Instead

Instead of writing, really writing, I mean, I'm doing what I think is the literary equivalent of moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. That is, so far I've deleted one word, I've put "placemarkers" at the beginning where I think I'm going to add at least two chapters, one for each of Gordon's first two wives--but I have no idea if that will work or not, but I can't say until I've actually written them--and I've emailed a friend to find out the name of her ex-employer's rival 20 years ago, so I don't accidentally use their name for Gordon's employer.

I suppose this is better than nothing. How's that for a pat on the back?

I did some writing earlier, though. I wrote a letter to my brother, Robert, who is in jail in Wisconsin. But I only did this because he wrote me a letter that I got a week ago. It's very hard to know what to say. He's in there for a particularly awful crime (which he swears he didn't do), so you know he can't be having an easy time of it. The other part that's difficult is that I hardly know the guy. He's really my half-brother and I didn't grow up with him. As a child, I spent the equivalent of about 5 or 6 weeks, total, with my father and his second family. At least his letter seemed fairly literate--it's possible that he's been getting classes or something while he's been in there. Anyway, it'd been years since I'd heard from him and years since I'd sent him a letter myself, of which I am decidedly not proud.

Man, my family. There's so much that goes on and I hear little bits and pieces of it. I feel rather impotent to do much, but then there's my--well, I'll say "natural" tendency to avoid getting involved in things, I'm so very, very good at denial and detachment. I found myself thinking about a couple of ex-lovers today and wondering if I ran into them again, or (gasp!) if I were to meet somebody new to try to love, would I be any better at being a good partner/lover? I wonder how good a friend I am.

I guess what led me to that train of thought was noticing once again that I seem to have two copies of Ann Patchett's "Truth and Beauty" and I'm pretty sure I only need one. I can't seem to get past the way in which this talented, but flawed woman who was incredibly self-destructive and needy still managed to find and hold such close and devoted friends. And I can't help feeling they were just enablers, even though I'm pretty sure that's not all they were and that that certainly wasn't Patchett's intent in writing the book. It's probably not even the message that most people get from it, either. But maybe it's all right for me to question these things, they're important things to think about and there's probably not just one answer to them and even more probably not just one right answer.

I've also been thinking about all the things I want and need to do with my money over the next few months. I think I am being, once again, overly ambitious. There's two things I must do:
buy a new computer and redo/update my website. I also want to go to California in December and Florida and South Carolina in January. I have been fantasizing about how I could arrange these things and at this point, I think I need to sit down and be realistic about it all.

Yeah, okay, I've just run out of steam. I'm going to go take another look at the novel, which is still open, see if there's anything I could take a stab at writing. Even if it's just fleshing out a scene that I refer to in a flashback, take it out of flashback.

I wish to hell I knew what the fuck I was doing.

Another One Bites the Dust

Literally. I just don't seem to have any luck with getting new assistants. They come once or twice and that's it. I realize that working here and working with me presents certain challenges, but this is getting ridiculous. The latest excuse/reason is that there's too much dust/cat hair/etc. and it's hurting her lungs. At least she had the courtesy to let me know. The last two just disappeared.

And I'm grateful for the work she put in while she was here, but I'm still left with an awful mess and I'm running out of time to get it all taken care of. And I can't deal with it right now, either. I'm too busy, too exhausted, too, too, too.

I also don't know what to say to her, what to reply to her email. I feel let down and sad and a little angry and a little untrusting--like, what if this is just an excuse and she just can't stand to work with me? True, she was sneezing a lot while she was here. Of course, that's what the dust mask was for, but she didn't keep it on much. Neither did I, for that matter, but more than her. I think people who don't live with as much dust as is lying around here don't really "get" that, if you move it, it will go up into the air and you will get sick from it, one way or another. If/when (oh, really, it has to be "when") I find another assistant, I will simply have to enforce the proper wearing of the dust mask, at least until we get the place in order and the cleaning woman comes and takes the rest of the dust away.

