Once and future

November.  November?!?!

OK, I see I actually did already do a blog post in November (I'm more surprised than anyone else might be at that) - but still, how is it November?  How has this year flown by even though I spent most of it floundering around in a state of indecision and unemployment?  By now I feel like I should never (ever, ever) announce an intention to do anything, because the way things have been going since Jerry died, I'm bound to change my mind entirely after making such a declarative statement and announce the polar opposite of whatever it was I just said I was going to do.  As this year has demonstrated, over and over again.

Soooo... yes.  News.  As of December 12th, I will be employed.  At the same place I worked last year. Yes, it's true.  See my previous post, as I just did (I was about to rehash the entire story).  I have no idea how the interview at the other place went from their point of view, but my gut told me it was just not a good fit for me (so did my mind, which wandered all over the place while the woman there was telling me about the job, the kind of thing where you realize a minute or two later that she's been talking the entire time you've been wondering about how you'd get from the interview site to the nearby shopping mall and she's still talking and you have no clue what she's talking about) (then you remember you're not employed yet, so you actually make the more sane choice and do not go to the mall).  I emailed them after accepting the job at the once and future employer and told them I had taken a job and was no longer available, thereby avoiding the knowledge of whether or not they were going to say yes or no or even get back to me at all.  I suspect they wouldn't have gotten back to me.

So now I have a month of what a friend called "funemployment," which is a great term and very apt, and will include a trip to NYC.  That trip is scaring me a bit, because, hey, I have to worry about something, and I'm worried that I'll get to New York and feel desperately that I don't want to leave it, which is pretty much what I always feel in New York.  And I probably will feel that, but I still also feel that what I'm doing - staying put, focusing on getting a job, focusing on what makes me feel less stressed in the moment, is the right way to go.  If someone could teleport me into a place to live and a place to work in a city somewhere and take care of all the logistics involved in that, I wouldn't object.  But for now... this is what is working for me.

ETA:

P.S. I finished the copy editing certificate program.  I'm certified (certifiable, anyway).

Turmeric milk

I've found myself thinking, lately, that the "optimistic" prognosis Jerry was given when he was diagnosed with cancer was two to three years... and that chances are, if he hadn't died so soon after the diagnosis, he would probably be dead now.  It doesn't mean anything in particular, obviously, since he did die when he did - but it feels somehow more final, if that's even possible, to realize that.  And I find myself thinking, Well, at least I'm not having to begin this hideous process now - and then feeling absolutely riven by guilt and pain at the slightest scintilla of a suggestion that I'm glad Jerry died when he did and didn't have more time because then I'd be dealing with that first stage of grief and mourning now, and not be 29 months "out," at a more endurable stage of it all, at a stage where happiness can actually happen, where enjoyment can be had, and where I'm a more functioning human being.  And continuing to wonder what these past two years would have been like if he'd been alive, if he'd have spent all this time suffering through cancer treatments and hospitalizations and all that torture - or perhaps somehow the cancer could have been beaten back, and he would have had a good few years?  That does me no good at all.  Mostly I don't go around thinking about it.  Occasionally I do.

I'm a slightly less functioning human being at the moment, though, due to a cold that I've been fighting off for a couple of weeks now.  It's not as bad as it might be, but it's got me tired out and phlegmy - and please pronounce that word "fleg-mee," as Jerry would have.  I'm consuming a lot of turmeric milk, an Ayurvedic remedy my endocrinologist recommended when I saw her for my regular checkup this week: my version uses almond milk, and I'm also adding in ginger, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla syrup and sometimes other things along with the turmeric (a bit of unsweetened cocoa powder just now). I have no idea if it's doing anything specific to help, but it does make my throat feel better while I'm drinking it.

So, buried the lede a bit: to my utter surprise, there is a very good possibility I might go back to working at the place I worked last year.  There's been a change of management since I fled, and things have changed a great deal there, and for the better.  And they asked me to come in and talk about the possibility of coming back (can't help but be flattered by that), and I did that this past week.  I was very impressed by the new boss, the new offices they've moved into, the new attitudes (and the new ideas for employee compensation).  I have an interview somewhere else Wednesday morning, and we'll have to see how that turns out, but right now I'm feeling very optimistic about my employment prospects.  The only drawback is that commute that would have me back to getting up at 5:30 every morning and driving 70 miles a day, but in this economy, with so many people struggling to get by and dealing with unemployment, I can't complain (I can, and will, but I have no real grounds for serious complaining).

The other job I'd mentioned before, they never got back to me about the copy editing test, so I have no idea if it was my copy editing they didn't like, something else about me, or nothing to do with me.  But it's for the best, I'm thinking. This will all work out.  Eventually.

My parents survived Hurricane Sandy unscathed: they only lost Internet, TV and landline phone service, but not power or water - they're among the luckier ones.  I'm entirely leery about the Red Cross ever since I donated a fairly large amount to them after some disaster - 9/11? The tsunami?  Katrina?  Haiti?  All of the above? - and then read about corruption and embezzlement and misuse of funds.  But they're the ones supposedly doing the heavy lifting now, and they've supposedly improved, so I did donate this time.  Hoping for the best.  Go here to donate.

Feeling sheepish

I know I know I know I know I know!!!!!

I'm a terrible fibber!  I keep saying I'm going to post, and then I don't.  Do good intentions count for anything?

So, as I sit here with the latest Bulls pre-season game on the TV, I'll make my latest effort to do a blog post.  I'm in a holding pattern at the moment: I still haven't heard back about the copy editing test, and I have no idea if they just hated my work or if they've been too busy to deal with it.  Meanwhile, there's the possibility I'll get sucked back in to the place I worked last year: this is something that just came up this afternoon, so I don't know if it's really something that will work out, for them or for me, but there's been a change of management since I fled, and it might be doable.  Or not.  Lots of variables and questions, but I'm going to go talk to them a week from Thursday, and we'll see what's what.

Yeah, vague.  I know.  At any rate, it's ego-boosting and flattering to be asked.

Early voting started in Illinois yesterday, and I went over to vote - it's not as if I ever had any doubt how I was going to vote, so I might as well get 'er done.  The election judges, bless their hearts, they try: but, for instance, when you are assigning numbers to people waiting to vote, so you can call them in numerical order, it really works better if you assign each number to only one person, so that when you call each number, only one person comes forward... not, oh, say, two.  They went with the less good option.  They also had nowhere near enough pens for people to use to fill out the application cards they needed to fill out to vote early.

But it's done, and it felt good to get it done.

The house continues to be a slight money pit: latest outlay was $1,400 to have the furnace fixed, since the onset of cooler weather made it clear it had stopped working.  It's a high-efficiency furnace we bought some time in the early years of living here, in the early 2000s, so it was definitely worth repairing instead of replacing - but ouch.

