the cloud.

i've done a lot of traveling this summer.

bali and los angeles and now i'm in new york. (i know. it's not technically summer anymore.)

on all of the trips, away from home, i hoped for something. i'm not sure what i specifically was hoping for. maybe just a lot of fun. LOTS of fun. like, amazing, face hurting, the best time ever fun. and all the trips have been/were/are wonderful. but i've brought this cloud of sadness with me everywhere i went. i think i must have been expecting to shake it at some point, like taking a vacation from my problems (a la 'what about bob'.) and that didn't end up happening. i stayed sad, and most of all, lonely.

i've never really been a melancholy person, nor would i have described myself as chronically lonely. i have a lot of really good friends, all of whom i feel totally comfortable being myself with. i don't keep a lot of me in reserve for special times or something. i feel pretty darn comfortable exposing all of my deepest, darkest secrets to nearly anyone. so this constant feeling of isolation is pretty new for me. not totally unprecedented (see los angeles years) but not my usual way of being.

but everything since my mom died is so weird and not normal to me. i look at my life now and i realize i have basically no idea who i am, what i'm doing, where i'm going, what i want - anything. i'm a total mystery to myself. if i run down the basic details of my life: marriage, living in petaluma, no job, pilates, mom dead, puppy, cat - they all add up to a life i totally don't recognize as mine. i think a huge portion of my cloud can be chalked up to Life Post-Mom.

i'm so much sadder, as a person, than i ever was before. my basic faith in the rightness of the universe, that things happen for a reason and i can trust that everything will work out for the best, is fucking shot to shit. that rationale - the idea that things happen for a reason - can go fuck itself. no, sorry. i don't accept happiness now as necessarily predicated upon my mom's heartbreaking, untimely death from a fucking brain tumor. so, i also have to give up the idea that "god" has a plan for me, and that everything is happening according to that plan, because any plan that requires the death of my mom can go fuck itself, too. so, rather than accepting there's a god that makes things happen and made my mom die in order for something good to happen for me is not welcome in my heart. i feel much more peaceful with a worldview where bad and good things just happen and we attempt to cope with everything gracefully. no smugness at the good, no bitterness at the bad.

anyway, i digressed onto a well-worn track. god: yes or no? not what i meant to talk about.

i am sad. i continue to be sad. i continue to be stymied about who i want to be, and what i want my life to look like. i am not sure who i am if i'm married and can't rely on my looks for attention. seriously, this is a question i am wrestling with. also, i'm not sure how to experience joy anymore. the happiest i've been in a long time was when i was meditating, so maybe i'll start that again, in hopes of recapturing that.

in the meantime, i'm just kinda schlepping along my cloud. lonelies, sads, uncomfies. not my favorite chapter of my life.

1:00am and all's well.

hey, blog.

missing you.

thinking about you.

your time is coming.

how am i doing?

i'm okay.
thanks for asking.
lacking a bit in the joie-de-vivre, but i think it's unrealistic to expect myself to greet every day with a twinkle in my eye and a song in my heart. sometimes you're just plodding along, the best you can, keeping on keeping on.
i've been thinking a lot about time and mortality.
i feel a little silly getting morbid at 30, since my grandmother still referred to women in the 40s as 'young ladies,' but i have actually been having 'i wish i could go back in time and re-do things' thoughts.
i'm only getting older, guys.
i know we all are, and that's not a revelation, but it's sobering to be faced by mortality, even for a moment. given how much of our time is spent pretending we'll never die, it's a shock to get it.
TIME MARCHES INEXORABLY ON.

this is my only chance to be me.
i don't exactly feel like i've wasted my life up until this point. i certainly haven't been living large, or doing extraordinary things, but i also haven't been hurting people on purpose or causing harm or anything. my life so far hasn't been a failure, but it hasn't been what i thought it would be. i think teenage kira would be a little disappointed. of course, teenage kira was a bit of an asshole, so her opinions aren't the most reliable.
i just am feeling time passing, and myself getting older.
i have this weird thing under my chin, like i'm developing an wattle. that's time, right there. gross.
i'm meditating again, and reading my buddhism books.
whenever i remember that there is no 'good' or 'bad,' just things that happen and my evaluations about them, it's a relief.
working on mindfulness. working on stillness. working on doing no harm, which isn't hard in some ways (like not hitting people) but is hard in other ways (not thinking negative things about other drivers.) it all counts though.
also, letting go of the idea that i am going to change, going to get better, that my life should be different than it is...such a shock.
i am who i am.
not that i have no interest in consciously avoiding behavior that causes harm, because i do.
but letting go of the illusion that i am ever not going to be filled with concerns and insecurities and regrets and unfriendly thoughts. it'll always be there. and there's nothing wrong with it. it just is the way that it is.
what would life be like if we remembered all the time that we are fine already?
i honestly can't imagine.
and again, the goal isn't to never suffer again, because it'll happen.
i'll disappoint myself. i'll disappoint others. i'll make huge mistakes that i can barely face.
it'll just happen, so i can let go of being worried about it.
the goal is to be gentle about it.
to treat myself and others like my favorite person, for whom i have infinite forgiveness.
obvs not the point of letting myself be an asshole or letting other people treat me like crap.
i know that this isn't a life's plan, but while i am chewing over the idea of a life plan, this is a very nice way to spend my time.
not writing in my novel at all, but writing in my blogs a lot more.
that's something, i think.

new year.

so, 2009, huh?

2008, not my favorite year.

i know i said the same thing about 2007, too, but the statement is no less true for being repeated. basically, the late Aughts have been tough for me and mine. it pains me to become all eeyore about stuff, but i think i'm over hoping that next year will be better. pema chodron is anti-hope anyway, so i don't feel like it's the worst thing ever to let go of hoping things will be different than they are. thing will be however they will be (isn't there a song about that?) and i'll just keep moving forward. like a glacier. except they're receding with global warming, i think. still. i'll move forward like a thing that moves inexorably forward. (pulitzer price committee, there's no 'c' in fisher.)

i had a talk with lu and tab about my state of mind/heart a couple of days after christmas. certainly it fluctuates a bit on a day-to-day basis, and it might even change a bit within one day, but if we were to smooth the little ups and downs into a general curve, in order to make a blanket statement, i'd describe my general state of mind as 'poor.' i'm still In It, as they say. i'm trying to be done. i am trying to move on to the next phase, where things feel more manageable, and i even got there for a while, i think. but i'm not there anymore. i'm back in the wanting to wear pajamas all day phase. i'm finding it hard to get even the most basic things done. i have no energy for any of the things that made me feel happier before - writing, cooking, the gym. it's not happening for me.

i'm having a REALLY hard time taking care of The Kid. whatever stores of nurturing energy i had in reserve is completely tapped out right now. even the idea of having a baby is exhausting and deeply unpleasant right now, whereas a couple of months ago, i was pretty much set on it. i've been daydreaming about never having a kid lately, just having myself to take care of.

looking back over the last few years, i've spent a lot of time taking care of other people and creatures. no need to list them all here, though if you'd like one, i'm happy to supply it. i don't regret learning how to care for others. i think that was a muscle that was weak to the point of being non-existent prior to mom's cancer, so it was good for me to learn it, though it would've been nice to have a gentler learning curve. i am a softer, better person for it, absolutely. but i could really use some more time to take care of myself. i actually feel like my need to take care of myself is nearly impossible to satisfy. like, no matter how much time i have to focus on myself, i feel like i'll never be done with needing more. and i'm feeling an insatiable need for others to take care of me, too.

in my buddhist practice, i am working on compassion for myself and others. in fact, i have never been one for new year's resolutions, but i made an informal one this year, which is just that: to practice compassion for myself at all times, even when i feel like i don't deserve it. even when i am really sure that i am The Worst and totally shouldn't be treated with love and respect, i am going to endeavor to STILL greet myself with as much forgiveness and love as i can muster. the voice of compassion to me is my mom's voice, which makes the practice painful. when i'm really filled with self-loathing and shame, the way i often bring myself back is my imagining what my mom would say if i were discussing it with her. she had a low tolerance for other people beating themselves up, and an infinite capacity to forgive. there is something so comforting about the idea of her reminding me that i am doing the best i can do, and that that's enough. for some reason telling myself that doesn't mean anything at all. it has to be in my mom's voice.

i worry a bit that i have lost the capacity for self-forgiveness and receiving comfort from others because no one does it the way i want it done, because my mom is the person who i want to be comforted by. it's like every shoulder i cry on is just not quite right. no one pets my head the right way. but what do i do now, since that perfect shoulder is gone? i can't just spend the rest of my life unsatisfied with the comfort i am offered, by myself or others. that sounds shitty.

i feel like people are sick of me being so sad. i feel like everyone thinks i am faking. i think on some level i actually believe i am faking - that i could be trying harder, doing better, and i'm choosing not to, because i'm lazy or something. i feel like people are sick of me being so needy for reassurance. i feel like people hate the new sad kira and miss the old fun selfish kira. (i know i certainly miss her sometimes.) i guess all these things i am imagining other people thinking are just the things i'm thinking. "why aren't you better yet? it's been more than a year. you're not that sad. you just spent hours laughing with friends, so you can't be that sad. get over it. you're just pretending you're sad because you're lazy and you don't want to get anything done and this is a good excuse that no one will be allowed to call you on. look at other people - they're going through worse things than you and they're working, spending time with friends, calling people, grocery shopping, vaccuming. what's your fucking problem, aside from being a lazy piece of crap?"

