Julian’s Warlock Mine

Last weekend, in the rain (and sleet and hail but no snow), we had to adjust our hiking expectations…originally we were going to do a 10-mile hike in Santa Ysabel, but the trail was closed with the rain, so we headed towards Julian’s Warlock Mine. You should go check out the Hidden San Diego website, because they actually found the mine…we tried and found A mine, but not THE mine.

When we got to the trailhead, the wind was blowing about 40-50 mph, but it wasn’t raining, so that was a plus. We managed to get all our gear on (it was registering about 32 degrees out too, so that was a factor in my putting 5 layers on, which is why we all resemble colorful snowmen…seriously…3 shirts, two jackets). We stopped near this “sign” (which was mostly illegible) and sent the men on ahead so the women could have a bathroom break. I have to say, there was no way in hell I was peeing then…it was too damn cold.

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That was a good decision on my part, because here’s where the hail started…

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It’s the beginning of the hike, so we look all happy and excited and fresh. Honestly, this was not a difficult hike with the weather out of the equation…or even WITH the weather. It did rain though. And hail. Here’s a view of the valley below…that’s a road, not a river.

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You can see the water drops on the camera lens. I didn’t take a ton of pictures during the rainy bits because my camera is troubled enough as it is…water just gives it an excuse to behave badly.

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Here’s the processing part of the mine…

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Apparently there were many more structures before (you can see all the leftover metal bits), but the 2002 fire took out all the wooden bits.Apr 26 14 009 small

My attempt at a selfie. I suck at them. It took three tries to get the building in.

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Someone else took this one. Yes, it was cold and rainy.

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The hillside below the processing mill.

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And from up above. Apparently the hill above us is where the mine entrance was. We hiked around a little bit, but couldn’t find it.Apr 26 14 013 small

The weather started to clear a bit at that point. We saw blue sky, the clouds started to lift, the rain stopped.Apr 26 14 014 small

It could actually be a nice day. Unfortunately, Kathy, being the geek girl she is, had already consulted her weather app and knew the rain would start up again at 10:00.

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That was about 10 minutes away, so we hiked and took photos of the plant life.

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And the valleys and mountains around Julian, including the Elsinore Fault, part of the San Andreas Fault.

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The trail is actually really easy.

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I think this was raining again.

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More valley…you can just barely see the mill in the center of the photo.

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For some reason, it was really slow hiking this, mostly because there were lots of photo shoots. I think I had lost my patience at that point and actually wanted to HIKE instead of stroll.

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It’s a fault of mine. Even though I was way ahead, I did stop to take photos of flowers…

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Oh wait, she was ahead of me and stopped to eat her lunch. Notice the clouds coming back in on the left?

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Must be getting closer to 10 AM.

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The flowers enjoyed the rain…

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The cliff sides on this trail were geologically very interesting.

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I never know what the flowers are, but this is a test for Julie, to see if SHE can identify all of them.

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It’s a beautiful time of year on San Diego trails.

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Ah, the OTHER mine we missed on the way down…this is the Golden Gem Mine, totally unsafe and tiny as hell. I did NOT go in.

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I’m not really a fan of mines. I mean, they’re cool and all, but I don’t want to drag myself on my belly in one to see if it opens up.

Here’s another interesting rocky hillside.

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And more pretty views of clouds that are about to kick our asses again.

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At this point, the weather is starting to change again.

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Yucca!

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No matter where you go in San Diego, there are yuccas and cactus. At this point, I was way ahead of everyone, and it was raining. A lot. I stopped here to wait, because the sound in the trees of the wind (and eventually the rain and hail) was really nice.

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I waited there a LONG time….long enough to look back and see two different faces in this rock (can you see both of them?).

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Long enough to stare at this tree with roots growing out into the air.

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I think I made some rock piles too, like you do. At some point, I gave up and walked back to another group that was standing and waiting (in the pouring rain) for the last group. Eventually we all caught up and I took off again.

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They’re all strung out behind me. I guess I needed a quiet contemplative space. God knows why…I have tons of that and seem to waste most of it making myself more depressed.

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Rain rain everywhere. Socks wet. Shoes wet. Pants wet.

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Gloves wet. Camera definitely wet.

