'd be thoroughly and completely charmed. As it is, you are very expensive, so I am only thoroughly charmed. Please lower your prices so you can win my heart with no restrictions.

I'll do my best to negotiate a substantial raise,

Salome

Things I did with my mother on this trip:

• Saw the Edinburgh Castle: This is the second time I've done this. It is enough. All future guests to Edinburgh will have to do this on their own. Though I will say that David's Tower is a place I cannot go. I walk into these areas and my chest closes up and I panic. Ghosts or claustrophobia, I don't know. I've walked some castles in my life, and have never been affected by a place like I am right at these spots.
  
• Saw the Holyrood Palace - royal residence and former home of Mary Queen of Scots. Awesome tour, richly restored. Fascinating, highly recommended.
• Ate Haggis. Ohmygod. My mother had the real thing, I ate the vegetarian version. I did take a bite of hers, though, and the texture and phlegmy aftertaste is something I will try my damndest to forget.
  
• Shopped. My tiny mother is a size fourteen in the UK. (She wears a 10 in the US and is taller than I am - I'm 5'8"). I have thusly decided to abstain from any caloric intake for the rest of my natural born life. I believe I would be a 50 in UK sizing. That coupled with the fact that I am a shoe size 8 in UK (the largest they go, ladies and gentlemen!), which loosely translates to a 10 in the US, makes me just want to curl up and cry. And when I say loosely translates, I mean that they don't fit exactly right, which is disheartening, because I love shoes more than life itself.
• Took a very expensive taxi ride (but so incredibly worth it - the taxi drivers in Scotland are the greatest people, excellent sources of information and a great chat) to the Roslyn Chapel in Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland. Dan Brown has Roslyn playing a crucial part in the Da Vinci Code, which for all its detractors, was a fascinating (if not terribly well written) yarn. The chapel is absolutely breathtaking. My mother and I were transfixed by the carvings, which cover nearly every surface of the chapel, and contain significant meanings. The taxi driver told us that most people spend about 15-20 minutes in Roslyn Chapel. My mom and I spent time in the Chapel, read all the signs. I lit a candle as a hello and I love you to my Grandpa, and my mom wrote a prayer request for Lauren, and we walked into the crypt and then counted the stairs on the way back up. We kept walking over to each other and exclaiming about things. We were both so incredibly overcome by this chapel. If you have not seen it, you should. You must. I've seen some incredible churches, grand and fine, and I've never seen anything that is so arresting and affecting. We spent 45 minutes in the chapel, and both of us walked out promising to come back and spend hours. (when we don't have a taxi waiting for us, hmm?)

That is all for now. Can't give you everything at one time, what would you come back for?

Why I'm not here....

I'm actually in Edinburgh, waiting for my mother to arrive so we can sightsee what will by my new home in a few months' time.



I have been working, so no posts, but now I will be enjoying time with my mom, so again, no posts, but I will leave you with these airport musings:


10-8-07

The main thing you notice is that cellphones are a pandemic.
Not content to have their silly conversations at home, all manner of idiots are discussing the intricacies of their lives as if the matter was the most urgent at hand.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been on a landed flight only to have 5 people whip out cellphones so that they can call their friends and begin the most inane chatter.

Typically to say, I’m here. But then they keep talking and you realize that they are not calling their ride, or someone who is expecting them here, where they’ve just landed, but rather someone they have presumably just left, after all kinds of mindless chatter in person.

It is maddening. Somewhat more tolerable, but only just, are the people whose business is so important that they cannot be away from their cellphones, and then they persist in talking extremely loudly, a trait I’ve always found to be suspicious, as if they were trying to PROVE importance, rather than just embody it.

I’m listening to a woman talking about how long it should take her to get through baggage claim. A valid conversation, to be sure, but not one that needs to take 40 minutes of straight hypothesizing. Am I right?


-continental first class lounge – Newark, NJ

Dear Man in the Huge White Truck:

You'll have to forgive me, sir, for the laughing. I have been inching my way towards the exit of this shopping mall for approximately 45 minutes. And I didn't even shop here! I just drove in, couldn't find a parking stall, and then waited an additional 20 minutes while a kindly gentleman in front of me decided to be the fucking Moses of the parking lot, waving benevolently at everyone trying to get in front of him, and then he finally drove on, so now I'm behind him and all his peoples. I have had an excellent time sitting here as my blood pressure skyrockets and everyone around me freaks out. I have had ample time to notice that just as soon as I got one car away from the exit, you turned on your car, pulled out of your spot, and put your blinker on for me to let you in. And I'm laughing. I'm laughing at the temerity, at the arrogance, and frankly, at the astounding stupidity. I'm not letting you in, sir. Not if my life depended on it. Not if you were suffering from acute appendicitis. You will have to go to the back of the line and near cardiac arrest yourself. But I thank you, for the joy and the humor you put into this appalling situation.

Good Luck With That,

Salome

Dear Moses of the Parking Lot,

You're such an asshole. Everyone you're letting in loves you, but as for myself and the 13 cars behind me? We're memorizing your license plate so we can look you up later and come over and flatten all your tires. If you let one more person cut in front of you, I'm going to put my car in park, get out, walk over to your car and pull you out of it, then drive forward on your behalf like you should have done 20 cars ago. And I think that I will then be heralded as a hero of unexpected proportions. They might even name this parking lot after me.

Courtesy in the parking lot makes everything worse,

Salome

Dear Young Man with Downs Syndrome at Fred Meyer Today,

You are the most darling. Ever. Holding the dancing skeleton that plays popular music, the joy on your face lit up the entire store. I heard you before I got up to you, and instinctively smiled. When I walked up, you were singing along, and when the skeleton's head jumped down into its hands, you whooped with laughter. You just about sewed wings on my heart with that one. You looked right at me and your face nearly split double with your smile. My heart then flew right over to you and kissed you on the cheek. I smiled back 'atcha, as big as I could, and then walked on. When I returned that way, you were sitting down in a different aisle, bouncing a rubber bat on an elastic string. You were saying, "Boing, Boing, Boing" as the bat jumped up and down. In a world full of busy, mean things, you are a delight to me.

You make the world a much, much better place,

Salome

Getting There!

Yesterday I got home and put on my work-out clothes, grabbed some dry cleaning and went towards the gym.
I never made it to the gym, but I did get the dry cleaning in for a Saturday pickup.

TODAY, however, I put the workout clothes on, drove straight to the gym and did cardio for 25 minutes.
Getting there! A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

I did situps in front of the mirror until a trainer came by and kept staring at me, making me self conscious that he thought I wasn't doing them right. I'm probably not, but let me get there on my own, okay?

Hysterical

Stupid Things I Do

Have you ever:

1. Asked Windows to remember a password, but then accidentally type the wrong password, so that Windows remembers the wrong one all the time and you get frustrated and are all, DAMMIT, everytime you hit enter because you forget?

