white woman's guilt.

i'm not sure what it means that i haven't been writing here.
i haven't been writing anywhere, really.
haven't worked on my book seriously in months.
haven't meditated.
i dunno.
i feel a little off kilter, but not dramatically so. just a smidge.
i'd like to be doing those things more.
but not enough to actually do them apparently.

one thing i have been doing is pilates.

did i mention i'm doing teacher training to become a pilates instructor?
i am.
here's where i'm doing it.
it's fantastic.
it's changing my life.
i'm excited, proud, challenged - everything good.
i'm doing pilates about 5 times a week, and feeling stronger, so cool.

that's not really what i want to write about right now, though. maybe a little bit not really.

i want to talk about me feeling guilt over my lifestyle.

so, i'm not working.
that's not new.
i've come close to looking for a job a few times in the last year or so, but shannon felt like having me at home, managing the house and taking care of the dog, would be worth more than whatever smallish amount of money i'd be bringing in. and, given my eternal 'nyeh' over working, and general lack of vocation to speak of, i am totally fine with that set up. i'm actually not that good at being a a housewife and have really had my shortcomings thrust at me through this, but i'm developing really helpful habits, which make me an infinitely easier person to live with, i think.

so, i'm not working.
i'm married.
my husband is really handsome.
though we have our ups and downs, and went through a rough patch there a little while back, we're really happy together and totally in love.
we own our own home. (well, the bank owns it and we're buying it from the bank, but you get my meaning. our monthly payments are going towards something that we will eventually reap the benefits of, unlike renting. the fact that most of the payment goes to interest in the loan isn't the topic of discussion right now, but it should be, some day. fucking banks.)
i have awesome hair.
i get many services, that are very pricey, done for me for free, or at huge discounts, by incredibly talented friends.
i have many of the things that one pictures when they're thinking of success in the modern world and money. (new mac laptop, newish iphone, multiple ipods, gucci sunglasses, etc.)
i spend a very large portion of my time working out, doing a type of exercise that is usually insanely expensive.
i travel to fun places fairly often (LA, NYC, BALI!!!).
my body is pretty close to what the magazines say it should be. i'd be a plus size model for sure, but i'm in proportion and i'm closer to the ideal, physically, than a lot of people are.
one of my main responsibilities is to look after my dog, who is pure bred.
i am able to shop at whole foods (whole paycheck) exclusively, unless i feel like going to trader joe's for something.
my hair care and skin care products cost more than some people's haircuts.
i don't have kids, by choice, which means i only have to worry about myself, my (ridiculously handsome) husband and my pets.

what i'm saying is, i am living a life that a lot of people might consider perfect.
i'm not complaining.
my life is freaking awesome.

but, because i'm a human being and this is our eternal struggle, i experience unsatisfactoriness.
sometimes i lie in bed and dread going to the dog park AGAIN.
my hair looks wonky, or flat, or boring.
my forehead is short (really more of a threehead) and i can't have heavy bangs like i'd like to.
my skin and hair care products refuse to change my life the way the magazines tell me they will.
i want MORE things.
i tried on bikinis at target yesterday and looked WRETCHED. like, dimpled and jiggle and bulgey. really, really bad.
for all my working out, i look nearly the same as i always have, as far as i'm concerned. i'm not in smaller clothing sizes, for one thing.
i feel like i'll never lose weight, never look good in a bathing suit, never wear shorts or a short skirt without a hint of shame and fingers crossed that no one looks too closely.
i wish my mom was still alive.

what i mean is, i'm just like everyone else.
i want things that i can't have.
i don't want to do the things i have to do.
i am not happy with the hand (or midriff) i've been dealt.
i wish i was younger still.
i regret choices i've made.

and every time i say anything remotely negative about my situation, or express anything other than blissful contentment, i get scolded by people for being unappreciative of what i have.

it's gotten to the point where i am leery of even sharing my negative feelings about things, for fear i'll offend someone.
i feel like i need to couch everything in apologetic terms "this thing happened and it sucked. (i know, rough life.)" "totally stoked on my life, but wish i didn't have this thing to deal with." why am i apologizing for having the feelings i have? am i not allowed to experience unsatisfactoriness because i have a great life?

and what makes people think that not working, or having money at all, automatically means blissful contentment? do rich people seem happier to you? their families more functional?
look at ebenezer scrooge, man. he was rich a hell and he was miserable!

so, spoiler alert, guys: having money doesn't solve all your problems. it solves some. it creates others. me not having to work doesn't change the fact that my forehead is too short for the bangs i like so much on other people. it doesn't make me 17 again. it doesn't bring my mom back.

all it means is that i have more hours in the day to myself, which also doesn't solve anything. still not writing. still manage to piss entire days away sometimes. still mismanage my money, wish i had more/new/better clothes. still wondering which handbag will complete me as a person. still not doing anything about darfur.

it's true, i'm not sacrificing my life for kids, or having to make serious budget cuts, or wasting hours of my day and years of my life at a job i resent.

but i don't have everything figured out, and i still struggle with life, and i have just as much right to wrestle with my problems as someone who lives in section 8 housing, or someone with cancer, or someone with alopecia. i don't feel like my not needing to work cancels out my right to expect compassion over the things i struggle with, even if they're not life or death struggles.

you know what?
i don't know many people who are dealing with situations that are literally life or death.
and agreed, in the grand scheme of things, i fully recognize that i am lucky to have a torso at all, or a threehead, or an undervalued home. yes, i am lucky to be alive and not being raped a bunch in a refugee camp. we all are. does that mean that the people who are facing foreclosure on their houses don't get to worry about their problems? are they supposed to just be thankful for the fact that they're not facing refugee camp rape, and shut up about their financial concerns?
because if so, i expect a GREAT deal less complaining from pretty much everyone in the entire world, outside of palestine and darfur, 'kay?

of course i am thankful for my life.
my life is amazing.
that goes without saying.
if you hear me posting FML stuff, then you're welcome to tell me to shut up.
actually, you know what? even then, i'm allowed to be bummed for a while.

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 is our life.

only our cats are not so fat and there are two of them.

the track.

i haven't been writing at all.
obvs. not here, but also not on my novel. since probably may.
i was feeling fine about it, like i was just shifting focus a bit to take care of my life, but now i'm feeling antsy about it. i started re-reading my novel up to the point it's at, to get myself reacclimated with my book and my writing and stuff and, while i haven't taken that to the next step of writing, i have been impressed with my book, which is nice, right? there are totally sections that make me cringe, but, overall, i think it's great.

i think about things to write about here all the time, but for some reason i haven't been translating that from the thought to action...

i have a meeting with my writing group in two weeks, at my teacher's house, so i HAVE to have something to share by then. not because i need to impress them, but because i really want to. so, i will.

