I was just in the shower for 30 minutes. The last 20 were spent sitting under the spray and crying. And when I was done, I yanked every cord out of my emotional sound board. I feel better now. Correction: I feel nothing and that is better.

July 3 Making Faces Three of my favorite people, all hamming it up for the camera. It’s riot around here, I tell ya.

July 4 Party Time Which I blogged about here.

July 5 Another Party This time, it was for Guitar Guy’s son, who just had a birthday. I miss Guitar Guy. We haven’t just hung out in way too long. Darn my busyness and also my depression. Maybe depression isn’t quite right–more pulling back. I’ve had a lot of out-ness lately and when I do that, there is always a pulling back in to regroup. I prefer my own company still. I imagine I will be that way the rest of my life, or will at lesst need substantial alone time. I think I am going to decide that that’s ok, as long as I can still get out there. Speaking of which:

July 6 My Corner of the Living Room Yep, you heard that right. I’ve made myself a corner in the living room. I actually sit in it sometimes. Except today I am in my room….because I am cleaning it? I guess so. I shall move out there after my next cleaning time, I think, so I can hang with the kids.

July 8 Life List Stuff A bucket for planting lantana, bubbles for blowing, and an album for my hands prints. Also laundry soap, which has nothing to do with the list, but a lot to do with life.

So, I wrote a very funny thing this morning, but I can’t share it with you, because it involved a lot of profanity. I’m going to tell you that it was directed at Eve, you know, Adam’s wife, and that I am NOT a very happy camper right now. And this sucks and also Guitar Guy is laughing his butt off at me, and it is not funny. It could be worse, I suppose. I could need Mesothelioma treatments, instead of black cohosh. It is physically uncomfortable and I am afraid I am going to get old and ugly. There. I said it out loud. Perhaps we can move on to other things. But I doubt it. And if you see me in Paula’s Health Hut, just be quiet.

Okay, where were we? It seems to me that I need to write several posts here, and post a lot of pictures with them. I’m just a wee bit mentally scattered, though. I don’t really feel like writing today, which is a bit odd for me. Of course, being able to fry an egg on my FACE is also odd. But apparently, it’s not going to be odd for very much longer, because it’s gonna be my new normal. Unless I can figure out some kind of natural help. Wait a minute, how did we get back here? I thought we changed the subject!!

Wow, ok. Midlife Musings, now new and improved with hot flashes and irritability!

Lots of mental stew today. You get a smorgasbord.

This morning, I have been playing the “what would it take” game. So far, I figure 6 bedrooms, provided one of them has a room off either side, and 8 if not. So about 3,000 square feet, minimum.

I spent some time out at the hospital after work yesterday with GirlCousin. We talked about a lot of things, including facial hair. Bleh. We apparently do not need to buy natural testosterone, as we have plenty of it. BTW, and unrelated to anything we discussed yesterday, did you know that it is testosterone that is responsible for the sex drive in both males and females? Yeah. I am so a fount of useless information, but there ya go. Facial hair and hornies, that’s what it’s good for.

Umm, look at my latest picture, post under this one. Do I look anorexic to you? Cause some dingbat who had known me for all of 15 minutes told me I had the symptoms of anorexia. He overheard me say my stomach hurt every time I ate and that I don’t like stuff in my mouth and that I had lost 30 pounds and jumped to this fantastic conclusion. I promptly took my anorexic ass to the cafeteria and had lemon shortcake. That’s ok, he also called GirlCousin fat. We don’t like him, he is dumb.

I also read the first chapter of TAW yesterday, though I didn’t do the exercises yet. I found myself about 48 times. I’d been wondering what I would do if a blog post idea came up while I was doing my morning pages, and today I found out. See, you aren’t supposed to go back and read them, so when one came up, I just drew an arrow in the margin pointing to it, and now I can go back and pick it up and blog it. Which I do plan to do sometime this week, but it may not be today. Today, I have a doctor appointment and Country wants to hang out with me for awhile. And I am going back out to the hospital for a quick visit with AuntieEm.

Continuing our backward trek, I went to Clarkton Sunday and hung out with GirlCousin and AuntieEm. That was such fun for me. People, I planned the trip at 1am Sunday morning! I left my house spontaneously and without being under compulsion. For a gal who lived in her room just a couple months ago, this is major stuff! From my room to the living room to out of the house. Alone, no bodyguard.

And it was GREAT to just say, I’ll be back. Just like when I went on my Artist Date–no one to call and check in with or get permission from. Awesome. I’m reveling in both mental and physical freedom today. It’s amazing out here. Oh, did I catch you off guard with my moment of truth there? Umm, I thought I warned you a few posts back that was going to happen. No need to check, it was on the post called “Wow, Just Wow”. I remember.

Added bonus for Sunday, That One met us in Whiteville. He got the seal of approval from the family there.

There ya go, pretty much caught up. Hope you didn’t mind going backwards. That was just easiest for me.

Me on my first “Artist’s Date”.

I had such a good time. I took me shopping and bought organizer bins for the cubbies in my room, a storage ottoman for my room, 6 count them SIX books, a ball of ridiculous yarn suitable only for making That One a hat, a vanity box and some hair bobs. And ice cream for dinner!!!