2. Decide that TODAY is the day you are going to finally break out that Yoga flipchart you bought at Costco 7 years ago which you've never used and then you get it out and it won't stand up right, and every flipchart requires reading and some serious page hopping because of the awful way it is laid out and so then you get really frustrated and go pour a glass of wine because honestly, the Universe wants me to be fat?

3. See the LED screen telling you there's an accident ahead but don't see any traffic, everything seems normal, and then you round that one strip where it is a mile of no exits until your stop and then everything slows to the pace of snail and you sit and go DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT and it is precisely at this time that NPR decides to not come in all the way, but there's a story you want to hear and so you're all stuck in traffic with a lot of static and all you can think about is that you should have taken the other exit you dumbass, and now this is all your fault? And when you finally get to your exit after almost an hour someone stops dead in your lane because they think they need to get to the left even though both lanes have a left turn allowed and you're all apoplectic in your car screaming, NO NEED, NO NEED, AAAAAH, NO NEED. And they never hear you doing this so finally, in desperation of a heart attack you lay down on your horn and when they turn around all pissy you mouth the words, "GO GODDAMNIT" and give them another long blast of the horn for emphasis?

4. Decide to hit snooze and then you hit it again, and sometimes the 7 minutes feels like an hour and sometimes it feels like 15 seconds and always at the wrong end of your need and then sometimes you hit it so many times that the alarm clock gives up and stops ringing the buzzer and then you wake up at 9:50am and are all, OHMYGOD, and you don't wash your hair which is a new haircut, which almost always requires some training in the beginning and you spend the rest of the day self-conscious about it.
You cannot fluff greasy muppet hair. It won't be done.

5. Cook something that you think you have all the ingredients to, but it turns out you lack every single spice required, because you only have the fixings for pumpkin pie and only then because you didn't have them last year and you don't think Chicken, black beans and allspice sounds all that good, so you dump a lot of salsa into it and then an entire bag of shredded cheese and it is so good your tongue almost drowns and then somehow all of your tupperware has disappeared even though you just dumped out all the rotten stuff this weekend and should have freed up a bunch of them, but then you remember that a couple of them were so gross you threw the whole thing out because you'd pay $5.99 several times over not to have to eat anything out of this container again because you will NEVER FORGET the godawful sight of what happens to tuna salad when it sits in your refrigerator for close to a year, and there is a lot of your new dish left and so you pack it into three containers that actually have lids but there is still more left, so even though you're full, you stand over the dish and hork it down, because ohmygod the tonuge is drowning ovah heah and then you feel full and gross and you're probably never going to eat it again?

6. Get a comment about your drawings and think, I HAVE TONS! Well, not really tons, I was always a doodler, but most went the way of the rest of my college mementos, which is to say, who knows. But here's another from the sketch book:



p.s. Julie, Hiya and thanks for stopping by all the time! I'm delighted and have bookmarked your site, too!

Covers Of My Journals

I used to trick out cheap notebooks with pictures, and they became my poetry journals.
I used to perform my pieces at open-mics, so on the back of these, I have a small piece of tape that lists how many in each journal are "performable."

DelBacon Book: 65 performable poems


Nothing Left To Lose: 4 performable poems in a full book. They're mostly pretty awful.
Sketchbook Sketch - 10 performable poems, lots of drawings.

Letters

Dear Lady in the Checkout Madness that is Costco,

Oh, bitch, PLEASE. I realize that you want out of here as much as I want out of here, but I'm in front of you, and if you think that inching your cart forward until it almost hits me is going to do anything, you're sadly mistaken. Unless that something you are looking for is me turning around and clawing your ugly face off. Because lady, I'm in that kind of mood.

I'm aware that this is the highlight of your week, when you dust out the ill-fitting gray sweats you've had since you were a fat teenager, roll off the couch with its 3 inches of cheeto dust, and drive slowly with your left blinker on all the way here to Costco. I'm pretty sure that you're finally of the age where you're all, "Fuck it, I'm an adult, and these young whipper snappers can suck it. I'm going to be rude and I'm going to act out all the aggression I have about not being as pretty as my sister, and be a complete and total bitch and they're all going to have to take it."

Well, honey, I'm not that young and I'm so so so totally not going to take it. You might be pushing that frizzy mop off your forehead and looking at my frizzy mop and thinking, "I can take her." And, oh, you'd be so wrong. My mop is frizzy because it is always like that, and yours is frizzy because it is an extension of your execrable life.

I guarantee you will never be a match for me,

Salome

Dear Lucy,

I have put up with a lot from you in your life. You're a miserable cat, but I've always loved you despite that. In the last few weeks you've become a totally unstable whackjob who is nothing but a nest of bitch and claws. If I have to hear your pissed off screech one more time, I'm going to snap. It seems that everything annoys you. If i walk past you, if I turn on music, when I grind coffee beans, if I shut the door to pee in peace.

I understand that you think your life sucks, but you have made mine suck in turn. When I carried you to the bed a couple nights ago and you freaked out and hissed at me, bit my head and scratched my face? THE END.

We have a new cat in the house, princess. And you are going to mellow the fuck out and let her live here. You let your brother disappear, and it broke your mom's heart. Do you hear me, Lucy? It broke my heart when your brother went away. You did not help me, not when I was sobbing and searching the backyard and begging you to come and smell him for me, and lead me to wherever he was. You have such a keen sense of smell that you probably know when a mouse farts in Kentucky, yet you did nothing. And I know you know what Finny smelled like, you've detested the scent since he came home in June of 2004.

This morning when you tripped me for the 3rd time, and this time tripped me so effectively that I hit the floor, after slamming against the wall in the hallway first, I had had enough. You hissed at my last nerve, Lucy. THAT is why I stomped toward you, screaming. You went under the bed, which was such a good idea, even though I've never hit you and I never will. If you make me fall and hurt myself again, I swear to God I'm making you into a hat.

Lucy, in the coming days you might notice something different about your water. It might taste slightly like natural flowers. Hopefully you will feel fairly mellow when you're done drinking it. I bought an all-natural item that is called GOOD CAT, supposed to calm down frantic or nasty cats. You are a nasty fucking cat, Lucy, and I hope you chill out.

I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more,

Mom

MENBOYSMEN

June 16, 1999

Wonderland
big becomes small
by a trifling sweet,
little no longer IS
when you quench your thirst.

I never meant to take your power
you should not give that
to me.

I don't know how to nurture you.
You've grown so long now
in such foreign soil.

There are different bugs here.
Some without conceivable remedy.

I rolled a newspaper up,
and didn't know whether to whack you in the nose
with it,
or leave it in the garden.

I can't be your Savior.
Not for all things
Not at all times.

I have myself to save
as well.

Love is the white rabbit....
Running far late
to come to get me.

I hold you now at arms length.
Examining, cautious-like.

For this is Wonderland.
And things need not be as they seem.

They may just seem.
They might just BE.

IT COULD COME DOWN TO THIS
You see what you need.
But you get what you've got.

Is it Just Me?

Or does anyone else think that Patchouli oil smells like moldy dirt?