that monologue feels way more real and truthful to me than the good stuff. the 'i'm doing the best i can. if i could be doing better, i would be. even when i fail, that was the best i could do that day.' that seems pretty flimsy to me. 'i really miss my mom' seems like the lamest excuse in the world.

but you guys, i really miss her.

today, right now, i'm not doing well.

maybe tomorrow it'll feel more manageable, but right now, i feel like i'm smothering under this and like it's never, ever going to get better.

i've been thinking a lot about john travolta and kelly preston. i finally understand why people write letters to celebrities, especially after tragedies like this. i thought a lot about jennifer hudson, too, after her family got killed. i just keep thinking about the sadness i struggle with, the loss, the hopelessness, and i think about how fresh it all is for them, and how terrible every morning must feel right now. before mom got sick, i think i consciously muted my ability to take in sadnesses around me. i don't think having a filter is wrong. without a damper, how would anyone get out of bed in the morning in a world with darfurs and gazas and the drug epidemic and the situation in the inner cities. so much misery. but being in the midst of it myself RIGHT NOW, i find my ability to mute it mostly gone. i don't know john travolta at all, obviously, but i find myself crying for him, and how sad him and his wife must be. it's sort of embarrassing to me, actually. mostly because it's involuntary, like hiccuping or something. i can't help thinking about them all the time, and since i'm always a bit on the verge of tears, there they are again. (the fact that they're scientologists and didn't get their probably autistic son any kind of treatment is beside the point. they loved him and showed it in a way that was meaningful for them, and their loss is no less profound for them being scientologists and wingnuts.)

i'm just really tired.

i wish everything and everyone would take a break from needing me to manage them, even a little, and i could have some time to do whatever i want or need to without any scrutiny. i mean EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. houseplants, cats, puppy, husband, friends, bills, dust, self-esteem...i want everything to stop asking me for something for some length of time - just take care of yourself or accept that i have nothing to offer right now, but still need a lot of giving from you - and i'll see if i can fill this bottomless pit.

(obviously i know everyone and everything have already kind of been needing to do this, since my capacity to fully participate in anything is entirely intermittent and has been for a couple of years now, and i totally appreciate everything that everyone has done for me. this isn't to suggest that i am not being given enough, or that i am being asked for more than is fair. quite the contrary. i am just still not done needing really intensive nurturing, i feel like, but i also feel like i have moved past the point where anyone finds that acceptable or an idea worth entertaining.)

i've had a few ideas about writing. i think i might have a kid's book floating around in my head. i'm wanting to write, but haven't gotten there in a couple of weeks.

the pup continues to be so cute it's a little annoying. he's just relentless. i want to talk all about him, but i think that might be boring for everyone, though why i should feel like the minutiae of my puppy's life would be less interesting that the minutiae of my emotional life is a mystery.

been doing some clothes shopping with my christmas money. lotsa good sales right now.

the puppy has mastered the doggie door, but i can't for the life of me master the art of walking my dog, the way cesar millan wants us to.

i need a hair cut and i haven't gotten waxed in months.

my house constantly looks like crap with the dog added into the equation. i was barely holding steady with the cats, but with the dog added in, i'm getting trounced.

i'm worried i've lost the ability to be cheerful, in general, and that i'm just going to be a sad person forever.

oh well.

a new year, another chance to do my best and see what happens, i guess.

the second year of my life that mom wasn't alive for.

writing.

my friend, cynthia, from my writing class, organized a writers' group tonight.

turn out wasn't fantastic, but i was totally satisfied with it, personally.

i'm already in a writers' group with her and another woman from our class, so this wasn't really about writing stuff together, or getting feedback on my writing, so much as creating a community of writers around me. we talked a bunch about how we wanted the group to function, and one lady wanted us to do writing exercises, like free writes, which sounded pretty unappealing to me, but i am open to whatever. free writes aren't my favorite and haven't ever been especially helpful for me, but that doesn't mean they're not useful to other people, so i'm certainly not aiming to be a kibosher or anything, and it's totally not MY group, so whatevs.

anyway, we mostly sat around and talked about writing and stuff related to writing, which is more fun than it sounds. (i'm sure everyone can relate. actors, midwives, burning man people, online gamers - everyone loves to chat with other people about shared interests and experiences.) pretty much everyone who came was a bit more established than me, which isn't hard to be. one lady has already written and published two nonfiction, self-help books. she's a pro. the guy who came was young - younger than me, probably - and he just got accepted to columbia's writing program. i was jealoushapppy for him. (side note: he started tutoring at 826 valencia, through which he got an internship for the summer. after the internship, he got a job. through his job, he met MICHAEL CHABON, who wrote his recommendation letter for columbia. dude. michael chabon. fuck. totally jealoushappy for him. luckily he was a likable guy so i didn't have to negatively affect my own karma by actively wishing him ill.) everyone in the group had attended conferences or classes or something. it was daunting and exciting. daunting because i haven't finished writing anything and even when i do getting published is fucking hard and even after you're published it's still hard. exciting because without meeting people who know about this shit, i don't know it, and if i don't know it, i'll never be able to do anything with my novel, if/when i finish it. and regardless of my own ego fluctuations, it was nice to just be in the midst of a group of people who do the same stuff i do, even though i'm not really doing it now.

made a deal with cynthia to start sending each other a set amount of writing everyday. she's already done with her rough draft, so she'll send me some reworked pages, but i'll have to send her 500 words a day. this is good. i haven't shared my book much with anyone, so having to share it will be good for me. also, 500 words is not that many for a wordy lass such as me. i can't sign my name with less than 200 words. i hope this inspires me to get writing.

gyming is still the best. second best thing, or, a supporting factor in making gyming the best, is the child care. i wish it was free, or included in the money i am already shelling out, but whatever. $3/visit is a small price to pay for a break from Li'l Bro, where i don't have to entertain him or feed him or pick up after him. also, working out is fucking tits.

shannon finally put my closet back together! when we boxed stuff up and took the house apart in preparation for the remodel stuff, i expected that everything would be done in about a month, so i pulled out a VERY limited selection of stuff. i've made it through spring and summer and early fall with, like, 5 dresses, 3 blouses, 2 sweatshirts and whatever is in my drawers, but the vast majority of my clothes were boxed up, waiting for my closet to be finished. (we re-drywalled the bedroom and had the doorway to my closet widened. also, s installed a light!) anyway, there have been some lingering things that never got finished because s went back to work and has had no free time to finish the trim and painting the new drywall and reinstalling the bar and stuff. well, this was the week for it!! you guys, i have a closet. and it's AWESOME. it's got a bunch of shelves and 2 (two!!) bars. i have some space to spare! and i have an entirely new-again-to-me wardrobe suddenly. it's just gorgeous.

