bella luna

"Old man, if you give one more bite of my food to those dogs, I'll kick you till you're dead."

(Yes, I've been watching "Moonstruck". In installments. For the last week. Yes, it stars Cher. Yes, I believe it won Academy Awards. Yes, it's horrible. Horribly good.)


a. No dog for Katie (sad face). I'm trying not to be too disappointed or too mad at the Church War Council... and I'm trying not to tie my thwarted dog love into frustration at how the day care wakes me up every morning at 6:45. I don't know what those ladies are doing down there before the kids start arriving but it sounds like the end of the world.

b. I ordered a shirt from a store yesterday. A man's shirt. It felt like the 1940s (thankfully I was wearing my fancy tweed coat and it was blustery outside and I'm a working waitress girl now and ... you get the idea). I went down into the bowels of the store, to the mens department where a clerk met me, hands folded in front of him, head inclined slightly to indicate attention. We looked in vain for a black button up shirt (size very small). We hit upon a shirt that would become me well and he placed an order, took down my phone number and said the store would inform me when the shirt arrived. I don't know why this was all so exciting, but it was.

c. Sat with N. at the restaurant bar after my double shift yesterday and found out I get one free shift drink. W. rolled his eyes at my excitement. There's a white wine there that I love and it might be the best way to end a shift ever. We also get a free meal when we work a double.... anything on the menu. La-ti-da.

d. A little girl (maybe 2 years old) lost a shoe on her way to the coffee shop counter. "Uh-oh!" she said and I looked down and she's also wearing glasses. Knock me over with a feather. Teensy kids with glasses kill me.

e. After two hours of bear/cougar encounter horror stories, I've decided to celebrate 24 years of not being eaten by a cougar. Cake for everyone.

jerbs

So apparently it's Monday. The phone, calendar and M. all tell me this. I have no idea. My schedule (or lack of scheds) means I just don't know. Time has also ceased to have meaning. Sometimes I'm hungry and I eat food, but at no set hour. I've never had a job that began at 11 a.m. It's shattering (in a good way). It's so decadent. I have whole mornings to myself. I've been eating breakfast, stretching, walking, reading, playing guitar, writing, going out to breakfast -- a whole bunch of untold of, unheard of.

My first day at the restaurant was a blur. I trained in a whirlwind with three different people and confused all the table numbers. However, I can fold napkins -- small victories. Then a friend met me as I got off shift and we ate dinner together then took a dog with us to the beach and played in the fog, hunting for treasures in the driftwood. She found two bird skulls and a collection of warped plastic. I found a stick and a one-legged plastic horse. Both of us found multiple toothbrushes and slippers. A great disturbance in the Force. It was like a world made entirely of bathrooms had exploded and washed up on the beach. (as if a million voices crowd out in pain and then... silence -- reference anyone?)

Anyway. The point is, I was tired (brain-tired from newness) but I had so much energy otherwise and I felt fresh and bright and ready to give. Yayayayayayay. Each day I'm kind of amazed that I don't have to go back to the paper. It's... odd. This work is so easy even though I'm still incompetent and new to it all.

So, for the people out there who still read this (MRS. PAYNE), I'm doing quite well and catching up on sleep.

Goals for today:

1) Get through my double shift without pouring water onto a customer when I'm refilling glasses (very deep-seated fear)

2) Learn how to play and sing "The Devil's Right Hand" by Johnny Cash, which shouldn't be too hard since I think the man could only sing five different notes and usually stuck with two. Simple melodies resulting.

3) CASH CHECKS and so have the monies for to pay rents (I'm really really really bad about cashing checks. A mental block perhaps)

4) Find another black shirt for work since the uniform shirt is making me crazy (and, more importantly, sweaty. Bleh)

jail bird (dog)

I've made a mistake and fallen in love with a dog ("dig" as a friend calls them). She's smart and kind of looks like a rabbit and today when I had her out in the sad gravel backyard behind the pound, she jumped straight up in the air like a helicopter ("how-popper" as my brothers used to say) and landed on top of the picnic table. Be still my heart.

She's been at the pound since February so she wasn't very interested in me the first time I saw her. But I stopped in again today and she was a lot more fun.