me and shannon are remodeling the baker ct. money pit. our house is worth substantially less now than it was when we bought it, so we're clearly not going anywhere for quite a while. might as well get comfy, i guess. i have pictures posted on myspace (not that anyone seems especially interested, but that's okay), but i've been wanting to post them on shannon's homepage, so i'll work on that so you guys who are far away can see the progress. the biggest news right now is that we refinished the existing hardwood floors and had new hardwood put down in our bedroom. previously it was carpeted, which was fine, but also pretty ugly and i'm allergic to carpet (literally), so a friend of tab's installed some lovely red oak, which matches the stuff in the rest of the house. also, we repainted the new drywall. the bedroom is a blue red (not yellow red), the hallway is grey and the living room is green. the living room has been a (not-very-interesting) odyssey, in that we chose one color, tried it in some spots on the walls, decided it was wrong so chose another color, which we put all over the walls and which was also disgusting. so, third time's the charm, right? we ended with a green tea ice cream color that looks really, really good. shannon rented a sander from home depot and spent a couple of nights sanding the floors, and then i spent two days painting on layer-upon-layer of varathane, so the floors are looking a lot lighter and also lovely. i'll see if i can manage some before and after stuff.

i spent all day yesterday (seriously, all day) looking at dogs on the internet. shannon and i take turns really wanting another dog, and i guess it's my turn. there are some freaking CUTE dogs in the world. i'm really loving pit bulls right now, but shannon says 'nyeh.' how else will we protect the meth lab, though, am i right?

i finally bowed to pressure from the universe and started meditating. while i was doing my community service at spirit rock i found a handout with a reading list for people starting on the buddhist path, and i checked one of the books on the list out from the petaluma library. it's called 'a gradual awakening' and it is really, really wonderful. it's thin, maybe half an inch thick at most, and it's full of the most easy to swallow, perfectly articulated wisdom. i'm loving it. also, i am taking a meditation class in berkeley with LW. this week will only be the second session, but so far i'm appreciating it. i meditated by myself TWICE this week, which was quite a coup. in a world so full of pain and difficulty and disappointment (i know, and happiness and love and wonder, too), it is calming to cultivate peace in my life, and just general acceptance of reality.

lu's mom is having some health stuff, so please send her and her whole family some positive thoughts. it's been hard having them go through it, so soon after my mom. it's bringing up a lot of sadness for me. not that the sadness is hard to get to usually.

we're having allen problems again. we've given him august 1st as the date we want him out of the house and he's really resisting it. we may have to go through legal channels to get him physically removed from the property, but hopefully it won't come to that. shannon has taken over the responsibility for talking to allen. my dad heaved a huge sigh of relief when i made that decision. he's been bugging me to never talk to allen again for months, but i wasn't ready to get that i couldn't handle it. i kept feeling like it was my job or something, and i would be shirking if i had shannon handle it. and i didn't feel like having a lawyer be the go-between would be appropriate. and i always harbored hopes that i would find the magical formula for dealing with allen, so that i could tell him something and be sure he would really GET it and not freak out, but i was totally deluding myself. allen is a person who is mentally unstable and he can be counted upon to be crazy and expecting him to not be crazy is unfair to him, and expecting myself to be able to cut through the crazy is unfair to me. shannon doesn't get freaked out by him, so he's the perfect person to talk to allen. daddy said he feels like my fearful, open energy just feeds into allens crazy, angry energy, giving him permission to be a bully. i hadn't ever thought of that, but it seems like he's right.

i can't say enough how much i am looking forward to having my life free of allen. whether the house sells or not, i want him out of the house forever. the days of him being my responsibility are over. over. it fucking sucks that things have to end like this, with me so thoroughly DONE with him, but that's just the way it is. he has sucked every ounce of patience and understanding out of me, leaving a profound fatigue and also some serious revulsion. just for his selfishness. i know he's having a hard time with mom being gone. obviously, since he's drinking all the time and the house is looking crappy. but his sadness isn't any excuse for him to treat me like shit, nor is it a license to sponge of me and my husband for the rest of his life. i so wish things had been different. not that that's an especially fruitful line of thought to pursue, but i do. i really wish things had been different. imagine if he had stayed semi-normal and not been such a selfish wing nut. oh well. he did, so there you go.

tomorrow i'm watching le bebe, so i have to get up earlyearlyearly. i'm feeling so tired these days. it might be from the remodel stuff. it might be sadness. it kinda lingers and leeches the energy out of you. whatever it is, i'm tired and sad and really, really ready to be done with the house for a while. i need a break.

i rented a storage space for all mom's stuff from yumi, and i am going through that stuff. that's tiring, too. a lot of it is actually my stuff that i thought i could avoid for a few more years at mom's, but it's coming back to haunt me. toys, magazines, journals, notes from middle school...all of it is back, in addition to stuff from grandparents and great-grandparents.

not my most interesting or sparkly journal entry, but it's something.

better than i thought.

i went up to redwood valley yesterday with tab, for the first time since before christmas.

i know i talk/write/complain about this situation all the time, and it probably seems totally solvable from the outside, and it actually is, i'd guess, but it doesn't feel like that most of the time.

it feels like i'm an ox, yoked to a house i am ambivalent about, and an weird old guy who i'm a little bit afraid of.

i've been chewing on the 'what the fuck am i going to do about yumi?' question for MONTHS, mostly in my head and by yakking about it, but with little real action on it. after therapy last time, i felt feeling like i had a really short, pretty manageable list of things i needed to do in order to get the ball rolling on it.
1) call the real estate agent my agent, lisa, recommended to me. this recommended agent is actually the listing agent for yumi when it was sold to mom, so she'll know a lot about it. she'll be able to say whether it's pure folly to try to sell it right now. (is it unrealistic for me to assume she'll be honest? i mean, business must be rough for her right now, so she'd probably inclined to say anything she can to get that place listed...but still...) if it seems like selling it right now is just not smart, she'll maybe know something about how i'd rent it, instead, and how much i could reasonably expect to get in rent for it. that's an easy call, right?

2) get up to yumi to keep moving on going through mom's stuff. it's such a hard, unpleasant task, it is almost impossible to look forward to it, but i can neither sell nor rent it if it's packed to the gills with mom's stuff.

3) have The Talk with allen, where i tell him i can't afford to keep the house with the situation as it stands right now, and unless he's going to pay me more, we'll have to sell, or he'll have to move out of the big house, so we can rent it out. the thought of this talk turns my bowels to water, so i've avoided it. in discussion with everyone in the world, it was agreed that i couldn't possibly have The Talk with him in person, alone, because he's so unpredictable, so i'd either need to bring someone with me or do it over the phone. i felt like the phone might be easier, since i could lay it all out, then get off the phone, so he could think about it, then we could talk when he'd calmed down. but then i also thought that maybe i'd write him a letter, which seems like the ultimate in cowardice, but whatever.

