Carter’s Little Pill

I got a good score on the LSAT. Now, I’m going to go for a great score.

Wish me luck.

I’m leaving tomorrow to spend a long, Independence Day weekend in LA with Chris. Yesterday, I read a post I made years ago on a message board. I’m standing athwart these two days rather symbolically on this Thursday evening.

That post, from 2007, was a bit of a kick in the teeth, since the person who wrote it was so fragile–something I don’t really consider myself to be. It was ten years into my marriage, a year and a half before my husband’s death. I know I spent a lot of years being afraid, and the post was dripping with fear, with something very close to despair.

I was married to a man I loved who was going to die. That death was in the future in 2007. My present, then, was just fearful and cringing.

My present now? Hopeful. The worst that could happen happened. All of my fears were real, and realized, and justified, but I still loved him despite all that. I, the most risk-averse person I know, still risked it.

The 4th of July is almost here, a day for celebrating taking a risk. A day when a bunch of dudes with bad hair decided that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen. But the post-911 world has a lot of Americans convinced that death is so terrifying that we should stamp out risk, curtail freedom, curtail independence, so that we can be that tiny bit safer.

But the world isn’t safe. Beloved 47-year-old men drop dead in their kitchens without deserving to die, and the same thing happens every minute around the world. Someone dies, despite being loved. Someone dies despite all of our fear of death, all of our planning and hiding.

I’m free. Oh, I’m not free of every fear. I still avoid unnecessary risks. But saying it’s okay to be afraid and to still try, still love, still let the world get in close–that’s freedom. Not another word for nothing left to lose, but another word for everything to gain.

Happy independence. Happy day. Don’t shoot off your butt with a bottle rocket.

The Parting-Month of Spring

I am too deep in June. I feel the death
of spring in every nighttime twitch, in skin
that naps when pressed by crumpled sheets, in breaths
too slow to fill my lungs. I’m trapped within
a disappearing tadpole-tail, or buds
unfurled to rotten lace. I suffocate
in puddles burnt to oxygenless mud
or buzzed with mayflies. Summer desecrates
the green with brazen gaud and cocksure joys
too hot for memories. As harvest reigns,
the way young corn turned hills to corduroy
is hidden by a profligacy of grain.
And sleek July’s utility decoys
us from her deadly manners once again.

I don’t mention months in poems all that often, so I always think of this one when June tumbles around.

I went to the front hall to grab my purse and was attacked by a fishing rod. If you didn’t already know this, fishing hooks are really quite sharp. My hand, my forearm, and my shoulder are all willing to testify.

Edited to add: Both hands. Fish hooks are equal opportunity stabbity things. Ow.

I took the LSAT on Monday. It wasn’t good. The administrator called the five minute warning on the first section while there was ten minutes left. I panicked, completely confused about my apparent inability to read my watch. He acknowledged during the break that he had done it and promised not to do it again. Then he did.

Ack.

On the plus side, Chris flew in from LA and we just spent the last week plus with each other. I’ll state right here for internet posterity that I love him. Wait, I’ve already said that here, so… I love him more.

We went to three Indians games in Cleveland, including one where Shelley Duncan (does that name make any one else think of Wheat Thins?) tossed Chris a ball and Chris got Tim Belcher to laugh by holding up a Dodger jersey. There was a lot of glee, lemme tell ya.

I did not read a book called Mr. Fingers.

I did not write a poem called “Mr. Fingers.”

I haven’t met anyone named Mr. Fingers.

I haven’t imagined anyone named Mr. Fingers.

I have eaten chicken fingers. I have ten fingers. It isn’t utterly impossible that I have given someone the finger. The word finger is quite odd after I repeat it often enough. But I still haven’t written a book called Mr. Fingers.

While I’m not above taking credit for someone else’s accomplishments, this time I’m going to demur. The glory is just too great for me to accept.

I know few of you will be surprised at all by that.

Steve was a packrat. I had it in my head that he was a bit of a packrat, but I think the past year of cleaning out his stuff makes it apparent that he was borderline hoard-y.

I’m having a visitor from out of town and I decided that would be my impetus to tackle the last bastions of Steve’s packrattedness. What the hell was I thinking? Did I clean the kitchen and the bathrooms? No. I started a project that makes the entire downstairs look like… like… okay, there are no words. But picture a scene of utter devastation, perhaps after a tornado or an earthquake. Now, imagine that Godzilla comes on the scene and moves another scene of destruction on top of it. Got that? Okay, now imagine space aliens disintegrate half of it.

Yeah, that’s about right.

Then put cat hair on it.

Lucky for me, my visitor is my boyfriend and I think he’s slightly too in love to dump me over it.

Steve was adamant that he wanted me to go on with my life, and he would have been delighted that I found someone to love. But I think I can hear his ghost snickering a little bit anyway. He was never all that interested in making my life easy.

I bought a chocolate bar from a manufacturer I’d never heard of–Chuao. It appears it is supposed to be pronounced “Chew-Wow” based on a little ad inside the packet.

And wow is right.

Dark chocolate with panko breadcrumbs and sea salt. I am very much in favor of this.

Horseradish and Cheddar, by Herr’s.

My god. It’s like the people at Herr’s were just sitting around, wondering how to make the perfect Julie chip, and then they made them, and then they decided that to torment me they would only make them available at Kmart and only really randomly.

In any case, I found them again.

If you like horseradish, try these. You will only be sorry if you only get to have them once. Which could happen. So don’t try them. Or try them and blame me for the pain and suffering you experience.

I’m a martyr for the cause, baby.

My niece informs me that she has been told by a local historical society person that my house contains (dum dum DAAAA!) a secret door! The theories were that it was an Underground Railroad house or a bootlegging house. Since the house is too new for the Underground Railroad, it must be bootleggers! Whee!

Okay, I’ll admit that it’s not likely, but still. Whee!