Whimpers

The dog is whimpering underneath my desk. He is sound asleep despite the fact that we just got up from a long night of rest. He didn't move from his bed all night and was the last one up this morning. Once doing his "business" outside, he curled up under the desk, fell fast asleep, and began his twitchy doggy dreams. Hence the whimpering.

It's cold out. It was cold yesterday, too. June was cold and while most of July was warm, there is a touch of fall in the air. Tomorrow is August and yet the air smells like September. How can that be?

This is a full day though it's fullness won't hit me until later. I have an interview (yippee) in the afternoon followed by a meeting in Woodinville to get my volunteer instructions for next week's Reading with Rover event. I have been fighting a cold and woke this morning with a snot lump in my throat, well almost in my throat. It hung there and made me snore most of the night. I shall take something powerful before the interview, muster up some energy and put on my congenial face.

Everyone tells me to just be myself and the interviewers will feel compelled to hire me. Today I don't feel like myself very much, but I plan on doing so when the time is right. Good thing that is hours away.

In the meantime, I need to finish my resume and cover letter, head to Office Depot for some nice paper, and walk the already tired dog. He's had a big week so far. So many friends stopping by, the endless training as we continue to find the exact tool to teach him not to bark so hysterically when someone arrives at the door, and the exhaustion that comes from keeping track of everyone during the busy summer days.

Though it's not summer today. It's some other season. Not quite autumn, not quite summer. Autmer or sumumn.

I'm trying not to whimper.

Beauty Marks

My mother calls them beauty marks and on Marlena Dietrich that is what they look like. I call them moles and on me they more and more resemble their "homophonic" connection to the little varmints with furry bodies and long tails.

I have many stories about my moles. A favorite took place when I was in college and an elderly woman sat down next to me on the city bus. We talked for a moment. She was on her way downtown to shop at Frederick and Nelson's (a now defunct department store, but back in the day a posh business where many an old lady in blue hair enjoyed shopping). This older, almost blue-haired old lady was on her way to purchase a new coat for the upcoming winter. I'm not sure where I was headed, but I distinctly remember her destination as it became the topic of conversation, the exact details of which escape me now.

No matter.

As the bus bounced along and she went on to describe the kind of coat she was looking for and the need for "versatility" in such due to the unpredictable Seattle weather, she reached into her clutch purse, retrieved a tattered tissue, gave it a lick and then reached toward my face saying, "My dear, you have a smudge on your cheek. Let me wipe it off for you."

In attempt to be polite, I didn't pull away nor did I decline the rather slimy offer thinking that, in fact, I had some crust of jam or some other foreign object clinging to my cheek. She gave a rub and then rubbed harder and finally clucked with frustration and said, "Well, I wonder what it is. It simply won't come off!"

Just as she was about to pull her compact mirror from her purse it struck me -- She's trying to wipe off my mole.

"Oh," I said, "I'm so sorry, but I think you're trying to wipe off a mole." And then I laughed. She laughed slightly and then inspected my face through her bifocals just a bit more intensely.

"Why you have quite a few moles on your face, don't you?"

I've never actually counted the moles on my body, but there are at least 10 on my face of various sizes and I'd venture to say about 50 or more covering my body. If I count the smallish ones that look like freckles, I might have close to 100 moles in total.

When I go to the doctor for my yearly physical, she has me stand naked in the middle of the room and she examines me front to back, side to side for any irregularities. At first, it was embarrassing and chilly, but now I'm used to it and know that she is simply, and thoroughly, scanning for any changes to my skin and my moles.

I don't mind the moles really except the few on my face that sprout thick, rigid black hairs that if unchecked, can grow to look spooking. Which leads me to my second favorite mole story.

I was working with one of my students at her desk, crouched down beside her trying to help her choose a topic for her writing assignment. She stared at me long and hard, which I took to mean confusion on her part. Then I realized she was staring at my neck just below my left ear.

"Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"I think you have a spider on your neck," she offered.

Quickly, I swiped at my neck, not in a panicked sort of way because spiders don't freak me out like that, but in a matter-of-fact kind of way because the thought of a spider on my neck was rather unappealing. But I did not feel a spider. Instead, I felt the rough hairs of my mole so neglected and long they curled into what, no doubt, looked like the many legs of a spider.

"Oh," I laughed. "That's just my mole."

"Yuck," squirmed my student, "You have a hairy mole?"

Now, as I approach 50 my response to her reaction would be much different than it was then. "Yes, well..." I stammered back then, "It's not uncommon, really, it's just the way this mole is."

Today I would say, "Yep, moles get hair on them and as you get older, you'll get hairier. Just you wait, little Missy. You'll be plucking and trimming every morning for the rest of your life!"

And it's true, for me anyway. Not only do I trim the hair on my "spider" mole on a regular basis, but the same has to be done on three other face moles and one on my neck. In addition, the same determined black hairs poke out on my chin and my upper lip and with much grimacing, I pluck those out with tweezers at least twice a week.

I wish I could mature enough to not care about my moles or the hair that grows out of them, but I have yet to grasp the beauty of such marks. Most of the time, I am unaware of them until a photograph is taken, up close and personal, and I see not only the moles, but the expanding gray hair on my head.

In high school, when we had our senior pictures taken, the studio photographer painted out the moles on my face. The photograph hangs in my parents' spare bedroom and when I look at it now, my skin looks almost porcelain, very clean and very smooth. While I can see the resemblance between that person and my older self, the girl in the photograph looks fake, almost like a painting, an artist's abstract rendering of the teenager before him.

I heard on the radio the other day how doctors are offering minor plastic surgery options at their general practitioner's offices because they can make more money than waiting for insurance (Medicare mostly) to pay for normal, every day health care. One doctor commented, "In the future, we'll have a lot of really good-looking sick people in our country."

A doctor once told me I could have my moles removed and, in fact, almost recommended it to avoid possible future bouts of cancer. Though now I see the idea as outrageous (and my current doctor does as well), at the time I almost took him up on the offer. Not because I was worried about cancer (though I was slightly), but because I knew I wouldn't have to put up with an old lady's wet tissue or the fear of spiders on my neck.

Is that vanity? I think calling the black spots on my face beauty marks is more vain than possibly removing them all, but in the end I've done neither. The moles are still here, speckling my skin and occasionally growing bristled hairs just in case they think I've forgotten about them.

The Penis: One Lesbian's Perspective -- Part One

At 8 weeks of age, our puppy had a boner. A hard on. An erection as hard and long as an adult male's.

At 8 weeks old.

We'd just arrive home with him in our arms after a long trip from Seattle to Oregon and then back again. On our doorstep when we arrived was a large package -- his dog bed that we ordered from an online pet store before we'd left to retrieve him. We opened the box quickly, pulled his bed from the plastic wrapper and laid it out on the kitchen floor so he could climb in and feel at home.

Instead.

Instead he climbed onto the edge of the bed, pulled it underneath him with his front paws while grabbing the canvas with his mighty puppy teeth, and began humping like a mad man. My partner and I stared at each other in shock and disbelief. We'd read in all the "New Puppy" books that "mounting" was a sign of dominance and to be discouraged when it occurred on people's legs or on other dogs, but no where in our expensive owner's guides did it tell us what to do when our puppy mounted his own bed.

We had a quick committee discussion.

"He is a boy," I said.

"True," agreed my partner, "And it's not like it's inappropriate on an inanimate object, is it?"

"I guess as long as we limit where he can hump..." and I left my words hanging, flaccid and unfulfilled.

