Interweaving

what will it be like when N. is off to school? As someone who works from home and schedules meals and does so many things in relation to other people's schedules, I wonder if things will be very different or simply a little different when he takes off.

Summer

Noodle collapsed with heat on the floor beside me, cooling her belly on the wooden floor while air conditioning pumps through the room. Thinking about work and relationships, and how important it is to divide the personal from the professional in my job, and how it's not easy sometimes to find that balance. Part of it is not being in the office and dealing with people on the phone and feeling rushed by events that I'm not actually taking part in but hearing about via e-mail; part of it is my natural impatience to get things done the right way and not take others advice. Both are alienating to coworkers, and both need to be worked on so that I can become more tolerant and less demanding.

Also thinking about the next project that I'd like to work on. I actually like the idea of a woman who forgets things, but would like to link that to something larger, the death or cheating or something in a marriage. Perhaps a son who becomes unhinged by his fathers' death in some way, although they have never been close. And how that might impact his marriage. Need to freethink more about it...

Closer to Real

By the time the rain stopped, deer, groundhogs, rabbits and other four legged creatures (gazelles? Antelopes? tigers?) had ground up most of the vegetable garden, although I'm still foraging cucumbers and basil and have faith that the other vine species (cantalopes and zuchinnis) have some hope of producing fruit. However, this year's garden has taught me valuable lessons about hubris -- all those summers of life without invaders made me overconfident about fence free zones. When others talked of invasions, I yawned. Now I pay attention. Close attention. They're eating MY babies....

Rain and Wet Dogs

Every time I drag our dog Noodle out in the rain, I think about how many things probably confuse her. Noah, my almost 17 year old, mentioned how difficult it must be to have all these legs around you, expecting you to understand commands, and ever since, I've been thinking about the inexplicable from a dog's point of view. Thunder, rain, the random car ride: all without explanation. I'm not so focused on how all of this forces you (or the dog) to live in the moment, but the fear and unexpectedness factor. This is because we have a very, very shy dog and being fairly shy myself -- and having learned to cover it up with years and years of practice -- I guess I relate. Or, as my cousin Jan said early in her own dog ownership -- When do they stop being little human beings in hair suits?

On the plus side of course, with all this rain comes an unlimited supply of delicious grubs which the dog paws out and snorts up. A schnauzer thing, I believe.

Updike

Back Again

Writing about work and money: having it, not having it, what it means in both senses, woman who buys to fill space but finds things still empty. What is the third act? If it isn't love, then it has to be some other sort of fulfillment. Find the third act and work backwards...

Grey day.