My moving-related anxiety dreams have mostly stopped.  I do keep having dreams about Jerry in which something is wrong: in the latest iteration, he was leaving me for some reason - he didn't want to be with me anymore.  (He also had some large tattoos in Tibetan script in bands across his abdomen.) I'm not sure I understand what's going on with those, unless it's a subconscious feeling that he abandoned me by dying. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me as a possibility, but things that don't make sense are a hallmark of this whole widowhood thing, aren't they?

Sorry - I'm running out of steam here.  Three-point Bulls game, 44 seconds to go. Let's go, Bulls.

"Shortly"

Yowza!  I said I was going to do another blog post "shortly" - well, clearly that didn't work, and it's way too late at night to start a real entry now, so I'll just say that a) me removing the photo from the front of the blog has no significance other than I decided it was taking up too much room and I need to find something else for the top of the blog that still lets the newest post show up when the blog itself is opened; b) I'm waiting to hear back on a copy editing test for a possible job... with a medical non-profit 2 miles from the last job location.  It would mean that hideous commute again, but I think, if everything were to align correctly, it could be a good thing; c) just finished a Russian-to-English translation.  So I'm still here and still plugging away.

More to come... at some time in the not too distant future.  I hope.

Word Cloud

I was reading Alicia's latest post just now and saw that she'd made mention of a "word cloud" - of course, I'd seen those things before on people's blogs, but Alicia's mention made me curious what would come up if I created one from this blog.  And I guess the result I got is no surprise at all, but it's certainly interesting to see my thoughts, feelings, concerns and (one might say) obsessions of the past 2+ years in graphic form:

-->

ago behind blog comments copy course dreams editing fact garage going guy home house interview jerry job karen knew life list loved market months moving oh people person point posted ready realize really reason someone something staying sure things think thought took totally translation week widow work y'all yard year

created at TagCrowd.com

Another blog post coming shortly.

Onwards and upwards

Didn't get the job.  Their loss.  Onwards...

Not 100% sure, but when in doubt...

Hej hej, y'all.  (Sorry... watched the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night.  Thought it was not fabulous, thought the accent variety was bizarre, but thought Rooney Mara was amazing.  I'd watched the Swedish version, so I knew what horrors were coming and didn't find them as shocking as I might have.  I tried to read the book a year or two ago and gave up after a very short time, bored and really, really annoyed by the writing: perhaps it was the translation?  Anyway, so much for my history with Stieg Larsson.  End of distracted aside.)

So, as I said in my last short post, I've faced reality: I'm not ready to move.  Of course, I'm not 100% sure that staying here is 100% right, but I'm unsure and doubtful enough about moving on before I'm totally ready that staying put seems like the wiser option.  And while I'm no believer in omens or signs, I do find it comforting that I got back from my trip late Monday night, got up Tuesday, went to Monster.com and immediately found a job opening at a translation agency 6 miles from my home.  And sent my resume and cover letter.  And got a call a few hours later asking me to come in for an interview.  And had the interview yesterday morning.  And saw a big Buddha head in the office entryway when I got there (which Jerry would have loved). And wasn't nervous.

I don't know if I'll get the job: the person I spoke with had more people to interview, and then was going to be out of town over the weekend, so I'm not supposed to hear back until at least the middle of next week.  The job isn't translating, but it includes organizing jobs and projects, maintaining social media, (probably answering phones), and hey, if I'm helping organize jobs, perhaps I could put myself forward for consideration for Russian-to-English translation jobs, or editing jobs.  A girl can dream.  And it's SIX MILES AWAY, which would be some sort of karmic reward for the 70-miles-a-day round-trip commute to my last job.

Oh, and I had a second realtor come in and look at the house about a week and a half ago.  She was supposed to get back to me with an estimate of what she thought it could be listed for.  She also knew I wasn't at all sure I was ready to sell, which I'm guessing is the reason she has totally and entirely blown me off.  Very professional, I'm sure.  If she didn't want to put in the work, that's understandable, but how hard is it to TELL ME THAT?  She's far from the first person I've dealt with in my 50 years of life who's said she'd do something professionally for me and then never did (just for starters, is there a thing about most chimney-cleaning companies that mandates that they must make appointments to come to your house and then never, ever show up?  I'm just extremely lucky that Jerry and I finally found a very professional, very prompt chimney-cleaning company nearby).  It does boggle my mind that people can stay in business with that kind of attitude.  And it makes me appreciate all the more those people who do what they say they're going to do.  Or tell you if they're not.

Two more classes to go in the copy editing certificate course: I'm currently doing an introduction to InDesign, and then there's one more class that won't be offered until mid-October.  I'm still hoping there's a copy-editing job some time in my future, but I'm taking loved ones' advice and not setting deadlines for a while.  I'm waiting for my gut to tell me when I'm ready to move on.  For my heart to speak to me.

Gloomy, gloomy day today, but I'm feeling calmer and more in charge than I had felt in months.  I think I'm on the right path, for now.

BNA

A quick note from the airport in Nashville, TN, to let y'all know I'm still alive. I'm en route home after my first singing trip since January, and it was very good and important to reconnect with so many dear friends and to sing Sacred Harp again.
News update: I'm pretty much sure that it's time to face the fact that I'm not ready to leave my house. Given how many times I've put off listing it, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it took other people pointing it out to me for me to acknowledge it. So it's time to look for a job to tide me over until my gut tells me I'm ready to move on.

No idea if this Android Blogger app will work... more from home. Which still does feel like home, to my surprise.

There go my 40s

I'm not 50 yet, but I'm mighty close to it.  That's a half a century - makes a girl think.  (Extra points if you can tell me where I paraphrased that from, but I'll give y'all an enormous hint and point out that Sunday was 50 years since the death of Marilyn Monroe.)

Accomplishments, lately: sticking with Weight Watchers online, I've stopped the bingeing and lost 11 pounds since mid-May.  It feels really good to have that under control, although walking down the snack aisle at the grocery store is still a struggle (answer: So don't walk down the snack aisle.  Clearly).

The yard: I finally had landscapers show up and whip my yard into shape, so my plan to list the house after my parents' visit next week is still on track.  (I could have done without the main landscaper guy talking about his lack of a sex life with his wife - and I was so totally foggy and out of it that I didn't even realize until afterwards how totally inappropriate that was, and what his point probably was.  I have GOT to get my brain in gear: how could I have missed the turn the conversation took and not immediately put a stop to it?  Instead I'm going, "Oh, I'm sorry, have you talked to her about it?"  D'OH!  I'm not firing him, but he's not coming into the house to pick up a check next time he's here to do maintenance.  I need to be much more aware of things than I seem to be.  But it just never occurred to me that some random guy I'd never seen before a few days previous, and had had hardly any interaction with, would march into my kitchen and hit on me... by lamenting his supposedly sexless marriage.  It was so far from any thought I might have that I didn't even hear it as it was happening.)