While I'm At It

CLP - Remember this?
Set to video that rocks, oh how perfect!!



And let's just go back to that time that we knew so well:

Trent Reznor is, apparently, an asshole, so I can't embed THIS!

OMG So AWESOME

Found this today:



My favorite song by Tool, this song was my mantra in my 20's.
Much of what I responded to in this song holds true today.

When Life Hands You Lemons

Go apeshit.

Tear your hair out.

Let your heart hammer wildly in your chest.

Smoke 30 cigarettes and make your margaritas stronger that night, so that you're drooling 1/2 way through the first one instead of by the end of the second.

I believe that my life could best be described as part-life, part fucking lemon tree.
My whole existence is Lemons.

I'm a lemon.
My house is DEFINITELY a lemon.
My bitchy cat is a lemon.

Why the Pope married the Lemon Queen of Banshees is beyond me.
I'm pretty sure he knew what he was getting into, because I was the Absolutely Undefeated Champion of All That Makes a Terrible Girlfriend while we were dating, but still.
I do some wondering, sometimes.

I had a stressful day at work. I have been working hard and being productive, but I'm behind and I'm stressed and I'm pulled in a bunch of directions, and I'm not doing as well as I think I can in some areas, and my patience wore thin, looked like a sheet of glass for a second, and then snapped wildly earlier today and I lost it.

Lost every recipe for lemonade I've ever had.
Ready to quit, ready to walk out, ready to burn every bridge in the State of Washington.

And all I really want to know is....
When does life get just a little easier?
I don't even mean it needs to get cakewalk easy, but I'd like to be able to take a breath once in a while, and not finish something with the immediate thought that, "Aha! Now I can focus on this other thing!!"

You know?

By the way:

1 cup 1800 Reposado Tequila (100% de Agave)
1/3 cup Patron Citronage (or Cointreau if you're not a cheapskate)
1/3 cup Rose's (or equivalent) Sweetened Lime Juice
1/3 cup Sweet & Sour Mix

Pour in a small glass (trust me) packed full of ice (not kidding) and splash a teensy bit of Grand Marnier on top, and welcome to my evenings.

That is the new and improved and, as far as I'm concerned, PERFECT, Loma Linda's Margarita.

Where One Is Lost, One is Found

For several months now, we've been visited by a stray cat.

Only she's not that much of a stray, her name is Cleo and she is the cat of our neighbor, John Johnson. Only, John drank himself to death last summer. Our only glimpse of our oft-gossiped about next door neighbor was one night in late May, 2006. A decrepit old man shuffled out of the house next to us, cursing and shouting incoherently.

He had a live-in caretaker for the last year of his life, and a nastier, less smiling woman you have never met.

Cleo used to come over and fight with Finny. Or Finny would get in her yard and Cleo would fight with him there. They did not appear to like each other.

When Finny went missing, I spoke to the man who lives behind our neighbor, to ask if he'd seen him. He said, "Sure, he and that little black and white cat are always palling around, playing in my yard. I feed the little black and white one, because she looks so hungry!"

In my grief and desperation, I never told this guy that John Johnson had died a year before. I consoled myself with thinking that he was taking care of Cleo, and forgave myself for only going back there one time, trying to tell him that Cleo needed a new family, but he wasn't home and my busy life got the best of me.

We thought Cleo had found a home, we never saw her.
Then about two months ago, Cleo came calling. She was hungry, her collar was now gone, and we put bowls of food out for her to keep her fed.

The Pope fell in love. Everytime she came around, he would go out onto the porch and sit for an hour, petting and loving her. I made sure the bowl was full, but Lucy goes apeshit at the sight of Cleo, so I kept my heart in check.

I cannot love you, I would say to her on those off nights when the Pope wasn't there and she came by anyway. I cannot love you, Lucy won't let me, and anyway, I am keeping Finny's room in my heart just the way he left it, so that when he comes back it will be ready for him.

But it is getting colder. And Cleo started coming around every day, every night, not wanting food as much as she was wanting love. She was wanting affection. She was wanting to be a pet again, instead of the wary, feral life that was thrust upon her.

And it is getting colder out here.
So we put a Lost and Found Ad on Craigslist.
Nothing.
Then we put an ad in Pets.
Nothing.
Then the Pope rewrote the Pets ad to be creative and awesome like he can do, and a lady responded the first day.

She and her husband and their kids live in an apartment in Kent, WA (nearby-ish).
Her 4 year old had fallen in love with a cat that looked just like Cleo, but that cat was a stray and had disappeared. Probably adopted, she thought.

Probably.....not, I thought.

We vetted them as best we could and they came and took Cleo on Tuesday night.
It absolutely broke my heart to see this cat leave.
I mean, I can't care for her!
We're leaving!
Lucy's a bitch!
All those things, you know!

But I also know that I can heal a damaged, frightened cat.
I can make her whole again, I can make her a pet.
Those of you who know me, you know this is true.

The lady called the very next day, Cleo didn't do too well, she was hissing and scared, and with two kids in an apartment, she couldn't deal with that.

(Don't be harsh in your thoughts, she was a very nice, young woman, she meant well.)

But Cleo is a commitment. She has seen some hard things, she's had to fend for herself, she's been placed in the most unfair and worst possible scenario for a loving, little animal.

And here I'm hoping and praying that my Finny returns, and/or that God keeps him safe, and happy, and loved dearly through the whole of his life. And right here this little girl needs me, needs the Pope, and needs someone to reach out and say, Here.
You're welcome and safe, Here.

So, welcome, Cleo.
You're welcome and safe HERE.
We have room for you.
We have love for you.
We have the time and we have the heart and we have the home for you.


And somewhere, all my angels?
Please tell Finny that Mommy says Hi, Honey.
Mommy says, I miss you, Little Man.

Please tell Finny that his room is still here, in my heart, waiting for him.

I found more rooms, I have more heart.

Dashing off a Quick Note:

Dear Yielders Who Aren't Actually YIELDING:

Goddamnit. Listen, I can't believe I actually have to write this! DIDN'T YOU TAKE THE SAME GODDAMN TEST I DID? Here is what you do when you drive up or down something and there is a yield sign (facing you, you fucking idiot, not facing me, which would be a different letter altogether.)

1. LOOK, Motherfucker!
2. If you see a tiny, weathered escort driven by a wild-haired girl with a stubbornly set jaw, flooring the pedal until the entire car whines......then you should stop and patiently wait until I am nowhere near. You can almost bet on the fact that although I do know what brakes are, I rarely use them, sparing them for the situations I find myself in (see earlier letters) where I am FORCED to use them to avoid pain of sudden death.
3. Alternately, you can listen for the screaming of my engine and decide that you can beat me, in which case, I sincerely urge you to fucking beat me. And I dare you. I DARE YOU. This little escort has a heart like mine, which means she'll go 180 if I so ask of her. She may fall apart while doing it, but she loves me and will try her best.

