I'm gonna sleep on the couch so I will hear Ramey if she needs me. She came home today with many drugs, many.

When I was healing from a car accident, crush injury (yuck) I took to taking a vicodan and leaving the tv on. I was sleeping on the couch anyway. I'd take my lovely vicodan so I would go to sleep or at least pass out because my arm hurt all the time, all the time. One night I woke up and there was a preacher behind a podium wearing a gawdawful lime green poly suit. He even had big hair and he was do'in some HEALING, DEAR JEAZUS. He said to put your injury right up against the tv screen so I did, I crawled up to the screen and laid my arm on it. He was yelling HEAL-HEAL IN HZ NAME!!! I would try anything and I was hallucinating from all the narcotics so it made total sense at three in the morning. Of course it worked, after about a year of rehab.

Ramey has these bolts coming out from her leg attached to some rods and screws. Frankenleg. When this comes off, she gets another surgery to put a rod IN her leg. Ouch.

the dog is on the couch with me, something I don't usually do. but Ramey is in the hospital and I don't know when she gets to come home. hospitals are gross. pain meds have limited appeal really, when you're all screwed up. every blue two door sedan with front end damage gets my attention.

is this the other shoe dropping? god, I hope so.

Ramey, my partner, was broadsided by a hit and run driver on her way home from work. She was on her scooter. She's messed up, at Harborview with a fractured ankle needing surgery, a lacerated liver, a broken rib and two lumbar vertebrae fractures. Oh, and a lacerated elbow. What type of person hits someone with their car and then takes off??? What type of person is this??? I really want to know.

I'll save the Harborview story for another post. I'm going to have a glass of Scotch.

We are seriously screwed. The weather went from rain to snow to brief sun back to snow then a smidge of rain and now overcast. I drove through 6 weather systems going to the store. Robins are acting like they aren't concerned but cripes, our carbon footprint is stomping all over all life on earth, if you know what I mean.

Tonight I'm going to the Jet Lee, Jackie Chan silly movie. They are both past their prime but what the heck. Lots of ridiculous stunts and dumb jokes and maybe some cheesy Chinese music like in the Chinese girl movies (the incredibles? the fantastic four?) where they run up walls, throw poison darts and ride motorcycles on telephone wires. Then the love scenes are so cheesy and sappy and the music is barfy. With pink lenses. Big tears s-l-o-w-l-y run down their faces. *sob*

can I just say, if you are a misanthrope, jury duty does not help. people do terrible things to each other. with ashtrays (?) or fire extinguishers. really. and the room you wait in has ugly swirly carpet and a bunch of tvs on the walls but not movies. at least they could show the sound of music or something. the only scene on the tvs are us sitting around. that is not a movie. that is boring. I might have to stab myself with a pen or start reciting poetry while standing on a counter. aside from the little trip to harborview, I bet they would not want me on a jury.

yesterday morning, my ginormous boy cat, Wishbone stood by my bed wrowing over and over. I tried ignoring him until he stopped and started thumping around. I got up and he was merrily flipping a dead robin around the room, feathers everywhere. I apologized to the robin and dropped him/her into the garbage. THIS MORNING, the dog was whining, not a good sign. I found that she had pooped on the rug in my office AGAIN. Why, Why? Back to bed and Wishbone was back, with a juvenile rat, under the bed. The rat was alive. It ran under the door to my studio but was too stupid to stay there. After throwing shoes at the cat and yelling at him, he slunk back up the stairs and waited so when the rat reappeared, he grabbed it and ran down the stairs. This time the rat was squeaking. GAWD.

I know PETA wouldn't approve but I am going to take them all outside and strangle them. I will leave their little dead bodies in a row in the yard as a message to the survivors. DO NOT poop in the house, DO NOT bring dying, dead or squeaking creatures into the house and play with them at 4:30 in the morning in my bedroom. Is that clear? Any questions?

saturday, HHDL at Qwest field, parade of cultures, a lot of children, hot sun. We sat behind him but when we sang he turned around and faced us. He still wears big glasses and he laughs a lot at himself. He held Christine Gregoire's hand and talked about women leaders. How we need them. How the men have messed it all up. The day was surreal, too hot, Buddhist monks in Qwest field and the CEO of Qwest field talking about compassion. The place was packed. I cried a lot. For everyone.