some things i'm pondering:
-xmas is around the corner. i need to get my mailing list together.
-how am i going to pay off my credit card bill? it's killing me not-at-all softly.
-i'd like to be meditating more, but i have been exercising and i am going to focus on being stoked on that, rather than disappointed at my failures.
-for all my training, and a life of being alert to it, i am still mostly unable to tell my self-hating inner voice from my just-telling-myself-the-truth inner voice. it's always a surprise when i realize i have been falling hook, line and sinker for some self-loathing bullshit, and my detector didn't even go off.
-i repotted my mom's orchids for the first time this week. i've repotted other plants, and it always makes me kinda nervous, and orchids are pretty specific, and i've never repotted them, ever, but i went for it. some of them were looking really bad, and i'd be lying if i said it didn't take some casualties to alert me to the seriousness of the need. (RIP, plant buddies. you're in a better place now.) i've been looking at them, hoping for some immediate signs of their whole-hearted approval of the procedure, but so far, nothing. i don't think orchids work that way, though. patience is a virtue, so they say.
-lauren did my hair the other day and it looks fucking fantasic. seriously, maybe the best ever, i think. ashy, blondey, tousely loveliness.
-s shoveled up all the tanbark that was in the front yard, making it a ginormous cat box for the extraordinarily large local cat population. seriously, there are a fuckload of cats in the nabe, and all of them shit in our front yard. on warm days, it was unpleasant to linger in front of the house because the smell of sun-baked crap and pee was overwhelming. not a welcoming experience. so he removed it all and we scattered the wildflower seeds that brian and libby gave away as wedding favors. eagerly awaiting a wildflower paradise, still gently scented like cat excreta, no doubt.
-li'l bro was a lot easier this time than last time. he was being a butt last week, but he was freaking adorable this weekend. i am so much that annoying person who won't stop talking about their child/grandchild/nephew. want to hear some really cute stories? let me know. i've got some.
-i loaded tons of new apps on my iphone. not saving the world, but making it a little more entertaining. i'll let you know what i think of them iphone users. don't worry.
-second thanksgiving without my mom coming up. i was thinking about how my mom was dead, and not getting any less dead. in fact, because she wasn't alive to generate new memories or experiences, the old ones just ran the risk of becoming threadbare. even writing them down isn't the same. and my mom, who is still so real for me, and still such a palpably present absence (you know what i mean), will be totally unreal for my kids, probably. no matter how much i tell them, and how many pictures they see, she'll be a lady who died before they were born. they'll never know her, or really get how wonderful she was. you guys, she was really wonderful. i wish the whole world knew her, so there could be a global dialogue on the merit she contributed to the world. yet another of life's injustices/mysteries, is how one life can mean so much to some, and absolutely nothing to others. sometimes i still just can't believe she's gone. i'll look at a picture of her, from before the cancer, and she's so familiar, and so... real. not like a person who's dead at all. it's like we're just out of touch, not like she's fucking dead and i watched her die and held her corpse's hand. i paid money to have her body removed and watched them zip her into a body bag. that lady, smiling in the picture next to me. to rely on a terrible cliche, it's really like a bad dream, that seems distant but still has potency, but it's also still happening. the whole last year of her life, and the things that happened to me in my life because of it, really do blur together, and i am constantly surprised all over again that those things were real. it seems so far and so near, together. i wish that everyone could just tell by looking at me how deeply i am still sad. it's easy to gloss is over on a minute to minute basis, or talk about it like it's not that big a deal ('my mom died last year' is the beginning to so many fucking sentences now.) but that doesn't mean that i'm not still sitting here in front of my computer, crying quietly, again, trying not to wake up shannon. i still have trouble getting it together on a day to day basis sometimes. i still feel like i'm learning to live without a hand, or something, like something is still so wrong with my life. i just wish everyone could see it, so i wouldn't have to constantly feel like i needed to explain it. "i know it's been a year, but i'm still pretty fucked up." not like there's a statute of limitations on this stuff, but one year feels like a long time. i can see why people commit suicide while dealing with grief. i am not considering it, so no need to be concerned, but i can relate to the feeling of overwhelm at the prospect of facing an entirely life of missing someone. i will have no new memories to generate with me mom, ever. that seems nearly impossible to bear sometimes.
-sorry to end on a downer note. also, cats and chipmunks and that little girl telling stories in french all exist and that's something that's cool. laughing, cool. being compassionate with myself, cool. working out, really cool. it's like eating a dish you are LOVING, but regularly getting bites that include a specific flavor that you really don't like. you very much enjoy the dish and are grateful for it and actually wouldn't trade it for another version, made without that icky ingredient, because there is something inherent in that ingredient that is a crucial part of the tastiness of the dish. but that doesn't mean the ingredient tastes any better.

booktopia.

this is via ithyle.

This is a list of the top 100 books ever published. Supposedly, the average person has only read 6 of these books.
This is what you have to do:
1. Copy the list on your blog.
2. Read through the list and mark the books you've read in bold.
3. Italicize any you started, but didn't finish.
4. Color the ones you loved in green. (Or whatever color, really.)



1. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
3. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
5. Life of PI - Yann Martel
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (i've seen the movie about 100 times. does that count?)
8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
10. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman
14. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
15. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
18. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
19. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
20. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
21. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis <---oh, i smell a rat. this isn't a book, it's a series and how can they have one book from the series alone beneath the whole series, as a separate entry? especially since they kept 'his dark materials' together? hmm...
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
23. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
24. Animal Farm - George Orwell
25. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
28. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
29. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
30. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
32. Complete Works of Shakespeare
33. Ulysses - James Joyce
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
36. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
37. The Bible
38. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
40. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
41. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
42. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
46. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
47. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
48. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
49. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
50. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
51. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
54. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
55. Middlemarch - George Eliot
56. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
57. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
58. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
59. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
60. Emma - Jane Austen
61. Persuasion - Jane Austen
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
63. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
64. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
66. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
68. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan
70. Dune - Frank Herbert
71. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
72. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
73. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
74. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
77. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
78. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
79. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
81. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
82. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
83. Dracula - Bram Stoker
84. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
85. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
86. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
87. Germinal - Emile Zola
88. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
89. Possession - A.S. Byatt
90. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
91. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell <---i can't overstate how much i loved this book and the author.
92. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
93. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
94. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
96. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
97. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
100. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas <---remember in 'the shawshank redemption' where the dumb inmate looks at this book in the library and says, snorting, "alexander dumbass?"

i've never even heard of some of these books. faraway tree collection?
oh well. i'm certainly more well-read than most people, according to this highly scientific list.

also, some things i did not do today:
-go to the gym
-eat well
-leave the house
-do anything productive at all
-meditate
-write

this just in...

oh, hi!
haven't been here in a while!
i mean, i posted that 'west wing' thing, because duh, but i haven't really been keeping this thingie up-to-date. here's a grab bag of things going on...

1) lucy is in town right now, visiting from NYC. her fam is having some health stuff going on, so she came home to see them. lucky jerk gets to go to hawaii to visit her sister and the kids in a week. yo soy hellsa jealous. it's VERY nice having her here. it's like visiting home when you move away, where it's so good it kills you a little and you almost wish you hadn't gone home because it just makes it harder to be away. we went to get our hairs did all fancy today, washed and styled and stuff on account of...

2) brian and libby's wedding is tomorrow. i am feeling for them because it's supposed to rain and they had NOT planned on rain. i'm really excited and nervous for them. i know how much stress they've gone through to get everything ready and how fucking relieved they'll be to have it done with. also, afterwards, they'll be mr. and mrs. halpin, which is pretty exciting. it's made me think a lot about how sure me and brian were that WE would get married and how not correct we were. it's also made me even more and more grateful for how beautifully everything has evolved with our friendship. i consider my ex-boyfriend and his soon-to-be wife some of my closest, most important friends, and i am very, very lucky to still have all the benefits of our relationship, as well as a fantastic partner of my own.

3) so, in preparation for the wedding, which feels pretty high stakes, as far as social events go, with all the long-time friends attending, i have purchased my first pair of spanx. my dress isn't super va-va-voom, but it's made of a clingy jersey material that will do a person no favors, so i bought some crazy girdle bike shorts to smooth stuff out. totally embarrassing and old-lady feeling, but if they let me relax in my dress and know everything is where it should be, then it'll be worth swallowing my pride.

4) mom's house (a.k.a. money pit #1) is officially On The Market. anyone want to buy a lovely house in redwood valley, ca for a good price and save me and my husband from impending destitution in the process? anyone? anyone? it has taken a lot of stress and annoyance but it's up and running. please aid us in thinking desirable thoughts about the property. please envision the PERFECT buyers being drawn to it like magnets. allen tried his hardest to alienate all the real estate agents by totally losing his shit today, as only allen can, but i think it's going to be fine. oh, allen.

5) 2 or 3 months ago i started meditating regularly. me and LW took a seriously life changing class together in berkeley, led my a freaking amazing teacher named james baraz. on the first day of the class he made the statement that meditation has made the difference in his life. liesl and i came away wondering what he meant by that, and feeling admittedly skeptical, but i can honestly say i get it now. the change for LW has been the most dramatic, just the level of peace it has brought her, but i have experienced a profound transformation, too. (ugh, with the healie-feelie talk, i know. but really, homeys. it's unlike anything i have ever experienced.) you might recall that i read a lot of pema chodron while i was coming to terms with mom's illness initially, especially 'when things fall apart.' i found that book to be so comforting and calming, in a way that nothing else was. believing in a god whose plan is for my mom to die slowly of brain cancer is totally unacceptable, but the idea that there is only this moment and how i live it and the courage and wonder with which i greet it feels true to me. so, taking it a step further and meditating felt really natural. i have slacked a bit on it, not doing it everyday like i was, but i am in it to win it. more on that forever, probably.

4) lots of mykhail time. we watch him two days and two nights a week now. he is funny and HARD and growing so fast. (such a cliche, but still true.) seeing his verbal skills develop is just mind blowing. from "dat?" (what is that?) to "cow!" to "see cow!" to now "auntie, see cow eating!" dude, that is language, RIGHT THERE. no wonder linguistic anthropologists love to study speech and language development in kids - it's so easy to see the changes! and so satisfying! my last blog was me being scared and feeling like i might suck as a parent and not be able to take it, but things are fine now. it's still overwhelming sometimes, but also really gratifying to know i am good at this. dudes, seriously, i am GOOD at this. i'm like the dog whisperer - totally the pack leader. i have healthy boundaries, i am good at being fun. i am getting a lot better at working myself out of snits when he's being crabby. having kids is going to be fine. not a piece of cake because duh but totally fine. shannon is so cute with kel that it makes me spontaneously ovulate just listening to them.

