Girlihood - True Story

During today's morning routine, I had a flashback to the time I went to the ER after hemorrhaging out of my yoodle-hoo for a couple of hours. I’m not talking about a heavy monthly here. I was gushing the  regular stuff and thoroughly soaking an extra-absorbant every five or ten minutes.  

Two things about that visit: First, the doctor who came in looked at me and asked me where my mom was. Second, the same doctor had a treat ‘em and street ‘em attitude which led to a dramatic show-down in the middle of the corridor on my way out the door. 

This was about 16-17 years ago, so I can’t recall every tiny detail, but I do remember the high points, and the doctor’s self-important attitude that just pissed me off. 

When he came into the room and asked me where was my mom I shrugged and told him she was dead. The look of shock and concern on his face…my mom probably snorted her Otherside coffee right out of her nose. I really think she would have been proud of my timing. I told him I was old enough to be in the ER without my mom, and he looked at the chart again and asked me to identify myself. He said something like, you don’t look 33.

Typical. That was the typical thing people would say to me back then. He was right. And I said something like, nonetheless, I still am.

It makes people uncomfortable when I do that, even though I say it with a smile.

I think he was probably around 33 himself because that’s how old he looked, but I try not to judge based on looks alone. 

Later, he wrote me a prescription for some hydrocode or oxy-whatever, I can’t recall, and I got upset because he was releasing me without examining me. Somebody had come along and drained an artery, but there hadn't been another word about that. I was there for hemorrhaging out of my she-bang. I knew how much juicy flow I had lost. He never laid a finger on me. Never mentioned an ultrasound Just wrote the script and have a nice day. 

I was so confused when the nurse gave it to me. 

Will this stop my bleeding? 

No, but it’ll take the pain away. 

OHHHH, well, then I’ll still exsanguinate, I just won’t give a shit because I won’t feel it. What the hell?! How will these drugs even affect me? I’ve never taken these before. I need to be clear-headed to do my job and continue paying for the insurance that pays these hospital bills. Why didn’t the doctor examine me? Why hasn’t anybody answered my questions about my red cell counts? 

These are the questions I was asking the nurse. And the nurse didn’t have any answers. The nurse was not a doctor. Least of all was the nurse the one who decided to let me go out the door without an examination.  So the nurse tried to calm me down. I did not want to be calm. 

He went to get the doctor, and the doctor came back all huffy, not understanding why I hadn’t taken my prescriptions and hauled myself out of there. I was taking up space in his hospital when there was a whole bunch of people who needed treatment. 

Yes, I know, I told him. I’m one of them! 

I’ve already treated you, he said.

Prescribing drugs is not treatment. And how can you treat me when you don’t know what’s wrong with me?

At some point I gathered up my things, and started down the hallway, and I guess that bothered him because he was trying to tell me how much more important all his other patients were, and they had been waiting for a long time to be seen, and he was following me down the corridor yelling this stuff at me and I’m crying at this point, and before I went out the exit doors that went into the waiting room I turned and faced him and said something like, YES, they are important, and I hope they get a better doctor than I got! 

And he realized at that point that everybody working in the ER had paused in their work to fixate on our conversation, and he turned beet red, and there I was seeing my moment. He touched my arm in a gentle way, asking me to come back into the room to discuss it, but I was on a roll at that point. 

I came here for help. I didn’t come in here for drugs. I’m hemorrhaging. People die when they hemorrhage. I don’t want to die. I want to find out why I’m hemorrhaging. I didn’t even get examined. All I got was a prescription for drugs I don’t want to take. No offense to all the really important people in the waiting room, but I got here first, and I need help! 

There was a woman who worked there who came up to me and said it’s okay, honey. You don’t want to have this fight here. He’s not worth it. And it didn’t take me even a nanosecond to realize she thought we were having a lover’s spat. And he realized it too. 

At that point, we were both embarrassed. 

