August 1 Melancholy

She's humid and she's unpleasant. She was sitting at the end of the bed when I woke up this morning. She's dressed only in veils and scarves, cloudy, gray, and insubstantial. Her skin peeks through; it's wrinkly from crying and dehydration. She has no bones, and bad teeth. I'm exasperated. Who let her in here? I know the answer -- she came in through the door I usually keep locked. It's the door to the room marked "OPJ" (Other People's Journals). Mania and her assistant, Perkiness, furnished this room for me. There's a tremendous clutter of words piled up on every surface, and a whole rack of torture instruments labeled "comparisons," and long ugly drapes. I think I hear people talking in the room, and laughing, but I find only silent Melancholy in there, hovering in the closet, or maybe up near the ceiling in the corner. She floats out and follows me around. She makes me look at this photo. It's a picture of us at the Museum of Natural History, New York, wearing our sweaters. We are baffled, disheveled, and squinting. We're out of order. The youngest is not in the picture. She was probably too cranky, or maybe she was too young to stand up. I'm the oldest, the one in sparkly white cat's-eye glasses. I look like I should be holding their hands, but I'm not. I have a big glob of hair on the side of my head like a donut. I'm carrying something heavy in the pocket of my dress. My shoulders look tense, like I'm going to grow up to be a hassled middle manager, or a mean mother. I was 11, same age as my son now. Somehow he seems more wholesome.

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August 2 Summertonic

After about 1pm, I enjoyed yesterday very much. It was the high point of my summer. I was in a series of beautiful places. A mansion; a pool; a lawn; a "found art" exhibit; an exhibit of local rocks; a stone sunroom with windows leaded in diamonds and a huge bouquet of hydrangeas and lilies on a plain wooden table; a cloister-like auditorium; a classical sculpture garden complete with missing noses. I ate other people's food. Lots of variety. Lots of bites of different kinds of cheese. A glass of wine, a glass of club soda, a cup of coffee! (I was cool enough from swimming to want hot coffee!!!) Later a plate of vegetables from someone else's wedding reception. Little oval tomatoes. Peppers in many colors. Baby carrots. I went to the surrealist film festival. Repeat after me three times: Adults do not "dress up." Adults do not "dress up." Adults do not "dress up." I didn't dress up but neither did anyone else (except the host, and he very mildly). I always always always expect a wide variety of strange costumes, especially when the audience is encouraged to dress up. Well, this is not New York. I was fascinated and thrilled by the surrealist films. I was alone, luckily. Otherwise I would have had to puzzle over the films with my companion, talking, making distance with expected remarks like "Weird" and "I don't get it." Instead I was able to hug the delicious puzzlement close, fondle it, taste it and sniff it to my heart's content. And I am proud that I stayed through the whole program. At several points I wanted to get up and leave, so provoked was I with boredom, disgust, noise, or the gaping abyss.

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August 3 Amusement

This looks disappointingly like cauliflower. It's a fennel blossom.

I am dismayed by this, but you can't turn your back on recurring themes. They only get more and more persistent until you pay attention. Recurring themes: rubber and poop. Rubber First I kept thinking "fear is a rubber sheet." I felt it wrapped around me, restricting me. I was sweaty inside it, and I couldn't breathe. Then, over the weekend, I started thinking "I love playing with the rubbery boundary between cowardice and courage." Maybe next I will get to some bouncing or erasing aspect, I don't know. Poop Scooping poop is of course a fact of life with a dog in our neighborhood. I think I do okay with it. I recently went through a phase of obsession with my son's cats and how he didn't seem to understand the point of a litter box. Their waste products seemed to be permeating the basement. Then -- the sewage incident of last week! Cat poop suddenly didn't seem to be so bad. My sister, not aware of any of this, sent me an inspirational email yesterday that revolved around the image of dog poop being baked into brownies. And today -- I'm rushing this entry because I have a job interview at a company which I know is housed in a building where there were problems with psittacosis (carried by bird, bat, rat guano). I'm not sure I believe there are messages here. Maybe. Maybe the message is "amusement." Metaphor mind wants to make something of it.