yesterday, i got step 2 rolling, by going to yumi with tab.
linda and i had gotten mom's closet and bathroom cleaned out before christmas, so yesterday we stared on mom's office/bead room.
i'm not going to lie - it was harrowing. everything was covered in dust, from the cat sand that they use in the cat boxes, and also just disuse. there were years worth of magazines, all organized chronologically, in little cardboard holders. we just chucked them all. (duh, recycled, sillies!) me and tab both have a bit of the hoarding gene ourselves, so we resisted the urge to keep them all for collaging, but it was not easy.
i went through the drawers that mom used to hold the first aid stuff and all her beauty products, the extras.
seriously, i found about 20 containers, unopened, of dental floss. roughly 10 toothbrushes. multiple full bottles of hand wash, lotions, shampoos...so much stuff. so, i took what i wanted, grabbed good stuff for lu (don't worry, bestie, we're keeping you in mind.) and then tab looked through them, and we packed everything else up, according to "Someone Might Want This" and "This Is Grody And Needs To Go."
i went through mom's journals, and found an amazing book, like her book of shadows or something. fucking so good. also, a good photo album, seeing pictures of mom and daddy when they were young, just married, it was conceivable that those two people could be in love at some point, but that gets harder and harder to imagine, the older they get, until now, when, if i hadn't seen it first hand, i'd never have believed that they were ever in love.
we found some hoarded art supplies, SO MANY PENS, an entire drawer full of post-its, tons of unused notebooks and hanging files.
we got rid of all her computer games, her home electrolysis kit, (which i would bet money had never been used because wtf? - seriously, how did sharper image make it for so many months after mom died?).
it's sobering to see one's life reduced to the crap your survivors will have to get rid of.
it makes me look at my belongings in a whole new way, like, really? really, kira? do you want to make your loved ones delve into the complexities of your unused stationary hoarding problem?
it's exhausting, and also pretty special, finding unexpected treasures. i found some really personal journal stuff, which i am reluctant to read, but which i know i will. ew to reading about your mom having sex, but still.
we just powered through, didn't stop for lunch because we wanted to get the crap outta there.
so, as we're loading the car with our stuff - stuff to keep, stuff for goodwill, stuff to donate to the local elementary school (boy were they excited!) - allen says he wants to show me some stuff.
he wants to show me his breakdown for the money he'll give me for january to march's woodworking.
last time he sent me a check for a bit over $300, with a breakdown, and i was mildly-to-strongly disturbed by the fact that he took taxes and the cost of his supplies out of my portion, like i should have to pay for those.
so, he did the same thing this time, and i asked him why. he said it was because we were business partners (???) so we had to share the expense.
i said i was not his business partner, i was his landlord, and landlords don't accept less rent because of your expenses.
he wasn't trying to hear that. he was getting a bit upset.
he started telling me how little money he was making for all his hard work, and how he was having money troubles (testify, brother) and he needed to borrow $7k from somewhere to get his teeth done, etc.
so, i rolled the dice, and i explained to him how expensive keeping the house is. i explained property taxes, bills, homeowner's insurance, the home warranty, motherfucking mortgage...not to mention all the expenses attached to settling mom's estate. i told him that mom's money was almost gone.
he got a little bogged down with 'i can't believe you lost $160k that fast' but i corrected him. it wasn't lost, like, oops, it was spent, like, property taxes cost $7k and the second loan on me and shannon's house is killing us so i'll pay it off for $50k. he simmered down. also, as jimmy said, if i had spent it all on coke and hookers, it'd be none of his business because it was my money, but still.
so, he said, well shit. maybe you should think about selling the house.
it was like bells started going off, like i had hit the jackpot on a slot machine, with lights flashing and stuff.
PERFECTION.
basically, he had the talk without me having to do it.
and, it ended on a really good note, with it being a decision we needed to make together, not a huge weight that i'm handling alone.
this talk, which i have spent a cumulative estimated time no less than 2 months of solid worrying on, spread over 6 months, went better than i could have possibly imagined, in my wildest of mental wanderings.
the relief was huge.
then tab and i dropped off the best office supplies to the local school and they were really excited about then.
then i drank my usual celebratory espresso shake and got all cracked out because i hadn't eaten enough.
me and tab kicked the office's ass and had a really, really good day.
i had my real last session with jimmy which was so hot, so hard, so sweaty gross that i teased him about being kinda glad he was leaving. we bro-ed out and i have sunken my friend-hooks into him and will probably not let him go. he's a good one.
i came home and showered and my shower was glorious and i sang in the shower, which i haven't done for a while, and then brian and romi the dog came over and we drank beer and ate a tasty-ass bread salad and got our chat on.
such an amazing day. so wonderful and sad and happy.
it was HOThothot in redwood valley yesterday and the property looks so pretty it could break your heart.
then petaluma was so lovely, open door weather.
i'm missing shannon, who is still in LA.
now, i'm going to go to my writing spot and get my write on, since i barely wrote thursday, didn't write friday. i'll drink some gunpowder tea, i think.

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.

yumi.

yumi is the name of mom's house/farmlette.
i went to yumi today, to work on mom's stuff.
with linda's help, i was able to complete mom's closet, with was amazing and wonderful. christmas magic does happen!
allen asked if he could take down mom's jewelery board, which hangs in the bathroom, and has all mom's everyday jewelery on it.
he said that he didn't really need to be seeing it every day whenever he goes into the bathroom, which i can understand.
and then he said something about how if he had a lady over... he didn't really finish the sentence, just let it trail off.
me and linda both got creeped out by it but i let it go.
it was just an inappropriate thing to say, but what's new, right?
i brought down a bunch more stuff to keep, but less than last time.
closed out her safety deposit box. brought down her fireproof safety box. all her jewelery. a few pairs of shoes.
among the shoes, i found two pairs of clogs.
not wooden clogs, the rubber nursey kind.
i felt like the green ones, which are forest green and pretty worn and are the backless kind, will be cute and helpful for working in the yard.
and i am currently wearing the black ones, the kind with the backs on them, and since my dogs are barking from wearing the nike tennies i bought at ross that i thought were going to be awesome but are actually not comfortable AT ALL, i think i am going to go grocery shopping in them.
'them' being the clogs.
is this how it starts?
i've already mostly stopped wearing heels because they're uncomfortable.
what's next?
elastic waist pants, because they're comfy?
polar fleece, because it's cozy?
have i begun the slippery slope into function-based dressing in earnest?

peace.

i've been writing a lot.
2 hrs a day, 5 days a week.
so far it's torture most of the time, and the majority of what i write feels like it's probably crap, but the point is to write.
at least right now.
once i have consistent enough habits, i can focus more on self-criticism, but for now, my mantra is: just write.
i'm considering a creative writing class, starting in january.
it's a little pricey for me, but i might just go for it.
it would be a good way for me to put my literal money where my mouth is.
i've been working hard on developing better personal time management skills.
it's been only moderately successful so far, but every day teaches me something new, like what NOT to do.
so, it can't be said to be a failure, even if it's not an unqualified success.
i'm feeling hopeful in a way that i haven't in a really long time.
i felt little sparks of it this year, during the quiet periods of mom's illness. post-treatment, pre-death.
we're planning a wedding, talking about kids, making plans for the house.
it's a level of domesticity that i wondered if i'd ever achieve.
i'm throwing our family's annual christmas eve dinner at my house this year.
it's terrifying, because i've never had a dinner at my house, really, and our house is so little that it's going to be a bit of feat fitting everyone in.
but i just felt like a) i can totally do this; b) these are the people i want to come, and i am not going to make my invites smaller because i am nervous; c) this year is really important, as the first year after mom's death, given that mom was an integral part of this tradition, and it was important that this year feel like the beginning of a positive new time, not the end of a sad, painful time. obviously my mom's absence will be impossible to ignore, so i want some added sweetness to even out the sadness.
i'm doing well.
ariana's dad died at the end of last week.
i've been thinking about her and her family constantly. they didn't expect him to die so quickly, so the whole thing was a real surprise. it couldn't have been more than a month or so after his diagnosis.
having just gone through something similar so recently, i have been feeling a little bit raw for her. just so sad she has to have this in her life. i just want nothing but peace and happiness for my people, you know? not that anyone wants bad things for their loved ones. but still. it's like now that i know about sadness, i wish no one else had to experience it. again, not like i've cornered the market on it, or have experienced it so fully. when i re-read that, it sounds a little pompous and self-important, which isn't how i mean it to. i just want us all to have a break, you know?
that's my holiday wish for everyone - a perfect crystalline period of joy and peace.
please, universe or god or whoever handles these things, please be kind to everyone for a while. this has been such a hard time, for so long, and we are all exhausted. please protect everyone, in whatever way you do or can, holding them in one figurative hand and protecting them from harm with the other.