5) we have two cats now. they were my mom's cats and, rather than give them away to strangers or something, we took them. we love/hate them. one might call us 'frenemies' with them. love the funny animalness they bring to the house. hate the fur, the smell of cats, the catbox, the sometimes scratching. oh well. we sometimes joke that i am a part-time crap handler now, since i spent so much time taking bags of crap out to the garbage can, between the cats and kel. i'm mostly used to it. i think i might be allergic to one or both of the cats because of the re-occurrence of an uncomfortable, unsightly rash, whose presence i have been free of for years, but i am not yet ready to jettison the cats to save myself. getting there, but not quite.

that's enough for now.
i'm going to try not to be such a stranger, though.

I WANT TO BELIEVE.

(that makes me think of 'The X Files,' which makes me miss that show...oh fox mulder...)

as i have rattled on about, at length, i have been chewing on the issue of my spirituality, and how i kinda gave up on the idea of god after mom got cancer. i could believe in god when other people had bad things happen to them, but i just couldn't believe he'd make something so bad, so fucking terrible, happen to me and my mom. that seemed to totally negate everything i'd thought was true about how the world and the universe worked.

as part of my process working through this, my therapist, barbara, recommended that i go to see this woman, karen peterson. she's a medium, and she does bereavement counseling sessions, for free. she also does group sessions, for money, where a bunch of people come and she just kinda passes along messages. usually she does her bereavement stuff every other month, but it just so happened that at the time i decided to try one, she canceled several, to give herself some more time, which kinda sucks, but oh well.

i had to schedule months in advance. i think i emailed her about coming in march or something. it felt kinda silly, since that was so far away at the time, and it seemed like i might not need it very much, but i kept the spot saved for me, since barbara had suggested it. on a side note, barbara's mom died not long ago, and barbara went to one of karen's sessions and the experienced really helped her, and gave her a different, positive perspective on death and stuff. so, even if i wasn't a walking open wound of sadness, it couldn't hurt to get a better perspective, i thought.

the meeting was last night. i felt yucky all day yesterday, like maybe i was coming down with something. i called the registrar of voters to tell them i couldn't work the polls today because i had the flu, and was considering not going to the meeting, with the logical rationale that if i am too sick to do something i didn't want to do very much (work the polls) then i am too sick to do something i want to do, too (the meeting.) but then i decided i've waited an awfully long time for this thing, and the next one was in december. so, i went anyway.

i had asked a few people if they wanted to come, but none of them worked out for whatever reason, and i ended up going by myself. i've been listening to the 'west side story' soundtrack in my car for the last couple of days, which always makes me think of mom, since she loved that movie when she was young and she had a crush on the SUPER gay jet, whose nickname is 'ice.' when i got to the meeting place, there were a bunch of middle aged ladies lurking around their cars, in the parking lot. and then there was me. i felt a little weird, partly because of the brewing illness and partly from unsureness at the situation. the woman parked next to me was in a metallic blue suv, with magnetic rose decals on it. i expected to see a plastic angel air freshener hanging from her rear-view mirror, and worried it was going to be all ladies like that. seeing a medium is awfully...i don't know.
something.
embarrassing.
inspiring of skepticism.
not the sort of thing an intelligent, well-read person would usually be open to.

i was early. i thought i was on time, but i was early, but it looked like a lot of other ladies were, too. in my head, i had imagined 12 people in a circle, but we were led to this meeting room, with rows and rows of chairs, like it was a workshop. karen was really normal looking. pretty. young. dressed cute. friendly. she said that 'they' had told her to set up for 80 people, in this particular format. she said 'they' had told her she was going to teach tonight, so she was just rolling with it. i felt an inner cringe at the references to 'they.'

i sat in the second row of the section farthest from the door. a bunch of ladies already knew karen, and there were lots of hugs and stuff. i was actually in the minority for not having beek before. i felt shy. i brought my 'new york review of books' (to prove i am an intellectual heavyweight) and i just read and watched the room fill up. and it filled up.

seriously, it was more than 80 people. they had to go get more chairs from her office. lots and lots of people. i was disappointed because i wanted more of an intimate experience, but i tried to stay open-minded.

she answered some questions while people were getting there, but mostly it was about her, and all her info is on her website, so if you want to know, check it out.

when the session started, she just said she was going to teach a bit, so she would explain to us how she communicates with the people on the Other Side, and so we can learn to do it ourselves. she said she was feeling like she should lead us in a little guided visualization, about grounding us, opening us up, inviting our loved ones to visit, and protecting ourselves. it was short, which was nice, because i am pretty much crap at that stuff. i can't visualize well at all.

she gave some general info, about how the information comes to her, all of which is also on her website, but which was informative. she talked about meditation as a good way to quiet ourselves enough to receive messages. if we're listening to the chatter in our heads all the time, our peops might not be able to get through the buzz. i already know i ought to be meditating, so that was a little annoying. could i get the messages from more places? I KNOW. I SHOULD WORK ON MEDITATING. sheesh.

then she had some questions, that she said she had been told to ask.

so she asked these questions to the room. they were kinda general questions/suggestions, but she used them as jumping off points to get info out.

so, she had us visualize a room in our houses. then people began raising their hands and she would call on them, asking them what room they pictured. she'd ask them questions, like, 'did your son spend a lot of time in that room?' and it would just kinda go from there. like:

"i thought of my family room."
"did your person spend a lot of time in that room?"
"yes. we spent all our family time there."
"do you have a lot of pictures of your son in there?"
"yeah, we have a corner with the pictures in them."
"okay. i'm seeing a bunch of pictures of the same person, in a line. is that meaningful to you?"
"yes, my daughter just reorganized my son's pictures and put them all in a line."
"okay. i think that your son just wants to let you know that he spends time in there still, and that he saw your daughter move the pictures. would you tell your daughter? i think this is a message to her, letting her know he's watching."

that kind of thing.
sometimes it would start with someone, but the message wouldn't really be for them, and karen would spread out a little, asking other people in that area of the room if the image she was getting was meaningful to them. and invariably someone would say yes, and there would be more of the questioning and answering.

the biggest, most meaningful, most difficult to swallow thing she said is that if you think that something is a message from 'them,' it is. and that communicating with them means trusting yourself, and trusting the message. she said it will feel like you're making it up, like it's wishful thinking, like it's a coincidence, but that there are no coincidences. she said that when she started getting messages, she had thought she was just making up stories, but when she would tell other people these little stories they were really meaningful to these other people, so she had to start accepting that it might be real. but she admitted, it's hard to believe at first.

of course my skepticism alert went off. duh, it's totally wishful thinking. yeah, we want to believe that our people are hanging out, watching us, supporting us, in a place that is beautiful and perfect, but that's just not realistic, right?
but i kept thinking, 'so what? if it makes me, or these people, feel better, who cares if it's true or not?'
and then right afterwards i'd think, 'yeah, but what if it's wrong? like, WRONG? what if it's totally not true and it's pathetic and sad and desperate?'
and again, 'who cares? why can't you just choose to believe something that brings you peace?'
i didn't get to a good conclusion with this debate, and it's still raging inside my head.

anyway, the session lasted two hours, and the whole time she was just talking to people, asking questions, answering questions, getting messages, interpreting them, trying to find the person the message was for. she was really kind and open and loving, so much it made me kinda embarrassed, but, as always, i think my embarrassment is a defense mechanism against looking like an asshole, and being a totally gooey, cheesy loveball all the time.

she asked us to think about a bird. of course, i thought of chickens, since i was already thinking of mom. i didn't feel like that was meaningful enough to raise my hand for. but right afterwards
another woman in the room told a story about buying her (now deceased) son a calendar made up of pictures of different outhouses, which was kinda weird, since mom bought allen the same calendar. that seemed like a pretty crazy coincidence, since who beside this lady (who was a bit of a weirdo) and allen (totally a weirdo) would be taken by this calendar? what are the chances of that happening? so, huh.

karen said wearing our loved ones' clothing or jewelry as a good way to connect with them, that their energy was strongly in their clothes. that made me cry, because i wear my mom's jewelry more than my own these days. and, interestingly, i had changed out of the sweater i had been wearing into my mom's flannel shirt right before i left. i didn't even really think about it, i just grabbed it. so, that felt kinda meaningful.

she said that when our loved ones visit us in our dreams that it's a 'true visit,' and that that sort of thing takes a lot of energy for them, and it's a big deal. i raised my hand and shared about the dreams i had about mom right after she died.