I would love to have both a cleaner and an assistant come in once a month--at different times, of course--to keep the place in reasonably good order. Every other week would be better, of course, but I can't afford that.

Anyway, I guess I'm in a woe-is-me mode. I'm going to let myself feel that for the rest of the night (it's just about midnight, after all) and then get over it. And I'll answer her email tomorrow, somehow.

I'm too tired now to even write about what's going on with my family. Suffice it to say, if it's not one thing, it's another.

While the apartment is being cleaned

So there's a woman here cleaning. Yes, I admit it, I'm one of Those People who pays someone else to do the dirty work for her. Mind you, I'm sitting here with a dust mask on, because the reason I don't clean myself is that I'm dreadfully allergic to dust (if it's just sitting there, it doesn't bother me, but cleaning it makes it move and then I'm toast) and it kicks up my chronic fatigue syndrome. It took me a long time to realize, but back in my 30s, when I started to clean and had to lie down after 5 minutes and I thought that was weird, I shouldn't be getting tired at such a young age--well, I was right, that was probably the beginnings of my life with CFS.

Anyway, I've got jazz playing and I've been doing other things, but there's one big thing I'm waiting to do for when the jazz stops, because I think it'll make funny noises and since I'm using Windows Media Player to play the CD (Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges, Back To Back), I don't want to mess with it right now.

It's been a rough few days/week with CFS, though. In fact, I spent most of the past weekend in bed, that's how bad it's been. I took some extra Allegra and that seems to have helped. And I'm continuing to eat better. Smaller portions, more fruits and veggies. I've managed to resist the urge to have even one day of sugar lately, though it's been touch-and-go at times. One day at a time is really helping. And, when my resistance was really low, e.g. this weekend, I reminded myself that all that sugar would just make me feel worse and I surely didn't need that. At some point I'll let myself have something sugary and chocolate-y and scrumptious, but, well, not today.

I'm also thinking these days about the new role I find myself in--manager. Really, this is what I've been doing for the last year and a half at least, where I spend just about as much time managing other people and the business as a whole as I do actual transcribing. But it's just been brought home to me more in the last few months, possibly/probably because I'm about to start up a new, sideline business. Hmm. I guess that's something else I could be working on now--my business plans, one for each business.

Okay, I'm off to do that.

And back again

I'm just about to toddle off to bed, where my cat is already sleeping, though knowing him, that may not last.

But I'm here to commemorate the passing of Fluffy, the store cat at the pet food store I go to. Fluffy was an institution and I don't know why they didn't put up black bunting on the door or something, but I just found out today that he passed away two weeks ago. And just typing that, I'm getting all teary again. I cried all the way home and then cried some more once I got inside. I don't know why it's affecting me so much and I know I'll get over it. But he was a part of my life, as well as so many other people's, and I'm going to miss him. RIP, Fluffy.

Funny, I can't seem to add a title tonight. Tonight? This morning... It was going to be "Back so soon?"

Yes, I'm back, second night in a row. Last night, after I posted, I went and spent some quality time with my novel, which I'm liking less and less, but which I am determined to finish. And when I am done, I will start another one.

But I get ahead of myself. I do that a lot. Anyway, I'm tired, it's late, I want to go to bed and sleep, but I wanted to say how much better I feel today. About myself, that is. I did some things that I needed to do and some that I wanted to do and that always helps.

One thing I did was finish Ann Patchett's "Truth and Beauty". And I'm still digesting it, but there's most definitely a part of me that thinks that her friend was quite fucked up and I'm not sure that Ms. Patchett did either herself or her friend a service by enabling her as much as she did. But then, I didn't know Lucy and maybe I would have felt differently if I had. I dunno.

Anyway, friendship is an interesting topic, one I may return to soon. Also, I started reading another book that made me think of my dear, late Mouse. I miss her and I guess I always will.

Anyway: G'night!

Back again

Yeah, okay, so maybe this is the June/July entry. I dunno. We'll see, I guess.