By the end of a half hour, I had her coming to me and sitting and patiently playing a game with me that involved her jumping up onto the picnic table, dropping the ball onto the ground then leaping down to the table's seat, then to the gravel where she'd come up to me, sit and I'd throw her the ball. She'd catch it and jump back up on the table.

She looks kind of like this except a little taller and a little bigger because she's got something else mixed in with the French Bull Dog:

Basically, she's a bearish, bowlegged darlin' and I want her, to have and to hold, in the good times and the bad. So I've handed the decision over the Church War Council that manages my apartment. If they say "yes, pets allowed", then chances are I'll seriously consider adopting Baby (as she's currently called... that name won't last long if I get a hold of her). It's a weird decision and not one I was really expecting to make until I was 50, but dog ownernship has become increasingly attractive over the last year and I think Baby would be a good fit.

She's smart, trainable, healthy and four years old, young enough to be worthwhile for hikes and walks but old enough that I won't be owning her forever. I'm not interested in puppies and 20 years of dogdom, thanks. I'm also not interested in problem dogs. I don't need to prove that I can love things. Nor do I really feel like saving anything. You will not see me buying the one-eyed, deaf dog with stomach cancer, abandonment issues, scabbies and chronic intestinal disorders who's next on the docket for the bone machine unless some one adopts it. Nope. Sorry. Go ahead and turn it into glue.

Except for you, Baby. Nobody better turn you into glue.

ch-ch-ch-changes

"Did you hear that? That's the story I just wrote. Yes, yes, I know we had a bargain. I just said I'd write it, I didn't say I wouldn't tear it up! It's all in little pieces now, Walter, and I hope to do the same for you some day!

...[to the other reporters] And that, my friends, is my farewell to the newspaper game."

- Hildy Johsnon, His Girl Friday


Some responses to my impending departure from the newspaper:

1. "Gotta do what you gotta do" (always accompanied by a shrug and eyes swinging to the right... usually said to me by older men looking at a lean retirement in a poor economy)

2. "Short timer!" - county official

3. "Yeah, well that's good. You should probably live like a normal person for a while." - female friend

4. "Well. Good luck. If I see you around town, I'll throw something at you." - drug cop

I put in my notice two weeks ago for many reasons and then (of course) all those reasons seemed silly at different times and then very important and now (looking back) it's a strange roller coaster heart break mess. I came out belly up in the best way, though, floating on my back. I (thanks, God) quit without a job to turn my hand to and within a couple days had two new jobs. Probably the most painless job search I've ever experienced. The second job jumped me, in fact.

Me: [stumbling in with my sad "did I make the right decision?" face and in need of morning coffee]
Coffee Shop: "So were you serious when you said you might be looking for other work?"
Me: "Yep."
Coffee Shop: "Wannaworkhere?"

And in the midst of career upheaval, I...

a. moved to a new apartment ("You could do cartwheels in here!" said Marta when she helped me move furniture. And then she proceeded to do two, from the dining area to the living room. I've tried a couple down the hallway, but the close walls scare me and I over think what I'm trying to do, as my bruised elbows and knees prove.

Yes, the apartment is huge and I've been wanting to buy a dog just so I can call to something and hear it scamper through rooms for at least five minutes before I actually see it.

I finally have room for all my books and the instruments are airing out and getting played. I've fallen asleep on my couch a couple times -- I have a couch! I can have people over for dinners and tea. Yay yay.)

b. cried for two weeks straight (I document it because the body is a fascinating thing and why we cry is really weird to me especially since crying shows very clearly that you are hurting or confused... basically, you're in need, yet, few people want to be seen crying. I know I don't. So why do it? Because we can be as stoic and snobby as we want but the body will not be denied its expression of pain! Take that, mind. You can't win)

c. saw the end of the Fitzhugh case only to have Them slap an incorrect headline on top of it. Oh well. This is how Katie learns to let go and be less prideful. This is also how Katie learns about rage and not expressing it. Here's the story.

