Pounding

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The problem with the creative personality is that if I don’t keep fairly regular hours, I get migraines. I also get them if I eat foods with MSG in them, don’t drink enough water, but it’s the funky sleep patterns that are the worst.

I went to bed at 11:30 PM on Thursday, was up before seven on Friday, and then stayed up til about 5:00 AM Saturday morning, after a day of writing, cleaning, and re-arranging the closet, with the help of the miniseries The 10th Kingdom, for company. (As an aside, if you haven’t seen this miniseries, which is from 2000 – do. It’s frothy fluffy fairy-tale with a twist, and Scott Cohen is wonderfully funny and sexy as Wolf. Well, sexy in a neurotic east coast guy with a tail sort of way. )

Anyway, Fuzzy finally got home around 10 on Saturday night, and I woke Sunday with a horrible headache that was making me see white and feel dizzy and crabby, so I slept through much of Sunday, finally dragging Fuzzy out around six for groceries (pumpkins and Halloween candy) and Jamba juice, and then I got home and called my mother to say hello.

“I’m thinking of having laser treatment for the fine lines around my lips,” she announced.

“Not Botox?” I asked. “It’s cheaper. Actually,” I added. “I need Botox for migraines. I saw it on a website, somewhere.”

We then talked about how migraines were more like cramps than wrinkles, but then I corrected, “Well, more like a charlie-horse than a normal cramp, so maybe it would work.”

The rest of our conversation was much gentler, and my head was starting to hurt, so I hung up, and then came to my cool, dark bedroom, where I read a bit, and watched a little bit of tv, and finally fell asleep around one, waking up with a slight cold, and a headache that, if not pounding, is still kind of pulsing.

I hate headaches.

Silver Linings

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I meant to post this earlier, but, now’s as good a time as any. Despite the sadness of my cousin dying a few weeks ago, there is a bright spot, which is that I got to reconnect with another cousin, Cathy.

Cathy is actually more like my older sister than any mere cousin. She was my best friend, babysitter, playmate. She inspired me, let me babble, answered all my questions, taught me how to use a Super8 camera, and gave me my first bra. We used to sing together, we used to catch lightning bugs together, and I haven’t seen her since my grandmother’s funeral in 2001.

I miss her.

Her kids were all toddlers the last time I saw *them*, and she was still in college. Now, the youngest is fourteen, and Cathy’s a real estate agent, and as many in that industry are right now, struggling a little.

But she’s fierce.
And I know she’ll survive.

I’ve made a personal resolution to call her once a week.

Just to keep in touch.

* * *

In other news, Aunt Peg is improving.

Friday’s Feast: 0710.26

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Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.
Other than this one? I heartily recommend you check out my book blog, Bibliotica if you’re any kind of reader, and if you like to write and want more prompts and projects to help stretch your writing muscles, visit CafeWriting.

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?
10. I dream every night, but I don’t always remember what the dreams were. Last night, though, I dreamed I was shopping for wedding bands with Beetlejuice and Data (geek, much?), and they were fighting over which one of them I would pick – magic vs. technology – until I reminded them that I HAD a husband, thanks. Even if he is still away. Le sigh.

Salad
Did you have a pet as a child? If so, what kind and what was its name?
I had a mostly white poodle-mix with a faint brown spot in the middle of her back. Her name was Taffy, and we kept her in a lamb cut, not a poodle cut. Note to self: next dogs will have curly, non-shedding poodle hair.

Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?
I’d do a PSA about the spaying and neutering animals, or getting them from rescues and pounds rather than breeders or pet stores.

Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?
I live for peppermint stars, because they’re sweet and refreshing, but I also have a special fondness for butterscotch buttons, and those little round tins of fruit drops – usually lemon or raspberry, but sometimes coffee – remind me of my grandfather.

Writing Companions

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I’ve mentioned before that when I’m writing, I like to have movies going on in the background. DVD’s of television shows work well, too, because one disc is good for three or four hours and there are no commercials.

