Sheep

Still depressed. Find myself lying down on floors, beds, and having locked-in-the-body panicked experiences. Much how I've heard sheep feel when put on their backs.

Lit Gore

I spent four hours today editing my nephew's horror story for a contest. He said, "Aunt Naomi, I'm so sorry it was so bloody." I said, "You know, after the first couple of deaths, I just kind of got used to it and then I didn't mind so much." I think he has a clever hand with literary mayhem. Hope he doesn't stick with it.

The Wrong Magazines

"There are days when it seems you've been subscribing to the wrong fashion magazines. A little bit of your world crumbles, maybe a lot." (Roberta Smith, February 23, 2009, Art Review, New York Times)

Capital S

"I was sort of looking for a story, not only with a small s but sort of with a capital S – something that would direct my life." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, in an interview with PBS in 2002).

Bill and Steve

AUSTRALIA REPORTS RESCUE AT SEA OF TWO MEN ADRIFT IN ICEBOX...my top headline of the week. Two Burmese fishermen claim to have fallen off a boat and survived twenty-five days and a Category 1 storm living on rainwater and small fish regurgitated by two birds that landed on the icebox. Based on their minimal injuries, doctors are questioning their story. Hmmm. Imagine if their names were Bill and Steve. Bill says to Steve, "You know, I'm bored with my life and so are you. All we do is work and drink beer. I have an ice-box big enough for both of us. Let's see if it floats." The picture in The New York Times shows the vast blue of the ocean off Australia's northern coast, the tiny brilliant red of an icebox, and two men in it waving their shirts. Was it twenty-five days? Or three? Reminds me a little of The Life of Pi, a fantasy by Yann Martel about a boy and a tiger who, for countless months, cohabit a lifeboat. Frankly, The Life of Pi is more believable, but, maybe, these two men were desperate for an adventure--or a book deal.

Another Life

Yesterday, Gregory said if he could do a comedy routine about being single and lonely, he would say, "Today, I was so lonely I went with my lesbian friend to Fred Meyers and watched her pick out a pot for twenty-five minutes and I wasn't even bored." I called him over at one pint and said, "What do you think?" about the color of a particular pot, and he said sweetly, without even looking, "It's fine, honey." We both laughed. Once again convinced we were married in another life.

Less Than a Blink

"I find myself left with nothing but a few random thoughts. One of them is that from up here I can look back and see that although a human life is less than a blink of an eye lid in terms of the universe, within its own framework it is amazingly capacious so that it can contain many opposites. One life can contain serenity and tumult, heartbreak and happiness, coldness and warmth, grabbing and giving [...]." (Diane Athill, Somewhere Towards the End)

Up the Ladder

I'm sending the wrong message out to the universe. Will no longer catalogue my depressions with excruciating detail. Have a code. Black dog comes to mind. But that was Winston's. Dreaded playing the board game, Shoots and Ladders, as a kid. Hated sliding down the shoot. That's my code. I've slid further down the shoot. Two med changes. Optomistic I'll go up the ladder.

Teach Me to Dance

After watching his timber company crash to pieces, literally before his eyes, the narrator in the 1964 movie, Zorba the Greek, hangs his head for a few moments. Then he turns to his friend. 'Teach me to dance, will you, Zorba?'"

Our Own Wave

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance--

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave [...]

(From Rilke, The Walk)

Lullabies

Thought I'd found a job possibility this afternoon but the job turned out to be in Bothell. Then thought I'd found another job idea but you needed a car. Then I just sunk. Layed down on my bed and listened to the rain and sang myself lullabies and cried so hard I filled the wells of my ears.

All Over the Road

Ran today for the first time in eight months. Under strict instructions from my physical therapist to start at seven minutes. It was fantastic. I couldn't stop smiling. Rather blowy. Winnie the Pooh kind of day. I didn't care. Could have blown me all over the road. I wouldn't have minded.

A Glimmer of Koi Fish

How quickly I forfeited my pledge to try to make every moment count. Spent several hours last night obsessively watching YouTube. Have become keenly aware lately how much obsessive thought and action cloud my day to day living. This from Stephen Levine (Who Dies?): "Awareness notices each object as it passes through, but never forgets itself. Recognizing the spaciousness through which the mental circus passes. The lions and tigers, the clowns and high-wire acts are all present, but are seen as the mind's game only [...]. But because there is no identification, because the circus is not thought of as 'mine,' it is observed like any parade." Read the words after lying blankly in bed for yet another half hour...12:30 p.m. by this time. What if I related to my depression instead of from it? It's made a difference already. I feel lighter. Less like a block of concrete and more like a woman walking on ice. Ice she's walked on before. Knows how to walk on. Knows how to best slide her feet. Maybe if she looks down, she'll see a glimmer of koi fish. Even now. Relating to instead of from.

Boots

Sometimes the simpliest things comfort. The feel of my feet in my most loved pair of boots remind me that I can walk through this world even when I think I can't.

Balancing

Just realized I've been wearing the same chocolate-stained t-shirt for three days. Hard to keep my heart open to myself sometimes. Oddly heartened by the fact that Howie Mandel, despite meds and therapy for his OCD, still finds it difficult to shake hands. "Germs." He taps fists on his game show to avoid making full contact. We all balance our limitations. My goals today are simple: laundry, library.

Deals

“I’ve got ADD, I’ve got OCD. In fact, I’d like to buy some more vowels." Howie Mandel, comic, writer, game show host.