Copy editing coursework continues.  The grammar review course I've been taking is less than strenuous, but it ends tonight.  All I've got left to do is one more copy editing course after the "intermediate" course I'm doing now, plus one "elective," which, if I can swing it, will be on InDesign, which seems to be the most popular program for copy editors, based on what I've seen of job listings.

And the anxiety dreams continue: Jerry is alive, Jerry is tattooed with some sort of strange markings on his chest to point out where the radiation should be aimed for the cancer that's spread to his lungs, Jerry loses his grip on a briefcase I'm handing him and someone steals it, along with my cellphone.  I can't find the right train, bus, car.  Josh Holloway is interested in me (that last bit, I can't figure out at all, but, well, yum).  And at 3 a.m. yesterday, I awoke from a dream that I was moving over in bed to hug Jerry, and in that brief second before I realized the difference between dreams and real life, I actually physically moved towards where he should have been.  Except I'm still sleeping on his side of the bed, with a big ol' body pillow and a couple of plush Benny the Bulls and a tiger "pillow" I've decreed is Aubie on my side to take up space.  So I had the sensation of falling off the edge of the bed and ended up with my pulse racing and it took a while to fall back to sleep.

So there's that.

Very, very, VERY, VERY OBVIOUS

I keep having anxiety dreams.  Last night, a variation on the same themes: I'm trying to pack up my belongings.  I'm moving.  Jerry (I think it's Jerry - when I wake up, I'm never quite sure it was him.  It might have been someone from the past that I really would prefer not to have emerging from my subconscious, but I think we can take it as a given that it means Jerry) - Jerry is there.  Jerry is not coming with me.  For some reason, he's either staying behind or going somewhere else.  I can't get all my things packed in time.  My car has been towed or has otherwise turned up damaged or disappeared. My belongings end up on the street, strewn about, and I'm struggling to collect them all.  Sometimes I'm moving back to an apartment in Manhattan that I haven't sold, that I've been renting out to someone all this time.  Sometimes my friend Fran, who in this ridiculous real life died over a year ago now, is there, healthy and whole.

Early this morning I kept waking up out of one of those dreams, glad it was over, then falling back into it again.  It's so bloody obvious, there's no reason to try to figure it out.

Hey there

Wow, I didn't realize it'd been this long since I last posted, although the gentle reminders from some of you should have clued me in - thanks, y'all, for caring: I truly appreciate it.

So: still here, still plugging away, still moving forward.  With the occasional setback, of course, because this is, after all, my house (and garage), and we can't go too long without something new to deal with.  The latest thing was the garage door: I came back from the grocery store, lowered the garage door behind me, turned to get the canvas bag of groceries out of the car  and heard a loud cracking sound.  Long story short, $380 later there's a new spring on the garage door and the recommendation to replace the opener with something from the modern age, which I'd do if I were staying here.  (So if the house doesn't sell... maybe...)  Spent a couple of hours today with the shop vac out there in the garage, and now need to go get a new filter for it before I finish the job.  But, again, that word: progress.

In the Facing Reality Department, I've decided to hire someone or someones to come clean up the yard: I just have to weigh which is more important to me, keeping the amount of money I'd be paying to have it done, or looking out at the yard day after day and dreading the idea of the amount of work it would take me to deal with it myself, not to mention figuring out how to get rid of the yard waste in any kind of easy way (the local waste haulage people wanted a season's worth of fees, no matter that I told them I only wanted one haul).  Someone was supposed to be here this past week to look at the place, but he or she or they couldn't make it, so now we're aiming for some time next week, I think.

Copy editing certificate coursework continues.  Ooh, lots of c's there.  Anyway, one course I'm currently taking is a grammar review, and, not to toot my own nerdy horn here or anything, but, hello, I was doing this stuff on the PSAT in 1979, I believe it was, and before that too.  But it's required for the certificate, and it's painless, so I'm doing it.

But how am I doing?  I'm... doing.  I'm okay.  Did I tell y'all that my latest plan is to have my parents come out here next month for a last-hurrah stay at the house plus a wake for my 40s, then put the house on the market?  Yeah, I know, I was putting the house on the market in February, wasn't I?  Then in April?  So nothing is carved in stone, clearly.  But that's the latest plan.  I am, of course, racked with ambivalence about the fact that I have a (beautiful, beautiful) house I that own free and clear and would be wading into the scary-ass real estate market in New York.  And that I'd be leaving my boyfriend Benny behind. (New Benny video here!  Knew you'd all want to know.)  And that the logistics of it all make me want to sit on the couch and fire up the TV and ignore reality.

It'll all work out.  Things do, I know.

Oh, and I've somehow managed to get to the point where I look forward to eating fruit.  My mother doesn't know who I am.  Through that weird development, and Weight Watchers online, I've lost 10 pounds.  Yee and ha!  Still not fitting into a dress I want to fit back into, but a few pounds more and either I will, or I'll face the fact that stuff has shifted, ahem, and that that zipper is never going to close unless I become an ab-crunching maniac - which, yeah, unlikely.  To say the least.

The time we went to Hollywood

Assuming it hasn't been removed from YouTube for copyright reasons, what you see above is a clip that was recorded in Hollywood in 2003 and included among the DVD extras for Cold Mountain.  (Wait... this is ringing a bell.  I wonder if I've posted this already.  If so... apologies for repetition.) Jerry's in the red tie, in the front row of tenors.  (Despite what the title says, at least as of this writing, it was not the recording session for the film, but a little extra tagged on at the end of the "Words and Music of Cold Mountain" concert filmed in conjunction with the movie's opening.)

In other news: the new old range is just fine: it took several hours of scrubbing and scouring, but it's clean and shiny and has only a few dark spots; the copy editing course continues; and while I was standing outside on the patio the other day, the weather gorgeous, warm but not too warm, the tall old trees waving in the breeze around me, I realized I don't want to leave until later in the summer: it's just too lovely.  Of course, it's already late June, and I'm still here, so it's happening by default anyway.  And while it is a little less than optimal to put the house on the market closer to the start of the school year, it feels right.

Oh, and one more thing: if any of you are dealing with issues concerning widowhood, either as a widowed person yourself or as someone who loves a widowed person, and you have not discovered the amazing Carole Brody Fleet, I recommend you find out who she is.  Check out her website here.  She doesn't know me from Adam, but in a few online interactions she has given me unselfish and generous support and advice.  Bless her.  And bless my known and unknown friends and loved ones for your continuing care and kindness: you don't know the strength I take from you all.