At this point in the discussion, Rubin, the viral puppy slid sideways on the floor lying with the bed still between his legs and his whole body pumping against the canvas. The hardwood floors proved an obstacle what with all the sliding and slipping. Ingeniously, he figured out that a prone position served his desires more effectively.

"He seems to be having fun," my partner laughed.

"Or possessed," I chimed in and at that moment, Rubin stopped, his back legs still moving slightly as he pushed the bed away, his mouth releasing his once firm grasp.

And then he tried to stand up.

This is perhaps when we laughed the most. He couldn't walk. He could barely stand up. His back hunched, his tail down he walked like an injured football player after a particularly brutal tackle to his mid-section. He looked up at us as if to say, "What the hell just happened to me?"

Later that afternoon I emailed the breeder in Oregon to ask her if this behavior was common.

"I've NEVER had a dog do such a thing," she wrote complete with the capital letters. We fretted for a few days especially when he proceeded to hump his bed on a nightly basis. Finally, to keep the bed from getting "soiled" we let him hump his stuff animal, a large dog that we'd bought to act as his "momma" when he slept in his crate at night.

We stopped referring to it as his "momma" though when her role clearly shifted from a comfort object to an object of nightly lust.

Now, over a year later and one stuff animal demolished, he humps his "Floppy" (a new, larger stuffed dog) on a regular basis. Occasionally, he'll growl at Floppy, frustrated that things are going as well or as quickly as he'd like. "Oh," observed a friend who'd witness his encounters, "angry sex is always the best."

As lesbians this nightly sexual rendezvous took a bit of getting used to. Well, more of an adjustment for me than for Ann, my partner. I was, we learned from watching the "L Word," a Gold Star lesbian and she was not. In other words, I have never been with a man sexually while she's had numerous boyfriends in her distant past. It is the stuff of humiliation and embarrassment when we are with certain friends.

"Never?" a good friend will ask.

"Nope, never."

And then the fun begins...for them anyway.

"Have you ever seen a penis?"

"Define 'seen'?" I'll ask, which only spurs on their aghast giggles.

"You know, up close and personal. Have you ever looked at a live one?"

"Not that I can remember and I think that's something I would remember."

"It all depends!" they'll guffaw and then tell their own personal stories about various "peni" they've encountered over their lifetimes.

The storytelling always ends the same way. "We've got to find some guy who'll let you look at his penis!"

"NO!" I'll scream. "Why is it so important?"

And they'll provide so many descriptive reasons why it is somehow vital to my experience to see a real, live penis that they convince themselves of the value.

"I've seen the dog's," I'll offer in attempt to fend off their advances.

"Oh, that's not even close," they'll complain. "You need to see an adult male's in full action!" And they'll begin scheming, wondering which of their male friends would be willing to even consider the opportunity to educate a Gold Star Lesbian.

This is when I generally leave the room or find the dog and offer him his "Floppy." He is always willing.

I try not to watch, but I have to admit, it's fascinating in an odd sort of way.

Very odd.

Wedged

Last night, as we sat in bed reading aloud to each other, we heard people singing. Loud voices carrying a lively tune just under our bedroom window.

"If I'm not mistaken," I said to Ann, "They're singing 'Happy Birthday' in Spanish."

"They" were are neighbors -- Antonio, Sequoia, and Aldo. The birthday was Ann's, her 49th. The dog barked, unaccustomed to troubadours at any time of the day, and raced down the stairs with me hot on his heels. Ann pulled on another shirt to cover her pajamas and we opened the door to see the three neighbors standing on the walkway, guitar in hand, belting out the Mexican version of Happy Birthday.

It was sweet -- not a word I use often, but there you have it.

I did not sleep well. Wedged between Ann's hot body and the exhausted dog, I tried to sleep curled around my pillow in my quarter of the bed. Struck by numerous hot flashes, the covers flung themselves from one side of the bed to the other as I tried not to disturb the birthday girl or the tired puppy who'd played like a wild man earlier that day.

I woke this morning to the sound of the blinds tapping against the window casing, the wind strong enough to bend the large maple at the front of the house, and the amplified hymns of the singing Ethiopian priest at the Coptic Church the next block over. I was still wedged, not only between Ann and the dog, but between cultures represented in song. Still sweating from the last hot flash, I stretched my leg onto the floor and stared at the ceiling trying to make out the tonal rhythms of the priest.

It was barely 7 in the morning.

"Do you think he's singing words?" Ann asked.

"Yes," I said, "But I can't make out any patterns. Just the same tune over and over, distorted by the cheap microphone and speaker system."

The dog didn't lift his head -- not for the sound of our voices or the sound of the priest. Stretched out fully, he takes up a good half of the bed and the half he occupied was mine, his curly body pressed up against my sweaty leg.

"How did you sleep?" Ann asked.

"Not well." I motioned to my space, the ball of sweat my body made in the corner of the bed. "You two demanded a lot of room last night."

"We just wanted to be close," she smiled.

"Yes, well, then you should know the repercussions of your actions," and I wiped my sweaty arm on across her exposed belly.

"Ewww," she moaned, but did not move. The dog didn't move either.

I got up, went downstairs to make coffee, turned on the radio to hear that it was National Sleepy Head Day, which is celebrated in some parts of the world by bands of awake citizens finding the last person asleep in their village and once found, throwing the sleepy head into the ocean.

In our house, the sleepy head was the dog. He's still asleep now, stretched out on his bed behind my chair as I type, wedged comfortably between the wall and the file drawer, his eyes and paws twitching slightly whenever the priest's voice rises above the maple leaves tossed by the chilly summer wind.

Flake Practice

As a gift for my departure from teaching four of my favorite co-workers purchased three 1-hour sessions with a life coach, Leah M. We've worked with this coach before -- she's consulted on some crucial issues at school -- and I have the highest regard for her so I was very pleased to receive the gift.

Today was our first "hour" though as hours go, it went a bit longer. I'd met with Leah once before at the beginning of last school year when I was thinking about this transition away from teaching and toward something else.

Okay, I'm not supposed to say "something else." I'm supposed to name the thing I want to be seen as, so therefore I must say, "away from teaching and toward a life as a writer."

Whew, that was hard.

What I like about Leah is her clarity. She is able to listen for 10 minutes to my babble about this past month of "chosen unemployment" and cut right to the chase.

"It seems to me," she said in that deep-voiced way she has of summing it all up, "you need to practice being a flake."

I laughed on the outside, but cringed on the inside. If there is one thing I don't want to be seen as it's a flake. Of course, Leah heard the laugh and saw the cringe.

"That feels scary to you, doesn't it?" at which point she laid her hand on my arm.

"Yeah, I suppose it does." At least I was truthful. "Tell me more about what you mean."

And with that invitation, Leah spent the next 50 minutes exploring my biggest issues. They are as follows:

1) My self image

This is complicated, but her message was actually quite simple. Our lives are our stories. How we wish to tell that story has a multitude of possibilities, but often we tell the story based what we think others want to hear or assume others have formulated about us.

Case in point: Over the Fourth of July weekend, Ann and I went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Oregon. They were headed to a potluck the day we arrived and invited us along. In the drive there we talked about how I struggle with the question, "What work do you do?" because I am currently not working. They offered up suggestions. My job was to practice with people I don't know and may never meet again.

Within a matter of minutes of arriving at the potluck, the question came up. Ann, my brother, and sister-in-law all looked in my direction. They waited for me to say some of the lines we'd practiced in the ride over. "I am retired." "I'm choosing to be unemployed." "I'm in transition."