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So what can I say about this hike? First of all, it’s not long, maybe 3 miles round trip. Somehow it took us three hours (are you kidding me?) to do the whole thing, which is probably part of why I was frustrated. This would be good to go on with kids, as long as you realize most of the mines are not safe to go in (and you have kids who will actually listen). Here’s another article from the Reader about the hike that gives better directions. The best part of this hike is that when you are done, you can go get pie in Julian. We actually went back to Dudley’s for lunch, but Julian IS right there. And if you’re smart, you won’t be 5 layers damp from a whopping rain/hailstorm that dropped wet on you for three hours. It’s probably pretty hot in summer. There are plenty of wildflowers in Spring and none of the hike is particularly hard. There are great rock formations and many interesting types of rocks around, plus you can see the Elsinore Fault across the valley. I’d do it again for fun, a light walk, with pie to follow…if I were hanging out in or near Julian, this would be a good pre-dinner or post-lunch jaunt.

Overfeeling

Hey. So. The girlchild is on a rampage. I think she has screamed at me for extended periods of time every day since Thursday. I am so removed from my own emotions at the moment, at least in terms of being angry/irritated with her, that I can do nothing but teacher voice. Calm. Reasonable. Repeating the same thing over and over again. Offering two choices. Calm. Yeah. So I know I wasn’t the easiest teenager in the world (ask my mom; she’ll tell you), but mom actually said she was sorry to me tonight, it was that bad. And it’s stupid stuff. Time home. Driving places. Communicating. Planning ahead. Cleaning up her crap. Not taking responsibility.

All normal parent stuff. The stuff we all do. All the time.

Problem is, at the end of it, I’m pretty much empty of the ability to deal with my own shit. It just takes it out of me. I can’t deal at all. I can’t even think straight. I just used up all my strength on not screaming at her (I was not so successful Friday night, when she really pushed too far and I went off.). It’s OK. This is how she pushes away. This is how she can leave and go far away to college. This makes it easier for her. Not so much for me, but hey…I’m the fucked-up overfeeling one anyway. It’s not about me.

I will survive it. I have to. I don’t have a choice.

I hiked this morning…more on that later. It was pretty good, a little short. The weather here has cooled down a bit, but it was still in the mid-80s…a little on the warm side for serious hiking.

I managed ironing eventually, later than I had wanted…

 

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It’s always later than what I want. My own fault. I don’t remember what I was doing. I’m sure it was crucial. Oh yeah, it was. I made apple crisp (fuck you, I deserve it after the three-day-long screamfest of Mom Knows Diddly Squat) and I meditated and I cleaned house a little (a very little…don’t hyperventilate). I did some computer stuff for school.

Anyway, I didn’t get much ironed…a uterus and related parts, a spider and its web, some nipples, and lips. Exciting stuff. I got tired. There are lots of pieces. Plus the cat really really wanted to sit on the ironing board, and when I kicked her back onto the chair she normally prefers, she jumped up in front of the computer and glared Kitty Glares at me until I was done and she could climb back up there again.

It’s funny, because I’ve been ironing for days and she’s shown no interest in being on the ironing board until today.

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But there she is, sending me her best Fuck You looks.

I really am tired tonight. Something about Saturday nights makes me want to stay up way too late, and unfortunately, I still had to be up this morning.

The pile of fabrics I’m using grows higher…

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Maybe taking over the room.

OK, I’m falling asleep sitting here. Brain is sending a pretty strong message to go to bed and sleep it off. You were trying to come up with one single positive thing about today…OK, girlchild makes awesome penne with vodka sauce and there are lots of leftovers (do not imagine the boychild at this time. Yes, he is capable of inhaling the whole batch of leftovers without any effort at all, but with any luck, you’ll beat him to it tomorrow morning because you will be getting up before him). See, I can be positive. Penne Positive.

I forgot to post this panorama of the Kitchen Creek Falls area from a few weeks back…

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OK. Brain to bed. Rest of me too. Maybe I’ll have more energy tomorrow. Right now I’m too tired to even focus my eyes on the letters.

 

Done with the Flesh…

Done with the flesh. It only took about 4 hours to find and iron all the pieces for the main figure. I think I’m at 14 1/2 hours into this ironing of fabric… May 3 14 005 small

Not a small amount. More than the Celebrating Silver quilt, but less than the Earth Stories quilt…which I can start writing about this week, I think. I had to stop in the middle, right after finishing this fabric, actually, because girlchild called because her hives were back and she had no Benadryl at her dad’s house, so I got to drive over there and deal with some screaming. Apparently I am no longer the most irritating of the two parents. Oh joy. I have to say it is incredibly difficult to deal with being the mom of a typical hurricane (aka teenager) without a spouse around to commiserate with, but at least my ex and I can joke about it. While drinking wine. Because I think that’s the only way to survive certain types of teenagers.