"Call me maybe"

Back to our regularly scheduled programming, which, yes, will be about ME (as I posted a long time ago, that's what this blog is: a place for me to record MY feelings and MY actions and MY life, in a way that I don't focus on it anywhere else or in my day-to-day interactions with other people - if you don't want to read that much focus on me, then DO NOT READ MY BLOG - go harass someone who cares about your contempt and criticism).  Anyway, a friend on Facebook posted this, and I thought it'd be a crime not to share it:

Meanwhile, house stuff continues.  My jewel of a friend Steve suggested looking on Craigslist, and lo and behold, I found a bisque-colored five-year-old gas range in a nearby town for $150, which Steve went and looked at yesterday, as that's the town where his office is, and got it for $125 - it apparently has a few scratches on top, and I'm not sure what that means, but it'll work, and Steve will pick it up for me tomorrow.  He also removed the track lighting in the bathroom and covered the big hole with a white plate, since there are sconces ("scones," Jerry inevitably call them) on either side of the mirror, so there is enough light in that room as is without going to the expense and effort of replacing the track lighting.  I got the kitchen cleaned up, including using something no doubt horribly toxic to get mineral deposits off the drains in the sink, and still need to polish away the scratches in the Wilsonart countertops, but that leaves only a few rooms left to clean, the porch, the garage and the yard to neaten up.

I've also started an online program to obtain a certificate in copy editing - finally.  It's a little less rigorous than I expected - well, a lot less rigorous - but it's useful, because I've never actually worked with a style manual before, and although I'm finding dealing with the nitpicky differences between the AP and Chicago stylebooks annoying, I know it's a major part of professional copy editing.  And I do find it fun, given that I'm what the instructor refers to as a "word nerd," so, at least so far, I'm thinking this is the right path to be following.

So: working on getting rid of a headache I woke up with, then it's back to the AP Stylebook and my homework.  "Homework" - wow!  Very curious to be using that word for the first time since my abortive attempt to learn Chinese in the early 1990s.  And I think this is the first time I ever studied something with a purpose in mind, too - how very liberal arts of me.

Wow.  An entire blog post focused entirely on ME.  How totally bizarre and inappropriate for a personal blog (thanks, Alicia!).

ETA: Oh, whoops, meant to post evidence:

To the anonymous commenter who thinks I'm whining

To the anonymous (of course) commenter who sent me a huge long screed about how self-centered and childish and whiney I am (I think that's most of it: once I realized how completely this commenter was spewing hatred and contempt at me, I stopped reading): How about, if my blog pisses you off so much, you do this: STOP READING IT.  And as for your comments?  Don't waste my time.  Fuck off.

And that goes for anyone else who feels moved to point out my many flaws and my overwhelming selfishness and whatever else anyone may hate about me: go read someone else's blog, or, as Jerry would have said, go pound rocks.  What you shouldn't do?  Waste your time and mine by sending me comments or screaming contempt at me in the guise of advice or anything else that you know perfectly well is only going to make you feel superior and smug and not help me one bit.

To repeat, in case you didn't get the message: fuck off.

Hello, Badger!

My dear friend Chip just became a grandfather for the first time, and his little teeny tiny grandson is just so adorable, I have to post his picture here.  As you can tell by his nickname, Badger, one of his parents is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin.  Congratulations again, you guys: he's beautiful.  (P.S. When I first met Chip, Badger's father was... oh, wow, I think he was eight years old.  Wait, is that possible...?  [Counts on fingers...] Oh, wow, I think that's true.  As Chip and I were saying the other day, apparently the subtitle of "Sunrise, Sunset" is "Holy shit, we're old.")

Jerry

Two years

So here it comes: in 10 minutes it will be June 13.  I have been a widow for two years.

Not really much to say besides that.

Explosions

Like, literal explosions.  A power surge at 6:30 Monday morning followed by a power outage, due to a suicidal squirrel coming into contact with a transformer.  Two of my surge protector strips making a loud popping noise, glowing red and smoking with a horrible burning stench.  Gas leaking into the kitchen after (it turned out) an electronic valve in the oven was fried by the surge.

All that excitement done with, I'm left without a functioning range - because what I really want to do in a house I mean to sell is buy a new major appliance: it would cost more to repair it than to buy a new one, and of course Jerry and I picked "bisque" as our appliance color, and of course that color is more expensive than plain ordinary white.  The track lighting in my bathroom isn't working (I heard a pop from there, too, when the power surged).  My Blu-ray player was fine until I paused a DVD last night to go get coffee: came back and found it won't read disks anymore.  Warranty?  Nah, of course not.  The DVD/VCR combo player won't even turn on.  (So much for the efficacy of that surge protector they were all plugged into).  The deductible on my homeowner's insurance is $500, but I may be getting near that, except that I don't plan to replace all the electronics, not right now.

[Oh, and might I add, Com Ed, the power company in these parts, doesn't reimburse loss if the number of people affected is fewer than 30,000, and/or if the outage was caused by, among other things, an animal.  Excuse me, but WTF???]

It's just... really?  I needed this?

June, again.

And here we are, back in that least favorite of months, June.  Actually, it's not really worse than any other month now, or at least I don't think it is: the days are lighter, warmer, the world around me is greener, the heating bill is lower: but I suspect that somewhere in my subconscious, as has been suggested to me, this time of year does have an effect on the way I feel, the way I am.  Namely, in 11 days, I will have been a widow for two years.  One-fifth of the amount of time that I was a wife.  And life will go on, presumably (although, as I read after Jerry died, in a phrase that I've come to feel so acutely now, tomorrow isn't promised to anyone).  Eventually, if life goes on that long, I'll be a widow for longer than I was a wife.  How strange, and how unfair that is.

And I'm still in the house, and it still isn't on the market, and I'm still working on it in fits and starts and stalling and starting and stalling and starting again.  This week's big undertaking was beginning to tackle the jungle that surrounds the house, the thing that goes by the misnomer of "yard," although "forest," "tangle," and "liability when trying to sell the house, probably" would all work better.  There's actually more grass growing than I would have expected, given that I'd thought all the sod had died: so the first thing I did was haul out the lawn mower, which I hadn't used since before Jerry started his transformation of the lawns into native plants, and deal with the sod-covered portions.  Next, I got out various clippers and shears and trimmers and set to work grappling with the euonymus and buckthorn that have grown completely out of control in the past two and a half years, and I now have both a view of the road in front of the property and a huge pile of cuttings to deal with, and I'm not done yet.

I actually did some paying work as well: was sent an essay written by a Russian mountain climber to translate into English for a book on alpine training.  Ah, yes, paying work: I remember that, vaguely (not highly-paying work - that I don't really remember at all...).  Need to buckle down and get on with finding more of that.  And putting this house on the market.  And figuring out where to live.  And doing all that in the right order.  And that, dear readers, is where, as I've lamented before, I freak and stall.

Will talk to Dr. Psychiatrist next week about upping the Zoloft dosage just a wee bit.  Get this girl back on track.

A room

One room actually done!  Lynne drove back with me from the wedding in Alabama and helped me paint this bedroom, and I can't say how much I wish I'd done that 12 years ago.  But there you have it: actual proof of actual progress.

Onward...