I took today off. I took yesterday off, but that was the Fourth of July and it was okay. But I didn't go to my friend's party and so I felt crappy about that decision today, plus I let a very nice woman know that I wasn't going to be able to use her services anymore because she sucks. No, I didn't put it that way, particularly because she doesn't actually suck, she's just very inconsistent and that's just not good enough. And I think it's possible that she has a crappy home life and that that interferes with her being able to do a good job, but she was very gracious about it and that just makes me feel worse. Meanwhile, I'm still working with someone else whose work isn't all that good, but only when I really need her and only for some clients. I don't know why I couldn't continue that way with this other woman, but I didn't feel right dodging her requests for work and hardly ever giving her any. It's better that she look for work elsewhere.

Damn. I even suck at rationalization today.

At some point this afternoon I started to think about how we turn out as adults and how they may or may not be different from who we were as kids. A few years ago I tracked down in the Internet someone I was friends with as a kid and she was living near a current friend of mine in Pennsylvania, so I went to visit one evening. She had become both a doctor and a lawyer and had a fabulous house and husband and kids. She had been that way as a child, she was very smart and she had two parents and a younger sister who smart and they were all very normal. And we talked about some of the people we'd grown up with. Janie, who was athletic and loved animals was now a PE teacher somewhere. Lori F., who was a terror and a bully as a child, had grown up to be...a bitch. And then there's me, a social misfit who spent a lot of time alone and I'm...a spinster with a cat.

No surprises.

So now I'm reading Ann Patchett's "Truth and Beauty" and I'm about halfway through, but she talks about making the decision at some point to really devote herself to her writing in order to change her life. And that's what she does. And she writes about various writing colonies, places where people get to go spend a month or several just writing. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that, but I do know that writing is what I have to do and just sitting around thinking about it ain't going to get me into a different life.

Of course I've made this commitment before and I'll probably have to make it again. And, really, the prospect of going down this path scares me. But there's a poem I wrote, in fact it was the first poem I wrote as an adult, for my very first college class (which was when I was 25):

Marbling
I pour the milk into my glass of iced coffee
And watch it eddy down through the liquid and ice,
Marbling the coffee until I blend it with my spoon.

And I touch the fear in me
At the prospect of creating,
Of putting my lonely words on paper
In such sequence that they make sense
And touch a chord in you.

I listen to the tinkle of the spoon
Against the ice and glass.
Everything sparkles and shines with the expectation,
The hope for a song.

I hold my breath against that expectation
And the song comes no more
Until the next time.

The song does keep coming back. I know it does.

Once a month

I guess I'll just blog once a month, whether I need to or not.

All right, no more promises. But today, here I am. I'm working, on a Sunday. When you work for yourself, have your own business, it's 24/7, really. I'm starting to dream of ways in which I could start having a life, but, well, as often as I get to blog, that should give you an idea of how much free time I've got.

Ah, no, that's not true. I play plenty of Spider Solitaire instead of blogging. I take plenty of naps instead of blogging. I watch DVDs instead of blogging. Occasionally, I even go out to eat with friends instead of blogging. Last night, I went to a friend's house and helped her pack for her move today instead of blogging.

I make lots of choices every day. Really, every hour and every minute. And every time, I could choose blogging. Or writing. And except for these relatively few occasions lately, I choose neither. I really ought to take a look at that. Y'know, someday.

I had an interesting dream last night. I walked into what was either a movie set and/or a large restaurant, with booths on the right and longer tables in the middle (I mean, it could have been a movie set of a restaurant) and all the seats were filled. And I was there for a reading of either a play or a movie, but the more the dream went on, it was more a movie than a play. And when I came in, it seemed that everyone was waiting for me to get there before they could start.

And there were four people in the booth immediately to the right when I walked in. I remember recognizing three of them but not being able to remember their names, but the fourth one, who was initially hidden behind one of the others, was John. It was his younger face, the way I like to remember him. And he was smiling at me, broadly, big, big smile. Somehow I got distracted into dealing with my reason for being there. And now I can't remember much, or even any, of the rest of the dream, except when I woke up, it struck me as funny, because I realized that the reason they'd all been waiting for me was that I was the director. Of course, John was a director and, if he was there, that should have been his role.