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August 4 My DC

Dreamy. Wiped out from two interviews yesterday. One felt like talking with coworkers, the other felt like I wanted the floor to open and swallow me up. I have the original fennel next to me on the desk. I can almost accept the idea that the scent is part of the index page, that the journal smells faintly of licorice. Then I remember with a twinge of disappointment that I have the original fennel next to me on the desk. I have no weekend plans. I'd like to go to Washington DC on the train. When I go to Washington DC, I always go to the same places. The outside of the Children's Museum, where I visit the Nek Chand sculpture garden; I only go inside if I have children with me; the Textile Museum, especially the small mossy garden out back; the National Museum of Women in the Arts -- I want to see Nellie Mae Rowe's folk art, and sometimes they have a book art exhibit; and the East wing of National Gallery of Art because I like the open space in the lobby. This time I would skip the Nek Chand sculpture garden; the figures' clothes are starting to deteriorate, it's sad, maybe they've even taken it out. I would add "Devi: the Great Goddess" exhibit at the Arthur Sackler gallery and the new sculpture garden on the Mall. Then I always go to Union Station's food court where I have "fast" Indian food including a glob of some intensely flavored green condiment, maybe coriander? I just love that green stuff. Okay, I'll check the train schedule. It would be better if I didn't have to stay overnight. But I don't like to come back into my town's train station too late; it's too scary.

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August 5 Immobilized

I don't know what to do! Eye doctor? Mammogram? Car repair? Get the sliding glass door fixed? I could weed the yard, clean the downstairs bathroom, tackle the dining (junk) room Here's where I feel faint about the constant need for maintenance Job hunting? (even though my inappropriate, arrogant, autonomous, astrological instincts tell me I'm going to get that job I interviewed for on Tuesday and why should I apply for a bunch of jobs I don't want and I'm not going to take) Here's where I am told "Pride goeth before a fall" Grant application? (for a special issue of the poetry journal) Here's where I feel too alone I could fill out some forms for junior's college admission in September Here's where I get too nervous about not having a job and start to call myself names I could work on fine tuning my computer or do some online tutorials Here's where I admit that I just can't accept computers as an end in themselves I could answer the phone if it rings (just had a call - PriceWaterhouseCoopers) Here's where I run screaming in the other direction I could work on my writing My what?

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August 6 Movement

Dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping ... I'm going down from a very high disturbed part of the atmosphere, a place where an ethereal stew is being stirred very fast by thoughtless forces. I'm going down to a dark enclosed place. A seat on a night train. This shy intentionality of travel is a marble, a cue ball, a bowling ball. I'm shooting it forward into the static standing circle. I can force events to happen. Marbles will ping like pinball, heavy balls clack, scatter and drop, pins fall down. I need to get outside of this inexorable time and this vast air. I need to rest my forehead on the grimy window and stare out at the neverwalked places along the tracks and watch smog film the ground sky. The train is an entry to an alternative mythology. Maybe just as airy, but I go there willingly. I go to collect images that I need. I'll carry only one bag and I'll pick up paper.

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August 8 Darshan?

My biggest secret is: I don't know what to do with the devotional impulse. Travel: afraid of that man waiting at the midnight station, afraid of that cursing woman they threw off the train, afraid of that disturbed man they didn't throw off the train, little sleep in the constant fluorescent ceiling light, legs numb with cold, washing up in the station restroom, little food, small coffee, writing and aimless, wandering in the steamy southern gardens, my heart is yearning the whole time for nothing I can say. I watch a squirrel pick and eat a luscious orange-yellow hibiscus blossom. He nips large chunks of it out with clear joy. She holds a cloth-wrapped palm leaf manuscript in one hand. A rosary, a lotus stem. Her other hand is lowered in the varada gesture of granting a wish. This hand has been lost. And so has my wish. And so has the granting of wishes. What remains? The empty space between us in the museum, the space that I don't cover with my body prostrating myself at her feet because I'm on a tour and we are all very cool and gray. ~~~~~~~~ Darshan means a "look." Everywhere, in each life and in all life's experiences, the goddess is said to give people a "look" at her power as it manifests itself in an endless variety of specific forms. Suzanne Ironbiter, Devi, Yuganta Press