A crisis of motivation

My progress on the house since I got back from New York has been slow... very slow.  Down to a trickle.  I keep vowing to get lots of things done and keep getting small bits of things done: a couple more trips to storage, a major shredding, from an emotional standpoint: I got rid of the documents connected with Jerry's medical treatment, hospitalization and death, which I'd been saving out of fear that I'd need them for some reason, to prove something to someone, that Medicare and Blue Cross would come back and tell me they'd made a mistake and I had to pay everything back.  All that stuff had been accumulating in a large Belk shopping bag which had sat in the dining room, and this week I shredded it all, and threw out the shopping bag.  It's a huge relief not to have that here anymore.  But otherwise, except for an afternoon spent vacuuming up cobwebs in the basement, I keep almost getting started on the next big step, the Big Clean, and not doing it.  Yet.

In other news, Joakim Noah sprained his ankle yesterday as the Bulls lost their second playoff game in a row.  So unless something miraculous occurs, my Bulls are on their way out of the post-season.  Mariano Rivera, the Yankees' legendary closer, also tore an ACL the other day.  I'm thinking I should have chosen alcohol as my drug of choice instead of team sport fandom.

And I've become obsessed with Gotye's song "Somebody That I Used to Know," which I first heard, like so many songs I've come to like, on Glee (I may be the last person I know who still watches Glee).  I downloaded it from iTunes today, a departure from my usual way of buying music, which is still mostly on CD, still mostly second-hand CDs at that.  Anyway, there's no special meaning of the song for my life these days, except that I can relate, I'm ashamed to say, to the person he's accusing of cutting him off and pretending she doesn't know him: there are several guys from my long-ago past I did that to out of a complete emotional and psychological inability to deal with the relationships I was having with them and ineptitude in trying to extricate myself from them.  But I just find the song very compelling.  This is a version recorded at KCRW: the official video for the song is on YouTube, but the paint on Gotye in it freaks me out a bit, so I'm linking to this one instead.

So anyway, life goes on, in fits and starts and delays and setbacks and hiccups.  What would Jerry make of it all, I wonder?  What would he be doing now if I had been the one who'd died?  I wonder how he'd be getting on, if he'd be making better progress with his life than I am with mine.

Fangirl, Part 2

First of all, I was at the Bulls game yesterday.  I didn't see Derrick Rose fall - it wasn't until the guy sitting next to me started going "Oh no, oh no..." that I noticed there were only four Bulls standing and looked at each one and realized none of them was D-Rose and then saw he was lying on the floor.  Yes, I think the ACL tear that has ended his season is bad for the team's chances in the post-season, but that's not why I was one of the many people at the United Center who left that game feeling like it was the saddest, most awful victory a team could win.  It just was so painful to see Derrick injured again after all the other injuries this season, and so badly this time, with his near future, at least, such a question mark now.

A picture from before it happened:

(Luol Deng, Derrick Rose, Tom Thibodeau, Joakim Noah, Richard Hamilton)

Second from the right of the photo, behind the word "HOME": Bulls color commentator Stacey King, with Neil Funk, the play-by-play guy, to the right of him.  This is him today:

And me!  Talk about fangirly: I drove about 60 miles each way today to go meet Stacey, and when I walked up to the table, he looked at me and said "Karen, right?"  That took care of the remaining social anxiety that was making me nervous on the entire drive over.  I've been giddy ever since. (I follow him on Twitter and occasionally he'll respond to something I've tweeted to him, and he recognized me from that.)  He was very nice, asked questions about things I'd tweeted, talked about the game, asking if I'd been there - and it turned out I didn't have to wear the heels I wore after all, since he wasn't standing up: I thought heels might help if the photo had been taken with him standing, since he's almost a foot and a half taller than I am.  I was so excited (yes, I am 14 years old) that he knew who I was that I forgot to get his autograph and had to circle back around to the end of the line of people waiting to meet him to ask for it.

Other news: I was back in New York last week, looking at some apartments (nothing that worked), and going to my first show since Jerry died, the formerly off- and now on-Broadway adaptation of the movie Once.  I love the movie, and the show is very good too, more broad and less subtle but still nicely done.  Back here since Wednesday, and nothing has gotten done on the house since then: tomorrow I'll get back to it.  Painters were here while I was gone and did a nice job on de-molding the basement and touching up other things.  I'm feeling a bit more stressed about things now that I'm a bit farther along in the process. Natural, I guess.

But still grinning about today's latest fangirl episode.

Things I Am Not Allowed to Do Again, Ever

Buy shoes.  Or underwear.

On another note, Blogger, I am not liking the new interface. At all.

On another note, the guys from the charity came yesterday and hauled away furniture and a couple of big boxes of kitchen stuff, and I have more things to load into the car and drive up to the place myself.  The dumpster was hauled away yesterday as well.  Painters came through with a price for all the work they'll do, $700, which seems reasonable, given the amount of work (and so says Steve as well): not sure when they'll be here to start yet.

More clearing out still to do.  I took a break from it yesterday; today it's back to work.  I leave for my next trip to New York a week from yesterday.  Suspect the house won't actually be on the market by then, however.

I can die happy now.

Me and my boyfriend, Benny, at the United Center last night.  Bulls beat the NY Knicks 98-86, D-Rose sat (OF COURSE), but I've been giggling ever since at my meeting with Benny (or a very acrobatic and athletic young man in a large muppet suit, but I never seem to remember that's really what he is!).  Got his autograph, too:

Yes, believe it or not, I'm 49 years old.

The only part that irked me was when the crowd began chanting "New York sucks, New York sucks."  Not cool!  I told the woman next to me that I couldn't do that, I'm from New York, and she laughed and patted me on my back to comfort me.

Anyway...

Dumpster is full, painters have come and given an estimate to paint the outside corner of the house where water peeled off the paint and some water stains on the kitchen ceiling from before a dormer window was repaired, along with de-molding and painting the basement; guys from the local charity for homeless women and children will be here today to pick up furniture and kitchen stuff that I'm giving away.  More loads have been taken to storage (do I really, really need that stuff?  I told Steve I should live with just a mattress, a cup, a plate, a fork, knife and spoon, a TV and a computer).  Things are progressing, still.

But a man in a red furry suit has made me ridiculously giddy.  Thanks, Benny!

Progress Progress PROGRESS!!!!

Major leap forward yesterday with the delivery of the dumpster.  Steve, whom I should start calling Saint Steve, spent a couple of hours helping me haul stuff out of the basement and garage, including lifting stuff I couldn't begin to budge, like the bags that years ago started out containing powder for cementing tiles to floors and walls and have long since contained actual cement due to the humidity in the basement.  I kept working for maybe another hour after Steve left and now, as you see above, the dumpster is mostly full.  And I should have taken a "before" photo of the inside of the garage, because huge amounts of stuff came out of there, too: I had never looked too closely at the back of it, but it turned out that Jerry's packratitude was in full evidence there too: why my sweetie never recycled or threw out those little plastic pots that seedlings come in but instead piled them all in the back of the garage, for instance, I'll never know.  There was also a small pile of beer cans crushed up in a corner, and I told Steve that some previous resident must have left them there, because I can't imagine Jerry would have done that instead of recycling them - and then last night I was finishing up a can of soda and got up to put it in the box where I collect things for recycling, and as I was walking I crushed the can, and thought "Jerry always crushed cans before putting them in recycling," and my mind flashed back to the crushed cans in the corner... and I realized, No, previous residents would not have left a small pile of beer cans in the back of the garage!