getting things done.

i was overcome by the wave of dread, almost immediately upon returning to the bay area from thanksgiving at disneyland with the fam.
like, the plane stopped, the lights turned on, and my stomach sank.
i felt dreadful, the entire drive home, and once i got home i just curled into a ball on the bed and cried.
the trip to disneyland was so fun, and so Family, but it really highlighted that my mom, who was mainly my Family my whole life, is gone.
the amazing fireworks were so beautiful, so awe-inspiring, and made me think of mom so intensely that i cried almost the whole time, both from the beauty of them and from the solid knot of missing mom inside me.
(seriously, i can't overstate how incredibly beautiful the fireworks were. if you get a chance, please make sure you see them. everything in disneyland shuts down for them in the evening, like, 9ish, so they're hard to miss. get a spot on main street, so you can see them over sleeping beauty's castle. you'll pee in your pants.)
it was all a really powerful reminder that i may be able to go away from my problems, but my problems are just waiting for me to come home.
then, the day after we returned, and i had felt so shitty, i got sick and felt terrible, physically.
so rather than getting to work on all the things i was feeling concerned about not having done, i just lay in bed shivering and blowing my nose for a couple of days. it made me feel crappy about myself, and i felt guilty, like i wasn't really THAT sick, and should have been toughing it out and doing my office work regardless of my physical symptoms. this nasty little voice in my head was hissing at me the whole time, about what a baby i was being, and how lazy and self-indulgent.
day before yesterday, the first day that i felt kinda okay, i did some minor errands, and felt like i might pass out a couple times while i was in conversation with people. i felt really light-headed. it was ana's bday, so me and shannon went to dinner with her and all the important people. it was a very low-keyed affair, in the best way. it suited my energetic and mental abilities perfectly. ana's dad is still really sick from his chemo, so she's been stressed out and had no time to think about herself. i am so mad at god/the universe/whoever for making her go through this. my bday was so shitty this year, and the whole period of time surrounding it was so dreadful, i feel very very sad that she is having to go through it, too. i mean, yeah, i dealt with it, but no one else that i love should ever have to.

*************************************************

yesterday was the first day that i felt good enough to get stuff really done.
i woke up earlier than i have in a while, which isn't that early, but was still a coup for me.
i got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed and plopped down in my office.
duders, i paid SO many bills, it's off the hizzie.
seriously.
i spent roughly $10k in bills yesterday. a large part of that was property taxes for yumi and giving shannon my half of bills and household expenses. but still. that's a HELL of a lot of money on bills. it seems like the more money you have, the bigger the bills.
i spent all day working on bills and my desk.
i spent an embarrassing amount of money buying some file folders, to help me with my organization.
i am terrifically organized in my paper/financial world, compared to the other people that i know of comparable age (except liesl.) i've got a filing system. i have years worth of bills, bank statements and taxes, all bundled according to year. i have a desk and paper clips and a new tape dispenser from fred flair that looks like a snail. the point i'm trying to make is that i am not doing poorly. but i'd like to be doing even better.
so, i bought these files, called 'tickler files,' which is an unfortunate name but nonetheless their name. i think it's going to be really helpful. i created a bunch of files, and filed stuff, and generally slogged through my 'in' basket.
it was a really productive, satisfying day.
shannon spent the whole day digging again. he's a digging machine. not really on purpose, but still. the drainage ditches (french drains, for those of you who are interested) on three sides of the house are done. there's just one little section on the last side that needs to get done. we have a bunch of dudes here, working on cement today. so, shannon had a bunch of prep work to do for their arrival. i took him out to dinner to thank him.
we ended up eating a totally grodie meal and fighting the whole time. in the end of the fighting, in the middle of the groders meal, shannon asked me to marry him, for reals. we'd already agreed to get married and were in discussions about the logistics of the marriage, and in fact, that was what we were fighting about, but there had been no formal proposal. it was such a funny time to do it, over this gross meal, after bickering, but i cried nonetheless. then i had to cough a lot, because i am getting over my cold and my whole internal drainage system is all out of whack. but it was lovely. so, we're FORMALLY engaged. wedding plans will be disclosed as we make them.
everything is feeling better, now that i am not feeling sick and i am able to get things done.
tomorrow i'll hit the gym for the first time in a while. i had a training session last week that basically crippled me for disneyland, and then i was sick, so it's been about a week. i'm ready to go back. therapy friday, chiropractor saturday.
just inching my way along, you know?

bzzz, bzzz, bzzzz.

my little brain has been buzzing with activity lately.
it's a good thing.
i am filled with curiosity and an honest commitment to learning about things right now.
the problem is an overwhelming amount of things that i would really, really like to be working on, all at the same time.
examples include:
-cooking - reading cookbooks, cruising epicurious, shopping for utensils (hello, food processor!)
-french - i bought a french magazine, and am trying to slog my way through it, with my mom's old french/english dictionary and one of those '500 french verbs' books. slow going.
-design/house stuff - reading house magazines for ideas, set up idea notebook, research eras of design, thrift store shopping, researching green building options
-personal productivity - research various systems, finish reading 'getting things done,'
-chores - reorganize closet, vacuum, find places for all of the stuff i keep bringing home from mom's
-writing - do some, research classes, read some books about writing

see?
it's a lot.
i have been getting a fair amount done, in general, but i'd like to be more organized about it. i am pondering setting my interests up like a school or work schedule, where i set slots of time everyday/week for various subjects, so i am sure that each interest gets its own undivided slot of time. so, say, doing an hour and a half of design research 3 days a week. working on french for an hour every morning. whatever. you get my meaning.
i'm not sure it'll work, but i'm pondering it.