A long pause ensued. Finally in the silence I heard each of them offer up a response. "She's going to be a dog trainer." "She's taking time away from teaching to explore her options." "She's a writer."

"Why couldn't you say any of those things?" Leah asked me.

"Because none of them feels honest," I replied.

"What's not honest about them?"

"Well, I'm not a dog trainer yet, I'm not really exploring my options, and I don't see myself as a writer yet."

"Why not?" and before I could answer, Leah went on to say, "Because you have yet to publish? You write, don't you? You write every day. Okay, so maybe you haven't published yet, but that's not writing, that's the business of writing. You write and therefore you are a writer. You need to say it so you can come to truly believe it and when you truly believe it, you will live it."

This is when we started the discussion about success and what it meant to me. What a loaded question. I have no idea, though Leah claims the way I live my life means I do have a very firm, though unstated idea of what it means. "You're afraid of being a flake," she said. "You're afraid others who don't even know you will look at your life and say, 'Now there's a flake,' but that's the story you're telling yourself that they're telling themselves. They aren't saying any of that and besides, what's wrong with being a flake? What if you spent the next few months practicing being a flake? What would be the worst thing that could happen?"

Which lead us into the discussion about...

2) Living in fear

At various times in my life, I have let fear control my choices. Every time I overcame the fear and moved forward, I have been a happier person, rewarded for not living in fear.

This is one of my crucial obstacles with writing. I must send out work and face rejection. Therefore, to avoid the rejection, I don't send out work.

"Rejection is an indication that you are doing the right thing," Leah interjected and her statement stopped me in my tracks. "If you don't put anything out there, you'll never have an acceptance, you'll just constantly assume you'll be rejected. You're going to be rejected and rejection is the nature of the game. They aren't rejecting you. They are rejecting that what you've offered doesn't work for them at this time. But at some point, what you've offered will fit in with someone's desires and you will have an acceptance. Once you get that, you begin working the relationship. Rejection is only 10% about you. It's 90% about them. Crave rejection. Go after it and rejoice when they come back to you because that means someone's reading your stuff, someone's listening. And the more you throw out things that might be rejected, the more acceptance you'll find."

Which lead us, in a roundabout way, to this...

3) Success means I need to be doing something at all times...

"We are products of our middle class upbringing," Leah said. "We have learned in the most subtle of ways that if we aren't doing something, then we are failures. But we must learn to change that language and select what we wish to be doing. This may mean doing a lot of things for a short amount of time, but eventually you define yourself as desiring to do this and not wanting to do that. You define who you are by doing and by not doing. You get to choose."

My homework for the next week:

Try out different experiences. Apply to different jobs, but go into them knowing that I get to decide if I want the job or not. If there is one I want to do and end up not liking it, try something else. I am not a flake if I do this. I am just trying to find what fits best for me. Give myself space to write, send the writing out, and let the "job" come to me, the one that works well with the writing.

In other words, practice being a flake or what I define as being a flake.

I'll see how it goes...

No Obligations

I don't do well without obligations. I'm uncertain how to structure my day and so I find myself creating obligations through detailed lists. "Clean the house" is on my list as are laundry, grocery shopping, grooming the dog, exercising, and watering the tomatoes.

Then I feel compelled to get it all done. If I don't, I feel like a failure, which is incredibly silly because 1) I made the list and it was arbitrary and 2) no one but ME is keeping track of the list's completion. It's laughable when I stop to think about it, but I'm not laughing most days. Most days I'm moving from one item to the next trying to get them all done during the day so I feel accomplished.

My stress about it all is even worse when spontaneity gets in the way. Ann is my nemesis. She has no lists. She just moves through the day based on her whims. She wants to mow the lawn, so she does. She sees an ad in the paper for a night stand so she wants to go check it out. She sits on the couch and reads the paper, drinking her coffee in the morning sun and feels no rush to get started on whatever needs to get started on. She wants to read a book and fall asleep in the lounge chair on the deck, this is exactly what she does. No worries, no stress, no self-imposed guilt.

"Time's a-wasting," I'm thinking and I verbally poke at her to figure out what her vision of the day might be. But even if she can tell me her plan, it's never set in stone. The neighbor will walk by and all of the sudden Ann is in a long conversation about random topics and then the neighbor invites us over for some shaved ice or to see her latest photographs from her last trip. Ann never feels inconvenienced. Rather she jumps at the chance to stray from the schedule, the schedule she has no idea exists.

I go into a panic. It happened yesterday. We went for a long walk with the neighbor and after, she invited us over for a cool iced treat. I could feel my stomach tighten. We'd just spent two hours walking, which I'd planned on, but now we were going to spend unscheduled time with the neighbor, who I really like, but she wasn't on the list and all those other items on the list would have to be put off to a later time.

I went straight to the bathroom.

Ann headed to the neighbor's house. Once I'd calmed myself down, I headed to the neighbor's and then found myself getting antsy when we sat in her living room and "chatted." I don't do chatting well and I worked on my deep breathing to avoid being irritated that Ann was not as wedded to "the list" as I was.

Okay, so I hadn't even written the list nor had I verbalized it to Ann. I just needed her to know that visiting with the neighbor WAS NOT in my plans for the day. She doesn't get it. She's still very patient with me, but she doesn't get it.

It happened again today. She mentioned a few things we'd like to do and the next thing I know, we're doing them. When I don't make a list I have nothing to follow, no regiment to stick to and I end up following along, which makes me very tense. So there I was, following Ann to the Sculpture Park, driving to Cost Plus for a nightstand and a laptop sleeve, buying a water bottle holder for the neighbor at the bike shop, and stopping by the bank to get some cash.

"I didn't realize we were going to do all of this," I snipped and she looked at me like I'd just made a mountain out of a mole hill.

I guess I was, but in my mind there were things to be done. What those things were...well, I hadn't had time to make the list so I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing.

And when there is nothing really to do, I'm not sure how to fill that space. I always feel as if I should be doing something or going somewhere. The "next thing" is the goal, not the "now thing" especially when that now thing is empty of obligations.

"You're stuck in the shoulds," my friend told me. "You need to go out and do some should nots."

"What?" I could feel myself forming a knot in my already tightly wound stomach.

"You know," she flipped her hands gesturing to something concrete that I had yet to see, "All your life you do shoulds. Like you should go visit your friend, you should go to the concert, you should clean the house, you should stay at the job you hate and you get stuck there doing all of things you don't really enjoy or want to do. So, do some should nots."

"Give me some examples," I said, skeptically.

"Oh I don't know what your should nots are. Maybe reading on the couch all day or buying the expensive olive oil. It's up to you what those should nots are."

"How will I know when I see them?"

"I don't think you see them," she said in a very confident tone. "I think you feel them. Just listen for them and then try one. Not the really scary ones, but the ones that are incidental and will give you practice at not always doing the shoulds."

On one level I get what she's saying and it's not like I can't stop cleaning the house. I have on a number of occasions. It's that I feel guilty about it because IT WAS ON THE LIST and I didn't do it. Even if it's not on the list, I feel like I should clean and if I don't, well then I've failed. And it's not just cleaning. I should be doing something at all times.

"I still don't get it," Ann smiles at me when I try to explain it.

And when I think about it, I don't get it either. Random should be okay. It's what I longed for when I was mired down with school and work. Now that I have it, I'm not sure how to work with it. It wasn't as if "following" Ann today was keeping me from something. When I relaxed into it, it was kind of fun to shop around or walk through the park and look at the art next to the most spectacularly blue day.