I still have no idea what John's being there means, but now I'm thinking that the directing part with all those people there has at least something to do with all the people I now direct in real life as part of my business. I've got 8 or 9 people working with me these days (the Sharks!) and they're quite a handful. I'm certainly happy that my business actually requires so many people--well, wait, no, not really. I need that many because I can't afford to hire anyone full-time, in which case I'd probably only need one or two, maybe a third part-time. I'm starting to look at myself differently--I've got a real business here, finally. The work doesn't seem to abate (though we'll see what the summer brings--but last summer, I was SWAMPED) and that's terrific.

I need a real business plan for the business I've already got as well as the business I'm about to/sort of have already started (two existing clients needed work done, it made sense to start it up for them). Sigh. Soon.

Okay, that's enough dawdling, I've got a job to finish. It's the last push, and then I can watch a DVD. West Wing, here I come!

Just one thing

Before I die, I want to move out of this freaking apartment and live somewhere where...

(okay, TMI to come--you've been warned)

...I don't need a freaking plunger nearly every time I have a bowel movement. I mean, really, who the fuck designed these toilets? It seems to me a basic design imperative for a toilet--if it's small enough to come out of my butt, it should be small enough to go down the toilet without any extra prodding or machinations, you know?

(okay, end of TMI)


Oh, and yeah, one other thing. It's 75 degrees outside, the temp on the thermometer next to me reads 77--why the hell do I feel cold? Makes no sense. None at all.

I promise, I'll post more again soon.

I want my cat back

Not sure, but I may already have a post with the same title. But, yeah, Smartie's back at the Animal Medical Center as of yesterday. He's already been given his first 15 millicuries (sp?) of radio iodine. They tested his blood just before that--his thyroid level was 42!!! Normal is something like 3. Maybe 4.

The worst is that he's going to be there for at least 3 weeks this time, maybe longer. Last time was only 2 weeks and I don't know how I survived it. Although I do feel less upset than last time, so far. I mean, yeah, sure, I started bawling the second I got to my front door yesterday, coming home to an empty apartment, but it didn't last for hours and hours. Half an hour, tops. And, yeah, I did pretty much take to my bed for the rest of the day. Or at least I got no actual work done, other than dealing with some emails. But no more huge tears, crying jags, things like that. Only the occasional stifled sob today when coming upon something that reminds me that he's not here. Or the occasional deep sigh of longing...

Okay, enough of that wallowing. Life is going on and I finally finished a transcript for a client who certainly wasn't bugging me for it, but I really took advantage. And I've been making someone else wait a long while, too. But I'm getting there. And, while Smartie's gone, I'll be cleaning up a bit more than I would if he were here. Although I didn't manage to empty out his litter box today. Tomorrow. One day at a time and all that.

I'm going to go finish a book that I really wish would never end. "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell" is simply magnificent. I'm wondering when the miniseries or movie trilogy is going to be made, if it hasn't been started already. I wonder, if I keep reading stuff like this, will I ever write again?

poor cat

Smartie did not have a great day today. Not his worst, for sure, but it's been quite a while since he horked at all and today he did it twice. Plus, I managed to run out of fresh turkey for him, so he's really pissed at me. Oh, well.

Wednesday is the day he goes in for another round of radiation therapy. I find myself tensing up thinking about it, again, which I know I shouldn't do, but it creeps up on me, what can I say? I mean the thinking ahead part, which is not living in the now, which I really try to do, but at which I think I fail miserably a good deal of the time. Okay, most of the time.

So now. What's going on right now? I'm listening to the sleet hitting the air conditioner and the fire escape and trying not to worry about what if I have to go out tomorrow in snowy, slushy, icy conditions. Because I really, really hate that. I'm also hoping that it's all gone by Wednesday.