He did take me back to the room and answered all my questions and asked more questions. But by that time, our doctor/patient relationship was on rocky ground. 

A couple of months and two transfusions later I got a partial hysterectomy, but I never saw that guy again. 

It was a tumor, by the way, the size of a baked potato. Not malignant, just abnormal, but holy hell, an ultrasound would have found it. 

A dream: In the Waking Hours I Know My Name is Nessa

 My name is gone from my mind. I had it before I came here, but now that I need it, it seems to have fallen away -- like a dead leaf from a hibernating tree. 'Tis the season of forgetfulness.

Forgetful-ness. Forgetful Ness. There's something so familiar about that, but I can't recall what it should be.

I'm staring at this stranger who's staring right back at me, expectantly. I mumble something, but even I do not understand what I mean to say. She cocks her head, raises an eyebrow, and leans in as if the inches between us are causing the confusion. 

The cold wind blows. More memories fall away. I can almost see them, just for a few seconds, flitting away, tumbling across my timeline, dissipating into the emptiness. Flames flickering into ash.

Shit.

Well, at least that word is clear in my head. I haven't forgotten language altogether. I try to say it to my curious reflection, but she, too, has evaporated. 

This is worrisome. I lift my hands and stare at my fingers. They seem resolute. I wiggle them. I feel them. I am not fading away like everything else around here. I am solid and strong and loud and bold.

The freezing gusts slice into me like blades of ice. I stand against it. I turn to face it, and even though it takes all my strength to find my voice and bring it into my throat, I howl my name into the mighty darkness. 

The sound brings light and the light brings color and the color ripples through the memories, through the leaves of my life, printing words on every page and singing every song. 

I inhale light. I exhale warmth.

I know who I am now. I am Olivia, Forgetter of Names.

There's still some beach in my car.

There's absolutely nobody to hold me accountable to this, but I've got a list of 50 things I'd like to do the year I turn 50. And even if there were somebody to mark the list, it's not like they can take turning fifty away from me, because I already did it back in July. (Though I suppose they could keep me from turning fifty-one if they were a real stickler about it. I guess I better think about that.)

I've been accomplishing things. 

For instance, I went to Vegas. I had never done that before. I played some slots, but my friend who went with me made me stop, so now I've still got $70 of "slots money." Maybe I'll drive up to Guymon next weekend and get rid of it. I won't take the same friend. I'll take somebody who doesn't give a shit how much money I lose.

Went kayaking and later went to the ocean, and just after that went floating down the San Marcos River on a tube. I think I might only be happy on the water. Let me win the lotto and buy myself a houseboat.

Escaped an escape room on the USS Lexington, the one based on missing ghost hunters. Lights flickered, ghosts howled, voices whispered, and I screamed.

I forgot to say I got flashed in Vegas when we were walking The Strip, but that wasn't on my list of things to do, it was just a surprising bonus. We went to MeowWolf while we were there, Omega Mart. I like the one in Santa Fe a bit more. We went to a burlesque show and sat next to a grumpy old man and his joyful wife. We barely drank. 

I got a pet, a black molly who promptly got sucked up into the water filter, so I replace it with another black molly, and then another, and then one more. That final one lasted a bit longer than the first three, but two weeks into it, I packed up the entire aquarium and went back to being a no-pets household. Anything more than four would have been idiotic and cruel. 

I entered a writing contest - short story, but I didn't win. Now that I recall, it was flash fiction that I wrote in less than a day, so no hard feelings. Typically, I'll sit on a story for a while, nurturing it until I think it's ready for the world. This story never stood a chance. It might as well have been a black molly.

I've eaten at more than 50 separate restaurants with more than 50 unique people. 

I've created 50 pieces of art, but I haven't written 50 poems yet. I've almost done fifty little projects around the house. I've definitely read 50 books. 

I created a playlist and listened to my favorite songs from each of the 50 years of my life. 