This then is one of the many areas of my life I get to practice now that I really have no obligations. Random and spontaneous.

Rubin is a good teacher for this next lesson in my life. He wakes in the morning, takes care of his business in the backyard, and then hangs out on the back porch in the sun. He can spend hours just lying there sniffing the wind for the morning rituals of the world around him. He has no obligations and he knows how to really relax in that space. (see above picture)

I need to learn.

Otherwise I'll be spending panicked hours in the bathroom, missing out on a life without obligations.

One man's bagpipes are a pawn broker's dream

Our neighborhood has experienced a rash of burglaries. The list of stolen items includes flat screen TVs, bicycles, fountains, lawnmowers, computers, DVD players, and perhaps the oddest on the list, bagpipes.

"Please help recover my prized possession. Authentic Scottish bagpipes..." an announcement reads, stapled to every telephone pole for blocks and blocks.

I was walking with the neighbor when we spotted the computer generated sign complete with an intricate drawing of the bagpipes (apparently no photo exists of the beloved). My neighbor doubled over in laughter. "Why would anyone steal bagpipes?" she guffawed. And we kept walking and wandering, the signs like flags following our path.

We have been fortunate to have avoided the pillage of these brazen burglars. "They broke a side window," explained one neighbor, "and then carted everything out the front door and into a waiting van...in the middle of the day!"

These neighbors were almost next door, one fence away. They have two dogs who bark constantly and throw themselves at the fence in the backyard every time we walk by. But the dogs were to no avail. Locked in the backyard, they no doubt threw themselves at the sliding glass door with the same vicious verve they display to the innocent passersby, but what threat is that to the kid ripping your TV off the wall? So much for guard dogs.

We leave our dog inside when we go, but it doesn't make me feel any safer. If they are bold enough to break into the house on the corner during the day, what would they do to our dog if they confronted him in the middle of a burglary? I have no doubt that he would bark aggressively and posture menacingly, but would he bite them? Would they attack him?

Everyone in the neighborhood is trying to figure out who is responsible for the recent increase of thefts. The recent robbery was apparently committed by three teenagers (someone saw them, but didn't think anything of it -- three kids carrying a flat screen TV into a van) -- but did remember their descriptions later when interviewed by the police.

Others suspect the teenagers at the end of the block. They are home now, though there are times in the year when they are never home. We suspect they are in jail and once released, they come live with their tired mother and the burglaries increase.

One neighbor reported blue painter's tape outside on his walkway, "as if I'd been tagged," he said, but no one else has noticed such a mark before they were robbed.

Our mail carrier suspects the creepy looking older man she sees driving around the neighborhood. "He's in a different car every week," she tells me one day. "And I always see him emptying stuff out of the back of one vehicle or another with teenagers and prostitutes there to help."

"You should call the police," I tell her.

"Yeah, right. I'm a sitting target. They see me see them, day in and day out. Don't you think they'll know who called?"

Good point. "Call me," I suggest, "And I'll call the police."

She agrees, but has never done so. I don't blame her. I've seen the slimy guy and his cadre of miscreants and they scare me, too. And what do you tell the police? "Hey, there's this guy with a bunch of kids unloading stuff from a car, a van, a truck. He looks suspicious." We can't even get the police to come by when there's an even more substantial threat in the neighborhood. "Yes," we say, "He's got a gun."

"Are you sure it's a gun and not fireworks?" the dispatcher will ask.

My god!

Actually, I should be nicer. The police have upped their presence and have responded in a more timely fashion, but many of them still have the attitude "if you choose to live in this neighborhood..." and look at us with a bit of sympathy, but not too much.

"I called the local pawn shop," one neighbor reported, "And the thief was at the counter trying to sell my TV! Imagine that!" She called the police, but the suspect was long-gone by then, nervous that the pawn broker was stalling a bit too long.

On our block, everyone's keeping an eye open for suspicious characters, but even I must admit, we have more than our fair share of dicey drifters wandering up and down the street. Who is a thief and who is down on his luck is difficult to decipher.

In the meantime, we lock our doors, look up the prices of installation and monthly charges for alarm systems, and leave the radio on loudly when we go away. We randomly turn on lights and even bought one of those timers so the lamps turn on and off as if someone were home. While we are trying to teach the dog not to go ballistic every time someone walks by the house, we do let him bark so they know he's here.

Is all of this enough of a deterrent? Hard to say. So far, we have yet to be robbed. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, but so far we have yet to be tagged. I'm thankful we're fairly simple folk -- no flat screen TVs, no Blue-ray DVD players, no exotic fountains.

But I have been thinking about getting a nice set of bagpipes. Perhaps I should rethink that purchase.

Writing Exercise

"I am no longer a teacher," I explained to an acquaintance the other day. "I have decided to leap into something else though I'm still figuring out what the 'else' looks like."

She smiled and said, "Good for you," but it was without much enthusiasm or sincerity. Later, I told a friend about my exchange and how it made me feel doubtful. "As if I can't generate enough doubt on my own, here comes this woman that I hardly know to hand me some more!"

My friend said, "Perhaps you should change the word 'leap' to a more accurate statement as in 'I am leaping' like you are in the act of and not yet landed."

This is a friend who is very supportive of my desire to pursue writing more in my life. She says, "good for you" with the utmost conviction and the most heartfelt sincerity. She is also my cheerleader of patience.

"It doesn't just happen like that," she snaps her fingers. "Writing is like exercise. You've got to do it every day to get any results, don't you think?"

Yes, of course she's right and for me, it's not just about writing every day, it's about getting actual exercise every day. That's where the ideas come from. Like today. I woke early to water the garden and begin the tedious process of staining our very large fence. When the warmth of the day crawls over the fence, staining is torturous. I lifted that big brush, dragging it back and forth, up and down until I finally needed a break.

"I'm going to take the dog for a run," I told Ann who was working in the shade of the house on the south side of the fence.

"That's a great idea," she agreed because the dog was growing impatient and threatening to get down right rowdy and make fence painting even more laborious than it already was.

I changed into my running clothes, laced up my shoes, leashed up the dog and headed out into the mid-morning sun -- not too hot and not too cold.

I can't run like I used to. In the past, I'd head out slowly and then pick up my pace until I could feel my heart pump from my head to my toes. That kind of running was meditative. I could lose myself in the exertion.

I've recently resigned myself to the fact that it is I no longer run but jog and when I feel myself itching to go faster, I stop myself by walking. This is not only easier on the dog, but is far easier on my old knees, creaky back, and often swollen heal.

I've given up running on a number of occasions, but I always come back to it because I need it to clear my head of all the gobbledygook I collect over time. About 10 minutes into a nice jog -- when my pace feels relaxed and sustainable -- I start thinking about things. While I hate the word "things" there really isn't any specific word to put in its place. Thoughts float through me and ones I find most curious, I grab onto and decide to run with (ha!).

This morning I thought about writing topics.

I often wish, when I am exercising like this, that I had a tape recorder in my brain, one that would record all the gibberish and then, once plugged into my computer, spew out every thought. Those thoughts that I find most interesting, I could highlight by blinking my eyes when I think them and then, when they printed out off my computer, they'd be highlighted and I could avoid my superfluous meanderings and focus solely on the purest thoughts.

Of course, my mind does not work like this and so I write whole stories out on a jog and remember only snippets of them when I return. I know writers who take notebooks with them every where, but writing while jogging I have yet to master. I have enough difficulty finding a place for my house keys let alone a notebook and pencil.