Yeah, back to now. Now I'm drinking a cup of red bush tea, which I wouldn't have known about except for Alexander McCall Smith's books, starting with the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. They take place in Botswana and a friend of mine thinks they're racist, because the language he uses is fairly simple and the people depicted as possibly a little slow or at least naive. But I think, one, that the Botswanans may in fact talk like that, for all we know (and they may in some ways be more "naive" with respect to our culture, but then Westerners may well be quite naive if we found ourselves there). And, two, I really think they were written as young adult novels. If you read the second one in the series, it's much more obvious and the rest of them just seem to confirm this suspicion. I mean, they're billed as mysteries, but you never read such mild mysteries in your life.

Meanwhile, I actually finished the acrostic puzzle! It was quite a PIA, but I did it! It's really not very good, of course, but I'm still shocked I managed to get all the letters accounted for. I'm going to tackle another one this week, after I put in all the clues--I guess I'm really not "finished" until I do that.

Well, the cat wants some milk, so I'm going to go warm some up (for me) and get his small saucerful, too.

Oy

Oy. Yes, it's been a while since I've been here, blogging. Not sure why, though some of it has been because I've been working myself hard, trying to make up for the fact that, last year, it seems my little business grossed more money than I've ever earned in my life before--except nearly half of it went to subcontractors and, in fact, I personally earned less than I did during the next-highest grossing year since I've been in business. Something is wrong with this picture.

Anyway, tonight, I'm procrastinating, big time. And it's insane, I have plenty of work to do, I want to get it all done, there's nothing wrong with me except I can't seem to get my head into work mode. Maybe it's because of the aforementioned "working myself hard"? I dunno. I just know that I'm trying not to kick myself, but I really can't stand it when I get like this. I want to be more active, doing things to get them done and out of the way so I can do the next thing that needs doing. Or, ya never know, at some point there'll be time for some leisure.

Actually, I shouldn't complain about that. I took last Friday off. I even went so far as to use my vacation message for my main email account. A first! I met an old friend for lunch, which was fun. Then I went to the first appointment with a new PCP. Now, doctor-shopping, which is what this was, is one of my least favorite things to do, but as these things go, this was pretty painless. I even like his scale, it seemed to think that I had lost 4 pounds or so, which is patently ridiculous. My clothes tell quite a different story.

Speaking of stories. No, I haven't gotten any more writing done. But I did start a new project and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm creating a double acrostic. I'm using a friend's book and I've picked a quote and I'm trying to make it work. And it isn't, so I'll probably have to find a different quote, but I was planning on doing that, anyway. But not until I've spent a lot more time with this one, seeing what's possible. I'm learning from the process, anyway. I would love to find some software that would let me do this on the computer, though. Maybe I could create something with a table in Word, which I'm sure would be onerous to do, but if I could get it done once, then I'd have the template and that would be worth the trouble. But first I'm going to look around the Web, see what's out there.

This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and, somehow, I just finally got started with it. I hope I finish it and I hope I sell it to Will Shortz.

More Hamlet?

Well, probably not.

So, I copied out last night's blog post and sent it to my client, along with some other thoughts about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and other things:

The rest of what I've been thinking about the book, and which may help you (or not) decide whether to reread it, is that, for one thing, it seems a bit dated. I'm sure in the late 60s or early 70s when it was published, this seemed brand-new, earth-shattering stuff. Some of it, particularly his attitudes towards his friends Sylvia and...well, whoever Sylvia's husband was ... seem almost naive. No, not naive. Not sure I can describe what I'm feeling here.

The other thing I kept thinking, esp. at the beginning, was how much of a guy he is. That some of his observations kept missing the point or were incredibly obvious and that, if he were a woman, he'd know better than to be that obvious or be able to see beneath the surface better. Not saying this is good or bad, really, though it's certainly one of the things that brought on that whole wanting to throw the book against the wall feeling.