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August 9 Random Thoughts

There are good recruiters and there are bad recruiters. This morning I met with a good one. He said the internet would be more useful in my job search than he would be. He confirmed exactly what I had been thinking about my old company. He guessed my prior salary there within $1000. I found a job advertised in the newspaper. It seems perfect. Absolutely perfect. Only one problem -- an old boss of mine works at that company. Not that I burned any bridges with her (I think!). Our personalities were just very different. Summer seems almost over. Friday I'm going to Saratoga for a week to the International Women's Writing Guild conference. Then my son comes back. Then summer will be over. I hope to gain some direction and some ideas for my writing at the conference. I was rereading old entries from Vestinambula yesterday. It's a mysterious project. I don't know what to think of it. I don't know where it's going. All I know is I enjoy it.

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August 10 Bird on a fence

{wingmail} "Tuesday is a bird on a fence. The winged may rest on boundaries." The boundary between working and not working! Temporary work! Isn't this great! Maybe I will really like it a lot and I will work as a temp for the rest of my life. I am pretty excited about earning some money for the first time since April 19th. It's a half-day assignment! Nothing can go wrong in half a day. I'm filled with glee. And I don't have to sit by the phone at home waiting for that one company or that other company to call me or not call me. Yesterday a friend of mine was describing some family members as similar to the characters in the Wizard of Oz -- one needs a brain, the other needs a heart. I'm taking my brain and my hands on this assignment. In a small Igloo cooler. When I get there I will open it up, take out the brain, snap it into place. Pick up the hands, screw them onto the ends of my wrists. There's another body part. It's colorful, shimmering. Sometimes it has a boundary, sometimes it is a mist. It's self sufficient and it doesn't always get along that well with the brain and hands. It thinks they are sell-outs, easy. It won't go into the cooler. Usually I keep it in a drawer. Or I think I'm keeping it in a drawer. It has the ability to divide and multiply. Misty scraps of it tend to trail me wherever I go, and cause lots of trouble. ~~~~~~~ For wingmail: artwell's oracula

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August 11 Encouraging shoes

What should I do with the true, but completely improbable? Electrified with anxiety, pacing around the Stamford train station at midnight, looking for a place to feel safe while I wait for the Amtrak to Washington DC, I finally settle down along a railing on the Track 3 platform. It's very well lit, there's not too many single men loitering along there, no one is lying on a bench passed out. I take a few deep breaths and try to relax myself by looking around. Across the tracks on the other side of the station, I see a clown in full clown dress. He (or she?) has the clown suit, the multicolored wig, the red nose, and my favorite red and white striped Raggedy Ann hose. And the big goofy clown shoes! Cartoon colored yellow plastic shoes with hilariously bulbous toes. The clown leaves on a train for New Haven. I start to feel nervous again without my cheerful talisman. I start to worry that the Amtrak will leave from the other side of the station, which it does sometimes for no apparent reason. I decide to walk up into the station and check. More anxiety. More suspicious looking people, dark corners, hallways, staircases. I ask a security guard who tells me "Track 3" and then I sit and wait in the station for awhile. I notice a tall, athletic looking Chinese man, young with a perfect haircut, wearing baggy pants and a sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves. I'm distracted by his muscular arms. His gait is noticeably graceful, almost catlike. He walks past me; later he walks on back. I finally notice his feet. He's wearing great long theatrical shoes, covered with golden embroidery, with exotic curled up toes. ~~~~~~~~ It's 2pm, it's Wednesday, I'm really sick of job hunting. My first paid assignment went well, but I was totally drained by trying to give the impression that I know what I'm doing. And now I have a backlog of non-remunerative work that I don't want to do. I made a big mistake yesterday and misaddressed email to a recruiter. By the time I got the message that the email wasn't sent, it was too late. Well, I didn't want that job anyway. So then I spent money, ordered some new twin bed sheets, and three books from Daedalus. Then I watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for the first time and got very depressed. All I want to do is think about Meridel LeSueur and Anais Nin. ~~~~~~~~ Send more shoes! I need more encouraging shoes!