Mary Oliver wrote, "I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write."

I've tried this, but the walk (or jog) and the ideas depend on each other. Once my legs stop moving, my mind does too and I am left standing in the middle of the path, pen aloft, and goosebumps forming on my sweaty body. So, I end up just walking or jogging and try to "recreate" the thoughts when I return home.

Over the years, I've resolved myself to the fact that more ideas will be lost than will be remembered. Hell, whole novels won't be written because they are lost in jog -- to the trees, the skies, the gnarled roots I must navigate.

But there is something to be said for these "writing exercises" because they help me gain my confidence back. Perhaps it's the endorphins that clear away the doubt or maybe it's just giving myself time to wander through the doubt and deconstruct it so that it loses its power over me. Regardless, if I do not physically exercise, I do not physically write. I stagnant and stagnation leads to a dam of doubt, a log-jam of uncertainty, and finally the pressure to find some relief. At one time that relief came with an exhilarating and exhausting run. Now it comes with a shuffled jog.

I am leaping. I am leaping. I am leaping.

Watch me.

15 minutes

I have 15 minutes to write. Well, actually 14 minutes after the time it took to sign in.

Regardless.

I've got gargantuan cinnamon rolls in the oven. I got up on a Sunday morning at 6:30 to pull the dough from the fridge, the dough I made yesterday in the 90 degree heat.

Okay, maybe it wasn't 90 degrees, but by 4 in the afternoon, it felt like 90 degrees. It was so hot that we got in the car with the dog and headed over to Doris and Steven's for a dip in their unheated pool. The dog, too.

He loves it. We love it. He wears a floatation device, we wear swimming suits. He leaps off the side of the pool, we ease ourselves in, sucking in air the whole time. He swims around in circles chasing after tennis balls, we swim around after him. He is a much faster swimmer than we are.

We came home to a hot house, but feeling pool cooler we ate a dinner of leftovers and watched the women's basketball game. The dog slept. Like the dead. He looked like a 10-year old boy who'd spent the day at the city pool. His reddish blond hair curly and sun-dried.

Later, we went for an evening walk with Monty from up the street and his owner, our friend, Colleen. It was cooler, but still hot. The dog was still tired, but Monty, recovering from a strained left front leg, was raring to go. He has had little exercise in hopes that rest will help him heal a bit. Rubin did his best to keep up, but his swimming legs were tired.

And then we came home. Ann had made a Clafouti(?) using cherries from our cherry tree. Very good. Not too sweet, not to dry.

15 minutes, when you really use them, is a lot of time.

Next door the new neighbors are tearing apart their house and their yard. Young and industrious, they have ripped the back of the house off and are building an enormous deck. They ripped up the front yard, planted grass, and are waiting to finish the deck before putting in a brick patio and garden.

I gave them some cinnamon rolls. The first batch.

And I gave two more to the neighbors up the street. They saw me deliver the first batch, so I felt guilty and delivered a couple to them. The neighbors from the other block were walking by with their dog, so I'll need to drop off some cinnamon rolls at their house from the second batch.

I got up at 6:30 and it is now almost 9:30. Three hours of baking and delivering; 15 minutes of writing.

And still there is more time.

Rubin is refusing to eat his breakfast. He wolfed down his dinner last night. Swimming always makes me hungry, too, but he acted famished. I thought he'd eat more this morning, but instead, he's curled up on the bamboo floors just at the place where the cool air from the office window meets the cool air from the back door.

He is content.

I am content.

Ann is in the garden and she is always most content there.

I'm waiting for the buzzer for the second batch, but still I write.

The radio is on and I'm not listening to NPR. Instead, it's Sunday Brunch, a local station's attempt to play some mellower sounds, but right now they are playing commercials.

And I can smell the cinnamon rolls. This batch will include a delivery to Colleen (Monty's mom) and Dely up the street. And the neighbors on the other block. I shall eat one, too, though Ann couldn't finish hers and she let me eat the last two bites.

I love cinnamon rolls, but this was a long process.

"I think I'll make these maybe two or three times a year," I informed Ann.

"Ah," is all she said, as in "ah" that's too bad.

And there is the buzzer.

15 minutes and so much can get done.

Between Boom and Crisis

"How's it going?" I asked once I'd settled my body, face down, onto the massage table.

"Not bad," said my shy and contemplative massage therapist.

"You have enough business these days?"

"It's always good if I'm between boom and crisis," she sighed and then dug her powerful thumb into my stress spot just behind my scapula on my left shoulder.

I liked that idea. I like to think that contentment is about life not being too good or too awful, that somewhere in the middle of those extremes is a space (a wide one at that) in which to comfortably move about.

This philosophy fits my massage therapist. She doesn't seem like someone who panics too much or overly worries about life's roller coaster.

I'm taking notes. I've been a person who jumps from one extreme to the other -- too much to do and worry about or nothing to do and then I worry about that.

If I can keep emotion out of it, unemployment is an interesting place to be. Obligations are created not directed. If I am too busy it is of my own making. While I used to believe I had control of my own destiny when I was working, unemployment has offered me a much different perspective. Now I literally have choices and if I choose, for instance, to take a class then I am ultimately to blame when the course I'm taking offers up way too much homework.

Or if I choose to go to walk to the Farmer's Market and sweat all the way there, I have no one to complain to for I made the choice on an 80 degree day.

I suppose choice is always of my own choosing (for lack of a better word), but when I was elbow-deep in teaching -- grading papers, planning lessons, attending meetings -- there was often the feeling that I was being led around my life by my earlobe, someone else grabbing it and giving it a tug. Now, as I sit with a world of possibilities before me, I have to take my own earlobe in hand and tug in well-thought-out directions lest I end up doing activities that aren't really so appealing.

This is the case with the current class on Oceanography that I'm taking online. It's interesting, but it's overwhelming on many different levels. I am not a scientist, though I am very interested in science. I'm also no longer a teacher and the final project for this class requires that I write a long and involved lesson plan. Therefore I'm doing a lot of work for something I'll never really use. The assignments are complicated and require a great deal of time to comb through the readings and the videos and even dredging up more information on the internet so I can intelligently take part in the online discussions with science teachers from across the nation.

Of course, I am my own worst enemy since I hate to appear dumb and therefore work way too hard to achieve and "EE" grade -- "exceeds expectations" -- when and "ME" or "meeting expectations" would be enough.

Years ago I remember my therapist saying to me that my life's work was to be "good enough" not in the sense that I must actually BE good enough, but that I must see my work and myself AS good enough. Even in unemployment this concept is difficult to grasp.

Of course, I've only been unemployed for a month and technically speaking, my teaching salary goes through August so in actuality, I'm not unemployed yet. Still, the boom of overworking is still clear in my memory and the crisis of true unemployment -- financial worries, piles of bills unpaid, no job prospects -- is not part of my reality. In fact, what I've found is the more I let go of obligation, the more potential opportunities present themselves.

Just last night, for instance, having dinner with our good friends and their children steered me to another friend who is now the manager of a local bookstore. "She'd be thrilled to hire you," said my friend and inside I could feel this sigh of relief along with a deeper awareness that I have choices, I will always have choices.

Whether I grab my earlobe or not is up to me. That's the beauty of the wiggle room between boom and crisis. I can live there, in that space between, but it's going to take some practice. Good thing I don't really have any obligations yet. I can practice to my heart's content. Or perhaps I can practice to heart's necessity.