me and shannon brought the dog up to RV yesterday.
i bagged mom's clothes, or, at least some of them. armed with 4 bags of kitchen-sized bio-bags i packed all her pants and long sleeved tops. all undies and bras. all work out clothes. all were put in bags, labeled, and taken to the local goodwill, where they were dumped into bins unceremoniously with other people's crappy stuff. it was hard to see her stuff reduced to so many bags of crap. (clearly she isn't the sum of her belongings, though the staggering quantity of her belongings does go a ways towards representing the vastness of her being, in quantity, if not quality.)
seeing her stuff allowed/forced to mingle with strangers' stuff, her sweatshirt in a pile on top of other people's sweatshirts/jeans/whatever, was terribly painful. it felt like they owed her a special bin of her own, or a ceremony should have been performed to commemorate the magnitude of meaning of them being allowed the privilege of passing along her clothes to others. and, i looked at her faded sweatshirts, with their frayed cuffs or necks cut off or the purple jersey button down with the little cow patch sewn on, and i know that no one will sense the vibrations of my mom, and people will pass these things on the racks because to them they are just ratty sweatshirts, and they can't sense the mana inherent in them. those are just weird old exercise socks, or those are just some bright purple stretchy pants, to them. to me, they are artifacts of the life my mom lived, and proof she existed. i hate that the physical stuff that lasts is always so impersonal and the really important stuff, the intangibles like her voice and smell, are the first to go.
i kept her favorite hat from her radiation days, and it still smells like her. it's been hard finding stuff that still smells like her because everything smells musty in her closet. lots of stuff smells like mildew, from drying too slowly in the freezing cold laundry room during the winter/fall of her malady. but this hat smells like her still. i have been wearing it all morning, periodically taking it off to bury my nose in it. i am both comforted by it and afraid i'm ruining it by wearing it, adding my own smell in and wasting one of the last known repositories of my mom's smell. before this, i couldn't have imagined the panic i'd experience about the loss of something so commonplace. i would have stored things in air-tight canisters if i knew. i would have archived every voicemail.
at this time last year, we had no idea that this year would look the way it did. at this time last year i couldn't have conceived of the idea that mom wouldn't see another thanksgiving, christmas, birthday. i couldn't possibly wrap my brain around that. this time last year i was learning how to walk dogs, settling into our new house in silverlake, making my way through classes i would eventually have to ditch at the last minute.
things can change so dramatically, so quickly.
we packed mom's stuff until we didn't have any more room in the trunk, then headed home. (stopped for my celebratory espresso shake along the way, and to drop off hats and cancer books to the cancer resource center in ukiah).
we cried heading home, about everything, holding hands on top of the center console.
i wonder sometimes if it would be less painful to just never go back to Yumi (mom's ranchlette). it seems really appealing at times. even driving up there, through this heart-grabbingly beautiful scenery, is painful. i have driven up so many more times under duress, because mom had cancer and i was going towards her and the cancer, or away from her and her cancer. i didn't have enough time to lay a foundation of cozy feelings about it. now it's almost solely pain.
i know, i know.
it wouldn't work and i'd never do it anyway.
but i think about it.
being up there, where it's like mom laid out in teeny farm form, just reminds me now of how gone she is, physically.
i am not at a place yet where i can take much comfort in spiritual presence or something like that. mostly i am still pissed about the absence of her familiar form.
plus then i could let allen shamble off into his destiny.
he played a cd of his band at 11 for the last hour we were there. they sounded good, but it's weird that he jams out to his own cd. is that common for musicians to do? my minute experience with such things left me feeling profoundly embarrassed when forced to listen to my own voice on cd. i can think of very few things i'd like to do less. but anyway, he jammed out. they have a gig at the konocti harbor inn and resort, which is a really big deal for them. i snickered in my head, thinking of its old incarnation, packed to the gills with old sun-flayed alcoholics. it's got a white trash history that's hard to shake. it seems to be where bands go to start to die, though it used to be where bands went to finish dying, so perhaps it's coming up in the world. the website looks pretty professional. anyway, allen was stoked on his cd and stoked on the gig. so, kudos to him.
okay, i feel like i could keep going, but i need to get dressed to leave for therapy.
thanks for checking in on me, by the way.
sometimes it seems like everyone else is kind of over mom's death (not really, but you know.) i feel like everyone is going to get bored with my blog, now that i the dramatic stuff has passed.
so, if you're checking in and reading, thanks.

grief work.

i went to therapy on friday.
my therapist has started practicing out of her house, which is about a half hour from my house, but north, so i don't have to slog my way through marin and san francisco to get my heal on.
it's pretty sweet.
i've been feeling really frustrated.
i'm so tired of being sad, that i've been avoiding the sadness, and avoiding everything, really.
binge reading. sleeping late. a whole day will disappear without me noticing it.
and i've been realizing that there are whole chunks of the last year that are so sad, and were so painful to experience, that i find myself avoiding them, which really isn't like me.
and i'm not getting other stuff accomplished, like paper work, or projects around the house.
i'm just vegetating an festering. well, not festering. that's an icky word. how about marinating? that implies a sense of non-movement, and intensification of things, but without making us all think of pus.
so, i've been marinating.
therapy was really helpful.
she set me to the task of doing 'grief work,' which is a practice basically as embarrassing as it sounds. immediately i felt embarrassed, just thinking what it *might* consist of. and, i'll admit, the actual practices of it are as embarrassing as i'd imagined. but i have resolved to not let my embarrassment stop me.
i have a really bad habit of not doing any of the practices that my therapist tells me to do. i benefit hugely from our talking things out, but i don't think i have ever once really tried anything she suggested i do out in the world. this is probably linked to my disinclination to accept book recommendations. i think i know better, so i take what i want and then ignore the rest.
but i haven't been especially impressed with my solo processing abilities, when it's come to my grief.
i mean, i have, in the sense that it's impressive that i didn't turn to hard drugs (thought about it) or reckless sex acts (thought about it) or just getting in my car and driving away (thought about it) to help get me through this hardness. my coping mechanisms allowed me to get done what needed to be done; to compartmentalize things so that i was only working on what was necessary and saving the extras for later; to be as present as possible with everything that happened; to be able to laugh and cry, as needed. all of these are impressive feats, no doubt.
but now that the emergency is over, and my time is like a vast snow covered meadow, lacking definition or features, swallowing me without my realizing it, i find i am not moving forward. i am, because we all are whether we mean to or not, but not in a purposeful manner, which is my preference.
clearly i can't process this kind of thing through sheer force of will, or through wishing it were so, and i seem to have reached the end of the effectiveness of my already acquired skills. so, i am opening myself up to the cringe-inducingly named 'grief work.'
i'm not even going to describe it, because that will make it more jokey, which is the opposite of what i need to be doing. i need to be making it serious for me, and personal and healthy. so, no details.
i did it for 15 mins-ish yesterday (i'm supposed to aim for 30-40 mins, but i couldn't make it happen) and i will admit that i felt pretty good afterwards.
i'd like to be more effective at getting stuff done.
my therapist also encouraged me to place my own structure in my life, since i don't have external stuff defining it. i am committing to doing an hour a day of paperwork, work for my money/real estate/adulthood/mom's death stuff. i am doing research on design and architecture, so learn more about things i'd like to do with our new house. i am continuing to cook bravely and be an active participant in the household.
and, the fact that there is always so much more that needs to be done, does make me feel bad, but i am writing down the productive things i do everyday, in an effort to focus more on what i *am* accomplishing.
if having more money, and owning homes, and grieving for my mom, are my job now, i am setting myself a schedule, and sticking to it.
i have only just started, to there hasn't been any monumental earth-shifting transformation yet, but i am making tentative, but discernible baby-steps on everything, and that is something.
okay, now i have to do my 'grief work,' while shannon is outside doing yard stuff. i absolutely can't do it while he's inside to hear me, and i've avoided it long enough.