I tipped $50 to a server and donated $50 to a good cause. 

The list goes on, and I've been having a wonderful year.

I've got all of October, November, and December to tackle whatever's left.

November I'm going to deep dive into NaNoWriMo. I've only ever committed to it once before, but working crazy hours in the stores held me back from being able to dedicate as much time as I'd like to the cause. And even when I did transition to a desk, the fucking pandemic had me tied to it. This year, I don't have any excuses. 

50,000 words in 30 days. What's the math on that? (Doesn't matter. Ima do it, no matter what.)

I Really Need to Cut Down on my Caffeine

I've been staring at this screen for over two hours telling me it's updating all the things. 18%. This may take a while, it says. 

It's my old college laptop. 

I really got my money out of it, but it was old and slow and clunky and grumpy, so I put it out to pasture and bought a shiny new thing about three years ago. Which was four years after I graduated college, so I guess that puts us at an eight year old laptop, which amounts to about 96 in laptop years, so it was an impressively lengthy life. Good old chap.

And I got along fine with the shiny new thing right up until last Thursday when my morning coffee decided to make itself cozy with the shiny new thing, which was by this time, let's just admit it, no longer shiny and not quite new. 

The not really new laptop, of course, had strong objections to becoming cozy with the coffee, and to properly demonstrate its grief, it up and died without any other comment. 

So it's back to the old college laptop.

The clunky, grumpy, not at all shiny or new laptop.

The laptop that worked for four jolly days, but has now decided it's much too old and much too grumpy to be subjected to this kid of elderly abuse so far into retirement. 

If it were human, it'd probably hit me with its cane. 

If I were inhuman, I'd show it what I did to the shiny new laptop that now sits in pieces at the bottom of the trash bin, bleeding coffee. 

22% Don't turn off your PC. This will take a while.

Couple Times a Week

The thing about meetings is...it's considered bad manners to dig a hole and disappear into it, dig all the way to the other side of the earth, start a new life where nobody knows you, abandon all social media, live forever in obscurity. 

Especially right in the middle of your presentation. 

Pillow Snow

The snow comes across the sky

like feathers from a pillow-

one that perhaps you have smashed

with reckless joy

against your best friend's head.

The flakes, too, are reckless.

They see me through my window.

They flock against the glass

to get a better look at me.

They show me their six identical corners.

I show them my two unique eyes.

by nessa locke 2021

See Me Home

 In those moments just after twilight

A Summer’s day in the middle of Fall

Three lanky silhouettes on a basketball court

At the elementary school.

One poofy head

One smooth head

One ball cap

One headlight

Then one head light

Then more headlights in an endless growl

A guttural vibration

A motorcycle roar

I am the shark that splits them

Porch light

Snow cat

Pumpkin cat

Moon cat

You know the kind

With moons for eyes against midnight black fur

Staring at me from the shadow

Just after twilight in the middle of Fall

by nessa locke 2020

(self destruction)

I have long held the opinion that I am ruled by  six primary counter-intuitive desires.

I want to save the world.

I want to destroy the world.

I want to conquer the world.

I want to be consumed by the world.

I want to be included in the world.

I want to abandon the world.

These seem like conflicting and lonely fantasies. Though I may often be conflicted,  I am not lonely.
And I realize at any given point in time, I could remove "the world" and replace it with something a bit less lonely.
Practically anything else as unattainable as the world.

love
money
time
literature
happiness
alaska
myself
or
you

Scrap Poetry

I demolished a book today. 

Like a regular sadist.

I did it to get the boy interested in poetry. 

We spoke of mechanics and theme and tone. 

We looked for power words and mood and proper grammatical structure. 

We pieced words and phrases together from the scraps of an old paperback my friend had given to me. (She didn't like it you see, but I might, if I gave it a try. And I tried.)

The boy and I clipped and snipped and rearranged the bits.

We stuck them onto new backgrounds and committed them to their new order with Elmer's. 