I am totally exhausted, three babies in three days and three days of clinic. Sheesh. All baby girls, yeah! And tonight is writer group night. Also the LAST night to rehearse for HHDL. The big day is this Saturday. I have rehearsed enough and I don't want to miss the writers. BUT I have been sitting here trolling for a poem to bring. I have many uncritiqued poems, like about 30 but they are in various stages of disrepair. I've been trying to spruce them up, sigh, and I have a few sorta respectable ones. I'm making cookies so maybe no one will notice that my poem is a retread.

I went swimming after no exercise in a week. Gawd, it was like swimming in jello or something. I wondered about drowning, quietly sinking to the bottom because of my fatigue and then the whole drama of being saved. Totally not worth it. They would probably put me on probation at the pool, like one of those notices behind the cash register about bad check signers.

I wonder if I can take my laptop to jury duty purgatory. Does anyone know?

Last night I sang with 600 people, many of them children. It was a blast. We are singing for the Dalai Lama in a week. At Quest field. In front of 40,000 people. Last night, our intrepid leader tried to get us to learn a new song. I don't think this is a good idea. I have learned the songs we are singing for now and another song will throw me off, will throw me down. I can't learn new songs like that. My right ear rings all the time, I have memory issues, the song was too high a register and too show-tuney even though I think HHDL won't care a whit. He will just probably smile at us because the children are so funny with their missing teeth and squirming and nose picking. I watched one girl, about 10 years old, actually take off her shirt underneath her dress, like you take off a bra while driving, dislocating your shoulders and then pulling the bra out from a sleeve, ta-da, with a flourish. And she was standing on stage, in front of all the adults. Insouciant, I say. She has a future in showbiz, don't you think.

Today I delivered a baby and drank celebratory Scotch at 4 this afternoon. 15 year old Glenfiddich. Some day I am going to the Oban distillery to see their barrels or whatever it is they distill Scotch in. I love Scotch and I rarely drink it because we could go right down the tubes together, Scotch and I. Occasionally I act mature.

I couldn't get out of jury duty. I am going to take my knitting and some good snacks and a notebook and write public safety building poems. Sonnets.

If I stopped eating everything that has corn syrup in it, would that be unpatriotic? Just wondering.

I got another speeding ticket today. In Brier. Which is a Seattle outpost where they still have mostly white people. I was driving and eating string cheese and trying to read directions backwards, you know, when you have to reverse the directions to find your way back to the freeway. And the cop was so pleasant, it was a brilliant sunny day and I mostly saw his wedding ring and the butt of his revolver and his freckled hand with reddish hairs. I didn't even get upset. I will never get the lowered insurance rate. I get close to having something disappear off my license and BAM, I get another ticket. I wasn't speeding either. I can't speed. I own an Insight hybrid powered by gerbils. But it is a weird looking car so I get stopped. When I am on the ferry, the guys wanna talk car with me. 'Hey, lady, how many miles you get?' etc.

Yesterday I went to St James Cathedral. Just to sit there in the sacristy, or whatever you call it. The main room thing. I always get a little nervous when I go into a Catholic church, like they will find out I'm a buddhist and throw me out for not using holy water. I wanted to go there because they have some really nice art and a big statue of Mary and her baby. I was thinking about all the babies in the world and feeling worried for them so I thought Mary and I could talk and she could do something, take some suggestions or whatever. This happens to me in the spring. I see all the green and tender leaves and want to protect them. I know summer will come and everything will dry out and the leaves will fall and the cats will eat a few birds and the whole catastrophe and I can't stop it, can't make it stop.

Got a poetry rejection today. I hate it when they tell me they considered a poem that didn' t make the final cut. Is that supposed to make me feel special?