The bin now has all the flesh for the main figure in it…

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I will probably get around to cutting all these out not this week but next. I think I still have about 400 pieces to iron on this thing, so that’s at least 4 nights. I haven’t done the lungs, heart, eyeballs, all that stuff that clutters the human body…those pieces are all here…

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With some other stuff mixed in. I think there’s a cloud in there with a giant face. You know, like you see all the time. Sometimes I really wonder where my brain comes up with this stuff. I draw sober, people. Stone cold sober. Oh heck, it’s not really a cloud, it’s one of those thought clouds you see in comics. Except there’s no words. This entire quilt is word-free. That is a bit strange for me.

So tomorrow night, maybe, I will have the patience to deal with organs, with parts. With hair. I already know she has gray hair. It’s a quilt about menopause. I guess she could have white hair. I’ve done that before. Certainly mine is going white, not gray. Is she me? Fuck yeah, she is. Hence the cracks.

Nothing feels right. Can’t just stop being depressed. Can’t find myself. Whoops! That’s where my brain was post-gym. It’s still kinda there, but I tried to squash all the boring depressoid crap with fabric. And Brussels sprouts. Slight addiction with those. Seriously. If it weren’t so hot, I would have tossed some apple crisp into the mix. Had a craving. Tend to listen to those these days. No reason not to, and if apples and cinnamon make my world a better place, then so be it. I mean, really…it’s not going to kill me and I’m having a hard enough time as it is. Why be mean about apples?

The boychild’s piano recital went well…I have video, but haven’t processed it yet. He made no mistakes (Chopin) and it brought tears to my eyes because it’s his last one. I’m such a mopey beast. They gave him a graduation trophy and then a bunch of total strangers congratulated him (and us) after because he got into Cornell. That’s weird. I think. I mean, the kid worked hard enough to get in. Yes, I guess we raised him to think he could, but…I still think it’s his thing, not mine. I’m just glad he’s happy about it. And he is. Should I be feeling better about my own life because my boy got into Cornell? It’s his life. Mine’s a fucked-up mess. His should be better, simply because I’m not in charge of it. Move on, kid…do it better than your momma. Please.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far…two sets of flesh fabrics…

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I really tried to be efficient today, to get stuff done, to get that feeling of achievement, of purpose. I did finish some things. I am trying to be positive. I updated the website for one of the groups I manage, I sent my website photos in for another group I’m in, I wrote the appeal for the tax board thing, I submitted for the next SAQA portfolio, I went to the gym, I graded a bit, I prepped almost everything for school next week. I have a plan for tomorrow, groceries and hike etc. I cooked dinner. I finished two books (both of which are books I need to review, so those will be separate posts). There are about a million things I didn’t do, but there aren’t enough hours in the day. But doing all that doesn’t make me feel good.

I miss going to the movies on Saturday nights. I miss those hours of mental space and relaxation that I had. I can’t seem to replicate that on my own. Hiking is the closest I get, and that’s still not the same. Movies provide a visual/emotional outlet that hiking doesn’t always give me. I could just go to the movies on Saturday nights by myself, but I’ve found that is a dangerous place to let my brain be, so I just don’t. I really miss it. I miss lots of things, though, and that just makes everything worse. That’s what’s behind the statement above, that nothing feels right. Because it doesn’t. It isn’t just about missing the movies. It’s about missing my life. I don’t feel like me. I don’t know who or how I am. This is where I am, and I don’t like it. It’s like I’m trying to break out of my own skin. I did not ask for this.

The counselor says I need to just keep turning things around to the positive. But she says things that seem crazy to me. Things I don’t want to do. I’m sure normal people could tell themselves those things and not have an issue with it, but my brain doesn’t work like that. I do tell myself, hey! because of all the shit you’ve been through, now you get to hike all the time. You get to make more art. You get to…sigh. That’s about where it stops. There are some things I don’t have to deal with any more, and I’m relieved about that, but there are so many yucks that I have to deal with instead that it doesn’t feel like a plus. I like to hike, yes…but I feel a bit obsessive about it, like I’ll go crazy if I don’t. I’m not sure that’s healthy.

Hey, here’s the new video…actually, the video is nonexistent. It’s all about the song.