I should mention that I'm reading the book in small doses, as it's my bathroom reading--and you shouldn't make any assumptions about that, it's just that, when I realized a few years ago that I wasn't reading anymore, I needed to figure out ways to get it back into my life and the bathroom was one obvious place. The kitchen is another, while I'm waiting for water to boil or something, I can get in some reading (these days, it's "The Making of the President, 1960"--which is fascinating). And the bedroom, of course (right now, "The Brothers Karamazov"--I don't have a working TV right now) and something lighter to take to the laundromat or on the subway (right now, Glimmer Train Stories). And all that was way more than you needed to know, but in some ways I'm finding each of these (except for Glimmer Train) to be interacting in ways that I didn't expect. And the center is actually the Dostoyevsky, with its religion and politics and philosophy, but it's all food for a lot of thought, thought that is really making my head hurt and is occasionally crazy-making, but good for me, I'm sure, nonetheless.

I'm sure I'll wake up in the morning and wonder why the hell I sent her all that.

Anyway, for some reason, I started getting an actual headache earlier tonight and I ignored it and ignored it and ignored it because it wasn't very bad and I didn't want to take a pill when it was such a minor annoyance, really. And then, of course, it finally started to get much worse all of a sudden and I know that, if I had taken one Aleve when I first noticed it, it would have gone away and, instead, I had to take two Aleves to get rid of it. If the folks in "What the Bleep..." are right, then I think I need to find a new paradigm, rewire some brain cells.

I do like that idea.

There are more things in your philosophy

Damn, I can't remember the rest of the Hamlet quote. Oh, well.

A client asked me to transcribe a DVD for her so that she can quote from it in some project she's working on. It's called "What the Bleep..." and it's about quantum physics and reality and it's highly, highly philosphical.

This is on top of the fact that, a couple of months ago, I began reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for the first time.

In-between, there was a spectacular discussion on Echo about the recent NY Times article about free will/not free will. Some of which I think I even understood.

Sigh. I went through college studiously avoiding taking any courses that even smelled a tiny bit of philosphy. The very thought of philosphy fills me with heavy-duty ennui. So you can just imagine my reaction to the book, let alone this video. And now the client has asked me about my reaction to the book, since I happened to mention it to her. I'm not sure I know where to begin!

Let's see: "There have been several occasions when I wanted to throw the damn thing across the room."

Well, okay, that's true enough. Except my thought process was more complicated than that. It was more like, "I'd really love to throw this book across the room, but I really just think it's because there's something wrong with me." Like, I'm not getting this and/or it's pissing me off, but it's really because I'm too stupid or at least uneducated to understand what this guy is talking about.

Of course, he did piss me off quite a bit (so far, I'm only about halfway done, mind you) with his classic/romantic dichotomy. As if the romantic view, as he saw it, had something seriously wrong with it--or at least that's how I read it. I really felt defensive about seeing things from what might be considered the "opposite" viewpoint from his more classical way of thinking. Plus, I really hate/hated the idea that these are mutually exclusive ways of thinking, that there's no middle ground. I am at the point in the book where it seems like he may be moving in that direction, after all. But, man, he's just thinking too damn hard about it for my taste.

Which of course brings up the question: Why the heck am I still reading this damn book? Because he interweaves it with this story that I'm finding fascinating about the motorcycle trip with his son and I want to see how it ends. And, all right, if I happen to learn something along the way, well, it may be while I'm kicking and screaming, but I really want to see if, in the end, (a) I've been able to follow along* and (b) agree with the guy.

*Follow along or catch up to where he is. It really feels like he's way ahead and it's just a struggle to try to catch up to him.

Then you bring in this video and quantum physics and some New Age-type stuff, except it really isn't all New Age (except for the music, which is driving me mad). To be very succinct about it, reality isn't really all that real, except for when we believe it is. But we have the power to make things happen, to change reality. I'm not sure this is such a good thing, necessarily, but hey, it's good to be reminded that we are able to change the way we look at things, that our attitudes can affect the way things appear to us and, thus, we can change the way we live our lives.

And, best of all, it's a wonderful reminder to me that I have an impact on the world. We all do, of course, but me in particular (hey, this is my blog, get your own if you don't like me being egocentric). Actually, there's a story I'll maybe share sometime, but not for now.

