Fog

Grey day. Yes, spell check, I use an "e" in "grey". It's perfectly acceptable...quit trying to change me, man...

Grey, grey day. Clouds hanging low, exhaling earthward, chill, damp respirations lingering, tangling themselves in trees, leaving dewy fingerprints on shrubs, no place for wild things to hide from the damp, no place for them to get warm.

The sun is up there, somewhere, but down here is only half light, filtered through soft layers of wetness, no hope of a friendly, stray, warming ray.

The birds are crows pecking at worms on the pavement beyond the yard - not even oil-rich black sunflower seed mix can entice the smaller ones out to add a splash of color to the monochromatic day.

My head is full of mucus. You're welcome. So are my lungs. There's a chorus, a cacophony, of coughing here at Casa de Crazy.

Coughing, sniffling, cattargh, pleas skyward to please make this damned thing go away, we'd really like to breathe again, thank you.

There are things to do, but I don't feel like doing them. I should wrap Bird's Yule gifts while he's not here. I don't have much, but it will suffice...and it's much easier to wrap them when he's not just around the corner - I don't have to be stealthy or wait until ohgod-thirty to get the job done. I may even do it...in a little while...

In a little while...

For now, though, I'm a diffusion of greyness myself, trying to brighten, to warm, but feeling rather limp, damp, and out of sorts instead.

How's the weather in the Blue Nowhere?

An interlude...of sorts

If I time everything just right and don't slack completely off, the virtual art show will be done on February 15, which happens to coincide with our reception at the actual gallery, halfway through the real show. I pre-blogged quite a few of the posts, for which I hope I may be forgiven, and it turns out that's a good thing; the Evil Genius has been sick since Saturday (fever, coughing, general misery), and I've been doing Mom duty on overdrive. He's on the mend, now, but still not one-hundred percent.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling a bit...bluesy. OK, so I'm usually one shade of blue or another, but I'm not talking hair or fashion right now. It's February, the month I usually try to boycott by hiding under the covers or in the closet or in a pan of fudge brownies until March rolls around. For quite a while, February was the month people died, in my life. Seriously, for a number of years someone would pass through the veil every February - once, on my birthday no less.

Hanging the show at the gallery in the month of February may not have been one of my best ideas...or maybe it was. While we were putting everything up, K and I were geeking out and giggling about the fact that we were doing a show. Cool. And even if we don't sell a dang thing (thanks a lot, crappy economy and even crappier sense of timing), it's still a positive experience.

Despite the show, I'm feeling the blues - they're seeping through the chinks in my mental armor, oozing around corners, and puddling in the recesses of my poor mind, settling in with the ease of familiarity. Sigh.

I've been trying not to let this turn into a months-long slog through the bog, but I'm slipping a bit. Sigh, again.

To help distract myself, I actually started working on an old story, doing something I am notorious for not doing - proofing and editing. S0 far it's at 195,000 words, maybe halfway through. Yeah, it's a monster. Anyway, I was thinking maybe I could break it into smaller chunks, make it a bit less unwieldy. To that end, I've been reading it, fixing small mistakes and replacing letters that mysteriously disappear from words, possibly the victims of the letter-gremlins that dwell in Bob's hard drive. I've also been looking for plot anomalies and trying to repair them. I haven't figured out how to break it up yet, but hope springs eternal...

There's a reason I don't read my own work - I'm usually too embarrassed, painfully aware of the flaws, and constantly second-guessing myself. While that's still the case, I've been enjoying my story a little bit, and even feel proud of a few passages. If you go back and read something you've written two years ago and it gives you goosebumps or makes you weepy, that's a good thing, right?

As a result of this attempt to do something resembling work, I've been staying up late again, which leaves me tired in the morning when Bird gets up, and exacerbates the depression a bit...so to alleviate that, I'll be doing some baking, and maybe after the fifteenth I'll post some more recipes. Or I may just hide under the covers in the closet with a pan of brownies and see you in March.