At yoga class, we lay on the floor and listened to Hindu singing the whole hour. Bliss, and then my phone rang. I wanted to throttle it but because it is an inanimate object, I could't. It also wouldn't have been very nonviolent of me.

I lost my glasses today. Seward Park now has two pairs of my glasses. I was running and they slid out of my jacket. They are the practically invisible kind, I can put them down in the house and lose them so outside in the woods, it was hopeless. Do you know how much nature there is out there? Twigs and mud and dead leaves and new green things coming up. It was all too much. However, I had been looking for trillium and didn't see any. After I started looking for my glasses and going slowly, I saw them, trillium, under bushes and in the shadows. That's how they are, they hide.

Now I am wearing glasses I bought in the 60's at a junk store, round granny glasses, real silver and a prescription that is 10 years old. No wonder I have a headache. And I saw my therapist today and mostly cried the whole hour. I think they should give you a discount if you don't actually say anything. I mean, how much can a handful of kleenix cost? I realize that my brother is really dead and he will stay that way. And I believe that I could have saved him. Right. Even though I am walking 20 miles and raising money for suicide prevention, I don't really think suicide can be prevented, not like cancer or heart attacks. If you want to kill yourself, you will, you just will. But I persist in thinking I could have saved Geoff. By being better, more perfect, gawd. You jump into a hole and while you are falling, you realize the hole goes all the way to China and beyond. Actually, there is no end, you just keep falling. This continues to be not fun. Meanwhile, the cats are still on a diet and look no thinner. I think they are sneaking out at night and taking the car to Mc Donald's for fish 'n chips. They leave the empty wrappers on the lawn. Cat litterers. Then they sleep all day and give you those big round eye looks, 'what, us, we didn't do it, huh?' I'm leaving a camera around to record them, like at the ATMs. That'll show 'em.

I have been called to jury duty. Apparently you can be arrested or fined for not showing up. Totally unfair, I say. I went a year ago, very cranky about it too because I have always been able to dodge it before. Usually, saying I'm a midwife works. They have gotten more strict. They don't care and the guy behind the counter was unmoved, bored even. So was the woman. I got all steamed up, red faced and everything. They did not seem moved by my shenanigans. It was a giant room with a whole bunch of people sitting around, reading, knitting, sleeping. Once in a while, a bit of excitement when the clerk would call a bunch of numbers and people trooped out.

I was in one courtroom and the defendant came in with his lawyer. I thought he looked so guilty. And the charge was that he brained someone with a fire extinguisher, ouch. I told the judge I really couldn't stay, pregnant women were depending on me. He waved me away. Oh, and they confiscated my itty bitty swiss army knife at the door so I got it back when I left. My life of crime.

Why I Exercise

so I can eat cookies, chocolate chip cookies. I did stairs today, about a million of them. Now I can eat cookies and I don't care.

Sunday we weeded the garden in the pouring rain. I had huge clumps of mud on my shoes and mud on my face. All those stupid grape hyacinths came right out, bulb and all, ha!

I will explain about stairs. On Cap Hill there are stairs, serious stairs that go from 10th down to Eastlake. There are numerous stairs. You put on exercise clothing and an ipod , leave a water bottle at the top and pick up a handful of stones or twigs so you can leave one at the top after you finish each round. Like Hansel and Gretel. Stairs kick your butt. You do the first few rounds pretty well and by the 10th you are sweating and swearing. Then you eat cookies so it is all a distant memory.