Background: this case first began last August, about the same time I took over the cops beat. It was my introduction to a lot of things and a lot of people: domestic violence, detectives, the Women's Resource Center, murder trials, etc. I didn't expect it to end until February 2012 and I was going to stay at the paper at least till then. But (suddenly) there was a settlement conference and (suddenly) the whole case was wrapping up. I didn't plan to quit the paper at the same time, but so it turned out.

A detective who I'd pestered constantly about this case came up to me after the sentencing, shook my hand and said, "Well. Full-circle. Good luck out there."

---

I'll miss the job but I'm excited about what comes next mostly because I have no idea. I have work lined up that will keep me in food and shelter. Beyond that, got some plans, but nothing too dramatic. I will play a lot of music (sitar, your time has finally come), write stories (possibly books? the mind reels), make food, and calm the h down. Perhaps I will work on being a more useful friend... less frantically busy and stressed-out and forgetful. One of the churches in town asked me to be more involved with developing music during worship -- I'll try anything once (except for heroin... I do have some principles).

Now that I'm seeing the end of the newspaper job and have more or less accepted it, I'm excited about what I can do. Alternative small town online news website, anyone? I'm not out of this game by a long shot. It's too addicting and (besides) too many sources still like me and will tell me things. There's also going to be some traveling in the future. I want to see the United States. I also really want to go to Montana. Marta said she'll teach me how to snowboard. I told her death comes to us all anyway so why not?

“We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”

- W.H. Auden

babies, the definitive edition

This is a post about children, but first it is a post about a book because (clearly) children and paper products are synonymous.

I am reading (or rather, read) "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year" by Anne Lamott. I feel like she's a roommate that you love and think is wonderful, but she has these tics that make you want to hit her half the time or go into your room and shut the door (all the while insisting that nothing's wrong between you, you're just really busy and you really need to get some project done and really [really] everything's ok. But [really] you just needed to scream into your pillow for a couple minutes because your roommate is driving you crazy). Anyway. This book makes me believe I can have children... not that this was every a particular concern, physically at least. I'm the oldest of 6 children all of whom more or less popped on out without any sort of angst. I have, as it were, the child-bearing hips of my clan.

What I mean is, I think I might be able to raise children (it helps that Lamott is very funny and swears a lot and admits to evil thoughts. Such things make me feel safe, in good company, not the only utterly lost and crazy person out there).

But I have complicated emotions about children. I love this one family of kids utterly, but I babysat most of them from when they were toddlers and infants. There's a connection there and they are (in my book) the raddest group of kiddos ever. Most other children I tolerate. I don't enjoy feeling forced into liking or approving of anything simply because it's young and helpless and wouldn't survive under a city bridge for a day. If I like the parents, probably I'll approve of the offspring, but I probably won't beg to hold it and play with it and take it off their hands for hours at a time. Unless I am paid. (There are some exceptions. You know who you are.)

I can already hear your judging thoughts, don't worry. I'm okay with kids, but it's like people. I don't like ALL people indiscriminately. I like individuals. Thus, I refuse to like all children. Sorry, it's not going to happen. Children can be ugly little tyrants and I'll give them some grace, but I'm not going to give them total abject worship.

This used to worry me. How can I be the oldest of several kids, raised in a community of large families, and not be a baby person? Am I some sort of sociopath who hates life (and America)? I can't guarantee that I'd like my own children, but I think there's a good chance I would.

But enough of this... before I turn everyone against me and get labeled a baby hater. Let's be clear: I will not dangle your child out of an upper window, nor will I say cruel things to your impressionable child like, "Life is short and hard and then you die." They'll figure it out soon enough. Nor will I condemn them because they can't do anything useful except look cute and make me feel (on occasion) maternal -- but let's remember, many things make me feel maternal: loggers, my brothers, "Godzilla," dead moths in the hallway, awkward girls, people who work ridiculously long hours, and the old Honda Accord no longer in my possession.

Here's a positive: despite all my indifference to children, I am a baby-whisperer. It's like how people who hate cats are always the ones to have cats come fawning all over them. So am I able to get cranky babies to fall asleep. It's like magic and I can't take any credit for it yet it has happened on multiple occasions. Just so you know.

I get my advice from the advertising world

At what point do you throw the whiskey out the window and bellow (to no one in particular), "I'll abide no more of this tomfoolery. I'm moving to Montana!" Question mark.