Chance meetings are so unpredictable

The last place you expect to see your long ago ex-girlfriend is at the dog park, but there she was standing cooling in the shade while the dogs frolicked in the muddy water of the river. She didn't recognize me at first, but when I lifted my sunglasses to the brim of my baseball cap and called her name, she looked at me as if I were vaguely familiar.

Not until I said my name did her eyes flash and a genuine smile replaced the polite one. I don't blame her for not remembering. It's been well over 25 years since we last saw each other. And it wasn't on the best of terms.

Rewind...
She'd just returned from the Bering Strait where she'd been an interpreter for an American fishing vessel translating with the Russian fishing crews who haggled over species and quantities, and vodka and Communism. It was hard work, she later told me, and depressing not because of the dwindling fish populations, but because, as she said, the Russians were a "beaten people."

She, by heritage, is Ukrainian. She spent the first years of her life in a farming village outside of Chernobyl before her parents moved her to New York City. It was years later before nuclear radiation melted her homeland, and when it did, I pictured all that beautiful agricultural landscape she'd described to me covered in some kind of dirty, glowing slime.

She lived in New York until right before we first met. In the early 1980s she moved to Seattle to try something different and though she didn't have a job when she first arrived, she was in high demand as an interpreter once employers knew she could speak Russian.

We weren't girlfriends for long. In fact, I'm not really sure how we met. I think it was at the University in one class or another, perhaps in the hallways of the History department or maybe in the Women's Studies offices where I worked part-time. As time will do, I don't really remember why we were attracted to each other. She was calm and reserved. I was athletic and humorous. She enjoyed carpentry and modern dance. I enjoyed long bicycle rides and softball.

I met her after I'd broken up with another girlfriend. That relationship ended when my then partner had an endless stream of affairs with women from her work. She got the apartment we lived in when we split-- a wonderful top story of a house down by the lake -- and I ended up living in a studio apartment off the freeway. It was a horrible dive of a place, but it afforded me enough distance to lick my wounds and figure out what I wanted to do next.

What I did next is complicated and a little awkward. I quit my profitable job at the television station and went back to school. I'd actually done that just before the break up, but now I'd really done it as I was truly on my own and venturing into new territory. I went back to school to earn a history degree and the next step was to earn my teaching certification, but my new found freedom often got in the way of my success.

I had a job at a bicycle shop, played on two softball teams, took a full load of classes, and without a car, rode my bicycle back and forth across the city five, sometimes six times a day. That was the complicated part.

The awkward part, which wasn't really awkward back then feels a tad bit embarrassing now, the "what were you thinking" kind of embarrassing. I had three girlfriends at the time. One played on my softball team, the other was a good friend (we still are today) and the third was the Ukrainian New Yorker. While the other two knew about each other, no one knew about the Ukrainian New Yorker nor did she know anything about the other two. Hence the endless pedaling from job to sex to school to sex to job to home to more sex.

I had a lot of energy in my mid-twenties.

I'm not sure why I didn't tell her about the others. She seemed more fragile perhaps or less open to "sharing" and when she went off on the fishing boat, there wasn't any real point to telling her what I was doing while she was away.

She'd write these beautiful letters to me that often arrived in bunches since it was rare that mail left the ship with any consistency. I wrote back occasionally, but never with the same verve or commitment. I was hoping through my negligence, she'd get the hint that she wasn't as important to me as I appeared to be to her.

It all sounds so cruel now, but really it was more stupidity and innocence, the inability to be honest not only with everyone in my life, but even with myself. I could list out all the reasons why I needed to be so devious, but it not only sounds cruel, it sounds as if I was beyond irresponsible and venturing into reckless.

If you truly knew me -- then and now -- reckless is not a word that comes to mind. I am fairly cautious and always have been. These then can be classified as my wild years when I threw all caution to the wind and lived only for myself and my earthly desires.

When she did return ,smelling of fish and still swaying from the crashing swells of the ocean we hung out together for a few weeks, but even she could feel the distance between us. Finally I told her I needed to end it, though I'm certain I wasn't that direct. I do remember that she cried. I understand why. She'd poured out her guts to me in those letters and I'd just walked away carrying all that love on the back of my traveled bicycle.

I walked away from one of the other girlfriends, too. It was a mutual decision -- she was seeing someone else as well and wanted to pursue it as a potential relationship. As for the third girlfriend, we tried for a few years, but eventually she had an affair with her best friend and I was left right where I started -- alone and living in a dump.

I landed my first teaching job shortly after that and left all of them behind to start out fresh in a completely different environment -- a small town two hours and a ferry boat ride from the city. My luck with girlfriends didn't run much better after that. I dated an alcoholic for awhile and then another woman who also had affairs during our relationship. Finally I settled down in a long-term relationship and after 10 years, I was the one to leave finally figuring out that nothing was going to fill the void I felt inside except for me.

My life has landed here -- in a relationship that feels exactly right, in a house that feels spacious and warm, and with friends who value what I value -- laughter, nature, and monogamy.

So when I spotted the Ukrainian New Yorker standing under the shade of the tree I was surprised.

Pleasantly.

"My god, you haven't changed a bit." Her New Yorker accent was thick and rich with hints of Ukrainian rattling around in the background.

"Twenty pounds heavier and a whole lot grayer," I laughed and pulled up my baseball cap.

"I know the feeling," she smiled back. She didn't though. She was gray around the edges, but she was still petite and thin, her dark Ukrainian eyes the prominent feature on her face.

It's amazing what 25 years of distance can do for you. Maybe, like me, she didn't remember all the details of our last meeting. Maybe she'd forgotten that I was an ass, insensitive and self-absorbed because she greeted me and talked with me as if we were long lost friends and not bitterly parted lovers.

"What are you doing now?" I asked.

"I live in New York and teach Modern Dance at NYU." If her accent hadn't been so edgy I could have easily guessed she'd moved back to New York. "And my partner and I have a 10-year old son."

"That's great," I exclaimed and then we stood there awkwardly catching glimpses of each other out of the corner of our eyes while we pretended to watch the dogs play in the river.

"And you?" she asked.

"Currently unemployed after 22 years of teaching." I'm still working on how to introduce myself and my new path, but it worked.

"Wow! What's next?"

"Dog training, perhaps. A dog walking business. Something different than kids," I laughed, a tad worried I'd just offended her son that I didn't even know.

"Oh wow," she smiled and turned to another woman who was standing close by. "This is Maureen and we're here at the park because she owns a dog walking business."

And from there the conversation flowed around dogs and business-owning and everything else that really didn't matter.

In the end we exchanged phone numbers. She's in town for another few weeks and her partner and son will join her next week. I'm not sure who will call whom first or if we'll just let the chance meeting remain a chance meeting.

We hugged then and parted. I walked toward the grassy fields to dry off the dogs and she headed up the wooded path with Maureen. A half hour later we saw each other in the parking lot. We'd parked right next to each other.

"Odd that I'd meet you once, but now twice!" She threw up her hands and looked amazingly like the woman I dated 25 years ago.

It was her smile, I thought on the drive home. It was that smile that attracted me the first time.

The last place you'd expect to see a smile like that is at a dog park on a hot summer's day, but there you have it. Chance meetings are so unpredictable.

Awake

When I was a kid, my parents took me to a dentist who hypnotized his patients before he worked on them. At 8 or 9 years of age I had no idea, I just know I was convinced he never gave me a shot of Novocaine. He did, of course, but I didn't "feel it" as I was in la la land for the duration. My mom said that when she came to pick me up, I'd be asleep in his chair my head nodding toward the porcelain spit bowl.