We didn't unwrite the pages. We obliterated the pages.

And now the words belong to us.

Savages, we.

My scrap poem:

There was a strange note in his voice

words of wisdom

in a grating voice

in a voice so choked with fury it was scarcely 

recognizable

So I rolled my eyes up as far as they would go and

pressed the spoon to your lips

You were like   a little bird   swallowing obediently

but never opening your   ensuing discussion

long thoughtful silence

to stir the strongest sensations, and

When I awoke, I was surrounded

Everyone began shouting at once

One of the soldiers must be a traitor.

Lyric's scrap poem:

His first words of the king

he inspected the ancient rarest of gems at 6

The point where the Bowmen of Cush ghost was willing to take Emerson's word

His poor wife had reminded of this time alone while it struck

I Feel Fine

There is a single fly darting around my house landing in peculiar places: the ivy, the entryway rug, the photo wall.

As I was stalking it, swatter in hand, trying find the perfect moment to strike, I swear I heard my dead mother whisper in my ear, "If a fly can get in here undetected, COVID-19 won't have any problem slipping in."

I guess they don't have the six feet rule on the astral plane.

I Wasn't There for the Ambience

An old boss of mine once told me that a girl like me ought to be happy just to have a job--a girl with four kids, no husband, and no degree. He listed those things specifically.

I was asking him for a raise, and I deserved one. I did not get one.

This is the same boss who, when another female coworker of mine decided she wanted to be a firefighter, accused her of "trying to be a man" because she "wanted a man's job."

Great guy, that old boss of mine.

Since that time, I have attended University full-time while working full-time, graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA, moved into a different department at work, got a few promotions, and now spend quite a bit of time giving high fives to all my team members, male and female alike.

I bought a house, took a trip to London, got published a few times, survived my first car wreck, found new hobbies, revisited old hobbies, volunteered, made tons of friends outside my normal circle, and pretty much had the best time of my life focusing on my own growth.

All of this I did without the critical financial, moral, or emotional support of a husband.

Go figure.

Going through it all, I supposed it was easier to NOT have a man than it was to have one. I had more freedom to NOT do regular chores around the house. I wasn't expected to keep the house clean or do grocery shopping or any of the stupid things women complain about "having" to do all the time.

Eff that.

Pretty quick after I graduated, "Arturo" swooped in and scooped me up. It was a bold move. I had turned down a few men already, and I had planned to continue being single, seeing that it was working so well for me up until that point.

The funny thing about Arturo is he's a real man's man. He shows up for life, works hard for his paycheck, has muscles and stamina, works on cars, likes his privacy. Not the kind of guy I thought I'd ever be attracted to again. I was imagining I'd find a nerd like me with a couple of degrees and a passion for philosophy and art.

When he asked me out he said, "You wanna get together for coffee and talk about Shakespeare?"

Ummm...okay.

We've been together for over a year now, and I have no idea where we go from here. The only thing I know is that I don't need him. I am perfectly fine on my own. And that simple fact adds value to our relationship. I don't need him around; I want him around.

And that's the kind of girl I want to be. A girl like me.

Maybe It Was Allegory

Last night I dreamed of a goldfish who lived in a glass bowl in the middle of a swimming pool. He kept jumping out of his confined bowl into the "freedom" of the pool. I spent all my time catching him barehanded and putting him back in his bowl. Each time the little fish jumped into the pool, he grew a little bigger. Naturally, this made it easier for me to spot him and catch him, but eventually, he became too big to fit back into the bowl. I sat on the edge of the pool with the little glass bowl in my hand and watched him as he became much too large to swim freely in the pool. He jumped out and told me he was going to find the ocean. By this time, he had grown so large, he was bigger than me, maybe twice as big, and I could no longer scoop him into my protective hands and put him back into the safety of his bowl or the pool. I couldn't even drag him into the ocean. A sadness grew in me for the loss of my little fish, because I knew he would not make it on his own, and I was useless to help him. I woke up wondering how to find the ocean and bring it to my little fish, and only when I was awake did I realize I could have dreamed it into happening. I could have dreamed of a secret passageway out of the pool directly into the ocean, but I forgot I was in a fantasy world. I forgot I was in control. That is the way of dreams.