WHAT YOU DO NOT DO, IN ANY HOLY UNIVERSE:

1. Slide right in front of me without looking or stopping your cellphone chat.
or
1. Tentatively pull out in front of me, and then SLAM on your brakes, like you're all sorry and shit, because by that time? Bitch, you're in front of me now, and if you don't floor it I'm going to be even MORE pissed. No apologies necessary. If you're going to drive like an asshole, then DRIVE LIKE AN ASSHOLE. Being a thug means never having to say you're sorry.
or
1. Be so completely fucking oblivious that you do all the above while chatting on the phone and I'm all freaking out and wild-haired angry behind you trying to wish you dead with my bare eyes and then go slow and act all like the world is nothing but this big fun place with really great sunsets.

....because I do not know that kind of world,

Salome

Concrete Blonde

But aren't they all?



I have, through the mastery that is iTunes, discovered yet again that the songs JOEY and TOMORROW, WENDY should be on everyone's top 10 list.

I've been playing them like I played them when I was a teenager, which is to say how I play everything that strikes one of my personal chords.

Overandoverandoverandoverandoverandover.

I sang these two songs my entire 25 minute drive into work this morning. By the time I got to my office I could barely speak. It felt great.

Yesterday when I got to my exit off the freeway, I looked up, because I saw hundreds of birds flying. There were HUNDREDS of black birds flying from a line of trees west towards the 5 freeway.

It reminded me of this one time in Ohio when I was so desperate, I was so lost, and I would drive home these lonely country roads, home to a house I wasn't comfortable in (my parents') driving home from a job I despised (entering medical claims for an insurance broker) and I saw these birds that would fly in circles and circles and circles over the cornfields. They were crows, so it was murderous.

And I wanted away so badly.
I wanted away so badly that I was crazy with it.

One time, after a particularly "not anything in particular" day, I saw the birds and had to pull over. I was about 5 minutes from my parents' house, but I couldn't go on.

I pulled over onto the dirt shoulder of a country road, next to a pig farm that stank, and I cried until my heart broke, put itself back together, broke again, and then healed.

About three months later, I packed up everything that I couldn't live without, it fit comfortably into a Ford Escort, and I drove West.

I have never lived there again.

Things You Can Count On

1. In a hotel, my husband will dry himself with the shower mat.

Honey, do you KNOW what that tiny, folded, thick towel by the bathtub is?

2. At a wedding, I will drink too much.

3. A dress that was tight in May, with unrestricted eating, will probably be uncomfortably and unflatteringly tight when you bust it out on the day of and at the place of a wedding ceremony in September.

These are three things you can count on.

Oh Britney....

Well by now you have all seen IT.
While better than you or I could possibly hope to do, she bombed. BOMBED.

And I have to comment. I HAVE TO!
While I actually LIKE the song, and for that I'm twisting in an hurricane of shame, she is so lackluster and unprepared, I'm speechless.

If you are going to bust your post-baby body out in a sexy outfit, you'd best have a slamming body, and while she looks great for having two kids (and actually better than I do after, um, NONE) she is not slamming. Except those margaritas, apparently chased down with a healthy handful of fire cheetos and Taco Bell.

This was totally her chance to go up there and shut everyone's mouths. You'd have thought she would be practicing her ass off, yet by all gossip accounts, she was partying until dawn every night leading up to the event. You just have to watch the other performances to see how other artist, seeking to either establish themselves or further their star-wattage, took the opportunity to create something that people would GASP at.

Remember when Michael Jackson took the stage at the Motown 25th Anniversary Show?
I watched that with my father and both of us, BOTH OF US, were speechless. Breathless during, and absolutely stunned afterwards.

We sat silent a moment, and then my dad said, "My God, what a TALENT!"
This was back when an artist's affectations were forgiven, absolutely, for talent. And MJ flowed along that vein until it was bled dry, frankly.

But while Britney Spears was a major success for the teen-crowd, she never truly translated to the world at large, and her growing pains were, quite honestly, excruciating to watch. She married stupidly, got pregnant stupidly, and then proceeded to destroy her reputation and the solid fan base she'd built up over her brief, but phenomenal, rise.

You cannot move into the adult market by acting like an asshole adult. And yet that's what she did. She broke out of her child-tart persona into a horrifying, ADULT WHORE, new image, replete with idiotic behaviors and questionable parenting choices.

And while I will admit that I breathlessly waited to see how bad she would be, I was not at all prepared for the sympathy I felt on Monday while reading the excoriating reviews. She's a young, dumb girl who grew up quickly and collapsed under a wave of her own ill-choices. She's a young mother who is now divorced, and cannot imagine that her husband married her for herself. She's estranged from her family and brutally abused in the press. I feel bad for her.

But enough about her.

Let's focus on other people, who did this star thing right: THIS lady was at the zenith of her career for this 1990 VMA performance, and she pulled out all the stops.

That is what a STAR is, ladies and gentleman.

NYC with CLP

I started using the Nicorette patch again last week, WELCOME DREAMING, WELCOME WEIRDNESS!
Goodbye morning lung pain and so much wheezing.

The first day I used one I came home early and fell asleep on the couch.

I immediately drifted into a vivid dream.

CLP and I met up in New York. We were both very dressed up, I was wearing the torturous shoes from my NYSE day, yet they didn't hurt me. Which convinced me I was dreaming. We met up in a hotel and hung around the lobby, which looked suspiciously like the Riu Caribe lobby, but more upscale and no palm trees.

We drank several margaritas and then ventured out into the city for some food. I was craving a sundae, one which was also very suspicious, it looked just absolutely exactly like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dooce/295333358/ (pardon me, but I'm in Safari and so cannot hyperlink. Damn Safari!)

Along our walk, CLP gradually changed out of her dress up clothes, I would look over and she was dressed up fully, then look away and when I looked back, the blouse was gone, replaced with a hoodie (which I don't think she ever wears) and then looked again and she is in cargo shorts (again, not sure she has ever worn these in my presence) and then finally I looked back and she was in Birkenstocks and right then I was sure again that this was a dream, because I believe she'd rather I drive my thumbs into her eyelids than wear Birks, but maybe the years have changed her. Maybe I always, all along wanted CLP to be a hippy. Regardless, I remember being pissed in the dream, because I hadn't brought any other outfit, and now we didn't match.

We stopped at the place that had the sundaes as pictured above and it was 7 minutes until 10pm. They told us they could seat us, but that they were out of mostly everything, except Thanksgiving dinner. We said, ummmm, really? And the waitress stomped off in a huff. We sat there debating whether or not to just go, and I pleaded with her to let me get my sundae and then we could leave. The waitress returned with a plate of charred hamburgers. "And these are for you," she chirped gaily.

CLP and I looked at each other and in unison got angry. We demanded just our sundae and we would leave. They brought out a dish full of melting ice-cream and Cool-Whip. We took one look and walked away.