alfalfa is often confused with atelxtasis which is technically not a word
per se which you have always wanted to find under the couch they are both green so therefore the continuing disorder among thieves spangles fleece sausages are harmless to fauna appropriate evening attire suitable for bed if the participants are both egregious or gregarious I have made this same mistake more often than I care to submit spectacular armpits in aisle four while we marveled beyond the Barcelona a beverage named for a permutation often found in the great sandbox beside a guillotine pity mary queen of scots and the other damsels they did not get a chance to use fluoride so they had bad English teeth however I think beheading is rather severe for poor oral hygiene what about the lack of feminine care products I bet you did not factor this into your calculations haha you loaded a blunderbuss with sharpened ginger snaps as if that would rout the cowards from their usual reception area their superfluous teaspoons and withered flanks pompy batshit fired away thus saith irrelevant monarch buttterflies

there is a guy in the house with a ladder and he is going to clean the windows. so I'm banished from the bedroom and my bed. I was in bed with my ratty tee shirt on, reading a Ngio Marsh murder mystery, perfectly fine and now I have to be downstairs with all the furniture rearranged and my apple computer is NOT WORKING. this is not acceptable. cripes, I've only had it for 2 months. it's supposed to be perfect and behave. back to the apple store AGAIN.

the camillia tree is covered with blossoms. and the magnolia we threatened with death last year has 15 blooms on it and they are open. flowers are an essential part of steady mental health, whatever that is. I might write a flower poem and not show it to anyone.

I am in sawbuck now, edition 2.1. take a look.

I have nothing whatever to say right now. I had therapy today and tonight I went to my suicide support group, not a fun day at all. I feel quite grumpy about spring because it is so beautiful right now with the budlets and daphne so fragrant and there are even slugs already but I am tired just looking at all the weeds.

Going to be on the 'garden tour' in June, the 14th to be exact. Gawd, why did I say yes? The side yard is a mess and everything needs to be pruned and those stupid grape hyacinths are everywhere. They are impossible to get rid of, apparently.

I want to eat a large chocolate cookie. I think that is the answer to all my troubles. Even though I swore off cookies. Maybe there is a cookie substitute in the kitchen. I can't even make toast cuz our toaster oven is busted. And don't tell me to eat almonds and raisins, way too healthy.

Oh dear, I'm watching a docu about the pope. I better go to bed. I'm getting choked up. Cripes.

I just signed up for an overnight 20 mile walk to raise $$ for suicide prevention. Fun! I'll be asking you up for dollars. I have to raise a thousand of them.

I sent poetry in tonight. And I tried recording myself on my MAC. Of course, a plane flew overhead very loud, dogs barked and the guy across the street started his junker, which he revs up EVERY MORNING FOR 20 MINUTES. So once again I went to the apple store for supplies, this time an external mic but they didn't let me in cuz they were closing. I think I can find my way there without looking.

OK, so to be a saint you have to have 2 miracles AFTER you die. Dang. How does that happen?? My friend Negesti was a saint, I'm pretty sure. Oh, wait, a nun was cured of Parkinson's so the pope has one more miracle to go. Wow.

I got rejected by Calyx and they had the nerve to solicit a subscription. What the hey??? I mean, publish me already and I'll maybe buy a subscription. The only mag I get is The Sun and some day Sy Safransky is gonna realize my pure genius and publish me. I can feel it in my vestigial tail bone.

My writing group is so fabulous. We eat cheese and groovy little crackers and drink tea and bask in our collective brilliance. Sigh.

don't see Pan's Labyrinth. It's gross, especially the guy with eyeballs in his hands. EEWW.

I went to a a place called Mr Spots Chai House and while I love chai, there were people using their laptops and eating veggie food and listening to music I couldn't think over. I mean, I go into a record store and the music is so loud I can't think, my brain starts to fizzle and all the sentences come unglued. I become an idiot. Today, I had to leave Mr Spots. There were also several youth with ear plugs that you can see daylight through. The first time I saw daylight through someone's ears, I had a moment. It was great because I am so seldom stalled out like that. Now daylight earlobes are everywhere and I just think about the stretched out lobes if they take out the thingys that are the stretchers. I once worked in the East Village in NYC in a veggie restaurant and Charles Ludlam and his company would come in. Wow. There was one woman who had tattoos all over her face, really all over. I was so impressed. The theater people can get away with anything. It was a macrobiotic restaurant. I was so hip and didn't even know it. All I do know is that I was pregnant at the time and the smell of brown rice made me want to barf. In fact all food that was organic or good for me was gross. I liked jelly beans, except for the black ones.