wednesday, finally, thank god. wednesday means csa. i've been home since saturday, but i didn't want to buy produce because i knew i'd be getting some today; therefore, i've had no fresh fruit or veggies in me since then. but it is spring, spring! and my body has been aching for some greenness, imploring me to eat something with life close to it, something sweet and whole. today brought spinach and beets and turnips and salad greens and grapefruit and basil, and i just ate a gigantic salad with the greens and spinach and basil, and i'm about to eat a grapefruit, even though i'm going to dinner at a friend's house in about fifteen minutes. because, i tell you, i cannot live on ramen alone.

some fourteen hours straight, minus forty-five minutes for dinner at denny's and several stops along the way to let the dog run around. the hills all bursting green, mojave in bloom, a hail shower to welcome us home. today spent quiet with wendell berry and peppermint tea. loneliness and intermittent rain. no food in the house; i'm thinking of fasting anyway. it's spring and things are changing, everything shifting. i can feel it in my blood, moving. i find myself wishing that i'd spent spring break here, alone, or out in the woods. i find myself reluctant to go back to school: can't i just wander around with my hand lens and my new exciting book, or putter about in my garden, or sit on the porch swing with a cup of coffee and my notebook, writing?

no great tradgedy, no fallen stars. just a lot of little things to mourn, so that i feel riddled with empty spaces, like buckshot in old westerns. i've done so much leaving, i feel like by now i should know how to say goodbye to things. but i don't.

happy birthday, dragoneyes. i'll be drinking in your honor tonight.

home again, in my parents' crazy house, my siblings ricocheting around me. we're growing up: my sister is off to college this fall, my brother is six-foot-three, my mother is having a biospy on thursday, my dad just turned 49 on tuesday (happy birthday dad!), and we're putting my dog down, the last pet left from my childhood. we got her as a few-year-old just-past puppy when i was in kindergarten. she's old, and i can't imagine this house without her.


when i was little, when we first moved here, this was a three-bedroom, one-bath "fixer-upper" in the cheapest neighborhood in town. we were three screaming kids, my mom was a dog trainer, and my dad worked for a sucession of other people doing more or less what he does now, but for not very much money. there were two big dogs, my cat, a rat, and two parakeets, a menagerie to which eventually we added another dog (twice), various lizards, snakes, fish, new parakeets and rats, and once a horse. we remodeled the bathroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, the basement, and then eventually the house pretty much whole. most of the neighborhood helped up build the deck out front.


what i remember most strongly about this house is a sense of fullness: one of us kids almost always had friends over, the dogs were always running around, the neighbors would drop over for dinner or to complain about baseballs through windows or water balloons or noise, and the neighborhood kids would rove from house to house until we found something to eat, which almost always happened here. it was a house of movement and noise.


it won't be long now until all three of us are off to somewhere, and as far as pets go, we're down to two cats and a blind toy poodle. not much boisterousness to be had there. the house is a lot bigger than it used to be, which was good where there were three teenagers living here; it'll be a lot of empty when we're all gone. and while i'm sure my parents have all sorts of grand plans for when they no longer have kids to look after, to be honest, i can't even picture this house empty. i don't know what they'll do to fill it up, but they'll have to figure out something.

i have been vacillating between being ridiculously, amazingly, exquisitely content, and feeling like my life is spiraling out of control. basically, entropy and eris have been kicking my ass lately, and i'm not sure how to fix it. but the show went spectacularly, and i'm pretty thrilled that it's over: it was a beautiful, powerful experience, and it was sucking up my whole life. that's probably why i've been so scattered, actually, which would be more comforting if i was feeling significantly less scattered now that it's over.

when i don't wear deodorant for a few days, my smell changes. (i'm smelly no matter what, as it turns out, so i've been experimenting somewhat of late). it gets spicier, muskier, and deeper. none of that calendula overtone, no flowers and no apology. it smells like sex and incense. i like it.


and apparently, so does he.