He lost his license, so my mother tells me, for not having the proper license to practice hypnosis. It seems silly now as I felt very comfortable at the dentist and didn't really develop a fear of them until I was an adult.

It's not that I fear them actually -- I never make an appointment, or shake in the chair, or break out in hives -- but as an adult, I've somehow figured out how uncomfortable sitting in that chair with my mouth wide open and smothered in a rubber dam can be. I don't even mind the shots, but I hate and despise the drill. I can't think about what they're doing to my tooth with the whining, buzzing, digging drill.

Since my fear has increased over time, I've tried to stick with one dentist -- a dentist I trusted -- and faithfully go for cleanings to avoid any major procedures.

Unfortunately, it hasn't always worked out that way. I have my father's teeth -- they are soft and prone to decay -- or perhaps I have my mother's teeth as she has worn dentures for most of my life. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that I have a number of crowns, a whole new mouth of fillings (they got rid of all those silver ones), an implant, and a number of root canals.

And all of these procedures have been done by one or two doctors.

Today's procedure was a dentist I'd had once before, when my regular dentist was out of town. Dr. L was a great dentist and though my time was limited with her, I was sad when she left on maternity leave and never came back. I liked her so much I hunted her down on the internet and to my pleasure (though I hate to use that word in the same sentence as dentist), she had just opened up a new practice. I went on my first visit today and to avoid being reexamined, she just gave me the temporary crown my previous dentist (her old employer) was going to give me a week ago.

Dr. L's office is very new. It even smelled new, and is a "certified green building" with bamboo floors and recycled materials used to make the counters and the cabinets. She has a massage therapist as her receptionist, so just when you're finishing up, this tall, thin European woman comes and massages your shoulders or your jaw or your hands or your feet or all of them if you so request.

I really like Dr. L. She's patient and kind and never asks ridiculous questions when your underneath that rubber dam. She's a perfectionist, too, which means her work is admired by other dentists. It also helps that she's very cute. When the drilling gets annoying, I open my eyes and stare at her delicate nose and petite ears.

Dr. L is a very good dentist, but today's procedure tested her perfectionist nature. The drilling went well, but the impression took forever. I stayed fairly relaxed, but when she said, "the tooth is awake" I had a chill move from my molars to my toes clenching my hands along the way.

I didn't really quite know what "awake" meant, but I found out quickly when she stuffed another cord into it (which I'm not really sure why they do that...disinfectant?). I winced. She placed her hand on my shoulder and asked, "Was that unbearable?"

What could I say? I was trapped under rubber, my mouth so wide open I could put my fist in it. I nodded "no," but then doubted my answer the second her pokey tool went for the cord and the tooth.

The tooth is awake...what the hell kind of jargon is that? I didn't know teeth went to sleep. I knew my leg can fall asleep if I curl it under me for too long while sitting. I knew they put me "asleep" when I had my back surgery. But teeth are like inanimate objects, aren't they? Sure, I know they hurt and have roots and all of that, but most of the time, I don't notice them at all. When the pain shot through my gums and along my jaw today I was thinking this isn't awake, this is bloody painful!

Dr. L apologized and kept letting me know that she was almost done. I tried to stare at her smooth and silky complexion. I tried to trace her jawline down to her softly curved chin. I even looked for gray hair amidst the golden blond of her pony tail, but to no avail. Three and half hours into it and I was ready to have her yank the damn tooth out.

Okay, so it wasn't that bad. After 800 mg. of Ibuprofen, I'm feeling much better, but when I stop to think about the whole thing, I get the willies. Still, I'll go back to her. She's kind, she's funny, she's really good at what she does, and she's very attractive.

Maybe I'll just send her a brochure about hypnotism before my next visit.

Bravery

I woke with a start the other night, sucking in air and feeling shivers of shock course through my body. I'd dreamt of a dead woman lying in a dark room. She was blue and cold and though I am not a doctor, I was waiting for someone to arrive to tell me that this unknown woman was officially dead. Since I didn't want to stay in the dark room with the dead corpse, I closed the tall skinny door and waited for the doctor or the coroner to arrive. Seconds later, for it was a dream, someone arrived and I opened the door again. The woman was still stretched out on the bed where I'd found her and now the room was as chilly as her body.

"Is she dead?" I asked the doctor/coroner. The doctor/coroner was as much a mystery as the woman on the bed. I couldn't see him/her and when I woke up from the dream, I couldn't even remember this person's presence in the room.

I leaned over the woman. She was wearing white and her skin was equally pale. She had long fingers and wavy flowing hair spread out over her pillow. As I examined her more closely, waiting for the doctor/coroner to deliver the verdict, the woman sat straight up and said, "Why is it so cold in here?"

That's when I woke up swallowing air, feeling my heart beat through my chest. Needless to say, it took awhile to go back to sleep.

There are a million interpretations to this dream -- while I'm leaving teaching, I am still a teacher and not dead yet; despite my worries of what I'll do next, I'm still kicking; I'm in this journey alone and on and on -- but it didn't make me rest any easier knowing that the dream was simply a reflection of my psyche.

It felt so real.

My dreams have always been vivid and realistic even when I was a child, but this was the most realistic dream I've had in a long, long time. It's stayed with me for days now. Early this morning, when I woke to pee, I couldn't go back to sleep because I kept trying to remember every detail of the dream: What was the dead woman wearing? What color were the sheets? How big was the room? Straining to remember the dream brought back the panic and I found myself staring at the ceiling at 4:30, listening to the dog snore at the end of the bed.

My decision to leave teaching and move forward without a real job has had an interesting impact on those around me. The most common reactions are these:

1) Good for you: This comes from people who are, by nature, positive and encouraging, but also a bit burned out in their own jobs. They are proud of me for taking the plunge they feel they cannot. I understand these people, but I want to tell them that they too can join the ranks of the unemployed, that I was no more trapped than they are, and that while they are encouraging of my choice, I'd sure love a little company.

2) What will you do next?: This comes from people who feel that everyone must do something all the time and (like me) worry when they are doing nothing. This is the thought that keeps me up at night -- the unknown -- and I find myself floundering around with my time trying to plan out all the possible options.

3) How brave: This comes from people who see change as an act of god not one of free will. That someone would actually bring change upon themselves requires more bravery than intelligence. That someone would leave a perfectly good job without another job to jump into have courage and chutzpah something they don't see themselves as having. I want to grab these people by their shoulders and say, "I am not brave. In fact, I'm beginning to think I am very, very stupid, but bravery is not at play here at all."

In those early morning hours when I'm contemplating my situation, bravery is the farthest thing from my mind. Rather I feel confused. Which is more difficult -- to stay in a job that eats at your soul or to leave it for something unknown? Is bravery about running from one thing into something undefined or is bravery about staying in the same thing and never knowing what lies beyond the horizon?

Hence the dead-but-not-dead woman of my dream. She is neither fully dead nor fully alive. She is so cold with uncertainty she turns the temperature of the room to something that resembles ice and darkness. Is she brave? Does she just need some encouraging to go on living? Is she simply contemplating what will come next after she warms the room? Was she ever really dead or just faking it? Perhaps resting. Perhaps meditating. Or maybe she was just waiting.

On our walk this morning, Rubin counted squirrels. They teased him from the trees and darted across the sidewalk inches in front of us. At one point, he walked with a bit of a limp. Generally this means he has something stuck to the bottom of his paw and by removing it, I remove the limp. But this morning the limp persisted.