Fiction: Anxiety on a Different Level

            I’m twelve feet off the ground looking down on the flowerbed that used to have petunias or daisies or something prettier than dirt and rocks. I imagine myself tumbling over and striking my head on one of the half-buried bricks that keep the barren dirt safely separated from the weedy forest that is my lawn. Or maybe I’ll slip and impale myself on the sharp pickets of the privacy fence. How much blood would I lose before somebody hears me screaming? What happens if I get knocked out and can’t scream? I try to remember if I’ve ever been given advice about plummeting safely. I’m sure I know nothing about falling, so I vow to myself not to take it up until I’m better educated. So I sit.

Happily, if the Zombie Apocalypse happens today, I’ve got a pretty safe seat. Everybody knows zombies can’t climb ladders. I wonder how long a zombie can last without a meal. I wonder how long I can last without a meal. Or a beer. It’s getting pretty hot up here. I run my hand through my hair and think I’ll marry the man who brings me an ice cold beer.

Though I am certain I am holding still, my vision swirls and the ground seems to pull at my core. This must be vertigo. Who would even want to marry a girl who doesn’t have the cajones to climb down a ladder?

“Jackie, are you okay up there?” My neighbor calls up to me. I can see his balding head over the fence. He’s shading his eyes from the sun as he looks up at me in that serious way that makes me think he’s thinking he needs to call someone with authority, perhaps someone with negotiation skills. I know he probably should send somebody to shoot me with a tranquilizer and let me roll off unconscious onto a nice, safe tarp. There would be far less drama than trying to convince me to get back on the ladder. Nevertheless, my neighbor wants to get on with his day. I know this. I know he doesn’t want to be bothered, because I wouldn’t want to be bothered by him. I mostly want people to take care of themselves, and so he probably feels the same. I refuse to obligate him to my issues.

           

            “I’m good,” I assure him. “Just writing some existential poetry.” He doesn’t waste any time and believes me right away. He disappears into his garage, and a few minutes later, his blue sedan drives away. He stops at the sign and turns right just as my boyfriend Elijah is turning onto the street. They wave to each other.

            

            It must be five-thirty. Elijah always comes home at five-thirty.

            

            I am silent and still. I feel like a teenager who’s been caught sneaking out. What will he think when he realizes I’m stuck up here, and that I’m not coming down without a lot of crying? Maybe he’ll think I’m not home, and he’ll leave to go pick up dinner, and then I’ll teach myself to fly while he’s gone. He’ll never know about this paralyzing fear that has my hiney stuck to these shingles.

            It seems like an hour goes by before I hear his footsteps behind me. I don’t turn around because I am afraid to look him in the eye.

            “I got this for you.” He presses a cold, glass bottle against my bare neck. I flinch, but take it with a smile. He settles himself beside me, and we gaze at the neighborhood as we sip on our beers. A few minutes pass before he asks me, “Why are we up here, anyway?”

            “There was a kid with a helicopter,” I say, as if the explains it all, and Elijah nods, because that’s enough for him.

            “Did you think about that question I asked you earlier?”

            “Yep.” I nod, and sip my beer. I let it cool my throat before I continue. It was that beer that sealed the deal. “I think it’ll be okay.”

            “That‘s not a real answer,” he tells me and nudges me with his elbow. The force of his nudge knocks me over a little, and my fear kicks in. I clutch onto his arm and scoot away from the edge.

            “Fine then, I’ll marry you!” I shout it like I’m already falling and this is the last thing I’ll ever say.

