I'm just ridiculously bad at this now.

Sigh.

I had an idea to make this be my main blog and redirect things here and I was all wound up about it but ... really ... the reasons I haven't done it yet are boring and long winded.

And not being able to do it frustrated me.

And that combined with a short but nasty illness and a manic bout of reorganizing and cleaning.

And I just shut down.

Sigh. Again.

So.

I have been doing massive purging in my apartment. I think they're opening a new branch of the Goodwill with all the stuff I've dumped. I rearranged the furniture in the living room, which involved much stacking of books. The new arrangement doesn't totally work but I kind of like it. The next big push will be the kitchen. I'll need to move the butcher block and shelf to clean the floor. Lots of washing and dusting and tossing out of food stuff that may not need to be tossed but has been around too long to want to use. Like year old olive oil. Yech.

I'm saying that this is all in preparation for Mom's two month visit but I want to do it.

And the weeks just go by.

I'm feeling so many emotions right now. I can't quite parse them. Or articulate them
My little open secret writing project has been discovered. Which is quite all right with me. And Jackie left a very nice comment on the old blog. (If you're reading Jackie, thank you! And. Excellent timing!) A nice antidote to the snarky comment I mentioned the other day.
Really wonderful people have been leaving me encouraging comments all along but I couldn't take them in. I don't even know why.
I'm not impressed with how much I've been able to write here the last two months but it's more writing than I've done in the last two years.
I am not at all surprised to discover how much of my blogging was tied to relationships. I am moved in some deep and overwhelming way when I read the words: I miss your writing.
I'm just feeling ...
I'm just feeling.

There was a cartoon in a New Yorker in which a beatnik looking dude is telling someone that all you need to do to be a writer is gather your internal angst and write a diet cookbook. I'm paraphrasing but that was the drift.

I carry breakfast and lunch to work. I get home too late for dinner. Sometimes I eat toast. Breakfast is some kind of fruit and some muffin, bagel, scone type thing. Summer fruit is still around (praise the lord) and I am in peach, nectarine, plum, cherry, berry heaven. Can NOT get enough. Debbie's been bringing me crazy amounts of stuff from the farmers market. She seems to have a crush on the tomato vendor because they keep piling up in my refrigerator. So this week I made concasse out of them and mixed it up with penne and parm.

Well. It wasn't really concasse. Really concasse is peeled and seeded. I didn't peel and seed for two reasons.

1. It's a pain in the butt.

2. I don't mind peels and seeds.

It is true that peeling and seeding makes things smoother in both texture and flavor. Peels and seeds have an acidic quality. But, again, I'm OK with that. I wouldn't be if I were going to serve someone else. If I'd been making lunch for anyone else I would have roasted the tomatoes, peeled and seeded and chopped. I'd have used olive oil and garlic and fresh basil instead of just piling them in a pan and cooking them down. I've been eating them all week and I am OVER THEM.

This is not to say that I'm not careful when I cook for myself. I am. But these days it's all I can do to assemble precooked things. Last week I ate sausage sandwiches because I defrosted the refrigerator and didn't want to refreeze them. I get so bored when I eat the same thing everyday.

Debbie also brings me piles of lemon cucumbers, which I've been eating in salads with red bell peepers, or beets.

And I'm on a tapioca kick.

And almonds. I eat almonds every day.

I guess I could write a non diet non cook book.

I'm just so Po Mo.

When A and I were having dinner she ran into a friend. When she introduced me she said I was a writer. It's dopey to argue about stuff like that but I blanched internally. I don't think you're a writer unless you write. And I'm having trouble writing email.
Shortly after that I was talking to K about some ideas for moving the site and he mentioned blogger. And. So. Then. I decided to write here on the blog no one reads to see if I could build up some writing muscle. I'm not impressed with how I'm doing.
And. Then. I got an email notification from YACCS. Someone had left a comment on an old post. They were letting me know that I had used every day when I meant everyday. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Ah yes. I remember this about blogging. Random person stops by and feels the need to take a jab. I'm very glad to know when to use every day and when to use everyday. It has confused me. It's the flat tone in the comment that makes it feel like a jab. Comments like that rarely come from another blogger. Sometimes they do. I remember a fellow blogger commenting on my miss use of it's. I do know when to use it's and its but I space out. I am flawed. Deeply flawed. The tone was different. Just a friendly reminder. Not a jab.
Most of my experience with blogging has been good. The part that's bad right now is ... that I don't seem to have something essential. Inspiration? Stamina? Time?
And. Yet. I want to keep trying.
I keep editing this .
I keep finding small mistakes.
Sigh.

I had a very pomo moment yesterday. I was playing a game at work.
Well.
That is my job.
The thing is I wasn't playing the game I'm supposed to be playing. We're a little slow right now and I was bored. I had an hour left in the day and I knew the time would sail by if I could play a game. But I was worried that someone would see. In truth, I don't think any one would care. We're all about games here. But I felt funny and if I heard someone coming I'd bury one game under the other. Which was really just silly.
Such a very odd job.

On Friday when I got off the train there were no buses or cabs. That happens on Fridays. There are too many people in the city and things get messed up. I stood on a corner that allows me to see two different bus stops and watched for who would come first. A bus that doesn't usually stop at one of those stops was letting people off. I didn't think he'd let anyone on but he did. As we rode up Third I saw my second bus ahead of us. He was at a stop and had a red light so I took the chance, jumped off my bus and ran toward him waving my pass. I thought he was about leave but he opened the door. Catching these two buses got me home fifteen minutes earlier than I usually get home.

Last night a similar scenario occurred. This time there were no buses because a baseball game was messing with traffic. One came and again my second bus was in front of us. We got to the same place where the red light had stopped the bus on Friday but the light changed and he sped off.

It's hard not to think that I did something right on Friday and something wrong yesterday. Part of me knows better. We make a zillion little choices every day most of which we make without much deliberation. All of which move us in one direction and not another. And all of the people around us are making choices too.

Lately I feel like I'm tossed through a tumble. No sense of agency. Too much frustration with everyone else. And bad meaning making.

I sat near the couple with the matching barrettes the other day. The fact that I had written something about them made me nervous.

Of what?

Can't say.

There are people I see every day. We travel in parallel tracts and don't acknowledge one another. Recording an observation made me feel more intimate with them somehow. Silly, because it's all happening in me. The observation. Even the recording. It is out of me since it is written but it hasn't changed the relationship. And yet it feels like it has. Something feels different. It's like when I made a public acknowledgement that I was aware of them I took on a responsibility. I'm not sure what I mean.

There are moments when the ignoring is breached. One morning it was raining and a man said, "Oh! You're getting all wet." He moved to my side and covered me with his umbrella. It was an act of kindness that cheered everyone who heard the story. He and I have chatted since then. He takes an earlier train to the same shuttle I take. He works at a building next to mine. We take the same bus, a different train, the same shuttle. That kind of thing always makes me wonder. It just seems like something to notice. There isn't really anything to make of it all. But noticing matters.

And again.

I'm not sure what I mean.