Today's goal is to finish (FINISH!) clearing out the basement so it's ready for someone to come in and de-mold it.  On Wednesday a truck from that charity I mentioned will come get furniture and other things I'm not saving.  (On Tuesday I go see the Lin-less Knicks play the I VERY MUCH HOPE Rose-ful Bulls.)

Progress.

As mentioned previously

Time flies

Still moving forward: more stuff brought to storage, more stuff put in garbage bags in advance of a dumpster arriving, will call a local charity that serves homeless women and children on Monday when the guy there that deals with donations is back in his office to arrange pick-up of furniture and housewares I'm not keeping.  I'm not working as diligently or fast as I might be, but stuff is actually getting done in spite of it all.

I was at a lovely wedding in St. Louis last weekend, and with the frighteningly early spring weather we've been having (well, I find it frightening - nice, but wrong, and I fully expect whatever neighborhood I move to in NY to be under water soon after I arrive), there were cherry blossoms in bloom as I walked around and checked out what seems to be a nice city.  On the other hand, the wedding did make me feel old, as will the wedding of the groom's brother in May: when I first met them, they were closer to this age (although this video was shot about five or six years before I first saw them).  The smaller of the two got married last weekend:

(Reminder: that's Jerry on the left in the front seated row they're facing.  Six years before I met him, too.)

OK... back to sorting, tossing, packing.  I know I'm going to look back on all this in a few months and be amazed it got done.

The Most Important Product

Jerry liked to quote the old GE line "Progress is our most important product" (as always with Jerry, it was with a large dose of humor that he said it).  Well, more of the product was churned out yesterday.  Two trips over to the storage unit with more books, furniture, even the large Cerwin-Vega speakers I bought in 1986 (just in time to leave them behind for years at my parents' house as I moved first to Minnesota and then to the Soviet Union): I wasn't going to keep them, in this age of much more portable mini-speakers, but Steve convinced me they're "classic," and since they still work, I relented.  Steve is in the enviable, and probably also unenviable, position of having been friends and worked with Jerry: enviable because he was friends with Jerry and that was a fabulous thing to be, as I'm sure all his friends would say; unenviable because I probably talk even more about Jerry with people who knew him, and I'm sure people get tired of hearing all my Jerry stories.  But Steve has been and continues to be so incredibly kind in helping me with the house: I didn't actually know him except to say hi before Jerry died, but I hired him and his company to take care of house repairs and eventually he started doing favors - lots and lots of favors - and refusing to let me pay for most if not all of them, except for materials or if the work was done by an outside contractor.  So grateful, so thankful... so guilty-feeling, of course.

I've packed up a box of books I've sold online to Powell's and will bring it over to the post office today (if you have books you don't want, I recommend them: they pay postage for books they've accepted, and you get store credit with them in return - not a lot, of course, but it's easier and faster than dealing with eBay, for which I don't have the patience right now); other books I'll take to the library for their book sales.  Still lots and lots of stuff to go through.  This weekend I'm attending a wedding in St. Louis, but next week when I get back Steve will arrange to have a dumpster brought to the house, and a lot more will be cleared out.  He also told me that Habitat for Humanity recycles electronics, which I didn't know, so I'll see what needs to go there, too.

I realized something last night.  I was showing Steve the horizontal fir paneling in the bedroom as we were moving out a pine dresser that Jerry made... and I was telling him that the paneling was made from skids that had been piled in the shop, and that I had stained them with a pale white stain that just lightened them and also lacquered them... and it suddenly hit me that while I keep saying I'll be so sorry to leave behind all this gorgeous woodwork that Jerry did, it's also woodwork that I did.  He sprayed the dye stains on the maple paneling in the living room and the maple cabinetry in the living room and kitchen, but I did the power sanding before that and the lacquering and the hand sanding and the second coat of lacquer, I sanded and stained and lacquered the paneling in the bedroom, I sanded and lacquered the parts of the pine dresser.  I don't know why all of that hadn't entered my mind before, but the fact is, I can say with confidence that I'll never again live in a place where I've been involved in actually creating some of the furniture.  Well, I will: I've got pieces I'm taking with me that we - we - made.  But it's not just that it was Jerry's design and creativity and craftsmanship and talent: it was our collaboration, our work together.

The Redhead

To Anonymous: This is my boyfriend.

The one who's sitting, that is.  Someone on Facebook said she didn't know I liked redheads.  (I've noticed there seem to be a lot of women expressing love online for the Chicago Bulls mascot - I wonder if that's unique to him, and I have to say the other NBA mascots seem like a weak lot.)  Basically he wanders around Bulls home games creating mayhem and acting sort of like a three-year-old or Harpo Marx, which is the same thing I guess, and that's not usually the style of humor I go for, but I just love watching him.

So that's my boyfriend!  In the real world - nah.  For a while there I thought it would be nice to meet someone, but recently I haven't felt that - I just haven't cared: I'm going to go back to my favorite topic and say I would guess Zoloft is having something to do with that too.  Which is just fine with me.  Other things to worry about, other things to do.  For example: today I empty out various chests and stands that I want to take with me to New York and tomorrow Steve plans to come help me move them into the storage unit - as the clearing out continues.  Yesterday I brought something like 10 boxes of books to storage, and can now say I see the charms of a Kindle more clearly.

Green Hat

Benny wasn't doing pictures at the Bulls Market at halftime yesterday, so instead of me with my boyfriend, you get me in the green hat they were giving away at the game.  Bulls beat the Sixers 89-80 after spending the first half making me think they were going to lose my second live game in a row.  D-Rose sat.  Of course.  But it was still fun to be there, as usual.  A much better way to spend my St. Patrick's Day than sitting around being sad would have been, for sure.

Must work on the house today.  Don't wanna.

March 17th, again

12 years ago today, Jerry and I put rings on each other's fingers and repeated words in front of a judge in the Kane County Courthouse, the only other person present a lawyer sitting in the back of the room going over papers, and lived happily ever after.  Well, not "ever."  But for sure on the "happily."  It just all ended way, way, way too soon.  To state the extremely obvious.

Storage unit: rented.  Three small carloads (small car, small loads) delivered to storage unit.  Steve on the case.  House in more disarray than before as I go through things and make piles (give away, sell, throw out, recycle, keep).  All of this done in a state of disconnection, to some extent, and with no crying.  Cheers to Zoloft.