            “Fine then, I’ll marry you too.” He reaches into his left pocket with one finger and digs out a little diamond ring.

            “You just carry one of those around all the time?” I asked him, trying to diffuse my anxiety.

            “I might.” He peels my hand off his arm, picks a finger and slips the little band around it. “It’s a good thing you said yes.”

            “Oh? Why is that?”

            He takes a long draw from his beer before answering. “Because I am scared of that rickety old ladder you’ve got propped against the house. We’re just going to have to live up here forever.”

Strange Traffic

This isn't my toilet paper.

Neither is this my iron or my pillow or my coffee or my time zone. Nothing here seems to align with my daily expectations, and it's kind of driving me slowly toward insanity.

I need my creature comforts to feel like a comfortable creature, y'all.

Still, my would-be roommate actually has family in this city and a new grandbaby, so she's staying with them, and I've got all this strange hospitality to myself. I have flung my things all over, and I have canceled housecleaning services for the duration. (Except, for some reason, they have to come in on the fifth day, no matter what.Odd.) I have walked around with nothing but a towel, and nobody has been the wiser.

Yesterday, I pulled up and allowed some friendly young man to commandeer my vehicle, leaving me with nothing but a square of paper to reclaim it. I stood there with my luggage and stared into the fog and snow and wondered if there maybe was a mistake about my being here. The powerful, domineering swell of self-doubt began to creep into every pore. I don't belong here. There must be a mistake. Am I educated enough? Do I know enough about our company's culture? Will anybody recognize me as any kind of authority in my field while I'm here? How many hostiles? How many friendlies?

Why am I thinking about this in terms of war?

But...I can do all this. And even more than this. This is no big deal.

And the little things don't matter. In a couple of weeks the strange traffic and the weird night noises and the somewhat familiar faces of the folks who work in our company will soon become routine, and I won't think a thing of it.

And then it will be time to go home.

That One Time We Fled for Our Lives.

Yesterday was National Margarita Day.

I did not partake. But if I were inclined to celebrate things in that way, I might have had a couple because yesterday was also the twentieth anniversary of the day I escaped THAT MAN.

I remember it well. I had waited three months for the perfect moment, and when it finally came along, I took it.

I had four babies, two diaper bags, and a tank full of gas.

We've come a long way.

So cheers  to us.

Good Lord, I'm a Goner

Don't tell him I told you this, but... he snores.

He says I snore, too, but we all know girls don't actually do that sort of thing. It's right up there with belching and passing gas on the list of Things It's Biologically Impossible for Girls to Do. So when he says I snore, you know darn well he's just being silly.

But he definitely snores.

Surprisingly, it doesn't bother me at all. It's part of the noises of the night. It's rhythmic and somewhat soothing, and it makes me feel cozier and warmer to know he's right there. (Most nights, he's not there, so I soak up what time we have together.)

And when he's not there, the silence makes me nervous and restless. I've grown so comfortable with him, it's as if he supposed to be there, as if he's always been there. His absence feels like the anomaly. The night is off kilter without him. I get fidgety, and I have to wait for the lullaby of the passing night trains to soothe me to sleep. It's something to drown out the silence when he's gone.

Lifestyle Choices

I had hostile neighbors last year, which is almost an unbelievable fact, because they also had an incessant practice of filling up the entire duplex with marijuana smoke. I often thought to myself, how much more hostile might they be if they hadn’t embraced that particular habit? Isn’t it supposed to calm a person down?

            Personally, I don’t care what they smoke, but I am allergic to marijuana, so I became rather aggravated by the constant two a.m. struggle to rid my side of the duplex of the thick cloud that would waft through whatever duct system existed there. They couldn’t have known that I was in danger of actually dying from their lifestyle choices, but I often translated it to a personal assault on my lifestyle choice—specifically the lifestyle choice I had made to continue being alive as long as possible.

