Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I'm sitting sewing and watching the second season of Dexter. The rain is pelting down hard and the dogs are laid out sleeping in that way they do in the summer--you can see them soaking up the air conditioning through their skins, spread out as though they could unzip their fur and lay it on top of the vents. Wave it around to catch the breeze. There is a calamitous knocking coming from the laundry room like someone is hammering. Jesus Marimba, I think, what fresh hell might this be?

I go into the laundry room and the racket continues. I see nothing out the window--my first thought being the electric company geniuses have arrived with some insult. I walk outside and there is a great fucking woodpecker dismantling the house near the utilities connections. In that short amount of time, he's done an impressive amount of damage and revealed a carpenter bee nest.

So, I guess this means I need to put "paint the house" on the long list of crap I can't afford to do. Ack! Splpppt. Now I'm wondering if this is retribution for the yellow jacket holocaust I brought about recently.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009


June has sort of snuck up on me. The rabbits are everywhere and bold as Jehovah's Witnesses coming into the yard to bring me their good rabbit news. My poppies and hollyhocks are blooming. There's a slider turtle big as a turkey platter down in the frog pond--it's been wet enough to keep water in the pond for the first time in two years. Still needs dredging but there are tadpoles jetting around the willows that sprung up during the drought. Willows love wet feet.

An unfortunate casualty of the rains has been my ancient walnut down in the glade where the sentinel chimney stands. I need to see if it took out the chimney. It most likely did. Looks like the ground got so wet that it couldn't support the tree. I asked around and there evidently isn't much call for walnut wood anymore. They used to make gunstocks from it--it's a beautiful wood--but now they use maple. Still, I'd like to find a way to get the massive tree lifted out of the little holler so I could at least cut it up for firewood. Wouldn't mind having something carved out of it. It was my favorite tree on the property.

I've been sewing, making nightgowns. I like to sleep in Victorian chemises. I'm about to cut up an old favorite to pattern it. Or maybe I'll try to pattern it without cutting it up--takes a while for cotton to reach that tissue thin, soft as puppies state. It's right before it shreds into nothingness leaving us naked and exposed to the rough muslin of life.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

about Tennessee doctors.

The most ironically named healthcare organization in the world, Mercy Health Partners, has granted me an audience after a year of them refusing to return my phone calls and, notably, of them leaving me to writhe in agony in a pool of my own feces for five days. That, you may remember was back in September (my birthday week) and I've been in therapy for PTSD ever since. I had begun to find a sense of peace with that when they called asking me to come kiss their ring or something. But of course, it all came roaring back and now I'm back to not sleeping and major crazy time burning in effigy and calling down curses upon the Assholes and the Assholes they rode in on (aka Rural Medical Services).

It's not good for me feeling rage like this. So, I deflect with humor as much as possible. But with all things truly hilariously funny--there's an edge to it. After all, it's only funny if the baby carriage actually does fall down the stairs or if the pain patient actually gets poo on themselves in my case. Anyway. I agreed to go to the appointment and now I find myself wondering if I'll be able to get through it without erupting into a Medea-esque crazy bitch rage. Or making unending references to their soullessness, lack of medical ethics or insatiable desire to kill kittens.

Do you remember the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers? If you are too young to remember this, go find it on YouTube. In it, Germans are staying at the hotel so no one is supposed to mention The War. So Basil (John Cleese) spends the entire episode making Hitler references.

How am I supposed to get through this appointment without mentioning The War, for God's sake?