Maybe Another Day

Yes, there's a story here. It's not over, so I can't really tell it. The following poem-ish thing was written in the moment...but the moment changes...and I have no idea what it will be in an hour, or tomorrow, or next week. When it's all played out, maybe I'll tell you about it. But not until then, because I don't want to waste words.
~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, love...

I was in a creative place,
A hopeful place
Looking to a day not too distant
When I would dare to spread my wings
Throw myself from the cliff
And soar

I was in that dreamy
Half-awake
Half-asleep place
Where I believed I could
And wanted to
Succeed

Floating, I came
And spoke of maybe, and time,
And effort
Of looking at tomorrow a little differently

And oh, you couldn't know
How thoroughly you deflated me
With bitter words

How well you broke the nascent joy
Into tiny pieces
Dusty particles of
I can't do it
It won't do any good

Your hammer
Was someone else's words
Deeds
But you swung unconsciously well

So that one misbehaves,
Is selfish, careless
Cruel

And I suffer

Broken wings

Dam

T and I had chiropractor appointments on Tuesday morning - prepaid, thank goodness, or we'd never be able to keep going!

To get there, we have to cross Buford Dam, a tremendous earthen (I think) dam that spans the Chattahoochee River and created Lake Lanier. I enjoy the drive - the lake and river are both always lovely. See?

Lake Lanier looking lovely.

The view from the dam down to the river.

We are usually pressed for time on appointment days, because T had to get home in time to go to work, and it's a long drive. On Tuesday, though, he turned off the dam and down a little side road I hadn't noticed before.

We went down...down...down hill, off pavement and onto gravel, and eventually pulled out of the woods and into an open area. A park! in the lee of the dam, a nice little park with a large open space, some picnic tables near the river, and some walking trails.

T thought Bird would like to see the dam we drive over all the time, and maybe I would find something to photograph. Thoughtful!

We set off toward the footbridge over the river, situated near the point where water flows from the dam.

The bridge over untroubled waters.

Sweet release.

Bird was enthralled by the geese (and the goose poop, once I showed him what it looked like), the dam, the river...

...and the bugs on the trail.

He walked with T while I lingered and shot some pictures. I caught up to them on the hill above the water-release, and we watched the goats mowing the fenced area there - it's too steep, rocky, and dangerous to have mowers in there, so the folks in charge of dam maintenance got their goats. Hah!

Those blobs of black and white in the middle? Goats. The sky was not pink - my camera is suddenly having issues with bright places and is turning them pink - we're going to have a go around about that soon.


I tried to capture the sheer size of the damn, but mostly captured more not-really-pink sky and what looks like a green wall.

It looms over one, even from quite a distance back.

There were signs everywhere, warning of the danger of water release and advising one to listen for the horn...and reminding folks that life jackets are mandated on the river, at least to a certain point. Bird wanted me to read them all, but I told him one would suffice since they said the same thing.

While Bird and T headed back to the car, I took a moment on the footbridge to enjoy the river - it's not the sea, but it is a living, moving water...and I love living, moving water. How could you feel anything less than peaceful......looking at this?

Or...

...even this?


We headed on home, back up and around and over the dam, having anjoyed our little jaunt.

T doesn't bring me flowers, write me poems or love songs, or dance with me. SOmetimes, I wonder if the computer and the Internet are more important to him than our family or our marriage.

He has a difficult time thinking of gifts when they're warranted, so I often simply tell him what to buy, and where, or what to do and when (he'd rather buy a present than do chores, though...hmm...how can I parlay that into a nice chunk of Tanzanite??)....but he gave me this...

...on a day when I could really use it.

Thanks, hun.

Mmm...bleh.

I just baked triple-chocolate-chunk and cherry brownies, with cinnamon in.

I don't want them.

I wanted my house to smell of baking, and I had a box mix for the brownies. I added the cherries and cinnamon, in case I wanted one. No one else is around to eat them, as T is out of town until Monday and our roommate J is staying with his mum for a few days to keep her company.

But I don't want one. Not really. I bake when I'm not happy, and all of a sudden I got hit with a wave of the blahs. They smell nice, but I am tired of being fat...and brownies equal fat. I think I'll go to bed early, maybe have the tree dream again.

Anyone want a brownie?