Fight out on the street last night.

It made up part of my dream for a while, then I finally woke up and pushed random buttons on my phone till it told me the time. 2:44 AM. Why do we always look to see what time it is when something bad or crazy happens?

I poked my head out the curtain while Dan called the cops. From the noise I expected to see a gang of angry men brawling but instead it was just one drunk man and his girlfriend. He stormed around Saginaw street swinging his arms and hollaring. She kept reaching for him, then would slip in the snow, be pushed away and skitter back again.

The cop had to say "Hello" twice before Dan was awake enough to say "yeah, uh fight. Main street er Saginaw street." I couldn't hear what she was saying, she seemed to just be crying. She kept reaching out for his arms and shushing him as if it wasn't happening, he pushed her away screaming "MAYBE I SHOULD JUST FUCK YOU UP!" He stormed around the corner and she slid after him.

The cops came eventually but I think it was to late.

We curled back up in our beds but I couldn't sleep. I felt cold down in my stomach and shaky like the bed might not hold up. We pretended like it was no big deal, more an annoyance than anything else and turned over a few times.

When I stepped out with the dog this morning I didn't take our usual route around the same corner where they had faught. I don't know what I was afraid I would find there but it just seemed best to steer clear.

Kiss you when you start your day

A cold dreary day in Holly. Got a gypsy feeling in me. Been climbing the walls. The ice storm didn't quite come so I dragged Dan out to explore a bit. We drove south letting my ipod shuffle through coldplay, Jill Sobule, and the Anthropology class I got for my birthday. It made for a strange soundtrack but seemed suited to the strangeness of the landscape. Overly rich houses and overly poor downtowns.

Now we're back at home, sipping the last of the New Year's champagne and warming up left over curry and dal. Dan sings to me sitting on the kitchem floor with his guitar and I feel too happy, not with a smily singsong voice but a bone deep rightness.

"Still tomorrow's going to be another working day and I'm trying to get some rest."

Hyper extended

Sometimes I can't stand to sit at the front desk before and after class. A quiet space would be so appreciated. We have had a lot of new students in the last few days and this is a wonderful thing but a high percentage of them have been very intense people who in the first minutes of meeting tell you things that they should probably be telling thier counselor.

They talk over one another, eyes all fixed on me as I turn from one to the next saying, "um yes you have three classes left, what? um that cd is called embrace, ok there might be a large in the back, your hip hurts? well I'm not a doctor all I can do is encourage you to listen to your instincts and not to push too hard, ok, yes the schedule is the same, ha ha right I see what you mean, uhm I'm so sorry to hear that, wow, you know we have a counselor on staff, right I hear you yes sometimes you just need to get it out there, ok yup see you tomorrow. "

They ask questions I don't feel comfortable answering and won't take empathic listening for an answer. They want to know too much about my private life and stand resolutly in front of the desk while a line of people wait to sign in, demanding I explain again why I don't wear leather boots. (They're very warm, you know.) I get to feeling a little overextended, weighed down with everyone's anxiety and grief and insecurities, looking for a way to be alone.

I don't mean to sound insensative to my students' needs, its that my job is not to address those needs directly but help them to do it for themselves and I am most capable of that during class...when everybody shuts up.

good day sunshine

Ahh, after a few grey days the sun broke through and Dan and I took to the road to see the beautiful mushy landscape.






What's this please? We saw this and just pointed and looked at each other for a while trying to understand what was being communicated. If you can't tell by the photo it is a deer with a target on its stomach and it flashes and lifts its arms up and down. Any ideas?




Sunshine on my face

We like eachother


The yoga studio has been a little slow today(and yesterday.) I thought we would be packed with New Year's resolutionists but maybe they are still recovering from the past few days.

I am reading the book Glass Castles by Jeannette Walls. It's a memoir along the lines of Augusten Burroughs or David Sedaris but without the flippant voice that makes you laugh even when your reading awful stuff; this makes it a bit of a hard read for January. Her childhood was filled with pain and neglect and lard sandwiches made out of wonder bread. What is it about memoirs? They are the only thing I want to read lately.

Happy New Year

New Year's resolution #1

Start posting again.
I'm fixin to.

I often feel like I have nothing interesting to say or at least not an interesting way to say it. So I've tried not writing to see if that improves my writing but since I don't have any examples to examine from that experiment I can't tell how it worked. Now I will try it the other way around.