(have i mentioned them? i think i did, but to recap: right after mom died, i had three really vivid dreams in a week - which i noteworthy since i never remember my dreams clearly. in the dreams, all of which were different in their details but similar in their tone, mom was back. not that she wasn't dead, but she was back to visit. rather than feeling glad to see her in the dreams, i was filled with anxiety and questions. how long will you be here? can you come back all the time? should i tell other people, so they can see you, too? i just felt really upset and worried in the dreams. i would wake up feeling unsettled and unhappy. so, i told mom, right before bed one night, 'i don't know if this is you communicating with me, but i'm not ready yet. i need to get used to you being gone before you start coming back.' and the dreams stopped. i haven't had a dream like that since, not really. i've had more vague dreams, but nothing so clear.)

i shared about the dreams, and how estranged i felt from god, and not ready for her yet.
karen asked me if i had been part of mom's hospice care team, and i said yes. (i felt like it was kinda amazing that she knew mom did hospice, but i did mention mom had died of cancer, so maybe it was obvious.) she said that mom wanted me to know that she knew how hard it had been for me. i said how funny and embarrassing it would have been for mom to have been present to see herself in diapers. mom would have had a lot of jokes to make about it, and she would have hated to inconvenience everyone.

karen said that the stuff that seems like a big deal here isn't that big a deal on the other side, which seemed obvious to me, but was nice to hear.
she said we may not ever come to understand why things happen, and that that's okay. it's okay to not know why, and the best thing we can do is seek acceptance. that also seemed a little obvious, but maybe only because i am me and that's how i think.
she said that mom wanted me to know that i should think about doing some kind of work in hospice later on, that i had a healing energy and that i could do a lot of good helping other people go through their hard times.

karen asked us to imagine, if there were jobs in heaven, what job would our loved ones have?
i told the story about my dream, where i had asked mom if she was going to get in trouble for showing up and she'd scoffed at me, saying 'kira. i'm a pretty big deal up here.' like it was silly for me to even worry about it, because she was the VP of heaven or something. everyone laughed.

it was all kinda like that. like, you could choose to believe it or not, i guess. but her message is 'believe it.'

at the end of the session, i started chatting with the lady next to me. in the middle of us talking, a young woman who had sat in another part of the room came over to give me a hug. she said she just really felt like she should. we were both wearing necklaces with initials on them. a lot of people checked in with me, to make sure i was okay, because i cried a lot. it was nice having everyone be so considerate, and it was nice to feel surrounded by people who felt like i do, who were still struggling and finding it hard sometimes.

i feel really supported by my loved ones, and still, it was different being in this room full of strangers, for whom their grief and loss were real enough to bring them to this meeting. everyone was so hungry for peace, for understanding, for some kind of validation of their loss and their desire to feel connected to their lost person. even though going was scary and i felt like a yokel, one step away from sending money to jerry falwell or something or believing in faith healing, it felt safe because all these other people believed, too. they weren't people i would have normally put myself with, but there was a kindness in the room.

i don't know what i think now.

i am reluctant to just go for it, believe it. maybe i am afraid of being wrong again. i felt so wrong about god when mom got cancer, and it was a terrifically painful shock. maybe i don't want to open myself to that kind of pain again, so i'd rather be safer or something.

but so much of it was stuff that mom said, that she believed and felt was true, so all this felt like mom just telling me the same stuff in a new way, so i could hear it again. and i know that mom would be sad that her death was the thing that left me estranged from god and 'spirit.'

so, i have some stuff to mull over.

what do you think?

blahblahblahwriting.

i flew back from LA yesterday for writing class.

i thought it was the last one, but i guess it was the second-to-last one.

i've been feeling a bit unenthused about my class, kinda aimless and drifting, and was toying with the idea of just not going, but not seriously. maybe old me might have done that, flaked out, but i know myself well enough to know that if i'm resisting something that much, then i should probably shut up and do it, so i went.

my travel day was mostly fine. at LAX to early, since traffic on the 405 is a total mystery and could potentially have taken hours, but in actuality took minutes. some drama in my head about missing my shuttle back to 'Luma, but it didn't happen, so overall, fine. uneventful. no gavin newsom to gawk at. i got home with enough time to hang a little, change clothes, eat something and then head into the city for class. again, thought i was going to be late for class, which i have really tried to avoid after being so late to the first class, and time bent enough for me to make it.

my big resistance to the class lately has been reading my new fiction project. as much as i knew i should share it, i was really afraid of negative feedback, do kept feeling like i didn't want to share yet. but what the hell am i wasting my time writing for if i'm too afraid to share anything i write? in theory, the writing itself is the reward for the writing, because you're releasing things out of your brain that would otherwise just build up and smother you. so, it should be a relief to let it all out, whether or not you share it. but really, why bother if you won't share it? how do you know what you need to work on? how do you know if it's any good at all?
so, i brought my laptop to class, with the intention of reading my new stuff.

when it was time to read, i almost chickened out, and i got all flustered and nervous, but i did it anyway. so, i read, the first 10 or so pages of the book, and heard a few noises from the rest of the class as i read, some 'hmm' and some laughing. that's a good sign, i thought. after i was done, everyone was wildly enthusiastic. everyone applauded me at the end of class. lee, who is sparing with his praise, said, not just yeah, but fuck yeah. alan, my teacher, referenced dickens and kafka and margaret atwood. i think, after the difficulties and the repetition of my mistakes in the memoir, me reading this was a surprise for everyone, because the novel is more me. the memoir was artificial and forced, but the novel is me writing the way i want to. everyone was really interested to see what happened next, and there was lots of discussion about directions to take it and what should happen to the main character. alan sent me an email today, about some authors he thought i might want to read, that he was reminded of by my writing, and he said that my piece was still with him, he'd been thinking about it. he said it was "really, really amazingly good." yay!

it was very exciting. after being so scared and protective of it, and so afraid of it being ripped to shreds, or just left kinda soggy and damp, to have everyone be so positive, so impressed, was terrifically validating. *this* is how artists keep themselves going. yes, you have a feeling you're good, but you need periodic validation to keep you going when you have forgotten, or when other people have told you you suck. these are the memories that light your way when you need some illumination. so, i am jealously, feverishly clutching this feeling to my heart. i can do this. i can do this. i am good at this. sometimes i'm not sure and maybe i even think i'm crap, but i have it in me.

alan did a bit of a wrap up for the class, with some general words of wisdom and encouragement, that really hit the spot.

i've actually hit a bit of a wall with my story. i imagine it like this: i'm in a car. i set out filled with excitement, a really clear plan in mind of my route. my tank is full, i have snacks, i have good road music and i'm GOING FOR IT. so i'm going! and it's awesome - as awesome as i'd imagined, maybe better! man, the scenery is so good and i've got the windows rolled down and the music is blasting and i'm singing at the top of my lungs and drumming on the steering wheel! then, as time passes, i start getting tired. my trip has taken less time than i thought, and some of the stuff i had planned turned out to not be that cool so i skipped it, but don't have alternate plans. it's getting dark, i've eaten everything i brought with me, i don't have anywhere to stay, and i might have taken a wrong turn. i'm driving slower and slower, down a road that i thought i knew, but am realizing i don't actually know. slower and slower, until suddenly i am stopped completely on a deserted road, in the middle of the night, surrounded by huge trees. i don't really know where i am and i don't know where i am headed and i am feeling overwhelmed and scared by the confusion. it was all so well thought out, you know?

this is me, lost and scared in the middle of my project. i have run out of gas, i have lost the map.
and this isn't the first time this has happened to me.

i realized that this happens every time. i have a bunch of started but unfinished projects, short stories or something, where i started off really elated and clear and slowly rolled to a stop at some point, unclear what to do, so i abandoned the car and walked home.

but i'd like to end this habit.

alan was saying that writing your book can be a chance to work through all your problems? are you a quitter? work it out on your book. lazy? superficial? fearful? pour all of it into the writing of the novel. he said that when he wrote his book, he was at a really low point. but he surrendered to the process. he said, alright, this is me - whatever i am. pathetic, angry, sad, frustrated, everything i am, i'm not going to hold back, i'm going to pour it all in.

so, i'm in.

he talked about being in the middle of his book and being at temple, for yom kippur. the rabbi is lowered to the ground my two other people, prostrate before the torah and god, on the day of atonement, and he says something in hebrew that translates to 'here i am.' and that's what he imagined doing with his novel. here i am, face down, prostrate before you. i am hiding nothing.

i got tears in my eyes when he said it. partly because of how beautiful that image of total surrender is, and partly because i reminded me of one of mom's ubiquitous labelmate messages, one on her bathroom mirror. it said 'here i am lord.'

admitting we have no control and we're flailing around trying to make it happen when really we have no idea what we're doing - it can be terrifying. but it's what's true most of the time. we have no idea what we're doing. we're scared and confused and just doing it, whatever it is, and hoping for the best.

i appreciate the liberation of surrender. once you surrender, it's out of your hands, which is a relief.

i've been feeling like a failure because i don't know what i'm doing with my writing and i'm worried i'm going to quit and be entirely without a goal again and that i'll waste this new sense if clarity, which was so hard earned through mom's death, and that i'll just sit here forever, waiting for something to happen to me, because i don't know what to do. i want to really Be this new me, in the world. i feel so different and so much more capable, or, i did, but it feels like it's going away without opportunities to use it. like, being me, in my house, at the gym, isn't enough. like i can only shine and know myself in a state of crisis. i don't want to lose this sense of purpose, of ME, this version of ME that i really admire, but i just can't seem to figure out how to translate ME into a post-crisis life. i am all filled with fears again, hesitating because i can.

so, i'm pouring it all into the book. so help me god, i will finish this book. it will be hard, probably, because most things worth doing are, and i am going to dig deep and mine everything i have and i am going to just pour it all in to this project. every ounce of my insecurity, my needing my mom, my doubts about my future and what i am capable of, my fears of repeating my mom's mistakes, my fears of failure, my hunger for success and to make myself proud, my need for approval, my shame, my anger, my quitting, my regret - ALL OF IT. fucking all of it. if i have anything to offer the world, if i have anything good or bad in me, i hope to show it in this damn book. i'm sorry it wasn't the book about mom, but i'm just not ready yet.