Over the past few weeks, my “writing companions,” have included the second season of Forever Knight which not only featured an entire episode that kept calling back conversations about Scottsdale real estate, as well as some great commentary from Nigel Bennett and Geraint Wyn Davies, the entire 10th Kingdom miniseries which featured Scott Cohen (Max Medina in season one of Gilmore Girls as the Wolf, with dirty tail-stroking subtext, and, in honor of the season, another viewing of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, as well as my old standby The West Wing in which I’m half-way through season six, and finally own season seven, but refuse to watch it til I’ve finished six.

With the exception of Beetlejuice all of these choices are very conversation-heavy, which I like. It’s the cadence of human conversation that keeps me in the groove. Music or dance or too much action, and I get distracted.

Cobwebs

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I feel like the cobwebs I’ve removed from around the house with my trusty vacuum cleaner this week have somehow taken up residence in my mind, because even though it’s not quite eleven, I feel tired and groggy, as if my thoughts are as shrouded in spider silk and dust as the legs of the bar stools were before I went on my mad cleaning adventure.

The house is all sparkling clean, but I’m feeling muted and muzzy and I think I might actually turn out the light a bit earlier than usual, not even read before going to sleep, just curl up with the dogs.

It’s chilly in my room, but I like that. The heat is technically on, but the temperature is turned down pretty low because I don’t like to wake up hot, and I have flannel sheets on the bed, and the dogs are sweetly curled up on Fuzzy’s pillow.

I miss Fuzzy.

And the cobwebs are like gauze stretching from wakefulness into sleep.

Thursday 13: 0710.25

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Thirteen Things about MISS MELISS
Things that Begin with W

  1. Walks – especially with my dogs. They sniff everything, and track things they’ll never even see, let alone catch, and I get to experience the various seasonal changes in our neighborhood.
  2. Water – whether it’s my shower, my lovely tub with the window, my pool, or rain, I think best when I’m in or around water. The sound of the surf is my touchstone, and it’s in my head and my heart even when I’m far from the actual ocean.
  3. Weaving – I’m not sure if I like The Lady of Shallot because she weaves, or if I like weaving because of the poem, but the whole notion of weaving appeals to me. I’ve been following this blog about a New Hampshire farm just to read about their sheep and the wool they get from them.
  4. Web – I’m not a fan of spiders, but I think that orb webs are among the loveliest sites Nature has produced. As well, I’m a fan of that other sort of web, the one preceded by “world wide.”
  5. Weeds – as kids we all think dandelions are pretty until we’re conditioned to think of them as weeds, lawn disruptors, the enemy. The thing is, I like weeds. Some of them are just as pretty as “real” flowers.
  6. Wells, Rebecca – she seriously needs to write another book, because Little Altars Everywhere was short stories, and not satisfying, and Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood just wasn’t enough. And I know there was also YaYas in Bloom, but, still. More please.
  7. Whales – John Denver sang, “Have you gazed out on the ocean, seen the breaching of a whale? Have you watched the dolphins frolic in the foam.” D. H. Lawrence wrote:

    They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains

    the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

    All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge

    on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.

    The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers

    there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of

    the sea!

    And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages

    on the depths of the seven seas,

    and through the salt they reel with drunk delight

    and in the tropics tremble they with love

    and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.

    Then the great bull lies up against his bride

    in the blue deep bed of the sea,

    as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life:

    and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale-blood

    the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and

    comes to rest

    in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale’s

    fathomless body.

    And over the bridge of the whale’s strong phallus, linking the

    wonder of whales

    the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and

    forth,

    keep passing, archangels of bliss

    from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim

    that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the

    sea

    great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies.

    And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-

    tender young

    and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of

    the beginning and the end.

    And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring

    when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood

    and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat

    encircling their huddled monsters of love.

    And all this happens in the sea, in the salt

    where God is also love, but without words:

    and Aphrodite is the wife of whales

    most happy, happy she!

    and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin

    she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea

    she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males

    and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.
    –Whales Weep Not

    .

    Beyond that, there need be no explanation – they’re amazing wonderful animals.