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August 12 Professional wrestling		Icon for IWWG conference; Sarasvati, India, state of Karnataka, Mysore, ca. 1830-40; she holds "a rectangular palm-leaf manuscript and a writing implement ... "
I've walked up and down the stairs 50 times this morning. I'm always at the wrong computer. I'm hungry. I need to use the phone downstairs. I hear my son getting up, I need to talk to him. I'm hungry again. I need to check for the paper. I need to check for the mail. I need to write out a check. I need to ... I'm trying to move out of job-hunting mode into contemplative writerly seeking mode. Many interior fights. I'm irresponsible. I'm just trading one suit of armor for another. That woman that called, a so-called friend and neighbor, I should really take her advice and go to different meetings. And she wouldn't leave her teens home alone. I see my next-door neighbor, her hair in rollers, hanging out with her laundry. She seems so calm. I want to be calm. I don't want to be a hermit, forsaking my neighbors with their advice and their rollers and their clothes lines. I love them. I don't want to be broke. I want to work. It's an excellent distraction. The time for people like me has passed. Mahadeviyakka was the last of the wandering naked female sadhus. I don't want to be a visionary, it doesn't pay. I don't want to be a saint, there's no pleasure in it. I don't want to be a beginner. I have nothing to prove. I have nothing to say. I'm fundamentally lazy and thus will never be able to pull my writing together. If I don't stay home and take care of the pigeon, who will? This squirming can get very silly. At least this is the right goddamn fight.

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August 20 Assembly of ravens
The Flame is Bigger than the Mountains. I want to get credit for what I don't write about. Bell, bell, bell, bell. I rehearse. You illustrate. We listen. Sunset-colored sleeves. All these opal fish try to swim into my ears. Dream: Toys -- a Happy Meal prize? They are alive. The small round blue creature grabs an even smaller chartreuse triangular creature and puts it in a tiny treasure chest. It wants to smuggle it out of the "alive" place before they go back to being inert plastic. Triggers and referential integrity at the last minute. Anat, warrior goddess of Egypt. Have you ever had your head up inside a large bell? I can't remember or imagine when I've done this, but I feel like I've done it many times. The Inner Light caught the edge of her coarse gray skirt, stained her, spoiled her, poisoned her, finally emblazoned her, indelibly marked as one who stayed away from church. Red veils. "I was wearing a yellow shirt. I have the most colorful driver's license I've ever seen." Energy. It's contained above, around my head. I feel danger -- I know if the clapper strikes -- because my brother pulls the rope, because there's an earthquake, because the world goes sideways -- my head will never come right again after the reverberation. "I didn't know that door existed." There's openness below. In a proper bell tower, there's great openness below. The ana-suromai.

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August 21 The home ravens
A delicate state of equilibrium tonight. Both boys are here in Connecticut, at least I think they are. The shower curtain is hung up. The dishes are all washed. There is more than a bare minimum of food. The older one has his driver's license and is insured. The younger one left his dog tags and his bathrobe at Grandma's, but he brought home a Chinese puzzle box and a jar of raspberry jam to make up for it. School starts August 31 for one, September 6 for the other. It's going to be hectic. Already I feel too distant to write. I can never drive south from the Albany area without getting lost. Usually I take the Hutchinson River Parkway south instead of north and get almost to the Whitestone bridge before I realize my mistake. This time, though, I was on the New York State Thruway and I breezed past Exit 17. Mentally I was going north on 684, thinking there would be a pair of exits, one southbound one northbound. There was no pair. The next exit was 20 miles away. I had to come home over the Bear Mountain Bridge. That windy road over the mountain, then through Peekskill and "historic Ossining." I was very nervous that I would take a wrong turn on 287 and helplessly go over the Tappan Zee Bridge, but I managed to avoid that. The Hudson Valley has gloomy and foreign associations for me. I think they are caused by Washington Irving, the legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane, and Rip Van Winkle. There are dark nights there and thunderstorms. It didn't help that it was drizzling and I forgot I was wearing my sunglasses.