i get mail addressed to The Estate of Jenna Fisher.

it's so weird, because getting mail to her just feels like a mistake, but that mail, to The Estate, is like a little electric shock of realization - mom has an estate because she died. she died. my mom died. she's dead. she's no less dead now than before. it can be so painful still sometimes, even though most of the times it's not. sometimes something will hit the scar in the right way and it just stabs me again, the realization.

i heard that sharper image is filing for bankruptcy. it's probably because mom is dead. i think she might have been single-handedly keeping them afloat.

today was my last training session with jimmy. i tried to figure out how to buy more sessions, but i just can't afford it without screwing myself financially. i'm feeling really sad about it. he's leaving at the end of april to move to ventura to be a cop (the good kind, not the criminal sodomizing kind), but i had hoped to stay with it at least until he leaves. maybe something will turn up. i'm have a really hard time letting it/him go. it's embarrassing to admit, but he was one of the biggest things that helped me get through my grieving. it feels painfully appropriate that he's going now, as i am realizing that i am out of the woods with the grieving, so to speak, and that it's time to figure out how to live again. like my crutch is getting yanked out from under me, and i need to wobble around unaided. i mostly kept it together, saying goodbye, but i had to go down into the locker room and cry a little bit.

okay, i haven't worked on my book today, so i'm going to log some hours.

p.s. we have a reading scheduled, as the culmination of our class, and i'd love it if you'd come, if you'd like. it's on april 13th, a sunday, from 2 to 4pm, here:

Bird and Beckett Bookstore
San Francisco's
southernmost literary & jazz joint
in the heart of the city's
Glen Park neighborhood

653 Chenery Street,
between Diamond & Castro
in Glen Park
1-1/2 blocks from Glen Park BART station
& MUNI lines 23, 26, 44, 52 & J-Church

don't worry, i'll remind you.

not sure...

how do i know if the difficulties i'm having with the memoir are healthy challenges, to be transcended for a glorious finale OR the natural obstacles of something that needs to be given some space and rest, i.e. take a break from the memoir for a bit?

i don't want to be a quitter, and give up because it's hard, because writing is hard, and that's part of what makes it satisfying, is grappling with something so slippery and occasionally feeling like you get a handhold on it. and yet....

i am not enjoying writing the memoir. since i started the fiction project, writing the memoir feels like homework. fiction feels so much more natural, but still hard, whereas the memoir writing is just hard, in general. after writing so much about what happened this way, in my blog, letting it all come out as it would, sitting down and writing it all over again, in a more rigid way, with forced dialogue, just isn't working. after discussing it in class so many time, i am SO self conscious, SO concerned about making the dialogue gel, making sure it's not too much in my head and that i'm setting it firmly in a concrete place, that the story is moving along at a steady enough pace, etc. etc. etc.

you know what i've realized, guys? i write crap dialogue. i can't write it for shit. it sounds dumb and stilted and unreal. at least, i can't recreate dialogue from something that actually happened and have it not sound bad.

i felt like my writing on here was good, strong. it felt real and honest. and the things i am writing in my memoir don't feel honest or real. they feel forced. but the feedback i got from my writing class, both the teacher and students, was that having everything be like this, like my blog, was suffocating, there was no perspective and no air. i can understand that, after reading a couple of smothersome books, with narrators that barely ever come up for breath out of their own consciousness. you want to know what the air smells like, what the nurses look like. you want to be able to sink your feet a little in the setting before being carried off in someone's rickety little rollercoaster of a train of thought.

but how do i do that, if this is what feels the best? and i don't mean the writing of it feels the best, though it certainly feels better than what i have been doing, but this writing, to me, is more honest. i can remember and recreate what i was feeling and thinking and how i responded to a certain situation and why, but i can't remember what was said, specifically, and every time i try to bring it back it immediately bleaches all the color out.

i just don't know.
maybe i have already written everything i needed to about this, in here.
maybe i need to focus more on THIS, the writing that's here, and fill in periodically with setting and stuff.
maybe i need to just write about it the way i want to write about it, if i want to write about it at all, and let go of writing it the way my class is encouraging me to write about it.
it just feels like i am trying to walk around in shoes that are too small. yeah, i can probably get used to it, but there have got to be shoes that fit better, right?

last week, after having some stuckness problems and feelings like i wasn't enjoying my project, my writing partner, clara, suggested that i take a break from writing episodes and just write for a while on characters. i was having trouble creating everyone with my writing so she thought, why not JUST write about your characters, to make them real for you?
so, i did.
in the midst of my illness, i did some writing, describing my mom. i wasn't really trying to tell a story or even writing anything that fit in any obvious way into my memoir, just writing about her. anne lamott wrote two of her books for other people, one for her father as he died of a brain tumor (fuck you, brain cancer) and one for her best friend as she died of breast cancer, i think. (fuck you, cancer, in general.) her goal for writing them was as a gift, as they died, a love letter to them. she talks some in her book about writing your stories not for publication, but you have them written so other people can read them and know you better. so, i felt like i was writing about my mom for me, for when i miss her, and for my kids, who won't get to meet my mom, but will hopefully be able to know her through me, and you, too. so, i wrote and wrote and it was fun to just write without the self-consciousness.

i read that stuff in class last night and two people said that they liked it the best out of everything i've read thus far, which was nice to hear but really surprising, because i was totally ignoring all the rules we've been taught and just 'going for it,' as they say. my teacher was one of the people who said it was my best work, and i was just stumped. i didn't really follow any of the rules, there is no dialogue or anything, it's all just skipping from one place to the next, one time to the next, but that's the best? why isn't that suffocating? because being smothered by mom is interesting and evocative but being smothered by me is boring? i don't fully understand. i'll need to email him about it.

an interesting thing happened, later on in my writing about mom.
i switched from talking about her past, before me, and was writing about her with her cancer, trying to describe the change in her from the cancer.
one of the hardest things i have had to chew on, while processing my mom's death, has been how hard a time i had connecting with her, in a way that felt meaningful to me. i felt farther away from her at the time of her death than i ever have, because it came after years of living apart, where allen had taken up so much space in her life.
she was so close-mouthed about her illness, and i just wanted to talk and talk and talk about it.
are you scared?
are you mad?
are you sad?
do you have regrets?
she just wasn't really open about it. all of my tearful monologuing led to not one instance of her really opening up with me about what was going on inside her.
it was so frustrating and scary for me, kira fisher, who can't have an emotion without observing, labeling it and discussing it. i assumed she had all these teaming emotions inside of her that she wasn't dealing with, because she wasn't talking to me, she wasn't talking to allen, she wasn't talking to her friends... there was so deep depression when faced with her mortality, no dizzying highs of elation over the preciousness of life, and i really wanted that, with her, because that was what *i* was having.
but, while writing, i thought about her, and how she processed things.
she didn't seem like someone tormented by inner demons. she was peaceful, all the way up to her death.
yes, she was probably avoiding some of the unpleasantness, but she didn't seem troubled.
and i thought about how she didn't talk to us about hew feelings and how she was doing much, in sickness or in health.
and then i thought about her relationship with god and how supported and confident she felt through that.
she found peace in giving things she couldn't process by herself over to god. she described this place, her mental altar, to me once. there is a dense forest, and in the center of the dense forest is a clearing, of grass and sun. in the center of this clearing is a boulder that's flat on top. and when she is troubled by something, she'd go to this clearing and lay out her problem on this rock, to dry out in the sun. she'd tell god that she had done everything she could with that problem and she was going to give it to him to handle. and she felt like letting it dry out in the sun, flattened out on a rock to bake clean, was usually enough for her. she'd taken it as far as she could and now it was out of her hands.
so, why wouldn't she have done the same things with her fears about death?
all of my questions:
are you scared? duh.
are you mad? duh.
are you sad? duh.
do you have regrets? duh.
but she didn't need to talk to me about those things because what could i do about them? nothing. i couldn't give her peace. i couldn't take those fears away.
but talking to god could.
she could take all those fears and regrets and angers and she could lay them on her altar to dry out in the sun, so nothing was left of them but powder, and so she was left with just the sweetness of it all.
doesn't that make sense?
there will always be regrets, it will always be too soon. but it seems like the goal would be to end your life in the presence of what worked and what was good and what joys you brought and received.
and it seems so much more like her to have been there at her death, rather than tormented by the loss of it all.
the realization brought me a whole new sense of peace about her death. i would have loved to be more a part of her processing but just getting that she processed it successfully in her own way, and that the pain came from me wanting to see her process MY way, rather than recognizing her own ways, was a big relief.
i think mom was probably totally at peace with herself and me and everyone when she died. i think she was ready, in every sense, as best she could be. i think she felt safe and protected, like she was heading home. which sounds corny, but is nonetheless true.

hey jealousy.

