We all have special places, restaurants, pubs, bookstores, that we frequent so often that we begin to assert over them a sort of emotional ownership, even as we realize intellectually that we are mere visitors. Sometimes these places are our college hangouts (I have a special fondness for the Mel’s Drive-In at Geary and Arguello in SFO, for example, because it was the place of many late-night milk-shake and Ms. Pac-Man extravaganzas). Sometimes we adopt them later in life – there’s a Japanese restaurant in Irving that Fuzzy and I visit almost often enough to have ‘our’ table.

And then there are the places where there really is a connection, a sense of history. For me, as for much of my family, that place is The Diner. My mother pointed out in a forum post on the diner’s website (White Crystal Diner.dot com), that most of us never referred to it by name, because we never had to, and in fact, I think I was at least thirteen before I realized it even had a name. It was simply The Diner, and everyone in town knew what that meant.

It was the ultimate family business, operated in part by family I barely knew, loved and hated at once by other family who will ever see me as a nine-year-old girl with strawberry-blonde braids and thick glasses, the little girl who got yelled at for spinning on the bar stools until she was sick, who was greeted every year on her birthday, by a fake candle poked through the tin-foil covering of her very special bowl of rice pudding, who associates the place with innocence and childhood and endless balmy summers at the Jersey shore.

I remember bringing my cousin Ginny, 31 years older than me, who called me her birthday girl because I was born on HER birthday, a bouquet of black balloons the day I turned nine and she turned 40. She pretended outrage, but we all knew she loved the attention, and the tips. “Forty is Sporty,” we told her, and the balloons echoed our words.

I remember, several years later, no longer sporting braids arguing with Moose (Anthony) about what a California burger should really include. “Sprouts,” I teased, having lived in the golden state for all of three years by then. “Californians put sprouts on EVERYTHING.” In the end, we compromised with bacon and avocado. It probably wasn’t the first time I ever ate real food there (as in NOT rice pudding) but it’s the one time I remember doing so. That burger was perfect.

I remember my cousins, Cathy and KJ, Ginny’s kids, complaining that they were asked to help out when things got busy. I wasn’t old enough to be asked, but I’d have volunteered in a heartbeat, and even though I KNOW how hard Moose and Ginny worked, and how tired and greasy they were at the end of the day, I’m still a little jealous I never got to have that experience.

I remember Aunt Molly’s red-red lipstick, and how her ever present Chanel No. 5 perfume has combined with the deepest of sense memory so much that it now smells like rice pudding to me. I remember her air kisses, and perfect hair, and how even when she was tired her eyes were always laughing.

I hear their voices in my head, and the rhythms and cadences of their speech, and I use them in character work, when I can, either in text or, sometimes, on stage.

Today, four days before I turn 36, I remember most the total magic of walking through the door at The Diner, and sitting on one of the aquamarine-upholstered stools, and having rice pudding placed in front of me without me ever having to ask.

* * * * *

The White Crystal was sold several years ago, and is currently being refurbished, and will be shipped to its new location in Springfield, MA. Long may she live.

I quit my job.

With no small amount of trepidation, I entered the dentist’s office this morning not for any drilling or pulling, but for a cleaning, and general exam. Mai, the hygienist, was sweet and gentle, even giving me a neck rest without having to be asked, and her touch was sure and deft.

After, Dr. F. went over my X-rays, and we plotted a treatment solution (that sounds so Hunt for Red October doesn’t it?) involving no root canals, two crowns, and more fillings than I care to tally.

Sometimes, trips to the dentist aren’t horrifying at all.

Really.

Clouds growing ever thicker each time I glanced upwards hovered in the sky all day, finally darkening to ominous bruised masses just as we left home to drive to Dallas for workshop. In Starbucks, one of the places we stopped on the way, a baristo tried to wager $100 that it would not actually rain.

I should have taken the bet, because the skies opened up three minutes into our journey. While I tracked flashes of lightning, Fuzzy turned up the radio, and focused on driving. In my head, though, I was in a boat chasing sharks on choppy seas.

A friend wrote about making chef for a specific kind of bread, and I find myself wistful for the time when had time to putter in my kitchen and experiment with bread crafting. Now I see my kitchen as a vast wasteland of sky blue tile and cobalt blue appliances, the former marred only by doggie footprints, the latter dust free only because the maids make certain of it.

I remember baking with my grandfather, whose sourdough chef bubbled and grew on the counter over the dishwasher, and think he would be disappointed that I’m not keeping his legacy alive.

With the changing of the calendar page we step from July into August. My month. It was a less than positive beginning – having to backtrack home from a point almost half-way to work because I forgot my access badge.

The argiope is back in hiding, but she’s left behind a renewed NEED to write. I am entertaining the notion of being a virtual assistant. The need to earn be happy should not be outweighed by the need to earn a living wage.

Work still makes me cry, but the possibility of change brings a smile to dry the tears.