getting settled.

i'm back from my holiday in la.
it was lovely, as usual.
i was a little out of sorts on monday, and am feeling out of sorts today.
i think it's just me getting weird from having too much alone time.
it's beautiful today in 'luma.
sun's shining, but the air is crisp. it's nice to have something to warm at least the front half of our little icebox.
i'm just going to spend some time getting settled again, probably just today, and then tomorrow i begin gitting 'er done.
i bought some amazing boots in la, and a yummy striped cashmere sweater. some other stuff, too, but those are the stars.
missing mom today.

brave.

today i told allen that i wasn't going to give him a portion of the money from the sale of mom's car.
i woke up full of vim and vigor, and i hopped out of bed with shannon and got dressed, so i wouldn't be tempted to slink off to bed after he left for work.
after accomplishing three (3) things on my to do list, before 9:30am, i felt like a million bucks, and i thought, fuck it. i'm going for it.
so i did.
it was scary, but i have to say, i was terribly proud of both of us.
i did an excellent job of not backing down; being firm but kind; not crying or making a big deal out of him wanting me to give him the money.
he did an excellent job of not turning into a psychopath; he pressed the point, but in a totally tasteful normal person way; he suggested he call my uncle, our unofficial mediator, which was an excellent idea.
i felt really encouraged.
i spend SO much time worrying about the Allen Situation.
i spent hours, cumulatively, worrying about what to do about The Car Situation.
how do i tell him no?
he's going to go ape shit!
maybe i should just give it to him.
but really, why? is there any good reason why i should give it to him, aside from just wanting to keep him from going bonkers?
no.
but still.
maybe i should.
but i don't want to get in the habit of just giving him whatever he asks for because i am afraid of him.
but i also don't want to say no, just because i can, and because i'm trying to assert my independence.
the big question: What Would Mom Do? W.W.M.D.?
well, mom would probably give him the money,
but she'd give him the money because she's in love with him and wants him to be happy.
i am not in love with him, and am letting him live in my house, rent-free, for a year, for which i haven't been thanked.
so, mom would probably give him the money, but she would support me doing what i think is best, because she trusts me, which is why she made me the executor of the will. (not the executioner. that's different.)
so, i just have to trust myself to make a decision that mom would understand, understanding that this is a deal between me and allen, who have had a VERY turbulent relationship, not between mom and allen, who had a largely peaceful relationship.

so, i'm not giving it to him.
i just couldn't think of a single good reason why i should, aside from that he wants it, which isn't a good enough reason. what claim does he have? what has he done to deserve it? none, nothing.
and i came up with a really good alternate use for the money, that made me feel really, really happy after i thought of it. i don't want to talk about it, because i am still working out the details, but i can tell you that mom would've been STOKED on it. i can imagine her clapping her hands, giggling over it. seriously.
so, it was resolved and it worked out fine.
i was a tigress, but a kind tigress.
allen was a grizzly bear, but an old, mellow grizzly bear.
i felt very sad saying 'no,' because it made me wish that i *wanted* to give it to him.
does that make sense?
he has done so little to make me feel inclined to go out of my way for him, and if he had, i might feel more like just biting the bullet and giving the money to him.
but dude.
a year of free rent is a sweet deal. AND 30% of the sale of the house.
so, he's doing fine.
but he's just not that appreciative of the whole 'free rent' thing because that's what he's used to from living with mom.
oy.
i can't wait until some other lady takes him off my hands.
in other news of my daring feats, i have have started cooking dinner for me and shannon for pretty much the first time ever.
i am very nervous about cooking, mostly because i am afraid of making mistakes, but i just decided to go for it, which is not at all like the old me, but *is* like the new me.
so, i made a marinade today, for a chicken dish i'll cook tomorrow.
and tonight, we had grilled buffalo steaks (with some oregano and rosemary on them), roasted broccoli with pecans, and black beans!!
not bad for someone who is afraid to make grilled cheese sandwiches.
i am continuing to impress myself.

hit the ground and run.