(remember that song? i wonder what the gin blossoms are doing now... not much, i'd guess.)

anne lamott, who wrote the book on writing that i talked about a little while ago, talks a lot about jealousy. how jealous she feels when a writer friend of hers is succeeding and she's not. she talks about the illusion of 'getting published,' like getting published is the beginning of everything unsolved in your life getting handled. she talks about filling the spaces inside yourself with the writing, not the dream of being published.

i'm feeling jealous of other people's connections. i'm feeling caught up in the illusion of getting published, being a gajillionaire and having all my problems solved. i am feeling empty, not writing enough in the last week from my sickness, not feeding myself with the stuff i have in front of me - the writing - and hungry for what's not in front of me - making money doing this.

there's no moral or anything, i'm just stating this stuff publicly, to get it out of myself, so it doesn't feel so sneaky and secret and moldy.

my cough lingers on, making me feel like a pariah in my own home. i mean, i am grossed out and repulsed by my cough, and i imagine myself cringing away from someone else with my cough, so i cringe from myself every time i am wracked by a coughing jag that leaves me crunched up and heaving. i'm so embarrassed by uncontrollable coughing. i wonder why. i recall a time i was on the bus, having a tickle in my throat that i couldn't get out, and needing to cough in that kind of unbridled way that can feel so urgent. like, eyes bulging, deep breaths for deep explosions, that feeling like every time you inhale you're choking because of that goddamned tickle. and i remember trying to cough a little bit, on the bus, demurely, really aware of all the other bus riders and how bummed they'd be about me having a nasty coughing fit, how worried they'd probably be that i was sick. and i remember this feeling of panic because i COULD NOT get that damn tickle handled and every inhale was torture, and barely breathing until my stop came, so i could get off the bus, bend over, and cough myself hoarse. that's how i feel now, with this damn cough. so urgent, so embarrassing, so painful. why do i give a shit if people think i have TB? why was i so okay with choking/smothering to death, so i didn't bum a bunch of strangers out? weird. so unlike me.

i'm reading a book by joyce carol oates. for my writing class, we're supposed to be reading books by one author, submerging ourselves in this writer's work, in a kind of dialogue with them while we are writing. i chose philip roth, mostly because i had a book by him that i'd started but not finished. so i read one book by him and it was good, moved well, i felt good about it. i chose my next one by him, a pulitzer prize winner, and was struck by how similar it was to the other one. i mean, the story was totally different, but both narrators were jewish guys from newark. lots of details about newark and being a jew. the stories were about other things, but the voice, if you will, was dang near identical. also, the majority of this second book takes place in the mind of one character, him imagining the mind of another character. there was setting, but it was very much mental. i have been struggling with this in my memoir, my difficulty setting my story in a concrete time and place, with details that let the reader settle in, so i thought it was ironic that this book, very good, was entirely based on the exact same thing that i was trying to NOT do. and i saw how tricky it can be, and i saw where some of the feedback from my classmates was coming from, how being led by the train of thought of the narrator can be dizzying and disorienting. it can really work, but it's not easy, and even a well respected author like philip roth was struggling with it.

so, my teacher said maybe philip roth wasn't right for me, given the navel gazing, so he suggested i find another writer. so, i went to the library and was looking around for an author with a HUGE section. we're looking for someone prolific, so we don't run out of books by them before we're done with the project. i ended up with joyce carol oates, which is a bit of a cop out. my teacher read joyce carol oates for his memoir writing, and he recommended her to my writing partner, who was having trouble finding the right author for herself. so, that i ended up with her too seems kinda uninventive. but, i will say, that woman is prolific. sheesh. does she even sleep? but this book, which i chose basically at random, is EXACTLY the same thing as the others - this hallucinatory, out of it, stream of consciousness. the physical setting is unclear sometimes, because the characters are mentally unhinged.

it's just so weird that, of all her many, many, MANY books, i chose this one. clara, my writing partner, was saying how she was really compelled to keep reading the JCO book she was reading, but couldn't really figure out why, and i kinda agree. i am not really enjoying the book, in a traditional sense. it's unsettling, filled with isolated, crazy people. and yet i am continuing. interesting. even if we factor in my personal weirdness about finishing books once i've started, there is no good reason for it.

tomorrow i head back to the gym for the first time in a week. i've felt bad about not going, but also shy about my cough and how wheezy i am with the coughing. plus, a little weird and light-headed off and on. so, it'll be nice to go again and i hope it feels good and not depressing because i have become a jelly donut in the week that has elapsed.

i inched my way back into the real world today, after my week of sickness exile. well, i got groceries yesterday and went to therapy, so i was started inching then, i guess. today, the dentist for a teeth cleaning (i was a year and a half overdue, which is actually pretty good for me) and then to a cafe for an iced coffee. i sat in the sun drinking my drink and eating a piece of coffee cake. made some phone calls, paid some bills, wondered where my money would come from.

who do i appeal to for help with things, now that i don't feel connected to god or the universe? if the only thing that's real is >this<, our physical bodies and our mental capabilities, how do i make things happen that feel impossibly big and out of my range? usually i'd talk to the universe about it, but since i'm not sure that i believe in it, it seems unfair for me to ask for a favor. so, who do i ask? how do i make it happen?

wow. grief.

i had underestimated this whole grieving thing.
i was so sad for a few months, and then it all started lightening up. i still felt sad, but in a less oppressive way. it felt like a manageable amount of emotion.
and then it got unmanageable again.
i got back to barely getting out of bed, doing nothing except going to the gym and sleeping and reading.
i wasn't prepared for moving so far back.
i think it's harder this time because everyone else has moved on, back to taking care of their own lives.
i think that's natural and i don't think anyone is abandoning me or anything, it's just the way things are.
there's a point where everyone else goes back to their lives, back to thinking about the things they're dealing with because you're out of the woods, and after that the calls stop and the check ins stop.
a friend warned me about this, actually, right after mom died. her dad died when she was my age, and she said that this would happen - that there would be a point where everyone else had moved on and you're alone with the grief, missing the checking in.
i don't feel like it's anyone's *job* to check in on me, naturally, and i know that everyone has stuff that they wrestle with, and lives to tend to. i ate up a lot of energy from other people, and it's totally necessary for them to take care of themselves.
so, here i am, back in the barely getting out of bed stage, but mostly alone this time.
it's unfortunate that i am so sad, and so lonely, and not really able to make calls myself, because what i probably need is to spend time with other people, but i can't make it happen.
of course, there are good days, or good hours.
yesterday i sat in the sun outside of whole foods, writing. i was feeling good in my skin, the sun felt wonderful, drinking my iced decaf latte with stevia and lowfat milk, using my fancy new pen that is AMAZING. the writing wasn't feeling like it was especially valuable material, but it all felt nice.
i'm three weeks into my writing class now.
week one was painful, in that i was a half an hour late for no especially good reason aside from me fucking up the time and then getting lost and not being able to find parking and having the wrong apartment number in my phone. it was excruciating walking into that apartment, late, meeting a bunch of people for the first time sweaty and out of breath, feeling like a big asshole. but i went. i seriously considered just leaving because i couldn't handle the embarrassment, and i might have at another time in my life, but i just took a deep breath and went for it.
i have to constantly battle the inner critic in me, telling me that i might not belong in the class because i'm not really a writer and i don't know what i'm doing and this sucks and it's all hopeless. i have to consciously let my mind spin itself around in manic circles and then just do it all anyway. maybe it sucks, but i'll write it anyway. maybe it'll be terrible and i'll be pelted with rotten produce, but i'll write anyway.
my teacher, alan kaufman, has talked a lot about making writing into a practice. he told us this story about when he was studying zen buddhism. he wouldn't see his guru/master/mentor more than every couple of weeks, and his master would come up to him and ask him, 'have you been sitting zazen like that this whole time?' alan would look at himself and realize he was all slouched over, his mind was wandering, his posture crappy. his master would say, 'yeah, so, you haven't been sitting zazen.' because the difficulty of the sitting *is* the practice. it's not just copping a squat and letting your mind wander. it's your posture and your breathing and your gaze and your hands and everything together and it's hard, which is why everyone doesn't do it.
so, he was talking about writing practice the same way. it's not just sitting down with a pen someplace and jotting some stuff down. it's the discipline of doing it everyday, even when it's hard, at the right place, the right time, focused on a topic. and again, there's a reason why not everyone is a writer. because writing is fucking hard.
i'm working on my memoir about mom's death. i'm still a little uncomfortable with the idea of a memoir, because of the cliche of it, but it's just so THERE for writing about.
i found the difficulty of writing and the difficulty of grieving got a little tangled this week, though. writing about mom and her death as i'm processing my feelings about my mom and her death make the writing even harder.
alan suggested that i might need to consider if this is the project i want to work on, which i have certainly pondered myself, but i am not seeing anything else. this feels like the project, but it's true that writing i hard enough without adding in the extra weight of sadness.
i'm going to post this, and then eat some breakfast and get ready for the gym, but i'll be back soon.

i guess it never ends.

i have been avoiding looking my finances, and my mom's finances, squarely in the face.