Harvey Danger, Why I’m Lonely…I wonder sometimes who in this world will put up with my weirdness in drawing, art, music, hiking. I think, from experience, the answer is No One.

I’m not sick, but I’m not well…

Tomorrow morning’s hike should help. Clear my brain. Maybe I’ll scream a little. Stomp a little. Cry a little. Maybe I’ll run the whole thing. Maybe I’ll eat Skittles and be on a crazy diabetic sugar high (bad plan). Maybe I’ll just hike fast and hard and bring my brain back some wildflowers. Whatever. It’s got to be better than being alone in my head.

In My Head, There Are Wobbles

I’m reading a book that is a lot like many other books I have read. There is a person who wants one thing and is forced to follow what’s expected of him, until they try to kill him, and then he becomes something larger or better. I can’t decide whether or not I like the book because the plot is so standard, and yet it’s not, because of the specifics of the story. I want to keep reading, because I’m interested, but I already think I know the gist of what will happen.

This is like the opposite of my life. I don’t know what will happen. My story is pretty typical (OK, except for the part where I stay up all night and make art while y’all cuddle with your pillows and mammalian bedfellows), and maybe I’m the character with the crippled hand or the one sold to slavery by her uncle. Where I’ve left the characters now is huddled in a tiny, hot, dark room, waiting for the command to rush out and vengefully kill everyone who wronged them, to somehow right all the wrongs with violence and death.

I don’t know why my brain is focusing on this now…in my head, there are wobbles. Hazy areas that I travel through where the brain just sort of wanders off and explores weird ideas (yes, art comes from this). It’s hard to let it wander freely, though, because I have a counselor who tells me that those wanders are often what pulls me back into the serious bit of depression that I seem to be having a hard time shaking. That part of my brain tends toward the negative, the depressoid, the hopeless. Unless I’m outside hiking. Or staring at my sketchbook. Then it can still be unhappy or dissatisfied, but the clean fresh outdoor air pulls that black smoke out of my head and it disperses in the sky. I can almost watch it. If you hike with me, you’ll hear it…you’ll hear me take a few giant breaths, great big sighs, like it’s a relief to finally be in this place (because it is). I can’t explain that.

The drawing, the sketchbook…hell, I just draw the damn wobbles. I draw the negative. I draw the pain. I draw it and then it is less in my chest. It’s less in my heart (my heart, so small, so broken).

While I’m waiting in this tiny, hot, dark room, looking for vengeance? I don’t want that. I just want an explanation. I want answers. I want it all to make sense, and the fact is, it probably doesn’t make sense. It’s someone else’s messed-up brain that caused all my pain, someone else’s delusions. And you can’t do anything about what someone else’s brain is thinking if they won’t listen to you. If they aren’t paying attention. That’s their deal. These are the wobbles.

It’s been really hot here this week, up to 100 degrees. I can handle the heat, but it makes it hard to hike. We joke in my hiking group about going earlier and earlier (I think in August that means we hike at night and not during the day…I do have a headlamp!). I have a hike for tomorrow, when it’s supposed to cool down to 83 (wow)…and I’m a little concerned, but will take plenty of water. It’s a big group tomorrow, which I’m not thrilled about, but my regular group is all training for Mt. Whitney, so they’re up in Idyllwild doing San Jacinto…and I’m not. I’ll still be on the PCT tomorrow, though. And yes, I still have two hikes to report about, but this weekend really has a huge pile of to-do messing up its pretty, so who knows if I’ll get to that.

Yesterday I was tired, so I didn’t post. I survived work by being a little on the crazy side. I’m leaning more and more that way as we get to the end of the year. Keeps the kids on their toes. Keeps me from crying in class. After counseling I had told myself I had to go test drive cars. I need to make a decision, and my parents are helping because I am significantly poor (ask UC System…they said I was) and can’t afford to fix the old car, let alone buy something that won’t die tomorrow. So I drove. I, who hates dealing with salespeople, went to three different dealers and told them what I wanted to drive, and did that, and then they all tried to double-team me and force me to buy TODAY TODAY TODAY and I did the tough old lady thing and gave them all fake phone numbers (OK, I didn’t actually do that, but I thought about it) and walked away. So we have a plan and Dad is helping me because I basically said I couldn’t deal. I had too much other crap to deal with, so he’s looking and he’ll be my filter. I need that. I need someone to be my secretary, my assistant, my aid. Too bad he can only do the car stuff.