For now, have a good night--as I am so far.

El Nino, huh?

So, The NY Times is reporting (no, I'm not providing a link, I'm too tired) that the reason so many allergy sufferers are, well, suffering, is because of all this warm weather and--ta-da!--mold.

Mold is one of my two biggest allergens. And, of course, my biggest symptom is fatigue. Hence, chronic fatigue syndrome.

Guess why I've been feeling so awful for the last 24 or so hours?

Okay, so maybe global warming ain't so great after all. Usually, this is how I feel at the end of April, not the beginning of January. I mean, sure, it's great to know that This Too Shall Pass and there's never really a good time for it, so why moan about why now and all that, but, well, shit.

Sigh.

Pizza!

I'm really feeling like crap tonight. Took a nap that turned out to be an hour and a half long and, now that I'm up, I feel like a truck hit me. Chronic fatigue syndrome, the gift that keeps on giving, folks. So, anyway, I'm much too exhausted to cook anything or even heat anything up. So, yes, I've ordered in a large pie with sundried tomatoes, half-broccoli and half-eggplant. The broccoli, at least, will be good for me. Or so I like to tell myself.

Heard today about the little stray kitty that was hanging out in the abandoned building next door, that a neighbor from a few doors down tried to corral into a carrier and only succeeded in freaking out so that she ran away and we didn't know where. I started to mention her to our postal carrier, Ronny, who told me that he'd been the one to find her body on some steps. I'm just so sad about this. And right after he told me, the neighbor who'd wanted to give her a home came out and I told her, too. I'm sorry I did, it didn't occur to me until afterwards that she may feel that she's to blame, but I can't help that, I guess. And in a way, I'm glad I know about Ivy (that's what this neighbor and her young daughters had named her), at least I'm not wondering and worrying about her anymore. I can mourn her and move on.

Someone posted on Echo a link to an article about how pets help people live longer and better lives. As if I didn't already know that. And yet, I immediately thought of my mother and stepfather. For two well-meaning people, it would be hard to find anyone less suited to owning pets, leaving aside deliberately cruel people. It speaks a lot, of course, to the fact that my mother should never have tried to be a parent, but she sucks at the whole care-giving thing and my stepfather is much worse. Of course, she takes care of him and vice-versa...sorta. These are people who, when she had chest pains for three weeks some years back and they finally got bad enough for her to say something to him and it was a Saturday afternoon, they both figured it would be okay if they just waited until Monday and called her doctor. Upon which, of course, the doctor told her to go immediately to the emergency room and she was hospitalized for I don't know how long (I don't know because they didn't even tell me about this until she'd been home for three weeks or so).

Anyway, I'm trying not to think of how poorly they took care of their dogs years ago and their cats. Thankfully, my stepfather recently allowed his last aging, ailing cat to be taken to the vet and, soon thereafter, put to sleep, putting her out of her misery. I don't want to go into details about all her symptoms, I'm sure I don't even know them all, but from what I know, she lived a pretty miserable life. And I'm sure that my stepfather thinks he did the best for her, but in fact, he let her suffer.

I fear that he lets my mother suffer, too. And I have to let that go, because she is his responsibility at this point, not mine.

The neighbor's dog is outside barking again. Sometimes, I hate people.

TBA

It's bad, I think, when you can't think of anything to blog about.

Okay, having said that, I've put off writing about my cat, Smartie. Just before New Year's, I got word that the radiation treatment for his hyperthyroidism hasn't worked, he's still got off-the-chart (though somewhat lower) T4 levels. I pretty much assumed that this would be the case, though I was hoping for something better than "low 30s" (she was calling from her car, didn't have his file in front of her), but since he's still skinny as a rail, drinking like a fish and peeing like a sailor (I believe that's the expression), this was no real surprise to me.