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August 22 Weaker birds hover
Today - gray and cool. Premonitions are gathering under the eaves. Dust mice of dread are massing under the bed. I don't want to go back there, back into that fluorescent prison. I want to go forward, forward into the decline of autumn. I've been reading Anais Nin's diary, 1966 - 1974. It is good for me and bad for me. I'm envious of her work, her fame, her success. I make judgments about the quality of her effort. I criticize her useless fixation on beauty. I'm troubled by her dated references to hippies and LSD. I'm having a small continuous tantrum while reading. But I keep picking up the book. Her absolute belief in the importance of her work, her absolute belief in the primacy of her intuition -- this torqued out an ingrained attitude of mine this morning. The way I described the change to myself: It's not a reading list. It's not a syllabus. It's digging. But I feel so many generations of weak birds hovering around me! Their bones are rubbery and even their blood is not nutritious. They fall easy prey to cats. They know nothing about digging. They don't even eat voles; they subsist on small grains and bits of rock. By the way, the hognose snake eggs hatched. There are seven baby snakes. I'm surprised at their size; they're as long as an adult's finger. They are to be fed fish, and if they don't eat fish, we are to freeze a toad and then dismember it and give them the legs.

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August 23 Contrasystems
Today I set up five interviews for the rest of this week. I think I need to learn to set aside interview-free time. Believe me, I'm grateful for having this kind of a problem. I like interviewing better than working. There's a lot less commitment involved. I wonder how long I can drag out this interviewing. If I take a contract assignment, I'll be interviewing again in a short time -- six months? That would be cool. I know I don't like decision-making. I'm dreading getting to that step. Two corporate jobs are looming. I feel like I'm going to fall over. I feel like I'm going to cave. I can't say no. I can't do badly on the interview. I can't make an intentional mistake. It's always been a problem. I've heard there are girls who intentionally start to do poorly in school so the boys will like them. I could never accomplish this. Thus the boys don't like me. I've cheated on a test to get a grade of 100% rather than 98%. I'm having a big problem with Mr. Hateful Recruiter. He talks way too fast. He gives me the LAMEST advice. I just say "unh-huh." And his pleasant assistant, the only bearable part of the picture, QUIT! Everything I'm talking about here has as a subtext 1) the economy or 2) my psychological weaknesses. Systems. I'm extremely disappointed when entries tend in these directions. What's the alternative? Art! A splotch. A blotch. A belch. Crumbling walls. Pointed hats. Slats. Feet that need paint. Stereotypes burned in effigy. Lost light at Conowingo. Mowing the borage. Blue jay wing. Fuzz. Boys posing as harmonicas. Assistance from Hermes. Joy among rocks. Muscular lips exercising. North East, Rising Sun. North breathes, Rising eyebrows. Much better. I can "create innovative solutions." No lie.