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I made my last blogathon post at 8:01 this morning, and even though I was so tired I could barely hold myself upright to do it, as soon as I clicked “publish” in my admin interface, I had an adrenaline rush to my oversore brain and had to stay awake a bit longer. Then the dogs needed to go out, and then I had to take an elimination break, and so, by the time I got to sleep it was nearly nine.

I was up at 2 anyway, and I rambled around the house distractedly for a while, trying to figure out what I was doing. Finally I decided a swim was in order, and then I had to find the pump, which for some reason I keep calling a generator today, as if I don’t know the difference, but I DO, I swear, and then I had to inflate my new pool chair/float/thing because what I really wanted was just to float around not to actually swim.

Finally I was floating and Cleo wasn’t barking at the pool or the birds, but I quickly grew restless, so I came back inside and showered, and suddenly it was four and I was pushing Fuzzy into the shower. “We’re leaving for my workshop at 5:15,” I told him, “and I need to get something to drink with caffeine from Starbucks.” Poor bewildered Fuzzy didn’t think to question my declaration of our estimated departure time, which was fifteen minutes later than we NEEDED to leave, coffee or not, and when my brain finally engaged it was 5:20. But I had my chai.

Note: It is possible to drive from South Grand Prairie to the West End of downtown Dallas in exactly 17 minutes. On a Sunday evening. If you’re damned lucky. And there are no accidents or stupid people.

I missed about twenty minutes of workshop, arriving just as the warm up was concluding. S said she was surprised I was awake, and truly, I don’t think I was. I don’t think I am now. I think this whole day has been a case of semi-lucid dreaming because my brain is still at the (Buffy-esque) fire-bad tree-pretty stage of cognizance. (In my defense, I called everyone whose cell # I’d pulled from the forum, and of course they were all off.)

For once my hesitation in workshop was not fear but exhaustion. On the other hand, I wasn’t nervous at all, because the editor/censor part of my brain was still comatose. However, skipping sleep is NOT a recommended technique for dealing with terror. Even if it works.

I was craving a cheeseburger, and had earned it, damnit, by blogging all night, and so Fuzzy met me at Fridays and we had dinner before heading home, where I crawled back into bed, and have been kind of vegging, unable to really stay awake and do anything that requires any kind of participation (also I fell asleep, sort of, while watching Monk, and have no idea what happened) , and unwilling to concede that the tiredness has won, and I have to surrender to sleep.

I’m feeling all inspired and writey because even when I suck (which is usually) I always feel inspired and writey after workshop, but I know I need to rest. Sometimes I guess I do channel my inner four-year-old, the stubborn little girl in feet-in pajamas who never liked to stay in bed.

I have tomorrow off, at least, and the maids are coming, and then maybe I’ll have the urge to write and won’t have lost the idea that’s germinating in my brain even now.

Maybe.

My brain’s gone to mush and my eyes are barely staying open. I’m afraid to blink for fear I’ll not be able to lift my lids again, so if I miss anyone in this post, please forgive me.

To the folks to participated in the reading survey, thank you…I’ll be doing something with that a little later.

To my sponsors, both named and anonymous – some of you will be receiving gifts. Thank you so much for supporting me, and this cause. Those of you who chose not to share your identities are no less special, but I can’t gift ppl I can’t identify.

To Rehena, Rebelbelle, Selandra, Sky, Rana and Klae, and to my fellow blogathoners MyssK and Liz, and my monitor Elegy (even if you don’t like Jane Eyre) thank you for your conversation, comments, and presence.

To the folks from ComedySportz, thanks for the laughter. Not only did it reenergize me, but it also distracted me when I needed it.

And to Fuzzy, thank you for staying awake with me through most of the ‘thon, and for fetching me a venti soy chai at three in the morning.

Pledging is open for another 48 hours or so, so if you missed your opportunity, there’s time to catch up.

As for me? I’m going to sleep.

Several years ago JK Rowling published the first Harry Potter book unleashing a series that would cross the defining lines of age, race, and gender, and while publishers marketed the books for children because a child was the lead character, adults were – and are – a significant portion of the readership, so much so that there are special editions available in the UK without the cover art.

In the six books published so far, we’ve met wizards and muggles in many shapes and sizes, and learned that, just as in real life, you can’t tell good from bad among magical folk just by looking at them.

Just as I am at the point where I’m ready to wrap up this Blogathon and sleep for several uninterrupted hours, we as readers are ready to find out how the series ends, but even in our anticipation we sit back, smile, and say with the epynomous character, “I love magic!”

I don’t have red hair, but I’ve always felt as if Canadian orphan Anne Shirley was my kindred spirit, even so.

From the moment we see her telling Matthew about her carpetbag, to the moment when, several books later, she FINALLY marries Gil, Anne lives and breathes as if she were a real person, thanks to the skill of Lucy Maud Montgomery.

I read the series the first time as a very young girl, and the second time just before I got married, and each time I felt as if I got something new from the books, even if it was just some new nuance of Anne’s speech, or an extra bobble of her braids.

The spunky redhead with the active imagination is always with me now, as happens with good characters.