By the time I got home, it was after 6. I graded, I cooked, I exercised, and the girlchild finally came home and that was explosive. I get tired of people not listening to what I’m saying, not respecting anything I’m saying. It was too close to all the shit that’s in my head about the last year, about not being respected, not being a part of the conversation. Except she’s 16 and that’s normal for the mom/teen girl relationship. So I walked out.

And came in here and then went in the kitchen and washed all the dishes and the boychild came in and confirmed that I wasn’t crazy. Thanks kid. Who’s gonna do that when you’re gone?

So then I ironed…

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Oh wait! You know what’s funny? I didn’t iron anything. I’m still trying to find all the flesh pieces on the main figure, so I spent 48 minutes sorting and trying to place them by color value…you can see above that fabrics 1 and 2 in the flesh range are where all the big pieces are (the one on the top left is cracks…the fabric for all the cracks; flesh 1 is actually the second from the left on the top row). I have all of the body picked out and sorted…now I just need to do the face and THEN, only THEN can I start ironing. That’s my goal for tonight. And when I actually start ironing, it will probably take me two hours just to do that, so I might need to budget my time carefully. (MIGHT?)

Today is not a free day. It has things poking into it that have to be done. I can be lackadaisical about school planning because I’ve taught this stuff for 12 years now and although I tweak stuff, I’m not starting from scratch. I do still have to deal with a bunch of college and tax stuff, though, and then there’s grocery shopping and the gym.

But I will finish ironing that damn body today if it kills me (it might).

The funny thing is that I’m not done picking all the bits INSIDE the body: the lungs, heart, weird tattoos, the uterus, all the details I stuff into the body shape…

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Because they will be all different colors, so I just put them aside until the main figure is done. Because there isn’t room on the damn ironing board for all that right now anyway. All those pieces? They’re all waiting for me to finish ironing the body. The body has pieces from the 700s-1300s. I’m finally in the 1200 bin, searching for flesh pieces, but it was midnight last night and my brain was tired and I knew I would have to get up at a reasonable hour this morning and deal with piano recital. So I decided to embrace sleep for once.

But then I had to cover the ironing board so the cat couldn’t jump up on it. I’m super paranoid that she’s going to knock the whole thing down at the moment…

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This is probably the biggest reason I want to get the flesh done today.

I don’t know what occupies YOUR brain when you are trying to wake up on a Saturday morning or go to sleep on a Friday night, but this is what mine does. I know you’re jealous.

I forgot to post this picture of my daughter’s Christmas stocking that I started before she was born (yes, she is now 16), just to keep documenting the Incredibly Slow Progress I’m making at my monthly stitching meeting.

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Yup. That’s a lot of cream colored thread. I’m amazed by how slow this is. Maybe I should stitch the damn leaves first and then stitch around them with the cream? Fuck. I’ll think about it NEXT month.

More progress next post…fewer wobbles maybe. Or maybe the wobbles will be let out onto paper or into the sky. Need more of that. Certainly I will have finished the book where the once and future king with the crippled hand is in the dark hot room, waiting to kill his uncle…and then maybe I’ll know how my own story will go.

 

 

Drained

Tears, Santa Ana winds, headaches, heat, should have felt connected, weepy instead. I think that’s my Goodreads summary of the novel of Yesterday. Not in that order. It was a flummoxy day. It was a day of heat and dry and that pressure that the Santa Anas ride into my skull, whipping about and causing upset. These days, my hormones and the weather, the lack or addition of exercise, the time or not for meditation, these are the things that help me balance the teeter totter or fall to the ground, trip into a hole. I feel the wind catch and drop. The artist’s brain is fascinated, grabs the sketchbook, travels me here and there to the places on my schedule, puts me in the right places, but not the right moods. I talk, I pretend to be normal like you, try to chat and small talk.

Instead, I buy socks. I can’t listen to a talk on water filtration. I’m so far away from being able to be competent enough to hike far enough to need water filtration. What I need are socks. What I buy (with my 16% fucking discount) are socks. Socks for me. Socks for the boychild. And a doggie water bowl for Calli, so she doesn’t give me that sad-eyed look again when I try to persuade her to drink water from a plastic bag. Look, Calli…Jake does it. Jake is a desperate water slut. Yes, these are dogs of which I speak. Soon I will post the other two hikes from last Saturday. Maybe when the burying stops.