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August 24 Misdirection
Last night I dreamed about cluttered floors. Two separate complete dreams, both containing cluttered floors. One floor was cluttered with low chairs, like beach chairs. The other was cluttered with eyeglass cases. I went too far too fast today. I also turned down a job I was perfectly suited for. Why would I take a job doing the same thing I did before for less money and 30 minutes longer commute? No matter how compatible I felt in the interview; no matter how marginally more comfortable the environment seemed to be. I know this was the right thing to do, but it's making me feel discouraged. I met with a woman in New York, some kind of screening interview. She wanted to know if I had a car (New Yorkers are weird). Then she wanted to know if I had ever worked in an MIS environment. Wasn' t this obvious from my resume? I assured her, Yes, I had. Later, I realized she probably doesn't know what MIS means. First it was DP (data processing). Then MIS (management information systems). Then IS (information systems). Now I think IT is the most avant-garde term (information technology). My son and I were laughing over a want-ad for "MIS Manager." Yeah, that's what I want to be, a mis-manager! Actually the meeting in New York was for a position called "MIS Director." Tomorrow I have to find out what IIF, MTF, and MSNQ mean. I went to a great effort to buy ice cream in Grand Central before taking the train home. I went downstairs and reconnoitered the new food court. There were only 5 stores open. The farthest one had ice cream. Or something like it -- they called it custard. I got a hot fudge sundae. Then I had to run with it to the train. I got on a crowded train carrying a hot fudge sundae piled high with whipped cream. This was a fun thing to do. I'm still reading Nin. Now she's my friend.

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August 25 Today's questions
The recruiter kept saying "Cool" to me. She was young. She had been raised in Michigan. I questioned her, in a friendly way, about her vacation next week. She said she was going to Vietnam to adopt a baby. There was a man in the testing room. He was about my age. His head was shaved except for a circle of hair in the back, which was gathered into a pony tail. He was wearing a black shirt. He completed the Photoshop test in lightning speed. I didn't question him about anything, although I would have liked to. I took the Quark XPress test. I kept clicking on the wrong option, causing the machine to make an obnoxious noise, probably disturbing the Photoshop guy. An hour went by like a minute. I had only roughed out the document when time was up. Did I complete enough of it to make me look marginally competent? This afternoon I "crammed" on Windows NT Server and C++. It was painful. How much can I learn in four hours? Tomorrow I'm going to an interview for technical writing in that environment. How much can they expect a technical writer to know? I think IIF is IIS (Internet Information Server), MTF is MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server), and MSNQ is MSMQ (Microsoft Message Queue). Whose mistake was that? To my son I said, I'm curious about your financial situation, even though I don't think I want to know. He's involved in this magazine deal that he can't get out of. He's planning on getting some shoes for college. He doesn't want to take his car to Boston (whew, finally developing some sense). I don't think we got to the real bottom line before his friends came over. What I want to know is: why does Mr. Silvercurls want to keep in touch with me? He called me today. Maybe he's thrilled by vicariously experiencing joblessness. Maybe I'm the only interesting person he knows. Maybe he likes to share camping stories. A telemarketer called for my son. I took the call. He thought maybe I could help him, since Junior wasn't home. Would I consider myself part of the group of Americans that needs to lose 5-10 pounds? I answered, No, I could stand to gain 5-10 pounds. No, no one overweight in our household. So all he could say was Goodbye.

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August 26 Presentation(s)
I woke up this morning feeling more serene than I have felt in a long time. I don't know why. I guess Uncertainty agrees with me. Or -- I just love the rain. A day of contrast. First, an elite interview at an elite web company. Engaging, exciting, and challenging. Commonalities, including attending the same college as that finance woman -- where we took courses from the same professor! She remembered his blind dog, whereas I did not. This would be contract work -- no equity, but I am thrilled by the idea of being an outsider. And the possibility of taking time off on my own terms, not constrained by two weeks and two personal days. I tell myself: don't count your job before it's hatched. Then, a sudden call to go do a few hours' work in Powerpoint production. I am now cured of the desire for a job where I just sit and do what I'm told. Unfortunately, the supervisor there loved me & tried hard to convince me to do long-term Powerpoint work for her. When I said I was interviewing for IT positions, she tried hard to convince me to become the 2nd IT support person in their group. Run away! run away! I might have to go do a few more days there next week, just to torture myself. Note: returning to the "poop" theme (August 3), the presentation I worked on was all about IBS, irritable bowel syndrome. I tried hard not to read it closer than necessary. You know what I LOVE? Setting foot in all these different offices. Now that is really weird. Maybe I should be in sales; or do office cleaning. I like to observe the furnishings and the magazines and the accessories. I like to watch the receptionists at work. I like absorbing the vibrations and making snap judgments based on them. It is a beehive of activity out there. What kind of person am I? I'm wishing for another silvery serene moon morning tomorrow. But I don't expect one.

