4:58 AM….goodbye Vegas.

5:39 PM, packing for a 5:30 AM departure to Detroit Michigan. Drinking mint yerba mate tea and wondering if I should just go ahead and pack my entire closet.

I’m trying out a new thing. I’m laying on the blue, ultra sueded futon with my lap top balanced on my stomach. I’m in the office that we don’t use. It has a new oak desk and chair, this futon, a huge, blue fit ball and some unhung art leaning against one wall. I painted it yellow a few months ago. I think I might hang out here more. Andy is at hockey, the dishwasher is washing, and I’ve given up on sewing my pants. I have a strong desire to turn on the television. It’s pulling me. I’m fighting it. If I don’t come up with something quick, the tv might win. Damn you illegally gotten cable, damn you to hell.

I used to just write for writings sake. I liked to see the words come together on the page. Like a necklace one bead at a time. I used to be open to the universe and smirk and laugh out loud. Or at least I thought I did. I thought I was, funny and clever and smart. What’s different? What can be so dragged down one day and light and clear the next. Honesty? Willingness? The chemicals in your brain?

Remember that big red brick building that we used to live in. Every day from nine to three, that was our home. The ducks slept in the corner under the “fingernail” tree. The girls played four square. The boys played kickball. I lost my two front teeth on the bridge looking jungle gym, trying to do a penny flip. I landed face first into those fat scratchy wood chips. I remember that place in all of the seasons. Kicking holes in the ice on the sidewalk with my boot heel in first grade. Picking dandelions in second. One time we found a woman’s bra at the end of the field where the street started. We poked it and picked it up with a stick and flung it at each other. We wouldn’t touch it with our hands, that would be gross. Sunshine the dog was tied on her leash in the front yard on the corner. Walking home, I remember that fork in the road that would lead to my real house either way I took. I always stood there for a few seconds, never really sure if I was taking the right path. Now that I’m older, I realize that one way was much shorter than the other. But how was I to know back then. I was only a kid.

I have jumped the shark.

(A defining moment when you know that your favorite television show has reached it’s peak. The instant that you know, from then on…it’s all downhill.)

I write boring things and stay in the house all day and do nothing. I don’t even want to do anything. I’m surly and cranky and if anyone even did want to be my friend I would probably punch them anyway. I hate our two cats and annoying dog and wish they would die. Not painfully or anything, but if they decided to go gently into the light, I might be just as relieved as upset.

I don’t know at what point this shark got jumped. I think it started when I met Andy. It’s plausible, a new character is always an indicator that your show is in trouble. But, it’s not the character that’s the problem, it’s the writer. If the writer isn’t skillful and doesn’t know how to blend and incorporate the new character into the formula, then, no matter how talented, charming and perfect that character is, the story suffers. Taking the show to a different location, another red flag. In my case two major location changes may have caused problems. First and most obvious the move to Las Vegas. No friends, no frame of reference, no familiar cast of characters. The second was leaving behind Starbucks. I did some of my best writing from my puffy, caffienated chair. I would drink an obscene amount of coffee, look out the window and think, and think, and look, and think and write. In Vegas, none of the barristas know me or even pretend to like me, and since I gave up coffee almost a year ago, Starbucks, one of my favorite medatative hangouts, has become my reformed addicts crackhouse.

*Let me clarifly something here so I do not alarm my husband. When I’m talking about “show” here, I’m talking about my writing, and my life and how I deal with things. I love you madly….we’re fine.*

I think waiting may be appropriate. We’re going to Detroit in a few weeks to buy the Eurovan. This means more travels to the ocean and the mountains and visiting friends. I’ve been in this place before (the door wide open and the window still sealed shut), not being comfortable where you are, but not knowing what is coming next. Wanting to control everything internally and externally and ending up frustrated and immobilized. I know the answer is to be where I am and appreciate the scenery because it will change, it always does. The answer is to take time for myself. The answer is to trust the process.

I’ve been sleeping so late. I’ve also been going to bed so late. I feel gross, and tired and hungry and cranky. I had a dream about being on Fear Factor and eating caterpillars. They were fat and yellow. Before we ate them we had to take a bright orange foot or some such thing off the front of it because it was poison.

I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. I’m sitting on the couch immobilized with stinky breath.

I would like to go out for breakfast but it’s really a pain when your foods are limited. So, I’m going to keep sitting on the couch until my breath really gets to me, or I faint and fall off from hunger.

The next door neighbor children have taken a liking to us. They are four and six. If I ever waffled about having kids or not, I think they sealed the deal with a resounding “no”. They’re great kids, and we have fun for the fifteen minutes I have enough energy to keep up with them. How do people do it? When their parents come and get them, the look like crazy, sleep derived, depressed, lunatics. I’m already that, I don’t want to delve into anymore than I have to.

So I’ve been asking myself the question if I don’t want the bambinos….what do I want?

For those of you who are interested we (X actually) found the reason for my hairloss, and the prognosis is good.

I’m sitting in the grey puffy chair. I love the hell out of this chair. I lugged it downstairs last night after the thousandth time I’ve complained that working on the laptop from the couch is like…no funny analogy is coming to mind. But just trust me, it’s bad. You sink into the cushions, your spine hurts and it’s just not comfortable. I’ve been trying to get X to move base camp upstairs into the office that is semi outfitted for ten hours of online poker a day. He’s been resistant, but telling me not to give up on him. Yesterday, his spine must have been especially cramped because, when I mentioned the grey puffy chair as an option, he didn’t say no….which in my mind, is a resounding yes. So, I lugged it downstairs. It looks horrible down here, but oh so comfortable.

Maybe today we can fix the office and the living room can stop looking like a college dorm room.

I said……”Maybe today we can fix the office and the living room can stop looking like a college dorm room.”

Mr. X is teaching me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em.

We are 99.99% sure we are buying one of these.