Tonight: Benny. Bulls. D-Rose?  Probably not.  Meaning I'll be 0-for-3 seeing the MVP live this season.    Ah well, still, will be fun.  Might see how silly a grown-ass woman looks standing on line to get her picture taken with a man in a furry red bull costume.  Maybe.

(Comment: I keep mentioning Zoloft in every post.  It's because I'm just stunned at how different I feel compared with a month ago.  It's not that I'm really happy, it's that I'm not hugely miserable.  I'll take it.)

Moving forward

The real estate agent, Sherry, thought the house was "adorable," but because of the horrible housing market and the number of foreclosures and short sales, it's going to be offered at something less than what we paid for it in 2000, when it was butt-ugly, before Jerry made it beautiful.  Which makes me furious and sad, but there's nothing to be done, and, as so many people have said to me, the important thing is to move forward with my life, and selling the house has to be part of that process.  Assuming it is going to sell.

Sherry also wants 90% of what's in the house out of it before it's shown.  Yikes.  This will mean getting a storage unit, since she wants a minimalist look that includes removing most of the furniture.  This will mean getting rid of stuff, which right now seems to me logistically impossible - how do you get rid of stuff?  I'm hesitant to list things on Craigslist or Freecycle because it means having people come to the house to pick it up, and I'm nervous about doing that with me being on my own.  Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out.  My old buddy Steve the Contractor is coming over tomorrow, and I'll ask him about the three things Sherry specifically wants done: deal with the mold in the basement, fill some holes in the private dirt road the house is on (she says realtors might not want to show it if their cars are going to sink into potholes... I guess that's a fair point!), and paint a corner of the house exterior where there was a leak before I had a dormer repaired last year and the paint is peeling.

Yesterday I got some cardboard boxes and bubble wrap at a Home Depot ("the Despot," Jerry called it). There was a strong wind blowing as I wheeled them in a shopping cart across the parking lot to my car, and, despite my best efforts to hold on, three or four of the flattened boxes took off and flew over several parking rows.  I wonder if anyone was watching as I ran here and there to retrieve them and wrestle them against the wind back to my car.  Highly entertaining, I'm sure.  If I show up on America's Funniest Home Videos, do let me know.

Today I spent 2 1/2 hours going through boxes and drawers and shelves in the bedroom Jerry used as an office.  Lots of paper.  Lots of paper there was no reason to keep in the first place, Sweetie - you never were very good at throwing things out.  Some I kept, though: some copies of our homemade wedding announcement (a photo of us on the front, inside a photo of our marriage certificate and the phrase "What we did on St. Patrick's Day..."), the stub from Jerry's ticket on Aer Lingus when we had our three-years-later honeymoon trip to Ireland, a slip of paper on which he'd written, in his tiny tiny little handwriting, my New York address and phone number, back when we'd first met.  I suppose the fact that I didn't cry at all, that I haven't cried in days now, is thanks to the Zoloft: I feel mostly kind of tired and numb rather than despondent, which I suppose is useful in getting things done.  Especially since we're (sort of?) aiming to get the house on the market before I leave for my next trip to NY on April 18.  Again... yikes.

Anyway.  What would have been our 12th wedding anniversary is coming up on Saturday.  I'm going to spend it with 20,000 of my closest friends (I may have used this line already), many of whom will no doubt be the better or the worse for St. Patrick's Day celebrating, watching my Bulls take on the 76ers and my boyfriend Benny the Bull being his big red furry self.

Deep breaths

I just spoke to a real estate agent.  She'll be here on Wednesday to look at the house... the first step.

(Good thing I'm taking Zoloft.)

Things I've Learned Lately

Thing 1: NY is home.  Just returned from a week there, and that old feeling I always got when Jerry and I were there, of not wanting to leave it, was in full force.  A good sign.  A very good sign, and I had no idea going in whether or not it would be there.  It was.

Thing 2: If you miss a morning Southwest flight to LaGuardia, the next one isn't for another five hours.

Thing 3: I can actually afford an apartment there... it just depends on which part of there I look at.  My old haunt, the Upper West Side?  Not so much.  Sunnyside, one of my ancestral homelands?  Yes indeedy, and Sunnyside turns out to be a neighborhood I can see myself living in.  It beat out Washington Heights (the other one I looked at in the past week) - the Heights were nice, and I thought that would work until my father and I went to his old neighborhood in Queens, which just seemed more alive, more diverse, more like a place I could call home.

Thing 3: My legs still work.  I walked more in the past week than I have in the past two years, and it felt really good.

Thing 4: The Zoloft might be working.  I've felt far less despondent in recent days than I had been feeling.  Zoloft + NYC?  Zoloft + a major decision really made now?

Thing 5: I'm still feeling totally overwhelmed by all that I have to do, all those minor things like getting the home I shared with Jerry onto the market, packing up and moving halfway across the country, finding a place in NY and going through that entire fun process, oh, and finding a job.  And doing those things in the proper order.

Thing 6: I'd better be able to get local coverage of Bulls games once I'm in NY.  Can't do without Neil and Stacey.

Anyway... I'm planning to return to NY in April for apartment-hunting.

Number 5 (6? 7?)

So, dear readers, the new antidepressant is... (insert fanfare here) Zoloft.  Or rather, the generic version of Zoloft, and I never usually get the generic names into my memory, except for Levothyroxine, which I've been taking for enough years now to know.  Hoping for effectiveness and lack of side effects, but not hoping with a lot of confidence.  Also hoping not to need a lot of appointments, since I've just discovered that the private insurance policy I got after I left my job has everything I've been treated for previously excluded from coverage for 12 months, so it's all out of my pocket.

It's still cold here, and there's still snow on the ground, so we're having some winter after all.

At a suggestion from my therapist, I got some big plastic bins on Saturday, brought them upstairs to Jerry's Buddha bedroom office on Sunday and sorted through some things.  The bins are for dividing things into categories: things that I think someone might be able to use (but not me) or that might just need to be tossed , things I can't go through right now but need to later (or have someone else do it), things I want to keep.  I found a bunch of photos, including more photos taken right after we got married, of me, of Jerry holding our marriage license, a second one of the two of us, that I hadn't remembered existed.

As I drove to the mental health center to see the psychiatrist this morning, my brain had one of those fleeting thoughts that speed by and give me just enough time to realize I've had them and how insane they are.  I saw the sign for my former endocrinologist - the one I gave up on when he charged me a co-pay just to have me come into his office so he could write a prescription.  Jerry would sometimes be at the appointments I had with him, waiting for me in the waiting room, and as I drove by I realized that I had just thought that I should stop there, that maybe Jerry would be waiting for me in the waiting room. (I suppose if I'd remembered I could have told the psychiatrist about that, but I didn't.)