Last night was a clusterfuck. I did the normal social stuff. I did everything I was supposed to do. I am always doing the things I am supposed to do. I do them and they do no good, and I became unraveled on the way home. To be truthful, I was unraveling on the way out, and it was only the stifling presence of other people who kept all my brain parts from unwinding on the pavement in the wind. I waited until the drive home and then wept out all the pieces on Interstate 8, leaving them writhing on the asphalt between the lanes. Home was no better, and found girlchild sitting on the couch with me and the dog, trying to put me back together again.

I flailed. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t meditate. I did what any normal depressoid would do…I crawled into bed with my pain and my tears and I let them whale upon themselves while I dreamed fitfully, while the wind continued to thrash the trees above my head, to drop eucalypt leaves all over my yard, more crap for me to clear. More for my neighbors to decry. My pool guy. Hey, I pulled the damn dead baby possum out. You can’t bitch me out now.

Morning comes and it’s bright and the wind is still here and did I mention bright? Mornings are sometimes a shock to my system. I prefer to live in the dark, in the cool whisper of night.

Tonight there is another meeting, but the winds have died down. The traffic pulls at me though, as I sit in it, inching along towards friends who don’t ask too many questions. It’s better that way. Questions tend to stab at my eyeballs and I shut down or burst into tears. Wow. What a choice. I cried from Santee, no maybe La Mesa…all the way to Mira Mesa. Stopped it in the parking lot. Made it stop before I went in. Dragged my mopped-up self in and bought tea. Sat with friends and dropped it all on the table: stupid financial aid forms, goddamned State Franchise Tax Board, fucking asexual hammerhead sharks, the pile of crap that is literally wrapped around my neck right now, squeezing tight as I try to figure out how to handle each thing, one chunk at a time. Lots of chunks.

I swear. There is no peace.

There must be peace. I’ve seen it in a mountain meadow, wind rushing through and lighting the grass with dusky noise. I’ve seen it on the top of a rounded-rock peak, standing up tall and feeling the sky support me and birds swoop below my feet. I’ve seen it in my sketchbook. I’ve seen it in a pile of fabric, random prints slammed together by my brain. I’ve seen it in a good book, words reach up and wrap around like an author’s warm hug, a reminder of where my head could be.

Sigh. Some days it is So Bad. I try. I really do. I joke around, I tell stories, I goof off with my students, I interact with my kids, I make people laugh, I even make myself laugh. It is not enough. I get into the quiet space that is alone and all that protection, that distraction, it just sloughs off and I stand there, wrinkled, old, and lost…and that is what I cannot escape. That is the reality that is always underneath…and on days like yesterday and today, it weighs on you. It does not matter how smart I am, how long I ruminate on causes and hope and the past and the present and the future and the very moment that is right now. The mood right now…it is deep down low and slimy and rusty and held down by heavy rocks and choking me with that bad sulfur smell.

It is not a good mood.

Tonight I resolve to do better than last night, because it’s OK to have a bad night and realize it and try to revise it, revoke it, revolt it. I eat, I exercise, I meditate. I iron…

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I lay fabrics out for the flesh tones, as if that will save the world. As if that will save me. As if it is not like lining up the fucking chairs on a sinking Titanic deck. I iron the damn things because it is all I know how to do at the moment. It is my life vest, my survival plan, my way out…

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I’d like to say that ironing for 12 hours so far, and being up into the 900s, more than halfway through, almost to 1000…that it was enough to pull me through, and maybe it is…because I am still getting out of bed in the morning and taking showers (thank you, I know) and eating and exercising and attempting to look like a normal person. But it doesn’t feel like enough.

The frustrating part is that I don’t know how much of the moody crap is depression and how much is thyroid or iron levels or goddamned fucking blood sugar. It feels like I am a puppet being controlled by someone else…I can’t exert enough control on my self to feel like I can hold on to some level of content or even sanity. Some days it is like my brain is floating in space like a balloon and I keep trying to grab onto that fucking string, to pull it down, to fasten it to my head so it can’t escape, can’t wander off.

Useless. Tilting at windmills.

Which brings me to the music video featured on today’s post (making it sound like I am always featuring music videos, which is absolute bullshit). If you have made it this far through my crazyass poetic turbulence, then you have to watch this video, Dangerous by Big Data…

Because it made me laugh. Now that might make you worry even more, but this thing is so out there, it reminds me of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill and the like. Yes, it’s an acquired taste, but sweetheart, I am a fucking acquired taste, so you should be able to deal. Plus you don’t have to like it.