  8. Whispers – sometimes a whisper is better heard than the loudest scream. Whispers are intimate, soft, private. They imply things that are secret and special.
  9. Why – I’m told that I used to ask this incessantly. Of course, I was five at the time. Now though, I still like to know WHY before I do anything.
  10. Windows – I like looking in as much as looking out – each has its own perspective and its own beauty.
  11. Wit – in humor, I prefer irony, sarcasm, and other examples of dry wit, over slapstick and sophomoric jokes. Always have. Always will.
  12. Writing – I don’t just sling words because it pays the bill. I do it because on some level, I have to. I am made of ink and paper and words and music. And coffee, but that’s a different letter.
  13. Wonder – as a noun, it’s almost synonymous with magic and as a verb it is musing, questioning, exploration. I like it in both aspects.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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Magnification

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Cleaning the upstairs bathroom today, the one we really don’t use that much because the master suite is downstairs, I found a bunch of Clinique make-up in the medicine cabinet. I don’t wear Clinique any more, having switched to Aveda, but I opened the jar of base anyway, and caught a whiff of a familiar scent, and suddenly:

I was five years old and dressed as Pocahontas and my mother was dabbing base on my pale skin to make me look darker.

I was seven, and watching her do her morning make-up, staring into one of those pink plastic makeup mirrors that was normal on one side and flipped (pivoted really) to a magnifying mirror on the other.

I was ten, and had that mirror in my room, and I would stare into it and try to decide if I liked my eyes or not.

I was eleven, and calling my grandparents to tell them I had “become a woman.”

I was fifteen, and had dyed my hair for the first time, and the dye spattered the mirror when I rinsed it out.

I was twenty-one, sharing a mirror with my mother, as we got dressed for my grandfather’s funeral.

I was twenty-four, and doing make-up for my own wedding.

I was five and fifteen and twenty-five and thirty, and all ages in between and yet to come, and I was struck with a sense of home.

And I called my mother, and told her I loved her.

Trick-or-Treat!

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trickortreat

Following in the footsteps of one of my favorite web-witches, Hootin’ Anni, my newer blog-buddy Wakela Runen is passing along Halloween Treats to folks on her blogroll, and I was so treated. Thanks, Wakela!

These are the guidelines for bloggish trick or treat:

Each day up until Halloween [October 31st]
Hootin’ Anni will be handing out
a treat for 1 – 5[one to five] bloggers who drop by
during the week for visiting.
You’re more than welcomed to pass it along
to ones you think are deserving of a special treat
for the season.
Kinda like “Pay it Forward”
Y’know, one goodwill gesture deserves another?
But DON’T just choose your friends
making this cliquish and ‘just groupies’…
Make NEW friends by choosing random visitors!!!
It seems that ‘awards’ are floating around blogland
and just “blog friends” get chosen all the time.
Make it RANDOM!!

If you do decide to share it with others
then, USE THIS “TREAT” IMAGE and
link it back to my blog and
explain where the idea originated.

And these are the people I’m treating. There are more than five, because I know I won’t get around to posting this every day:

Becca of Becca’s Byline
CajunVegan of I Read Banned Books
Carmi of Written, Inc.
Dave of Utenzi Blog
Frank & Lisa of Notes from Zone 4
Gautami of Rooted
Herb of Herb Urban
Jeremy of Give Mama Some Sugar
Nat of The Capacious Hold-All
sister AE of Having Writ
The Synergizer of Miss Kitty Fantastico

(At least one of these blogs is one where I lurk, reading but never – or rarely commenting, others were chosen because they’re not getting the attention they deserve.)

Feel free to grab the image and pass on your own treats, but don’t forget to credit Hootin’ Anni if you do.

Fuzzy Logic

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“We need to probably get rid of this suitcase,” he said several weeks ago, coming home from a trip.

The plastic innards had fragmented and were shedding inside, so there was no “probably” about it, but much as I love my husband, making definite statements is not his strong point. “Can’t you ever just say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’?” I ask him in exasperation.

He smiles and says, “Maybe.”

So the suitcase sat in the corner of the living room for a month, because moving it twenty feet to the garage, and then out to the curb would apparently be too much work. It’s not like it’s Samsonite luggage, or anything. It’s cheap canvas stuff from Big Lots, that was supposed to be $40/bag and we got for $10. It has lasted several years, after all.

With Fuzzy away, though, I have to keep busy, tire myself out, so that I sleep without all the normal house sounds spooking me. (The curse of an over-active imagination), so I’ve been cleaning, and that included taking the suitcase out to the garage.

He’s lucky, though.

I took his coat out of it, first.