the combination of the holidays, the wedding, and then leaving for new york right after new year's, has left me in a total state of panic, as far as my office is concerned. i mean, the physical environs are revolting, also, but i was meaning the paperwork and details contained within my office. bills needed paying, calls needed placing, filing needed doing...it was really disturbing. every time i went into my office, i would just end up backing out slowly, so as not to alert the mess of my presence.

so, i spent most of today working on that stuff. things aren't entirely up to date, and in many ways the problems and concerns have only been compounded by addressing them (instead of leaving them in a haze of confusion) but at least i'm not beating myself up for not doing this stuff.

i spoke to a tax preparer about my taxes and my mom's. even thinking about taxes makes my guts twist up with anxiety. after years and years of making so little money that i didn't have to pay taxes, suddenly having to deal with 2 monstrously complicated filings is enough to send me to bed for a nap. the tax preparer had a lot of questions, only some of which i knew the answer to, but at least the ball is rolling, i guess.

i finally called the company mom has her mortgage with, to get a quote for paying off the year, and was informed 1) they're pursuing her/us for collections and we need to contact them immediately and 2) their office is closed today. awesome. so, i get to call back tomorrow to them. also, i need to ask the mendo county assessors some questions about some stuff they sent me, and to see if i can get a new death certificate for mom, since the one they sent us has the wrong social security number on it.

seriously, it never ends. i received a bill from my lawyer, for $1300, shortly after finding out that i'd somehow bounced my last check to him. also awesome. on the same day, i received a bill from some pump place for $800ish and i still am not sure what's going on with that. why wasn't the well coming on? does yumi even have a well? and, more importantly, where am i going to get the money to pay these bills?

i took the weekend off from working out, and it felt really good, but i also feel the beginning of the 'i-don't-wanna's coming back. i've already put off going to the gym today for a few hours and now i'm considering just doing my cardio and not my weights. i totally dropped the ball on my eating today, left it until too late and then got so desperately hungry that i ended up heating up two pieces of VERY left over pizza, which makes me feel terrible about myself because i know better. i haven't taken my supplements in a few days.

sometimes it's just so hard to keep everything moving forward, you know? it's like juggling or plate spinning, where one slows or drops so another thing can be picked up. if i'm taking care of myself emotionally by resting more, then my gyming drops off. if i'm spending time with friends, my paperwork drops off. if i'm doing my household chores, i don't call anyone. i just can't manage to keep everything going, at least a little bit, all the time.

i keep feeling like i'm 'back to normal' and should be taking on a more normal workload, and being surprised all over again by how not over my grieving i am, and how much i still need to moderate my workload. i'm tired of it. i'm tired of that being the excuse for me still being out of synch. even though everyone else moves their focus back to their lives, and my drama/loss gets moved off the front burner, *i* am still stuck with this, not just on a front burner, but covering my entire stove with sticky, oily residue. i imagine other people tiring of hearing about it, or talking to each other about how 'kira keeps trotting out that same old excuse. when will she get it together?'

i know that i talk about this a lot, and i know that other people's feelings about the duration or intensity of my grieving don't mean anything. i mean, i can't and won't modify my process to make other people feel better, and when i really think of it, i doubt that other people are really thinking that. i'm just hearing the things i'm thinking in other people's voices.

when will kira get a job?
when will she stop pretending to be a housewife and pick a direction again?
when will she quit complaining about how hard it is having this inherited money?
when will she learn how to manage her time, get her things done, her bills paid?
why isn't she over it yet?

i ask myself these questions all the time.
i watch myself struggling from afar, forgetting bills, avoiding making calls, ashamed to call people after being out of touch, waiting too long to clean the house, too tired/lazy/sluggish to cook dinner like i said i would, and i just get so sick of it all.
i know that part of it is the grieving, and it will last as long as it lasts, and i can't do anything about it.
and i know that these are things i have always struggled with, and that my mom struggled with in her adult life, and i feel silly for thinking that i should suddenly have them figured out when i have always had a hard time with them.

i feel so much more confident, in general, than i ever have. confident about my abilities, my strengths and weaknesses, my Path...i feel more comfortable in my skin, both literally and figuratively, really, than ever before.
and yet i have no idea what i'm doing and i feel like everything is falling apart and it's all my fault.

i have been daydreaming about binge-reading, or taking myself to matinees, or spending the day out at the ranch with gina, riding bikes and hiking.
i think that in my head i decided that the time when those activites are acceptable has passed, but my actual situation just doesn't match that.
i'm not ready to be done grieving. i need more reading, more relaxing, more naps, more kindness to myself.

why is it so hard to be vulnerable, even in my own head? asking other people for permission to take a break is pretty hard, but asking myself for permission is almost impossible.

i know what mom would say. she'd tell me not to be so hard on myself and that i'm doing the very best i can, and it's important to keep being kind to myself. she'd cluck her tongue, and tuck my head under her chin, and say, 'oh, ma bebe...' and she'd pet my hair.

you guys, i miss her so much. so so so so much. and i'm tired of her being dead, and me having to learn how to grieve, how to manage my new VASTLY more complex finances...i'm sick of it. i'm sick of my new maturity and life feeling like i'm wearing a sweater that's too small. i'm sick of boxes full of stuff from her house waiting for me to look at them, an attic full of stuff to go through, a bead room to sell, allen to deal with. i'm just so tired, physically, mentally, emotionally.

i slept so much this weekend, and i'm still exhausted.

but still i'm going to go to the gym now, because if i don't i'll add more self-loathing to the sadness. i may not set any records for cardio amazingness, but at least i'll have gone. that'll be something.

new year, new (old) me.

2007 was a year where i relearned who i am.
obviously the stuff with mom opened the door to skill sets that had thus far remained dormant, but i'm talking about more secondary stuff than that.
i learned that i really, really, really like working out.
i've been doing personal training, twice a week for a couple of months. i've been averaging cardio 3 times a week. and the simple act of working out has become the most important part of it, not the results. i've always gotten frustrated at how long it takes to see results from working out, and have never really developed that fire for it. i don't know if the one causes the other, but they've certainly both been true in the past.
this year, since mom died, i suddenly get why everyone likes working out so much.
it's because it's fucking awesome.
i've never been sporty and have never really had a strong relationship with my body, in the sense that athletic people do, where it's your mind and your body kicking ass together. but i get it now.
i'll get so stoked during my cardio that i'll start laughing.
i'll grunt and groan like a real weight lifter.
i look forward to my training sessions with mingled dread and excitement, every time, because i know that he's going to make me do things that are unbelievably uncomfortable, but that i'm going to be able to do them, even when it seems like i can't.
i hit a wall during my training today, and i came really close to asking my trainer to cut stuff short. the second set of exercises he had me doing were crazy hard, and i was feeling tired and weak. but i didn't ask, and he didn't offer (because he's awesome) and i pushed through that resistance into that thing we call The Second Wind. i ended the session feeling stronger and more focused, happier, lighter...just all around better.
you guys, i can't overstate what a huge transformation this is for me.

another thing i learned about myself this year is that i am way less willing to sacrifice my physical comfort for style now. i have been wearing a pair of my mom's dansko clogs a couple of days a week, and while i still don't think they're necessarily cute, i find them tolerable, which is not something i would have ever imagined myself saying. also, they're so comfortable, it doesn't even matter that much. i went to shoe pavillion the other day and i bought a new pair of fake uggs for new york and a pair of birkenstock slip ons, like the pair i have already, but in bright yellow patent leather. so cute. but i would not have guessed that THOSE would be the shoes i would leave with. not heels. not fancy flats. comfy shoes. also, i bought a polar fleece zip up at REI because new york is going to be crazy cold and i need to be prepared. these things are also huge transformations. i have always been so judgmental about clothing and really focused on what looks cool, and while i still think about that stuff, and try to mix in the comfy stuff in a way that doesn't make me look like a jammie monster, i am more comfortable with being a jammie monster.

i learned that i'm not afraid to try new things, the way i once was. i was almost paralyzed by fear of trying new things, specifically skills, but this year that just kinda disappeared. suddenly i'm cooking and teaching myself the autoharp, working out, slogging through french language magazines. i just don't care whether or not i'm the best anymore. i just want to try it out.

i realized i'm an artist. i'm a writer. while my dad and mom would roll their eyes and say 'duh' about this, it's a huge revelation for me, and fundamentally changes the way i look at myself. suddenly i'm part of this community of people who struggle with their creative demons, battle a sense that they're fooling themselves to even try this, self-analyze, but ultimately breakthrough their own mental resistance to create things that are Theirs. that's me. that's what i do. after years of paddling around in the baby pool of academia, i am suddenly edging myself into a deep end that scares the pee out of me. but is also exciting.

i'm not going to say that the good stuff makes the bad stuff worth it, because that's a bunch of crap. the good stuff makes the bad stuff tolerable. nothing makes it worth it. but i am thankful for the things that happened this year that acted as sugar in my spoonful of harsh, sad medicine. many of you were part of that, sugar cubes that sweetened my life, and i am grateful for you, too. i meet 2008 not with defiance, because i learned this year how hard times can get, but with steady acceptance. whatever happens, i'll be okay.