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August 27 Summer
Out behind the barn, along the dry gray boards of the barn, near the dry gold grasses of late August. Grasshoppers skitter in the weeds. She sits back there for hours, still and quiet, playing with grass stalks. Five pennies are embedded in the cement floor of the barn entrance. She would like to pry them out but they will not come loose. The cement floor feels cool on her bare legs. Sitting on the cement marks her legs with fine pox. Gray cement dust gets on her clothes. She's already dirty again. Dust coats everything in the barn. The heat intensifies the smell of dust. She doesn't explore. Normally she would explore. She knows there's a scythe in there, a big old-fashioned hand scythe with a wooden handle. They use it to cut the golden grasses. There's an old washing machine in there, with a mangle mounted on top. Your hair could get caught in the mangle and yanked right out of your head. She looks out of the barn. The barn doorway frames the edge of the flower garden. Giddy sprays of gladiola, orange and yellow, start inside the frame and then shoot past it. The gravel driveway curves partly into the frame, then exits. They're all inside. Taking naps. Hanging up clothes. Folding clothes. Putting away clothes. Clearing up after food. Making more food. There's a plate of sliced tomatoes at every meal. Someone is usually crying, starting to cry, or getting over crying. The others talk, but their talk doesn't draw her. It has no shape and no weight. She doesn't want to go inside. She doesn't want to move. The door frame holds her. She wants to get exactly into the space of the door frame, the space that's not the barn, the space that's not the gladiola garden. If she gets there, she can disappear. None of it will matter. The untouched dust. The embedded pennies. The hard eyes. The no words.

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August 28 Local adventures
Friday afternoon I saw the dog of my dreams.* It was a greyhound, not a Great Dane, but it was strolling in the right area of downtown and it was the exact brindle color of the dream dog. The dream dog was a lot more vigorous than the dog of reality; he was a wispy and insubstantial beast if I ever saw one. The dog owner was a small old distracted woman with hair the color of brilliant tomato soup. (*July 28 but beware--page loads slowly) ~~~~~ Today I dozed off on a bench in the conifer garden. How important is this? The conifer garden is a dark scented place, claustrophobic with hills and crannies, and narrow paths where needled fingers reach out for you. I am completely at home in the conifer garden. But I also suffer there with bad memories of "He Who Names Plants." ("She Unnames Them," story by Ursula LeGuin) ~~~~~ After I left the conifer garden, I walked up to Potter's Field. I wanted to try to communicate with the unnamed dead. What they told me: "Don't sweat it." ~~~~~ I am always amazed at all the stories to be found in the grocery store. It's like there's a special row of invisible shelves in every aisle with jars marked "Man in huge crocheted hat" "Indian grandmother, Japanese mother cruise aisles erratically" "Agitated man seeks missing teddy bear" "Interracial food choices" "Golden couple shops together adorably" "Ultra-coiffed wife and husband in wheelchair negotiate baked goods" "Divorced dad gets food for visitation weekend with tall son" and so on and so on and so on. Only problem is, these story jars can't be bought and even if they could be, they can't be opened. I don't think I'll ever be bold enough to interview grocery shoppers about their food preferences.

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August 29 Keep it holy?
I have trouble with Sundays. I used to have trouble with Fridays. Things have changed. "Heart growing hot." Aboriginal self wants to move on. As far as I know, my ancestry was not nomadic. My grandfather was a traveling hardware salesman, if that counts. I'm not interested in fixing myself. The lazy innocence of a summer Sunday provokes me until I succeed in destroying it. I just deleted most of this entry. I wonder what it said.