Just do it. Just saying?

How do you come to that decision? What pinnacle of despair must one reach? Hypothetically, of course. Pinnacles being scarce among the sandstone and basaltic cliffs of this coast.

If I were to chart it out... but F. is opposed to time lines and plans. I could learn from this. He knows how plans make God's trigger finger jumpy.

I, however, like to lay out plans and can get easily carried away on a daydream, a detailed unraveling into the next 20 years where (on this very day, decades hence) I am scheduled to be sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch that simultaneously overlooks mountains and oceans while also being located in the remote middle of the United States. If all goes according to plan. I believe I also will be wearing burlap sacks and carrying a crossbow. Again, if all goes according to plan.

I'm baffled by the steps that lead up to a decision. I feel like I've stumbled into most things I've done and realized only later a decision was made. Most plans fall apart (God's got his revolver in the "at ready" position that scares police officers). Or they change direction in a way fit to give you whiplash. The plans I make are actually terrible, but they stack up nice (confession: I was once addicted to playing Tetris) and they do make sense. Truly.

I hate making decisions because I always choose the wrong line at a grocery store: behind the crazy coupon lady, next to the man in the kimono who pays for everything with pennies and rusted nails, in front of the meth addict on a bad day, with the only cash register operated by a foot pedal and a monkey. Clearly, I should not be entrusted with making decisions. I will step into a mess. But it's this sort of attitude, this fear of risk and change, that makes it possible to turn gray with age before you're thirty-five. I'm sure it also leads to kleptomania, hygiene issues and the inability to remember how to spell hygiene without computer spell check tools.

Stuff happens. Or, to be even more passive, incidents have been said to occur in altered ways.

---

Can I get more vague? Ironic since only this morning I called out a police person for uttering something along the lines of, "We are working to establish a format in such a way that, down the road, we can better understand how to approach the situation and further our investigation." I started cackling once he said the word "format."

I'm trying to figure out how to lead an interesting life, having recently realized I will die (while I realize it, I still don't believe it). My mortality is like math: something I acknowledge must exist, but also something I can't ever really comprehend. There's so much out there I could do. I'm tired of doing things and staying places because it's comfortable (and therefore easy). Complacency will not be tolerated. Beatings will continue until morale improves. Etc.

Just a thought.

all my friends are talking about leaving, about leaving

To Mrs. P

My sister is moving to a tropical island paradise where she will languish in a life of untold drudgery and tears until she returns home years later, a warped and twisted ghost of the lovely woman she used to be. Or that's one version.

Also, my sister is moving. She is packing right now. I am not helping, but sometimes I say things like, "You don't need a pillow, just roll up a sweatshirt." And I'm reminded again how we're different people. I, in my mind (repeat: in my mind), aspire to a monk-like simplicity full of physical discomfort, one pair of dirty jeans and "putting up with stuff." L. is not the opposite of this. I.e. unbridled consumerism tempered by nothing but the availability of money -- she's not like that at all. But she does give me that Look (kind of like the Tone we're always complaining my dad takes with us during serious discussions. He denies this. Likely, L. denies the Look). That Look says to me that I'm trying to get attention by being Noble and I should stop because it's Annoying. Probably she's right.

Now we're eating PEZ candies from a Thor PEZ dispenser. I have caught one flung at my head. Now Sara has arrived in her (I will call it) sexy sexy blue dress. She has allowed me to call it this.

I'm on vacation this week, which means I squashed two week's worth of work into last week to justify not working today through Friday. Except that's a lie, because I worked today. So far though it's the best Monday I can remember. I'm trying to plan a wilderness camping trip and (in my mind, again) I plan to leave for it tomorrow. I also plan to drag at least one brother kicking and screaming along with me... mostly for protection against wildlife that might otherwise be tempted to chomp on my soft neck and flay the flesh from my bones. I need to present a more threatening front.

Here's how I figure it. Two grown people: threat level is a screaming red with a hint of orange. Safety level: pristine. One grown woman alone: dull gray, like the color of my pickled intestines on a bear's mantelpiece next his other kill trophies. Safety level: shot to hell. Or, if you prefer, heck.