. Spinning .

"Good morning, Mrs. Smith.  Fine day today, isn’t it?" I say.

"Good morning, Mrs. Gibb.  Yes, it’s lovely today, though a bit cool,"  she replies.

I finish my errand before her, my next door-neighbor, and nod politely as I hurry to pay the proprietor for my purchase.

My next stop is  the country store where I collect some groceries, and the owner greets me and offers his help in carrying.  "I’m fine," I tell him, and drop my armload on the counter where his wife keeps a jar from rolling away on me.  "Well, good morning," I say, "and thank you.  I seem to always pick out more than the quick items I came in here for."  We chat a bit as she rings up my purchase and I count out my dollars and change.

I bid her good day, and wrestle in a package for mailing at the post office.  "Hello, Ralph,"  I say, and he answers in kind and asks how I am.

I am just about done, and on my home when a lady, a stranger notices my sign.  "Excuse me," she says, "do you have your card on you?  I was told by Mrs. Fraunhofer that there was an excellent picture framer right here in town, and I’ve been meaning to call on you."  I greet her politely and assure her that I am indeed, the best, if only framer in town, and give her my number and hours of the shop.   

At last I am home, but as I unwind from what seemed like a quick run around shopping, I realize how very much I love living in a small rural town where just about "everybody knows your name."  While of course I have set the pace when I first stopped in and pumped gas at the station where I ran into my next-door neighbor and rather formally greeted her.  But once she followed my lead, the stage was set, and the time could have been a century ago.  It just feels right here, just feels like home.

Not mine, but someone near and dear.  And this may sound odd, but I have found that blogging produces some real help when the call goes out.

Does anyone out there have any experience with surgically removed benign tumors (regrown, same spot) and the recommendation of radiation therapy alone versus a radiation/chemotherapy combination? 

It’s a big decision to make, especially when the young woman is still planning on having another child and could be adversely affected by the procedures.  I realize that each case is very different, but any experience shared could be helpful.  You can e-mail me privately if you prefer, and I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate your help.  Thank you.

Just to give you an idea of what’s on today’s (free day) agenda:

FA Bank deposit
PO – taxes & Neha/make appt for passport
Grocery – wraps, potatoes, chicken (?), rolls, half & half, Weds munchies, soda
Computer – email Alisa, Erica, Jess, Neha, Mark re book, CS re chk; start WC book essay, do CW essay on story, otto cover, otto guidelines, fix otto site, post CW class notes for journal
Laundry/ironing
Fix d’s computer or order parts
Call D town hall for birth certificate
Call Farm Val re otto article
do FA books for sales tax
read for class tonight
Shop — order chops/mountboard
Call Fran & Dennis
call Eileen re alisa & house
Call Gus re Thurs nite

I live with these lists daily, often rewriting what’s not been done onto the next day’s list.

And yes, if I do something not on the list, I add it in and cross it off.  I’ll bet you do that too.

The earth is all forgiveness of neglect and lures me with its scents and sounds again.  Inside myself, I feel a hunger for the soil; physical, beyond the mind’s knowing what is needed to be done.

Another day or two, I say, and I will come to you and play.  Caress the earth in friendly tousling of hair and dirty cheek, just like a mother’s love that never goes away.  I’ll work the earth and feed it seeds and bulbs.  I’ll rake it gently after digging in to refresh it, as if to make a bed.

For someday soon I’ll find the comfort of its welcome, and it will let me sleep within its sheets.

I don’t know why I didn’t believe that boxing was involved in this new "survivor for pay" show.

I’m okay with war for good reason.  I’m okay with punching someone for calling yo mamma a … 

I’ve never thought it was okay to promote a sport where the intent is for two people to beat up each other for no good reason other than money, and call it a sport.  There is a clear purpose to hurt each other in boxing.  Even shooting as a sport makes imperative and strict rules to ensure that no one gets hurt.

Yet most people will disagree with me and not see any logic at all in my thoughts on the subject, because it’s a "sport". 

Just don’t arrest me if I punch somebody for a real good reason.

Okay, c’mon, what’s the story?

This reader has been at it going on a 3-day total of close to 20 hours now. 

Either somebody really likes my writing, is laid-up and totally bored enough to do this, or translating Spinning into Latin.

Spent just about an hour this morning on campus, paper trimming "otto" that was so graciously printed out with such speed and perfection.  These guys are good–even the trimmer was pre-set for me at the right spot, and I was thrilled because I wasn’t sure that they’d be collated, and they were.  That’s a great time-saver for me right there.  But after an hour it got to be ten a.m., and since the shop is supposed to open then, and I’d only cut 20 sets out of 50, I loaded them all up and took them home to use my dinky but effective trimmer on the rest of them.

But it was kind of fun; was reminded of my years as Susie Secretary, with the noise of the copying and binding machines clattering around me.  Soon swung back into the rhythm of production work (which I’ve also done!) and giggled as I rocked to the rhythm of slice with the right hand, pick up with the left, slide the blade back, etc., both hands working independently of each other but finding the most efficient ballet of interaction.  I felt so very Catholic. 

Well, I’ve done the matronly dress & jacket greeter/introducer bit, did the cool and with-it jeans and sport jacket upscale weblogger, did the baggy pants and oversized floral artsy-fartsy publisher, and now the wardrobe gets put back in storage for next Halloween.

The Tunxis Writers’ Festival was very successful, beautifully arranged, and great speakers dispensed entertaining information and served it to a very enthusiastic audience.  I think some people were pleasantly surprised at what was available and were happy to have some of their thoughts and questions affirmed and answered by a knowledgeable group of presenters. 

But I’m back home now and back to being me; comfy in jeans, feet up and with a computer in my lap.

Man, I tried four times to title this entry, and just can’t put it into the right words.

I’m feeling kind of a, well, like I guess you’d call it a Don Quixote syndrome.  I feel like I’m off tilting at windmills, seeking the impossible dream, trying to right wrongs within a system that calls the wrongs right and the rights wrong.  and I guess I’m kind of at the end of the journey–though I thought I’d just lost the trail for a while and picked it merrily up again–and getting tired.

Maybe Rutsville is the place to be, the place to live and decorate with white cotton curtains and a new mailbox post.  Maybe, because you don’t end up very far away if you ride around in circles, you’re better off just staying where you are and change the attitude, not the world.

I’m just incredibly tired.  After a year and a half of avoiding any stress and demanding the least of me I’ve ever allowed myself to slide by, I got back on the horse and hoisted up the flag;  a reason, a purpose, a cause. But you know, nothing that you do will ever really matter unless it’s so spectacular a boon to human life or lines their pockets.  It’s hard to fight with one arm waving sword ahigh and the other dragging others along the path with you to a goal.  And the "it’s just for me" attitude is just a consolation prize and not the pot of gold of satisfaction, so that’s not where it’s at.  But what makes it worth it, what makes donning boots, or suit of armor, or just the adding of a feather bonnet and some warpaint down one side of your face, worth it? 

I guess I just don’t have the fire inside me any more.