I went places I don’t normally go, Target and Mayfaire. Those aren’t steel buildings behind me, as you can see, but the nice facade of some fancy pants store. Mayfaire is a neat, neat place. Lots of specialty shops, a huge theater and apartments above all the stores. If I were single and as young as I look in this picture, I could so see me living there. Oh yeah, and rich. Mayfaire is spendy, people.

So tell me, how have you been good to yourself lately?

According to my calendar, today is Friday, which is the day I planned to update ya’ll on the progress of my life list. Umm, people, I am tired on Friday. I work outside all day and I get hot. And then I either drop off my kids or pick them up. And on this particular Friday, I wrote the post directly below this one, which was really good for me to write, but also really draining in a way.

Clearly, Friday is not going to work for the life list update. And maybe there isn’t a need for a special weekly post to do that, since I talk about the stuff I do during the week as I post my project 365 stuff. We’ll see. What I do know is that I am shortly going to bed. I was just outside and it it warm enough to sleep on one of those outdoor chaise lounges, but also pretty humid. Inside, it is nice and cool and getting very sleepy.

Look what I found today! It’s a dvd about Ricky Steamboat. You wanna watch it? Oh. Well, a dvd is …well, it’s like a tv show or a movie and you put it in this little machine that you hook to your tv and you can watch it whenever you want to. Yeah, it’s pretty neat. I bet you’d be amazed by radar detectors, too.

I spent a lot of time thinking about you today after I saw this. I was remembering how we used to play Johnny Weaver and Ric Flair, wrestling on the floor in the living room. We watched a lot of wrestling, didn’t we? And Bonanza. And the news. I hated the news. That darn David Brinkley, he used to make me so mad. When he was on, you made me be quiet so you could hear what he had to say. I hope you aren’t disappointed to find out that I still don’t watch the news. I mean, I used to, but then I had the children, and news, it isn’t black and white still photographs anymore. They show video, action pictures, and they are in color and you can actually see the blood on people and hear them screaming, and I quit watching the news when The Clone’s dad was deployed during the Gulf War, the first one, you know, because I didn’t want her to see that and ask questions, even though he was only in Germany and not in the desert. I never started back after that.

Hey, do you remember that match we went to see at the high school? I can’t remember the name, Bladen County, I think? It took for-ev-er to get there, and I was so excited. MMH had told me wrestling wasn’t real, and he’d never stop there when he was flipping the channels, and I almost believed him, until that match. When I saw the welts come up on that one man’s back after he got slung into the ropes, then I believed. Here’s what you wouldn’t believe: Wrestling is crazy now! They all wear fancy costumes and have “personalities” and they spend more time talking and threatening than they do in the ring. I’m pretty sure that now it’s mostly all fake. It’s certainly a lot of hype and big money.

And then after I remembered all that, I remembered how you used to sit with your feet up in the recliner. Always with you shoes and socks off, placed neatly under the end table beside you. And I would tickle your feet while you slept, and you would jerk them up and sleep on. I was a mean little kid, sometimes, huh? And then I remembered how when I slept in the middle of you and Grandmother, first hot and then cold, how you taught me to keep one foot in the covers and one out, and it would be just right, and it was, and I still do that today.

And I remembered how I used to put my fingers near your mouth and you would close it tight and then all of a sudden you would say “snookums” and pretend to bite my fingers. Your whiskers were so white and scratchy. I never saw you with more than a day’s beard, and you always used British Sterling, the bottles of it lined up on the bathroom shelf.

And your clothes. Grey pants, grey shirt, black belt, baseball cap. I wonder now if that’s why I find looking at that other man in a cap so comforting. Maybe he reminds me of you. I never saw you in anything else unless it was Sunday. Well, except that one time when GirlCousin and I were still laughing and giggling at 2am and you stomped through the house to the bathroom, after you’d been telling us to hush for a couple of hours. That time you were wearing a tank tee and a pair of boxers. Needless to say, we giggled for quite awhile after that, muffling the noise in the covers and pillows. Preteen girls are so easily amused. But it was the only time I ever heard you speak to me in a raised voice.

And I remembered how you sneezed so loud. Her-Ush-OOOOOO! I swear, I think GirlCousin could probably hear you at her house, a tenth of a mile away. In fact, they mighta heard you at Hill’s. Remember Hill’s? You used to wait on the bench at the front of the store while Grandmother and I did the shopping.

I remembered riding to Clarkton, week after week, with my head in Grandmother’s lap and my feet in yours. And you letting me drive the truck, sitting on your lap on the dirt road on the way home from Whiteville, when I couldn’t have been more than 8.

And I remembered the last visual image I have of you, lying on the bed, so riddled with cancer, with my three week old baby in your arms. And during that visit, while I was sitting with you, Grandmother calling to me from the kitchen, and me answering her, and you telling me not to yell at my Grandmother in that soft gentle voice of yours and me crying because you thought I had done such a thing, and it worried you and I didn’t want you to worry. And then you died a few weeks later on my first Mother’s Day. I dreaded Mother’s Day for 20 years. Last year, Mama taught me to think of your death as the date, and the not the day. And this year, That One and I took all the kids camping. It was fun, Mother’s Day was fun for the first time.

I am so glad I saw that movie thing today, the dvd. It was like spending the day with you again. I miss you so.