one of my projects, on-going, is getting rid of magazines.
i have always subscribed to magazines, as far as i can remember.
when i was little i subscribed to electric company magazine, 321 contact and barbie magazine. barbie magazine only came a couple times a year and, to a little kid, it seems totally random. so, i'd think about it for months and then give up and forget about it and then it would suddenly show up.
anyway, i have always had magazines in my life. my mom's dad gave me subscriptions to magazines for presents, too. like reader's digest. i got that for years, when i was in, like, 5th grade through middle school. it's funny to think about that now, because it seems so inappropriate for the age range, but i liked it. i also got national geographic and smithsonian from him. then, i subscribed myself to sassy, ym, entertainment weekly, details, us (before it was a gossip magazine). then it was jane, w, harpers, us (when it became gossip), readymade, lucky...
mom always had subscriptions, too, so we'll add in more, real simple, elle...
our kitchen had this stack of magazines at the end of the counter that reached nearly hip-high.
we have some hoarding issues.
i kept YEARS of magazines, all perfectly in order, moved from house to house, up until i was...25ish, maybe.
did i ever look at them?
no.
but i always felt like it was a research library, waiting to happen. each one had so many interesting articles, it seemed like a shame to chuck them.
or course, i would never have been able to find the articles i was looking for, without consulting a REAL reference library, which would have their own copies of the articles, which defeats the whole purpose of having my own copies.
i even daydreamed up my own dewey decimal style filing system, to find articles i was looking for. but i never put it into action. and it might have been pretty sad if i had, because i was 19, daydreaming about catagorization. it seems a shame that i wasted mental space on something so dry. i should have been dreaming about stilettos covered in mirrored glitter and making out with celebrities and whatever young adult girls dreams about.
anyway, clutter and hoarding is a serious problem for the fisher ladies. and by fisher ladies, i mean me and my mom. and since my mom is dead, now it's me. and, since i'm going to have to deal with her hoarding at some point in the very near future, excavating through layers of christmas lights and unopened post-its value packs, it is doubly my struggle alone.
so, in my quest for adulthood, i have been monitoring my hoarding. i notice that my own housekeeping style is almost identical to my mom's, which is untidiness that safely but narrowly skirts dirtiness. we don't live in squalor, but we create piles and heaps and stacks for future perusals, which never occur.
take my present location, for example.
to my right sit two stacks of cds, each a little under a foor tall. these are for deciding to either keep or sell. they are leftovers from similar stacks that lived on my desk in my first la apartment.
to my right is a low, menacing stack of papers that are all important. bills, reminders, important paperwork. many of them are waiting for my file cabinet to be moved into the office, but we haven't gotten that out of the future-guitar-cd-chill out nook, currently the unpacked-box-room.
on the floor, to my right, is a small, but disheveled pile of cards, papers, folders and binders. they are things related to mom that i haven't fully come to terms with.
stacks and piles, stacks and piles.
i worry about never having it all together.
i mean, i know it's not really possible to have everything entirely together, ever. and i guess that's what makes life interesting, the endless balancing and rebalancing.
but i'd like to think that my previous disinterested, disorganized, sudden bursts of tidying, followed by long barren periods of accumulation, are just a phase of my housekeeping style which i am currently learning to grow through.
i don't want to have an untidy house that looks like it's entirely decorated according to what ended up where by chance. i want things to look purposeful.
and tidy.
and clean.
and, i admit it, i am not positive how to make that transformation, since my model for housekeeping was pretty haphazard.
mom had a good excuse, being a working, largely single mom of a pretty spoiled, lazy kid. our house was a little cluttered, mostly because i didn't really help, and mom didn't really make me.
so, i'd like for, say, shannon's sections of the house to be less clearly delineated from my own. there is an almost surgically precise line dividing his things from mine and it's a little embarrassing to me.
all this is a long-ass preamble to me starting another long story.
i have been reading a lot of real simple, as i get rid of old magazines. i tear out whatever i wanted to keep and chuck the rest.
so, the readership of that magazine is basically moms. these are busy ladies. they're more affluent than, say, good housekeeping readers, but not so affluent that they can forget about cleaning and just focus on being rich, hot wives. again, they're busy, with careers and kids and husbands and stuff.
so, while i love the magazine, i sometimes i have a hard time relating to the demographic it's geared towards.
these are ladies who will have a cup of tea in silence, at 5 in the morning, to meditate and start the day in peace. finding calm, quiet moments is a constant struggle for them.
i have exactly the opposite problem.
my problem is getting started in the first place. well, part of it is that i have a lot of time on my hands right now, but this isn't a problem specific to this period of my life. when i have free time, i tend to just...loaf. that's the only word i can think of. i can spend a day off doing seriously nothing. i mean, maybe reading. but even then, i'll take breaks to just stare off into space.
is this normal?
if i'm not careful, i can waste weeks at a time, just drifting around the house, reading and snacking and laying on things. the house probably needs cleaning, laundry probably needs doing, there are piles of stuff to unpile, but i don't do it. it's inertia. once i am at rest i have a very hard time not staying at rest.
so, this morning, i woke up and got going.
i am trying a new method for making myself do things.
no staying in bed after i wake up.
just get up and do stuff.
so, i have been meaning to change the bed, to wash out any lingering mold spores, and today is the day.
i stripped the bed, put the wool comforter out in the sun to cook, with some unwashable pillows.
i am washing the washable pillows.
i am washing all the bedding.
i'll put on fresh bedding, including pieces of this amazing 5 piece quilt set that i bought yesterday. it's snowy white, quilted with white thread, with flowers and stuff, a comforter and 4 pillow cases. it'll be too shabby chic all together, but broken up, it'll be perfect. cozy.
i also bought some other stuff yesterday. this is unrelated to my chores, just to share:
-a long grey cardigan. it's kinda cheapo, but i've been craving something with that sillouette.
-this amazing pleather jacket. it's short (not cropped) with some big buttons, puffed sleeves, and a little hood lined in fake shearling. it's black. it's the perfect size for wearing a hoodie underneath. slim fitting, but not skin tight.
-a book about decorating with junk.
-my dream pea coat. talla, it's vaguely reminiscent of yours, which i have a crush on, but it's narrower through the ribs and maybe a skosh longer. it was $200 at off 5th! cashmere wool!!
(on a side note to this side note, off 5th is off the hizzy, people. they have amazing bags and coats and some sweet jeans. lucy, come home soon so we can shop at the petaluma outlets. there is a nine west outlet, too, and a bcbg outlet that was so delicious it made my head swim, but i had just burnt myself out at off 5th, so i had to leave. these outlets are the bomb diggity.)
so, i'm trying out various methods for getting more done.
i think i might be really lazy, combined with not knowing where to start. it's a heady cocktail.
i want to take this time to do some really brave, dramatic work on myself.
i want to be brave about cooking.
i want to practice guitar.
i want to writewritewrite.
i want to decorate my house in a way that i am insanely in love with.
i want to ease up from reading so much. i want to do things, not read about other people doing things.
i imagine myself getting swallowed by my life. i spend so much of it almost totally submerged in it, with days and weeks and months passing without me really ever grasping hold of them. they just slither away. and every once in a while i am able to remember how to rise out of it all and see it with some kind of perspective.
so, i'd like to get better at getting that perspective more regularly.
maybe a weekly check in.
maybe it means being more present at every second.
i'm not positive.
anyone else have any methods that really work for them?
this last year, from december 2006 to now, was like a fire. a fire raged through my life. it burnt everything. some things came out of the fire singed, but salvageable. somethings were miraculously spared. and somethings were destroyed. so, my life burnt down. now, looking at the ashes and the rubble, i am allowed to rebuild. but, rather than rebuilding it the same way, flaws and all, i'd like to use this time, when everything is already pretty much destroyed, to rebuild a dreamhome of a life. i want to add everything i have always wanted but was waiting for. and i want the new house to take out every impractical cupboard, dark corner, mildewed bathroom and stinky carpet. i want my life to feel brand new to me in the best way. highlight the things that made it through the fire. smoothly incorporate the new acquisitions. and make piece with the things i lost.

how am i doing?