Out on the street, we started worrying whether it was too late to eat anywhere. We stopped and talked to the ticketseller in a movie theatre, behind the glass fishbowl, you know? And he assured us it was NYC and we could eat until whenever we damn well pleased. We kept walking and came upon a huge, brightly lit casino, which also advertised mortgage rates. I remember pondering this heavily as I stood and stared at the busy, open air (because of course!) casino. I remember thinking that getting your mortgage at a casino was probably a bad idea, but I was curious how good (or bad) the rates would be. We kept walking and came upon several small shoe stores, all open air, and all with circular displays of shoes.

We split up in the shoe store and I heard CLP exclaiming about all the cute shoes she was trying on. Even in my dream I scoffed, because I will never forget being stoned out of my mind in Amsterdam many years ago while CLP mourned her Fred Flintstone feet in all the cute Dutch shoe stores. And that was after she got pissed because they won't serve mustard with a ham sandwich and the idea of mayonnaise on ham grossed us both out tremendously. I put on a heavily strapped leather shoe which had a lower heel and then limped around with two different shoes trying to see if it would hurt my feet. I picked up one bootie type shoe and the leather flapped around, broken in places. I looked less closely and realized it was a skinned pig head and revoltedly put it back.

(I have explained before that I have a wickedly perverse subconscious, and now you belive me).

At this point the dream ended. We never got food, and we never went anywhere in particular. And I thought about this dream the whole next day, trying to eke some sense out of it. And for a while I thought that it meant something about my friendship with CLP, and how absolutely everything we do is the most fun I've had, even when we do nothing. Even when we sat in her apartment in Cincinnati and played gin rummy and smoked, and used her cool ashtray that had a button that dropped all the ashes into the bottom of the container. Even when we drove around Toledo as teenagers, listening to A Daisy Chain 4 Satan and Skinny Puppy. Even when we ordered delivery food from the one place that delivered in Toledo after 3:00am. Even when we watched the Oscars from a pubic haired bed in an unclean hostel in Amsterdam. Even all those times, I've always had the best time of my life with this girl.

I know what the dream meant.

It means I miss you, Potterchick.
It means I miss you really a lot.

Team Day

Tomorrow is my Team Day.
I'm going Salmon FISHING on a boat.
I have to be at the pier (40 min away) at 5:30am.

Nothing could make me a team player more than getting up at 4:15am.
Let's hope it rocks a bit, I hear we have some squeamish people.

Salmon Fishing.
FISHING!

On a boat - roughly handled and probably minimally cleaned.
On an EARLY BIRD BOAT.

Early + Salome = NOT A TEAM-SPIRIT.
Early + Salome = usually a pretty raging, angry, chainsmoking and fire-eyelid Salome.

Especially because Salome likes to drink margaritas and smoke cigarettes until the wee hours, then top that off with sparkling water and an hour of book.

Salome is in trouble, ladies and gentlemen.

In Other, Non Crushed News

A retrospective of our Holiday Weekend:

1. Watched three movies: The Cave, Fracture and The Lookout

The Cave was actually pretty awesome.

Fracture SUUUUUUUUUCKED. Sucked! Ryan Gosling went to the same teacher that taught Brad Pitt all the tics and twists he uses instead of acting his way through the "Oceans" series. Unwatchable. Bad plot, unbelieveably unbelievable subplots. Yawn.

The Lookout was FAAAAAAAANTASTIC. Run out to your video store this weekend and get it. Stars that kid from 30 Rock and he is a marvel.

2. We went to an awesome party with our awesome friends. Friends, be ye ever so awesome.

3. The Pope hosed down the entire house because the spiders had decided it was theirs. They were wrong. But one thing that always happens when you hose the spiders down? THE BIGGER SPIDERS come out. Thank you, Mr. Horrifying, for the case of heebies I went to bed with. I almost had to call my husband to let me back into the house after my nightly (300th) smoke, because you were too close to the door for my comfort.

4. Both the Pope and I read a book: Maximum Ride by James Patterson. He liked it for its cheap and easy thrills, and how it kept his interest the entire time. I read it (great premise - flying bird people! Sweet!) but I was annoyed by the familiarity of the tone and the childish asides. The damn thing ended abruptly plugging its already-out sequel. It is nice when you read a book in a series and the other ones are out by the time you have finished. It is especially easy to do this when you're reading your way through a plastic bag of paperbacks that a friend of yours dropped off for you at work. I looked online for the sequel and discovered......

Dum Dum Da Dum!

IT IS A KIDS SERIES!!!!!!!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

AhA! Ha! HA!

I'm currently contemplating whether or not I care, and whether or not I'm going to bust my ass over to the 1/2 price book shop on Wednesday and buy everything else that's out. Not that it is great writing, or anything, sniff, but the premise (like I said) is pretty cool and it was an enjoyable read. But I'll be even if I went to the bookstore, they probably won't have any of the other books in the series. I'll bet I'd have to buy them off of Amazon.

Those tweens are pretty miserly with their books.

In other news, I'm watching episodes of that show Flipping Out on Bravo. Guy does good work, but what an asshole. I don't know why those people work for him.

Hope Springs Eternally Crushing

A lady posted an ad on Craigslist Lost and Found on Monday stating that she has found a colony of stray cats in South Seattle. Three of the cats look feral, but one cat, a large orange and white tabby, looked like a lost pet. She said this cat would come close to people, but be started away by any loud noise.

I emailed her immediately and sent a picture of Finny. She called while I was out and told JP where to find the cat colony, complete with makeshift shelter and food area.

The area is about 4 miles N of where we leave. Stretching the bounds of possibility, but not impossible.
Nothing is impossible.

We went there last night and only saw two of the four cats she's seen there, and neither was the orange and white cat.
Tonight we went back, a little later, a little more towards dusk. As we approached, the Pope said, look there...

I looked, and behind a fenced area sat a cat that was almost identical to Finny. ALMOST. And no matter how long I stared, or hoped, or wished, it wasn't Finny. There was an orange spot on this cat's nose.

"Orange Spot?" I asked the Pope, "Or an injury?? Maybe it is blood, and it will wipe right off and underneath that cat will be Finny."

Because it is possible that Finny shrank a couple of inches, and grew fatter, and that his face shape changed, or that the white markings on his face have retreated below his eye level.

How can it be that there are two cats that look so much alike and yet THIS one, THIS FOUND ONE, is NOT my little man?
BECAUSE WHY IS IT MY WORLD THAT HAS TO BE BROKEN, THAT CANNOT BE FIXED?

It wasn't Finny. And my heart, which had swelled up so large it almost broke open my ribs, deflated again.
He is still out there. And he is either lost, dead, taken or (and maybe in all cases) never coming home.

And the world just wants me crushed.

We left a bunch of food for the cats, because even in my broken and banged up world, all cats have someone who loves them.

Carl Jung, I Need Your Help

I've been dreaming of Finny for the last few weeks.
For the last two or three weeks, every other day I would dream that Finny came home. I would dream him in vivid orange, and he would walk through the cat door and say Hi, like he used to.