And because she just died and because she was part of the soundtrack of my 20s and because I love this song and love the exuberance with which she sings it, here's Whitney:

Me and my new crush

(Benny and me.  I couldn't resist.)

Decisions, decisions

I called and made an appointment to see the psychiatrist Monday - after lots of thought, and lots of good input from people I know and people I don't, I've decided that yes, going back on the antidepressants is the best option.  The last one I was trying before I got off of them altogether was Wellbutrin, and I hadn't noticed any side effects from it, so I'll ask him about that one again.

What else?  Oh, yes.  Enough with the deadlines.  I had a good long talk with Lynne last night and, as sometimes happens with me, it took someone outside myself to make clear to me something that I was trying not to notice: I'm not, as of February 10, 2012, ready to leave this house.  I may be ready on February 11.  I may be ready on March 1.  I may not be ready until later than that.  But trying to push myself to be ready when I'm not feeling ready has only been adding to the stress and depression, I think.  I'm torn, because I want all the decisions to be made, all the actions to be taken, all the things done that will get me going into the future and whatever my new life will be, wherever it will be, and Midwest suburbia is not where I want to be - but I've lived here in this house for coming up on 12 years, it was my home with Jerry, it's so beautiful and so much his labor of love, and I can't be at peace with moving on from it until something inside me has made that decision - and I'm just not ready.  Today, I'm not ready.  Tomorrow I may be.  Someday I will be.  Yes?  Yes.  But that day isn't today.  And I need to let myself not be ready until I'm ready.  Thank you, Lynne.

I did my taxes yesterday.  So that's something accomplished.  A little accomplishment, but an accomplishment.

It's snowing.  It's so pretty.

Stop already

STOP ALREADY WITH THE BARRAGE OF ADS IN MY INBOX FOR VALENTINE'S DAY GIFTS.

OK, that's done.

Today's plan: do my taxes.  Was going to do them last week, but I got a call from the accountant at my old workplace saying she'd messed up the W2 and had to send me a new one.  (This was not a surprise.)  I've got it now, and am going to see if I can do my taxes the old-fashioned way, without software.  This is the first year in a long time that I'll be doing the forms myself: since Jerry ran a business, he had an accountant do them for the business and for us as well.   (He was the guy from whom last year I received a packet of papers with a pre-printed mailing address on the envelope - it had both our names on it, and Jerry's had been crossed out.  Classy, no?  No.)

Pharma

My therapist wants me back on antidepressants.  I see her points.  It's a week since I got back from my trip, and I've spent most of it unable to leave my house except to visit the mailbox.  The only time I've left so far has been to go see her on Saturday.  But I'm not accomplishing what I want to get done in the house, either.  I went upstairs yesterday to try to tackle the bedroom that Jerry used as an office and den, and pretty soon the pile of stuff I was working on revealed photos from a colonoscopy he had in 2005 (a few benign problems, but nothing to worry about), and that was the end of that.  I did find a bunch of photos of happier days, at singings, in the house, in the yard, and I find it astonishing to see how carefree and happy I look in them, how totally different I am from the stumbling, confused, shellshocked person I feel like today.

Anyway, when I first started seeing my therapist, I was already on antidepressants, and in our last session she pointed out that she'd never seen me like this before.  Like what? I asked.  "So emotional," she said, and she wonders if I can handle this without pharmaceutical help.  It's so strange to hear that sort of thing, and other things as well, friends who say I'm more like myself now that I'm not on the medications - from inside I don't experience such vivid differences.  I know I felt numbed out to a certain extent, and I don't feel that way now.  I do realize that I'm not finding the motivation to do what I think I want to do, that I'm back to isolation now that I'm not going to work every day, but what the bottom line for me is, I was sad then, and I'm sad now, and just as before, it feels like this will never end.  I have no experience with this kind of sadness that can help me know what will happen, that can give me hope that things will get better.  I can't know if "this will pass," since the cause of it, Jerry's death, Jerry's absence, Jerry's never-coming-back, will never end.  I realize that my only hope is to deal with that cause differently, to somehow manage to accept it and... what?  Not continue to wish so much that it wasn't the case?  Manage to get the hideous suffering he endured out of my mind and not dwell on it?  Realize that countless other people have survived this loss, this final and permanent separation, and gone on?  That "'tis common; all that lives must die"?  I want to.  I want to stop feeling like my life has ended when it hasn't.  I want to be able to live, if that's what I have to do, and find happiness again.

I just have absolutely no idea if I can, if I will.

And just by the way, for those who haven't seen it: Shit People Say To Widows, via Widowed Village.

I don't know

I feel like I don't know anything.  Anything.  Every time I think I've made up my mind about something, anything, I lose any certainty I thought I had about it.

I'm back, as of last night, from my vacation in the South.  I loved Miami Beach, and if I had a lotta lotta money, I could see living there.  I think.  Savannah was beautiful, as it was the last time I was there, but I found traveling on my own to be very stressful.  I don't like to go to restaurants on my own, for example, and had no better luck convincing myself to do so this time around.  Although, being a vegetarian, I wouldn't have been sampling the Low Country cuisine that's one of the tourist highlights of Savannah.  But I did takeout and such.  A day trip to Hilton Head Island, because I was curious to see what Hilton Head looked like, showed me that it's lovely (even on a blustery gray day), but not my place (I neither have lots of money nor play golf).  I enjoyed my time in Atlanta, and I wept my way through the exhibit on MLK Jr's life and times at the visitors center and visited the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Jimmy Carter Library, and partook of an amazing burrito at Bell Street Burritos (as of this writing the website doesn't show the new location, which is where I was), which I heartily recommend to anyone in the area (the owner is a Sacred Harp friend who also did this, which is how I was aware of the restaurant).  Thanks, Jenna and Kerry, for the hospitality in Atlanta!  On to Huntsville after that, and thank you Karen and David for your hospitality, too!  Singing at Liberty Baptist Church in Henagar, AL on Sunday, and wow, I need to sing more often.

Lesson 1: Don't drive from northwest of Chicago to Miami Beach in two days.  OUCH.

Lesson 2: I'm not sure where I belong.

I'm glad I'm going to New York for a week at the end of February.  It'll be the first time I've been to the city I consider home since Jerry and I were there at the end of 2009, a few days before he was diagnosed with cancer.  I want my gut to tell me if I belong there.  Because every time, every time I think I know where I belong, I find reasons not to be sure after all.

Coming back to this house after two long weeks of traveling felt like coming home, in a way.  It just felt so good to open the door and walk into my house.  Which doesn't mean at all that I think I belong in Illinois: if I don't know where I belong, I know where I don't belong, and this place is in that category.  But this is the place I've lived longer than any other one place in my entire life, and as a friend pointed out, it's where I lived with Jerry, and it's familiar, if nothing else, and it's mine.  So leaving is going to be hard, whenever I do it.

Everything is in a whirl.  I hope I get some clarity on things soon.  I hope.