Until he saw the next squirrel. The limp was cured and for the remaining mile of our walk home, he pranced with his ears at the ready and his tail tight and curled. The possibilities were endless. Squirrels could appear at any given moment.

I know Rubin is in my life to teach me how to live in the "now," but I somehow forget that lesson and need multiple reminders. There are squirrels every where. You can feel dead one minute and alive the next. You can walk with a limp or race with abandon. There are more possibilities than the evidence might suggest. If you assume the future, you will be shocked and breathless when an alternate reality emerges.

Now is now. Brave or not, now is now. What I will do next is exactly what I will do next.

And so I begin...again and again.

Learning from Doris

Lesson #1:
Make a mess -- Every Tuesday night, Doris and Steven have a "family" dinner at their house. Family consists of anyone who is biologically or "logically" related to them -- friends, friends of friends, sons, daughters, spouses, etc. Meals are generally eclectic and filling. Conversation is always lively and the dogs (of which there can be anywhere from 1 to 4 present) offer unexpected entertainment -- accidentally (or not) falling into the pool, race-like chases around the garden, and games of catch on the porch.

Yesterday I went early because I wanted to learn how Doris made "things." By things I mean bread, pasta, salads, soups -- whatever the particulars are of that meal. Yesterdays particulars were bread, ravioli, and baked asparagus.

Doris has two pasta machines. Not the fancy electric kind, but two hand-held machines -- one she found at Goodwill. While it's missing some parts, it works just fine for basic pasta making. So I got a lesson.

And it was messy. Flour was all over the kitchen island workspace and all over the floor. The dogs -- our dog, Rubin and their huge dog, Ben -- licked the smatterings of flour and dough. Their muzzles turned white from their efforts.

"Oops," I confessed. "I'm making a mess."

"Don't worry about it," Doris replied in her best Rhode Island accent. "It's always like this. You should see the mess in Italian kitchens."

Doris' father was Italian. He spoke very little English though he could speak French fluently. His wife was French. She was a well-known and renowned drape-maker (is there a word for that?). She worked her fingers to the bone designing and sewing drapes as well as sending out her cadre of gay salesmen. Meanwhile her husband, Doris' father, stayed home and cooked amazing Italian meals. Doris speaks Italian and travels back to the old country once every few years and always returns with a new recipe lodged somewhere in her memory.

"Pasta making is messy," she laughed. "Get used to it!"

And so I did.

Lesson #2: Recipes don't matter -- I am a rule follower. I don't like to do the wrong thing. Recipes seem important to me. Too much salt and the whole thing can be ruined. Too much liquid and you have soup instead of chili. I cling to the recipes and then, if my dish doesn't turn out, I try to figure out what went wrong by re-examining the recipe.

"Put about a cup of flour on the island," Doris instructed, but as she did it I noticed it wasn't quite a cup. No exact measuring for her!

"Now make a well in the middle of the floor and crack an egg into it."

"Wait," I worried out loud, "Aren't you just supposed to use the egg yolk?"

"It doesn't matter." Doris slid the egg from its shell and then took the broken half of the shell and filled it with water. "You need to add water and about half a shell is perfect."

Then, just like they do on the Iron Chef, we pulled the flour into the egg and blended until we had a dough that held together, "not too dry, not too wet" as Doris explained.

I was nervous. I kept feeling her dough compared to mine. I mimicked her every movement hoping my dough would be exactly like hers.

"Is this okay?" I'd ask.

"Sure," Doris tossed back and then moved onto the next task.

Lesson #3: It's not about measurements. It's about textures.

Once the dough was mixed we cut off chunks and pressed them through the pasta maker.

"It will have a rough texture at first," Doris instructed, "and then, without much effort, the dough will be smooth and silky."

We ran the chunk of dough through again and again, and just as promised, the dough moved from a rough, lumpy chunk to a smooth, stretchy rectangle.

"Like this?" I kept asking.

"Yep, that's it!" We stacked the finished dough in geometric lumps on the counter.

"Now we must press it to the exact thickness we want." Doris skillfully adjusted the pasta maker, spinning the dial from 1 to 3 to 5 to 7 -- narrowing the width of the metal rollers. "7 looks too thin," she pronounced. "Let's stick with 6."

I rolled my first chunk of pasta through first 1, then 3, then 5, and finally 6. I had a long tongue-shaped swath of dough. From all the cooking shows I've been watching lately, I knew we had to hang the pasta to dry.

"We forgot to put out the drying rack," I announced.

"Oh just hang it over the chair," Doris replied. She took my finished dough and draped it over the back of the island stool. Soon we had 15 scarves of silky, thin dough hanging throughout the kitchen, the summer breeze through the back door swung them gently.

Lesson #4: If it doesn't work, just try something else.

"I've tried to use the ravioli maker," Doris informed me, "but I can't get it to work without Herculean efforts. So we'll just do it this way."

"This way" entailed laying the strips of dough on the counter, plopping the filling (cooked spinach and brie) in a Zen garden, linear pattern. We wet the edges with water from a finger bowl and then laid another strip on top.

"I have this ravioli cutter," Doris held up a metal stamp with triangular edges, "but it doesn't cut through enough so I just use a knife or a glass."

She demonstrated both methods -- one producing square ravioli, the other making half or full moons, depending on your preference.

Within the hour we had a huge tray of oddly shaped ravioli.

The kitchen was a disaster. Well, in my mother's sense of cleanliness, the room looked like a disaster to me. "Shall we clean up?" I asked invoking my mother's sense of tidiness.

"Oh no, we have more to do. We'll clean up later."

Lesson #5: Clean up once. No need to clean up again and again.

In the end, Steven, Doris' husband, returned from his errands and while Doris made braised vegetables, threw the bread into bake, roasted asparagus, and made a salad from the greens in her expansive garden, Steven cleaned off the surfaces and swept the floor.

Lesson #6: A faithful partner is essential to all cooking adventures.

The meal was wonderful, as usual. We ate fresh bread, big, meaty green olives, and cheese for appetizers. Then 9 of us -- family and friends -- sat around the enormous dining table and served up ravioli, vegetables, salad, asparagus, a lentil mush that was incredibly tasty, and stuffed ourselves silly not only with food, but with laughter. The dogs -- three for the night-- swirled around the table, nudging their noses into laps and finally settling on the floor by our chairs.

I'd made dessert earlier in the day -- an apple tart with enough butter to kill a cow and enough sugar to bury a pyramid. It was wonderfully rich with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

Lesson #7: Never let the guests clean up.

I tried, but Doris shooed us out the door around 9 last night while she and Steven and their son rinsed the dishes and placed them in the dishwasher.

"No need to rinse the dishes," I heard Doris' voice echo out of the kitchen window as we got into the car. "The dishwasher will take care of all of that."

Food is both complicated and simple. When I examine the way I have always cooked -- cleaning up as I go along, following the recipe to the exact specifications, tossing out mistakes, making everything look exactly like it does in the recipe book, not allowing others to help lest I lose my place in the process -- I realize it is a complicated and lonely process. Cooking with Doris, while it produces complicated meals, felt much simpler -- communal, fun, random, stress and worry free.

We came home last night with one of Doris' pasta machines ("Practice," she told me, "Have fun with it. You can't go wrong!"), our empty tart dish (a cast iron skillet) and one very tired dog. I came home with many lessons, the biggest of which is how to relax.