Or I would dream that he would be in our house when we got home from Cancun (at least three times while on vacation).

Last night (I've just woken up) I dreamed that he came home while I was in the house, getting ready for bed.
He was filthy, thin and skittish. It didn't matter, I curled up next to him on the bed and kissed and hugged him until he fell asleep, exhausted.

And then things got weird. When I woke up (in the dream) I had to go to a hotel for meetings about Scotland. I went to the meetings, which were all about getting people together in a room and then the meeting would abruptly end. I was ALWAYS smoking a cigarette in the dream, and always put it out under the table as soon as my boss appeared, because he HATES smokers.

Somewhere in the middle of this I went to the vet, to make sure Finny was okay, he'd had some stomach seizures in the night, and I wanted to help him be well.

I had Finny in a carrier and we were in line. I explained to the vet that this was urgent, that he'd been missing for three months, and needed to be seen NOW, because anything he had he'd had for months, and we needed to help him. HELP HIM, RIGHT NOW, I shouted, and I was crying in the dream.

They couldn't see him at that moment, but they let me put him into a waiting room. But the waiting room had an opening in the bottom of the door, and Finny kept running out. I didn't want to traumatize him (because maybe he'd decided to leave me for good this time) and so I took him back home in the cat carrier. I did notice that sometime during the night he'd cleaned himself and was no longer filthy with mud.

Then I went back to the vets later that night, but forgot to bring Finny in his carrier.

BY THE WAY - the entire time in real life, my husband is snoring. I kept waking up to yell at him to turn over, and then quickly went back to sleep so I wouldn't miss anything. Finally, at 8:00am this morning, I got up and stomped over to the guest bed so I could dream in peace. As I type this, he is still snoring, he has no shame.

So I'm back at the vets and I forgot to bring Finny! I'm devastated, and all the vets are sitting around a board room table, waiting to examine Finny. It is like a convention of Vets, all the best ones in one place, and I've forgotten Finny!

I make an appointment for the next morning and go back to my ridiculous series of meetings in the hotels.
The next day I get Finny from home and he is now pure white. Instead of bright orange with a white face, chest and paws, he is solid white.

As I'm taking him to the vet, and as I'm at the vets, his orange begins to appear on his shoulders, back and head.
I wake up before the vets tell me what is going on, but the whole time, I'm looking at this white cat, and thinking, this isn't Finny, but then I look in his eyes, and he nuzzles up to me, and I know it really is.

I wish that these dreams meant my little guy was coming home soon. I still really miss him and think about him probably too much. I wish that you could just wish for things and they would happen.

Not for the first time in my life, I wish I could go back to a specific place in time, and do something differently, like shut the cat door on that Monday, May 14th and not let them out that day.

Hello There!

It's been WORLDS since I last sat down and updated this. I've got letters upon letters (and some of them are sorely needed).

I did some traveling. It is clear that my people need letters from me.
It is also clear that the world is full of people that are not my people. My people would never behave in such ways.

Let's begin....

Dear Ladies from England Wearing Size 34 Bikinis,

There is absolutely no call for this type of horror. On behalf of me, and the tender stomachs of those I traveled with, please put yourself away. The glare alone off the pool from your thighs is giving me sunstroke. I have the sense to at least cover up in a one piece, you should be so sensible. I appreciate and am somewhat jealous of your general joi de vivre, however, I appreciate and intend to keep using my retinas.

Get Thee a Coverup,

Salome

We went to a resort in Cancun, Mexico. YES! Cancun! Did you watch the news about Hurricane Dean? WE DID. We were barricaded in our room for 12 hours in anticipation of Dean, which turned out to be nothing, and the hotel stopped serving alcohol for approximately 31 hours. Yes, I was counting. Yes, Salome fans, I was totally pissed.

OUTRAGED, in fact.

Dear Mexican Government:

Kind Senors and Senoras. Por Favor. I am but a tourist in your majestic land. I am here for the beaches, the sun and the blue skies. I have paid my American dollars towards your tourist industry, and let's all agree, shall we? That is all you have going for you at the moment. You need me, and I need you, a place to spend my hard-earned American dollars and drink myself silly. Right? We're all friends, my friend. Mis Amigos. I understand that for a large majority of any country's population, the thought of unrestricted alcohol in the face of a natural disaster would make a government uncomfortable. But my American ancestors were Irish, sirs, and I think we both know what that means. If you want me to be of any assistance in the face of a natural disaster, you'd better have a drink waiting. Prior to asking me to do anything, and immediately upon my doing said requested thing. For you to take alcohol away from me for over 24 hours (31! Treinta y uno! Dios Mio!) was cruel and unusual punishment in the extreme.

I will Not Hurricane in your Province Again,

Salome

The Resort was gorgeous, the company was superb, and relaxation was had by all. When I say that the company was superb, I mean that the company was SUPERB. I've talked about Lakshmi and DB, and we had their awesome daughter with us, too. Lakshmi and I are old soul friends. There is nothing we can't encounter together and not have fun. She was even cool when I was sneaking tequila shots when the bar was closed (Because please, everyone, I'm Irish! Did you not think I would find alcohol when none was offered? Pshaw!)

I'll tell you what: If you ever find yourself at a resort with a Category 5 Hurricane bearing down on you? You'd better hope that you are with DB and Laskshmi. They are quite simply two of the most fun people I've ever encountered, and I consider myself insanely lucky to have made their acquaintance. I'll write more about them later, but have I told you about the flight home yet?

Dear Woman with the Screaming Child for the 5 hour flight from Charlotte, NC to Seattle, WA:

Oh my fucking god. Oh my fucking GOD! Your child SUCKS! You know it, and you can be damn sure that the 100+ people on this godforsaken flight know it, too. But I have a few tips for you, should you be interested, and if you don't want to get the snot beat out of you in the airport parking lot (am I right 23A? 21C? You're with me, right? Damn Straight!) you will sit BETWEEN your two children on the flight. In fact, here's a short list of things to remember next time you fly with that unbelievable fucking hellion:
1. If she wants something, goddamn GIVE IT TO HER.
2. If she doesn't want something, GODDAMNIT TAKE IT AWAY!
3. TYLENOL
4. VALIUM
5. LOLLIPOPS
6. Anyfuckingthing to get her to stop screaming for the 5 hours would have been appreciated while you sat on your ass and read your US Magazine. In fact, I would have reenacted the entire magazine for you with SOUND EFFECTS had you just had the sense to set it down and FIND OUT WHAT THE FUCKING PROBLEM WAS!

Glaring at You from 23B,

Salome

So I don't know.....I really needed this vacation. I had gotten to the point at work where any request for me to do my job, the thing that they pay me to come in and do every day was just such a CHORE, you know? When everything that you need to do in your life to have a house, and a marriage, and two cats, and everything had just gotten to the point where I was so tired, and so fed up. And so done. I was just done with everybody asking so many things from me.