I never approached them about my problem. They had already reacted badly when I asked them to move their vehicles away from my garage, and one time, the postal carrier put their mail in my box by accident. When I tried to knock on their door to give it to them, they threatened to have me kicked out for trespassing. This was their mindset, so I never spoke to them about my very real issue with their pot-smoking habits, even though it is still illegal in Texas.

Instead, I bought a little house very far away from them. It’s adorable. Or, if you want to use the words my real estate agent used, it’s “totes adorbs.” Two bedrooms, one bath, washer dryer hook-ups, garage, fenced yard, nice neighbors. I like it. I low-balled my offer, and the owner accepted it, no negotiation at all, on my birthday in July. I moved in on August twelfth, and the plumbing started acting up ten days later. No worries, though. My super smart real estate agent signed me up with a home warranty, and all my plumbing issues are slowing being resolved. It’s an old house. It’s going to take time. The washer is draining and backing up into the bathtub as I type this, but there’s not a pot cloud in sight.

            The funny thing is, during the time it took to get all the paperwork and inspections done so I could get away from the old neighbors, they up and moved away from me. They took their five cars, their four dogs, their two teenaged boys, and all their pot with them. They didn’t even say goodbye. Go figure.

            The landlord grumbled a little about the mess they left behind, but he was happy for me when he heard I was buying a house. I left my side of the duplex nice and clean and got my entire deposit back. 

             I’m a good neighbor like that. 

All these nice things are MINE

This is awkward.

I graduated three weeks ago, and I haven't paid any attention to all the things I swore I would pay attention to as soon as I graduated. My house is still messy. My car still has bird poop all over the passenger side door handle. My  manuscripts remain unwritten.

Lazy...

But, you know, it's been nice. I know what my kids look like in person instead of just seeing them on Facebook. I got to help my little grandson Damon create some refrigerator handprint art. I went on a few dates with a sexy Irish guy who opens doors for me and makes me laugh. I went shopping.

2016 was my year, you know. I realize it pretty much sucked for so many people on the planet, and I'm afraid I made off with the one little bucket of great things 2016 had to offer. I know this, but I'm still holding on to all my great stuff. In fact, I'm practically flaunting it. Wearing it like people wear Michael Kors, and bragging about it just as much.

"Look at my beautiful trip to London, and my new gray house with the red door, and my four point oh. Aren't they to die for?"

yep. It's been a great year.

Stand to the right, please.

I just remembered I have lots of reading to do before I get back to school on Wednesday. So naturally, I've decided to completely ignore that to-do pile and catch up on some blog-posting.

Lots has happened since I was here last, yet nothing has happened at all. There's the rub.

I don't remember if I mentioned I went to London last May. That was a riot. I've got loads of pictures, and some of them are amazing. Most of them are only interesting to me.
Here's a few:

I'm a Tube expert now. It took about two days for that to happen. I started getting grumpy like the locals, but expressing it in the most polite terms possible. The British are all about manners.

Before all that happened, I had my very first ever bona fide car wreck. It wasn't my fault and nobody was hurt, but it was scary and surreal, nonetheless.

I'll tell you about it sometime.

bulletpoints

These are the bullet points:

• The kids have been out of the house for a significant amount of time--long enough that I actually miss them.
• I am still in school, still rockin' the four point oh. This has a lot to do with my absence on this blog.
• I got a nice promotion at my job.
• I also got a humble pay increase.
• I had a dream about that guy I like.
• It was a very nice dream.
• I don't have nice dreams. This must be a sign.
• I'm going to London in May for two weeks.
• Dr. Doty, who is leading our London trip, is not going to come back to WTAMU in the Fall.
• Dr. Doty got a better job.
• Dr. Doty got a better pay increase than mine.
• Dr. Doty deserves it. He's pretty brilliant, and could probably get a job anywhere he wants.
• I noticed I lost about six followers.
• It kind of hurts my feelings that people actually chose to give up on me.
• I'll be back soon.