So he's back on Tapazole for the moment and I'll bring him in to his regular vets at Animal Kind in about two more weeks. Next week, about the 10th or the 11th, I'll have a conversation with the vet who gave (oversaw?) the radiation therapy, Dr. Peterson. I'm still trying to think of all the questions I should ask. But what they propose to do is to take Smartie to their other facility, in Westchester, keep him for a month, triple or even quadruple dose him--and, oh, by the way, charge me $3,000. In addition to the $1,800 I spent on this treatment before.

Needless to say, while I haven't made up my mind definitively, there's not much chance of that. Maybe not even if they say they'll accept payments over time. One thing I would like to do is get the names of other places in the NYC area that perform this treatment and perhaps consult with other specialists who do this. But I can't but help feel that, while it's probably not a money-grab (at least, I certainly hope not), this may well be a way to experiment with a high-level thyroid case without having to apply for grants and all that. You know, a pushing-the-envelope kind of thing. Anyway, this is a nearly 16-year-old cat who nearly had a heart attack (okay, not really, I don't think, but it was the most upset I've ever seen him) when I took him in to the Animal Medical Center last week to get the blood test, so I can't see taking him on any long trips again, unless there were some guarantee attached that he'd have four more good years left in him or something. Animal Kind is far enough (3 blocks).

I haven't mentioned this to any of the people who were kind enough to lend me (and, in some cases, give me) money to get this treatment, only some of whom I've managed to pay back so far. I suppose I should, but I've been trying to keep this in the back of my mind, to not panic, to take my time weighing all the options. I knew I didn't have to make a decision the day she told me the news and I also know I don't have to make the decision today or even tomorrow. I think I'm being pretty healthy about it, but maybe I'm just being in denial. I suppose I could be both.

Anyway, I haven't done much else today that I planned to do, but, hey, the night's still...middle-aged. Like me!

Happy New Year

What a whiner I was last night! I actually came back here to either edit my last post or delete it or something. But no, I've decided that it was authentically me and I'll just leave my resentments and self-pitying and all that stuff hanging out there for the world (small as it is) to see.

This is my first New Year's as a blogger. I was going to resolve to blog more in 2007, but while that may be my intention today, I know how these things go. So I'll just say that it's what I'd like to do, but I can't resolve anything further than when I go to sleep tonight.

Here's some of the other things I "resolve". I'm refocusing on my weight--which I did not do last year, actually, choosing instead to focus on my finances. And I made some strides there, which I hope--resolve? intend?--to continue in 2007. Because, really, I gotta.

I desperately need to become more disciplined about all the paper in my life. In particular, I have to catch up on Quicken and I'm realizing that the only way that this is going to happen, because I don't seem to be running out of work so that I can take a breather and do administrative stuff, is to find a way to work Quicken back into my life. I've done it for other things--reading, for example, where I realized a few years back that I was doing precious little of it. Now I have a book in the bathroom, a book in the kitchen and a book in the bedroom and I make time for reading at least at night before I go to sleep, though I find I do more than that, actually. So I have to find a way to do this for Quicken (and dealing with other administrative stuff, like filing). One way to start, I think, will be to substitute one solitaire game for a few minutes of Quicken. It'll be frustratingly slow to do it that way, but it's a start and I can always enlarge on that. We'll see tomorrow (unless I start today--which I don't wanna! Heh.).

I intend to write more. More fiction. I'd like to get published, too. Of course, I'd have to submit my fiction--we'll see.

I'm sitting here, seeing the year ahead stretch out in front of me and am reminded that I don't know anything that's going to happen, really. Oh, I know I'll pay the rent and my taxes and there'll be work, a lot of which I'll farm out to my Sharks. I'm hoping to get a loan to be able to expand my business, hire an assistant, reorganize my office space (maybe get a carpenter to build me stuff?). I'm hoping to join the Y and get some exercise back into my life. Reorganizing my office may mean selling my NordicTrack, which I can't even use these days. I've got lots of ideas of what I'd like to do.

But I'm choosing to feel hopeful about 2007. It's my 12th year in business. 2006 was much better than 2005 and I have reason to think 2007 will be at least as good, maybe even better.

I guess we'll see.