What I needed was to lie in the sun with cool chlorinated water very close by, for the dunking and dipping as necessary. I needed really strong frozen margaritas and people that make me laugh heartily. And I had that, for 6 out of the 7 days that we were in Cancun. And for that one day, the only component I didn't have was the frozen margaritas.

And on the first day I was back, it was my 33rd birthday, and the Pope's 36th birthday, the same day, as most of you know.....I had a great, relaxed, glad to be back kind of day. But I missed Lakshmi. I missed that morning greeting with her. I missed the glances, the inside jokes, the things that made us laugh on the trip, known to just the two of us. I missed DB's endless good nature. He never got annoyed or irritated. I missed the heat. (Yes, traveling buddies, I was freezing when we got back to Seattle) Who would have thought I would have missed the endless rivers of sweat that fled down my temples and settled in the crook of my bra. My shirts smelled like pee when I got back. Was that just me?

I stood in the clearing of a major Mayan historical site. One of the new Seven Wonders Of the World. It was so fucking hot, and I was such a landwhale, I couldn't get into the mystique and the history.

It is late, and that is enough for know.

Stay tuned for more updates - I might go crazy and do dailies! Woo! There is no baby to see pictures of, but if you go to www.clanbuchanan.co.uk you will see the most beautiful little girl that has ever been born, I mean, honestly, isn't she just striking and gorgeous? And you can get her mom's updates on being a first time mom, which I find charming, hilarious and very enjoyable. It is a site I now check daily.

Enjoy, everyone, I'll be back with a force in the coming days, and you tell me whether that is such a good thing. Could I swear any more?

Yes, yes I can and I enjoy it, so get ready and stay tuned. I've got BUCKETS of letters to share with you.

Salome

I Can Kill Time and Opportunity Like No One Else

The Pope has been on a business trip since late Sunday night. I had such plans for these four days alone, you have no idea.
This is what my plans were:

Goal Monday: Write Paper - Work Out - Clean House
Actual Monday: Stressed and Non-Productive all day, came home, read book on couch until waay too late.

Goal Tuesday: Write Paper - Work Out - Clean House - Return Sonicare heads (HATE THAT THING) - buy clothes for trip
Actual Tuesday: Was up late reading, stressed at work - came home and finished book on couch - started another.

Goal Wednesday: Write Paper (Goddammit!!!) - Work Out - Clean House - Return Items - buy clothes for trip - Go to Costco to get book Lakshmi recommended.
Actual Wednesday: Wrote first draft of paper (thankgod) - watched Top Chef - vacuumed at midnight - sat on couch reading new book until very late.

Goal Thursday: Finish Paper and send to peers for review - Work Out - Clean House (because if you break it into four days, you're not a maniac scrambling around and sweating profusely, you know??)
Actual Thursday: Finished paper and sent to peers for review - CLEANED MY MANIAC SWEATY ASS OFF

I'm actually a little distressed. It seems I am entirely incapable of being productive. I actually killed some time on Amazon last night, searching for books to help me be more productive, instead of actually being productive. Fascinating, isn't it?

I have not lost the weight I wanted to by August. This is only the goal I made last September. So I'm about on target to be thin by my death. I lose about 12 ounces every 2 years. I might actually be ahead of the game. Of course, for every 12 ounces I lose every two years, I gain about 37 pounds a minute, just by breathing the air that food was once fragrant in. Do the math. Have you ever seen that movie Gilbert Grape? Yeah, that's probably going to be me.

But you know what? I give up. It isn't happening with all this not-trying I've been doing, and clearly freaking out about it and stress-eating isn't going to work, so I'm just going to be happy being soft. My face will look younger as I age that way.

So, come next Wednesday morning, I'm going to whale myself out onto that beach and burn myself to a crisp. Hopefully there will be people from Iowa at the resort, because you just KNOW they're going to be fat.

I remain,
Corpulently yours,
Salome

Husband on Business Trip: Day One

The Pope is on a business trip.
So far I have overslept by 2 hours (the volume was turned all the way down! Dammit!)
Used 37 dishes - I can't believe it, I don't know how I've done it, especially since all I've eaten is a bottle of wine!

I have also taken out the trash and cleaned the cat litter.
I have kissed Leo 43 times, and told him that Daddy will be home soon.
Leo has decided to hibernate for the week, leaving the bed only to eat and then go back.

There are two big trips coming up, and I'm not going on them.
Which partially makes me nervous, and partially relieves me, because I'm tired of the work traveling at the moment.

People I Love

Loved Ones Clockwise L to R:

Grandma
Mom
Salome
Godmother

Written the Day After I Met Him

I am poised on the rocks
a forbidding muted coast
visceral
and shivering.

I am not scared.
It is not cold.

And somewhere a tiny girl runs through a meadow filled with flowers
promise all around her
and laughter
everywhere.

I think of you as if made of art
and I would defile you
smudge you
with my inelegance.

You are very beautiful.
intricate
fractured
passionate
strong

Even my words are daunted
adjectives rendering themselves inadequate
flying from my mind, gathering behind my head
peeking out to discover if you are real.

Because I’ve been at this beach,
stripped raw
before
and STILL.

And I am sure that no one like you has ever come by….
So you must be lost, friend.

To find me here,
shivering
now stunned.

But I am not scared.
It is not cold.

And somewhere I’m a tiny girl, flying through the fields of

THIS.

-1/22/04

Funkytown

Can't write anything now. I'm in a funk.
Not a depressed funk, an irritable one. Everything sets me off, I'm too busy to do anything well, and I find that at the end of the day I've accomplished nothing, so what am I busy doing?

My mind and emotions are whirling.

Can't get anything out in a coherent manner. Everything I try to communicate on has terrible mechanical/electronic issues, I feel like the entire world is telling me to shut up.

Vacation coming up, really looking forward to it, hopefully I'll write more soon, but right now I don't want to talk.

I just don't want to talk to anyone right now.

Capsized, Erring on the Edge of Safe

FINALLY! ONLY THREE HOURS LATER!


Click on The Con

I may have figured out a way to blog songs.

The Pope is sorry for you all.

But I don't know what he means!

Drowning

To say that the last few days have been a rollercoaster would be to grievously underestimate how frightening, how pit-falling, rollercoasters can be.

Especially to the human heart.

I stood there on a balcony of the most expensive hotel in Edinburgh, illegally smoking a cigarete, in my pajamas, the events of the day reverberating raucously in my head, my inadequacies flying in my face and battering me like bats.

Encircle me, I need to be taken down. (new Tegan and Sara song lyric that is resonating in perhaps every single wrong way)

I stood there and looked out over the beautiful city that I have a hand engraved invitation to, and the only thing I can think is, I'm so completely unworthy and unprepared for this.

Please don't misunderstand me. I know what I do well. I do it well, everyone says so. But what this is is completely untread territory. I don't know what to do, and every step I take appears to be wrong, every impression is suspect, every instinct is rebuked and I am lost and falling and drowning all at the same time.

Here's where I take out my glass heart and beat it against the first stone thing I come to.