fine, i think.
i had more 'mom's not really dead' dreams this week. two in two nights.
i don't remember the first one.
in the second one, i caught mom watching me from my closet.
she tried to disappear before i saw her, but i caught her.
there was some discussion about what she was doing, why she was hiding.
in these dreams i am always aware that mom died, so i am really reluctant to just surrender to my joy at having her back. i am skeptical, waiting for her to go again, and it's hard for me to be excited about her being back. i usually have to have the same conversation with her everytime - aren't you dead? then what are you doing here? how long will you be here? will you be back?
so, after that conversation, i took her hand, to lead her around and show her off to the house full of people who were over.
i stopped on the way out of the room, and asked her if it was okay for me to show her off, and told her i didn't want to get her in trouble, if showing up to the living was violating a rule of some kind or something.
she patted my hand and said, 'you don't have to worry. i'm pretty high up.'
so, in my dream, mom is like a vp in heaven or something.
but then, of course, she's not really visiting from beyond the grave, and when i wake up i have to remember all over again that she's dead.
shannon said he felt like he would enjoy those dreams.
they're really distressing to me. i am so aware that she's not back forever, and so afraid of having to start missing her again from the beginning that in the dreams i am afraid and mad.
and waking up from the sweetness of having her back, even for a little bit, just for a hug or something, or to smell her neck, and having to know it's not real, is painful.
i'm pissed at my subconscious for constantly dumping these on me.
i know it's a choice, but i'd just prefer the real deal, as opposed to a dream. if it's just the dream, i'd rather just not.
i made some calls i've been avoiding.
called social security to tell them mom died. i've been avoiding it, but i don't really know why. i was worried that i'd have to give them money back, in case they've given mom some payments since she died. i don't want them to think i'm trying to rob the system or something. but they had been informed by the funeral parlor, so it was fine.
i also called the tax collector's office to have them send proof of payment to my mortgage company. i was delinquent on my property taxes, but i finally paid them, and i need to prove that to my mortgage company, so they don't punish me soundly. the tax collectors were nice and were fine with faxing the confirmation to the mortgage people for me, which was very nice.
i started a file for my files called 'yumi' which is the name of mom's/my farm. in it, i made files for property tax and mortgage. probably next will be insurance. i need to call about changing the policy since i have a 'tenant' now. and, by tenant, i mean a squatter who i am paying to live in my house.
i'm still chewing on the allen nonsense.
i talked to my uncle on the phone for a long time yesterday, about allen and what i should do. he didn't offer suggestions about it, but reminded me that i need to decide what mom would have preferred.
i want to make sure that, whatever decision i make, i am making it for the right reasons.
i don't want to not give him money from the sale of the car just because i don't want to and i don't have to. i don't feel like that's a good enough reason.
and i don't want to give him money because mom would have, because mom was in love with him and i am totally not.
i also don't want to be giving him money because i am afraid of him freaking out and being insane. i am not going to get in the habit of just doing what he wants because i'm afraid of him.
so, i still have some pondering to do.
i'm just slowly, carefully, steadily chewing on the issues facing me.
i just do what i can, everyday. i'm doing a mostly successful job of not beating myself up for not doing enough. i'm keeping it to a minimum, at least.
my car is still full of shit from mom's party. my office area is better, but my no means fixed. my side of the bedroom is better, but not done. i need to vaccum and change the sheets on the bed, in case we have mold spores in there that are upsetting shannon. i have been thinking a lot about writing, but not actually writing. also cooking. thinking a lot, but not doing.
all of these things are things i am able to beat myself up for, but which i am mostly not.
i talked to a bunch of people yesterday, each for a satisfying length of time, and i was really thankful for that.
i have such a hard time connecting with people sometimes. well, mostly just reaching out. it's a challenge for me even in the best of circumstances, so in a time like this, it's especially hard for me. but every time i do, i remember why it's so important to me.
i had a meltdown in costco a few days ago. me and mom used to go to costco all the time, together, and i hadn't really thought of that. i just underestimated the difficulty of it. i did some head-down-on-the-handle-of-the-shopping-cart crying. surrounded by the caliber of shopper who invariably fills costco in the middle of the day on a weekday, in the kid's clothing aisle, with the smells of instant mashed potatoes wafting to me from the sample table behind me, i cried over missing my mom. seeing the value packs of brightly colored sharpies, i cried.
god, it's not a very dynamic way to state the situation, but i just missed her so much.
i don't know if i like costco without my mom there.
alright, i'm taking myself to a matinee.
oh, before i forget.
i was thinking about britney spears, as we all are, and thinking about how ashamed her parents must be. having a kid with a drug problem, or who gets into a life of crime, those are things that can be related to genetics or the community surrounding them, but her story is not attributable to anything other than a massive failure in parenting. it's like her entire existence is saying, 'my parents totally dropped the ball.'

self-control.

i went out to breakfast this morning.
well, i ate breakfast there yesterday, too, with my dad, but i woke up thinking about it again this morning, so i went there.
mid-way through the meal, my phone rang.
my phone said mom was calling from home.
as always, seeing 'mom,' there was a process of thoughts and emotions that took about one second. mom! mom's dead. not mom. allen. oh no. allen.
so, because allen gets kind of crazy when i don't answer my phone, i took my phone outside of the restaurant to answer it.
he sounded drunk/high. slurred speech.
he told me he wanted to talk to me about a couple of things.
he told me a long, rambling story about him and mom having a conversation about her car. (if you'll recall, i might have mentioned that allen asked me if he was going to get a portion of the proceeds from the sale of mom's car. i politely informed him that that wasn't going to happen.) anyway, he told me this story about mom offering *him* the car, and him declining, because it would hold his bass. he said she had said maybe she'd give it to tab, since i didn't want it. allen said that they had left it unfinished, the conversation.
so, his end decision was this: we should sell the car and split the money 4 ways - him, me, tab and lucy.
as he told me the story i got more and more impatient and annoyed. he does this thing, where he grabs hold of some idea and he worries it and worries it and he won't let it go. he'll bug me about the same thing repeatedly, because it's on his mind, despite me having told him the same thing over and over. so, him bringing the car up, and a reason why HE should get some of the proceeds from its sale, was not unexpected, but certainly unwelcome.
in what can only be described as an epic, herculean feat of self-control, i told him that i would think about it and talk to him about it at another time.
i am just so surprised that he is constantly looking for more ways that he can benefit from my mom's death.
my allowing him to live RENT FREE in my mom's house for the next year, i am basically giving him $30K. that's how much it will cost me to keep the house for a year. and yet he wants more. he wants a portion of the sale of mom's car, so he can fix up his fucking VW van, even though mom basically bought him a truck only months before she died. and yet he should also benefit from the sale of her car? he wants me to pay to rebuild the yoga studio, so he can live there, so i can rent out the big house. like i am not able to rent out the big house without coming up with a way for him to stay. why the fuck should i pay for ANYTHING for him, really? he's not my semi-deadbeat boyfriend. he is not my responsibility, and yet he's just always looking for ways to nibble a little more for himself, here and there.
i can understand him being an older guy who's worried about his future. i can understand him worrying about what will happen to him. that's scary, i'm sure. and yet, mom took on the weight of caring for him out of her love for him, and in exchange for whatever emotional and energetic benefits she gained from their partnership. i, on the other hand, have gained nothing from knowing him, aside from frustration and annoyance and anger.
i know, i'm just ranting.
but it's just always so god damned sticky with him.
like, he sees my mom's car's sale as a way to solve his own problem, specifically, how to fix up the van. rather than taking the route that the rest of the world would take, namely getting a fucking job and making some fucking money, he goes for the easiest route to the money, namely tapping his favorite money source - my mom. only she's dead now and so *i* get to get tapped for his fucking crackpot ideas.
it's barely been a month and already i am really, really anxious to get rid of him from my life.
did i mention that he already emptied all my mom's drawers in their bedroom? yeah. he emptied them into bags and stuck them in her closet. he bedside table and her dresser. then when we were up he told me about all her stuff in the medicine cabinet, hinting that i could go through them at any time. fucking dude. i am up gathering things for her funeral, which hasn't even happened yet, because she's barely dead, you insensitive ass-face. i don't give a crap about her fucking face lotion. p.s. sorry the remnants of my mom's existence are so trying for you to be around. my mom, who bankrolled your crazy-ass for almost 10 years. yeah, sorry HER stuff being in HER house that i am allowing you to live in RENT FREE is harshing your mellow.
those were *my* drawers to go through. that was for me to do, as a way to come to terms with her passing. i wanted to know her better through the artifacts of her life. and he's basically bulldozing over the whole thing to make it all a more comfy chill out zone for him.
i think i was hasty to commit myself to a year of him.
in totally unrelated news, tacked on here at the end of my outburst, shannon spent all of yesterday shoveling moldy dirt out from under the house. it was fucking dreadful. he suffered sore muscles, low-ceilinged crawl spaces and, most horrifying of all, a potato bug on his arm. i am getting skeeved out just thinking about it. we covered the air vents in the house with black plastic, which seems to have greatly reduced the amount of moldy air that is coming into the house, and shannon felt he could tentatively say that he felt better this morning, with less mold coming in to attack him and make him wheeze.
so, that's nice news.