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August 30 Catherine's Wheel		Color
Dream: I was reading the most beautiful poetry I had ever encountered. The last poem was called "Catherine's Wheel." It was a couple of pages long, all in couplets. It was written on a deep salmon pink background. Commentary: Why, oh why, can't I remember the words? The pink color was a background from the website. That deep pink color has been my favorite background color. I used it in December '98 and January '99. (The other morning I woke up with a vision of green rectangles in my head. Stupidly, I didn't realize for a few days that green rectangles was August!) Just before bed last night I glanced briefly at an article about the silver wheel of the Goddess Arianrhod, the stars. (Arianrhod was the card I drew at last August's full moon gathering.) Wheel: wheel of the year, wheel of fortune, reinventing the wheel, spinning my wheels today. (I was job hunting exactly this time of year in 1990. I finally started work on October 30.) I was raised knowing about St. Catherine of Siena and St. Catherine of Alexandria. The nuns told me to ask my mother which saint I was named after. Answer: neither. I was named after Catherine Earnshaw-Linton in Wuthering Heights. The term Catherine's Wheel came back to me from some childhood study of hagiography. I looked it up in the Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets: "One of the most popular saints of all time--despite the fact that she never existed. In the hearts of many people she was second only to the virgin Mary. Yet even Catholic scholars admit her legend is 'preposterous.'" "The key to the secret of St. Catherine is her so-called Catherine Wheel, the wheel of fire on which she was said to have been martyred. At Sinai, the original center of Catherine's cult, the Asiatic Goddess was once portrayed as the Dancer on the Fiery Wheel at the hub of the universe. A Greek convent of priestess-nuns at Sinai in the 8th century AD called themselves Kathari, 'pure ones,' a word akin to the Kathakali temple-dancers of India, who performed the Dance of Time in honor of Kali, Goddess of the karmic wheel." "The symbol of the wheel figured prominently in beliefs of medieval Gnostics who called themselves Cathari, and revered St. Catherine almost as a female counterpart of God. ..." "Her Christian myth made her the standard young beauty dedicated to virginity, and so wise she could demolish the arguments of fifty philosophers at once. She refused the hand of the emperor in marriage, whereupon he -- following the hagiographers' usual curious pattern--essayed to win her love by having her imprisoned and tortured. Her captors tried to break her on the fiery wheel, but the wheel was shattered by a sudden bolt of lightning and she was saved. In the end, she had to be beheaded. Milk flowed from her veins instead of blood. Angels carried her body from Alexandria to Sinai, where her relics were 'discovered' 500 years later. Her divine bones constantly exuded a healing unguent, which was bottled and sold at great profit to the convent." Is that cool? A very strengthening dream, and after such a wretched day yesterday, I am grateful.

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August 31 Life sentences
Skunky outside. Very skunky. My eyes are watering and I'm sneezing. There's a large decorative circle of ants on the back patio. Somebody must have spilled something there. I feel uninspired and resigned. I'm tired of not working. I had an interview today at the most "safety" of all jobs. It was in my "career" field -- exactly what I've been doing for the last 15 years. It's ten minutes from my house. They seemed to really like me. Some amusements -- casual clothes, a new sort of funky domain. No challenge. Is that okay? I just want to work. This morning I woke up with this sentence in my head: There were messages from Alcestis almost every day now, from her rat cellar under the eaves. Chills! I have an uncontrollable urge to read further. Unfortunately, there is no further. Last night I felt very ungrounded. I was expressing my anxieties and flaws to my friend B. It made them seem more real. I have no income. My little boy is in middle school. I have a lot of responsibilities. Walking home, my soul was quavering, stuttering, and watering. I wonder if sentences arise from being ungrounded. Do I need to learn to tolerate being ungrounded? It is so unpleasant. I know sentences don't arise from jobs. The question is which jobs are less lethal to sentences: bland easy jobs or interesting challenging jobs. No, that's not the question. That's a decoy question. The real question is whether I am capable of a love relationship with sentences. I was very nice to the sentence. Hospitable. I put it down in a little book. But I can't make a commitment.

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