There are such highs and they are tinged with wonder, and then there are lows, that are probably not lows, but everything is so important, and there is no room for mistakes, and that is all I seem to be doing.

I'm trying, oh my god I'm trying so hard, but there are no breaks, and even where there is good news there are hard times, and why doesn't it ever get any easier.

And he's right here. He's here when I need him and he's here when I don't, and sometimes I wonder why he stays. Because even when I need him I turn away because I hate the fact that I need anyone or anything. Except Lucy because she knows I need her and I know she needs me and in our intensely private and exclusive little sphere of vulnerability there is nothing that is misunderstood.

And then there are mechanics, computers, phones that don't work easily - time differences, returns to offices that were trashed in your absence, trashed with the expectation that Salome would just fix everything when she returned, because that is what she does, isn't it? She fixes things. She can't build them, because she doesn't know how, or doesn't do it right, or her observations and instincts are wildly incorrect, but you know what?

If you break something, I will know how to fix it for you. Even if I can't fix what I break. Even then.

Wow

There is so much going on right now, there is so much that has been going on.

I'm reeling from the activity, the cities and the work. I'm tired. I go to bed tired, I wake up tired, and I drink massive amounts of caffeine to try and fend off the loopy "not quite there" feeling in my head.

That being said, I would not trade this for anything. In the last three days I've had more great things happen to me than I have had in years. (except 8/26/06), or (1/21/04) perhaps, or especially, especially (5/12/07).

On Sunday night I caught a flight to NYC.
I arrived very early Monday morning and took a cab from JFK Airport to the Ritz Carlton Battery Park. I checked in and went up to my room and I wheeled in my luggage and stopped dead, my mouth hanging open. Because the huge picture window in my room looked out at an unobstructed view of the statue of Liberty. Unobstructed view of Ellis Island and the Harbor. It was incredible.

It was so incredible that for the two days I stayed there, everytime I was in my room, I stood at the window and looked at the statue. It was breathtaking.

So here is a brief summary of what's been going on.

Monday:

10:00am - arrive at hotel. Shower, change and walk to a local bakery for coffee, bagel.
11:30am - Meet up with SK (SK WAS THERE!!!) We have another coffee and sit in the bakery's outside area and talk.
1:00pm - go back to room and read docs for my 2:00pm meeting.
2:00pm - meet with one group - meeting goes until
3:00pm - meet with another group - meeting goes until
4:00pm - Meet with major new job group forum - meeting lasts until
6:45pm - run upstairs to room and change clothes
7:15pm - Meet with new partners (Aye - the Scots) and catch cabs to
7:30pm - Il Buco Wine Cellar - private dining event in wine storage basement of great Tuscan restaurant
We drink copious amounts of wine and have discussions and a five course meal until
11:30 - return to the hotel. SK calls me - they're at the bar.
11:35pm - bar with great people from my company until
1:15 am - back to the room and I lay down, but too wired to sleep - because tomorrow is exciting.

Tuesday:

6:15am - wake up call
6:20am - coffee is delivered. I am shaky and strung out from lack of sleep. Shower and put on my new, gorgeous suit and awesome black pointy toed slingbacks. Look like a million bucks. Feel like a billion.
7:30am - meet up with members of my company and walk to the NYSE.
7:50am - uh oh, these shoes pinch my toes. This might be a problem. Five blocks is 10 miles in pinchy shoes.
8:30am - We're through Security and into the Board Room of the NYSE, for a plated dinner before we ring the opening bell.
9:20am - We're advised to eat eat eat, finish quickly because we're leaving in minutes. The senior management goes to the podium, the rest of us are escorted to the trading floor.
THE TRADING FLOOR is unbelievable. Scary, so much chaos, so much activity. People running (RUNNING, full out speed) from station to station, phones ringing, people shouting and traders making trades by tapping the screens of computers that are mounted high on the booth walls.
9:30am - My company rings the opening bell at the NYSE. On the floor, we tear up, smile like lunatics and clap until our hands hurt. We are all of us, as one, proud and elated for this moment. It is our 10 year anniversary as a publicly traded company on the NYSE. We are toured around the floor and a kind trader explains what he is doing to us. It makes absolutely no sense. I look around to all the really smart people I work with, and they have no idea, either. I feel better.
11:00am - Company Board Meeting in the Board Room of the NYSE. I'm invited to sit in on the Scottish presentation. I'm asked to tell the Board about myself. They ask me a question, I answer it. A board member I've worked with speaks up after I'm done and gives me his highest support. The Scots pass out high quality scotch to the directors. We leave.
Walking back to the hotel I am sure - THESE SHOES HURT. 5 blocks is now 16 miles, and I imagine there will be blood on my feet when I take them off.
12:00pm - back at the hotel - I run upstairs, blow kisses to the statue and take the wretched shoes off. I put on comfy black sandals, take off my suit jacket and run back downstairs.
12:15pm - The van I've arranged arrives and we pile in, taking the Scots on a tour of one of our current construction projects, adjacent to the East River. The scope of the project is breathtaking. They are pounding over 1,000 pilons into the ground because it is fill. There is a Thunk Thunk Thunk of the piling machine ringing in the background. We are all awed by the scope of this project.
3:30pm - the Van drops us back at the hotel. I rush upstairs and grab my binder because
4:00pm - meeting with another group that lasts until
6:00pm - run upstairs to the room - change into dinner clothes. SK comes over and we toast to our fortunate lives with a little champagne (gift from the scots to me).
7:00pm - dinner with the folks from my company. It is nice and lasts until
10:00pm - a huge group of us go out to Tribeca, we are at the bar until someone needs nachos and we leave in search of nachos.
12:15am - we are back at the hotel and the bar is closed, so we do a slumber party (with five of us girls) in the room of one of the coolest ladies at my company.
3:00am - we all leave the room and go back to our rooms to go to bed.
4:15am - I am finally falling asleep.

Wednesday:

8:15am - my wake up call. I get up, there's coffee. I'm in bad shape.
9:00am - I'm in my colleague's room for a call. The person we're calling has forgotten, so we drink coffee and chat and look out at the incredibly stormy weather that is raging outside. Thunder, lightning. We turn on the tv and learn that all flights out of NY airports are delayed. We buy tickets for the train from NY to Boston to be safe (we have a 2pm flight scheduled.)
10:00am - I'm back in my room, and I go back to bed for two hours.
12:15pm - I get up - shower, dress and pack up.
1:00pm - check-out, store my bags and stroll around Battery Park until
2:05pm - my colleague is off her call and we take a cab to Penn Station
3:00pm - our express train from NYC is completely sold out, everyone has departed the airports to try and get to Boston and other places.
6:30pm - we arrive in Boston - go to our hotel and check-in. It is a dump.
7:30pm - we stroll around Boston Common, my colleague went to school here and she tells me about the things we pass.
10:00pm - I'm home and call the Pope, because I miss him and love him.

Midnight - I'm going to bed.

Salome