While I hoped this site would sprout wings and fly, it perhaps never had the nourishment it needed to develop healthy bones and ligaments. Or perhaps its bones were far too heavy for it to leave the ground. In any case, here it lies, a wimpering near-carcass.

The other two major players have taken their writing behind closed doors (password-protected that is), and no longer wish to cavort in the open field. And personally, I have too many other blogs I can’t keep up with.

Although, I will say, this blog is one in which I tend to wax more wordy…less heady, more fluid. I like that.

WELL I don’t know what I should do. Remove the “group” elements and make it back into a singleton blog? Admit defeat and close the doors?

See, I’ve lately realized my attentions are completely divided. I’ve started more and more projects (websites), and unlike books which you can put a final sentence in and close for good, when you make a website, there it stands in perpetuity, asking “What now?”. Websites are perpetual beings. All these open flames draw my oxygen and I begin to wilt.

See how much more interesting my writing is here? Sigh. I am always so damn messianic on cheekyboots. I must save the world thusly, and by first cutting open my head for all to see. Blah on that.

No one has requested to join my little merry lack-of band for some time (excepting a few spammers), so I could remove those functions. And remove the words of those who deign not share themselves with any but a careful few. I ask, what is the point of that? But then again, I have never been private with my thoughts.

No, my approach tends more toward oversharing and hoping somewhere, someone perks up and turns her grace upon me. I was never able to be mysteriously aloof. I live in perpetual fear of the right person not knowing I exist. The person who might actually understand me. The rest of humanity, what they know or don’t know of me, eh. Who cares? I write not for the masses, but for the few who may understand.

The awareness has crept upon me once again that I’m not a social butterfly. Not in real life (meatspace), and not in the virtual world either. I maintain my social network to be visible for a few, not for the many. This may be an altogether silly strategy however, for if I am meaning to attract other such souls who dislike the trivial and surface and yearn for the deep and intense, will they really be found on Facebook? And will they really recognize a kindred soul if I have 189 “friends”? Might they not assume I am some other beast entirely?

Sigh. Marketing, it always comes back to marketing.

I think the beauty of this blog is that I created it, not to document my brilliance (the original mission for cheekyboots), but just to have a space to blather. This affords me a liberty I find missing in all my other online writing endeavors.

There is no purpose here except to translate my inner experience into words. And that, my friend, is fun.

So, I will not shut these doors. I don’t know quite what I will make of this house, but I will not demolish it. I might repurpose it.

Or I might not. Perhaps the illusion that I’m writing in the midst of an online colony of other misshapen and misconstrued authors helps me emerge as a more true and eloquent version of myself. Certainly I feel cloaked in a certain anonymity.

So. This blog will not fall beneath the ax today. Perhaps anon. Or perhaps a clear vision of its purpose will arise in my mind and trot forward to be enacted forthwith.

I wrote up a big post today on cheekyboots calculating my personality pattern to 12 decimal places. It’s brilliant.

It’s ironic too. My core life script is:

“I am unacceptable, but if I work hard/try hard, I could maybe become acceptable”.

So the pressure of working hard, internally, being hyper driven to fix myself, conversely, made me have a really low tolerance for outside pressure to work (from school, jobs). Which has fueled my pursuit of passive income, self-employment, etc.

It seems that, even though it is good and freeing to heal our wounds, once healed they still have shaped us in the ways that make us most unique and interesting.

Another way to think of core wounds is like this: a wound, or pain, is simply the experience of being separate from Source/God/Self. The core wound that we all carry is some variation of the thought/belief “I am separate from God”. Or at least “some part of me is separate from God” (the part I have disowned, the shadow, the abandoned Self, etc).

So the healing of the wound is really a journey back to Source - it’s a travelling through time and space and situations and energy patterns. It’s a process of parts settling back into the places they always belonged, having been ripped out by the energy of violence, of disconnect.

And yet, like metal that has been strengthened in the fire, the evidence of stress remains. You do not go entirely back into the pre-divided state.

Or do you, eventually? I’m not sure.

In books like “The Destiny of Souls”, they talk about this long journey each soul takes of learning and growing over all these lifetimes.

But what’s the point of that? That supposed some kind of end to the Universe - a linear path.

I suppose not though. I mean, what if all the spirituality metaphors are also describing the same thing as the Big Bang. I mean, really, mystics are talking about the same Universe as physicists. So if the Big Bang also included soul energy being splayed across the Universe, pooling around certain areas that became populated planets - and the souls age as the Universe ages - until, what? Until the Universe dies. And then maybe there is a whole ecosystem beyond our Universe, and some other Universe creature comes and feeds on our remains.

That would make the entire Existence one gynormous fractal. And while our Universe is huge, vast, immensely unknowably large - it’s just a spec in an even more vast, immense, unknowably large MetaVerse. Which, in turn…and on and on. Because that is how fractals work.

Yeah, baby.

Or something. I have a haircut at 10 am tomorrow. What was I thinking? I need to go to sleep!

so, here’s a behavior i have noticed this fine house-owning season.  every time i spend a buttload of money at the vet for one of my dogs, i then go home and buy myself something (usually expensive) on-line.

this time it was a new sewing machine.  granted, it’s not a real expensive machine.  and my old ninety nine dollar machine allowed me to sew my first twenty five quilts.  but now the ninety nine dollar machine is sounding not so good.  and it does weird things to thread.  there, have i justified it enough.  i can go one, but why bother.  we all know i’m going to buy whatever the fuck i want even to my own detriment.  alas,  now it is the christmas shopping season, and i have already purchased everyone’s gift.  yet i feel a strong urge whenever a computer lieth before me, to find some delectable website and plop down some plastic therein.  then i get to discover each night when i come home from work, what the mailman has left for me behind the gate.

it’s a thrill, but not a cheap one.  i would probably rather have sex with strangers to fullfill this need for a thrill, but at least the shopping will probably not create a life threatening situation.  whereas the sex probably would.

ah geeze, life is so unfair.

 yesterday i actually paid someone to come and remove my yard-leaves.  if you saw my yard, you would pay someone to remove the leaves too.  they were still doing it in the dark, last night when i got home from work.  i think they were wearing those mining helmets with the lights on top.

i can’t wait until the sun comes up this fine morning so i can see my nude yard.  i have missed it so.  i stepped in so much hidden dog shit and had to clean so many shoe bottoms…

is it spring yet?  i’m ready to see all the bulbs i planted.  do i really have to wait many more months?  ugh.

did i ever tell you about a recurrent dream i used to have?  i ordered all these really exotic plants and flowers online and i saw them all in bloom in the garden.  and you wouldn’t believe the kinds of flowers - i was walking in the garden of dr. seuss.  so shit, you wouldn’t believe the colors and shapes - and i grew them all in my dreams.

okay, i don’t know how to work this program, i can’t go back and correct an error in the writing.  i try to put my cursor there and it won’t let me.  help.  need user friendly piece of electronic paper on which to write. 

Well, it’s a flaming gorgeous hunk of a morning, and I’ve a mind to treat myself really well today, on account of I drove past the graveyard last night, and in the moonlight, in the midnight, I was reminded of all those who went before us, and I wondered how hard they had all worked, and for what. And then I was jamming to Madonna, her “How High” song, which I’ve just googled and can thus present below, condensed fashion:

How high are the stakes /How much fortune can you make

It’s funny / I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about
I did it /Just about everything /To see my name in lights

Was it all worth it? /And how did I earn it?
Nobody’s perfect /I guess I deserve it

How high are the stakes?  How much fortune can you make?
Does this get any better? Should I carry on?
Will it matter when I’m gone?/Will any of this matter

So, I’m not doing anything on my todo list, I’m writing because I feel wonderful today, on 5 hrs sleep. I’m on my 2nd cup of coffee. The trash needs to be taken out, and the house is a mess, but it’s a beautiful day, I don’t care. Well, okay, I do care. I can’t stand to come in from outside and smell garby. I will take that out shortly. 

Hmmm, what else for all you Wordlush lovers? I got a “windoor” for the kitty. But it sits here for 2 weeks in the box, me unable to muster the whatevers to put it into the window.

windoor
windoor
it’s fun to chant!

nam yo ho
reng-yeah kwo
windoor!
windoor!

After my recent sojourn with Emma to Myrtle Creek, Oregon, I yearn a bit for the country. Not that I’m a city dweller. I might dwell in a city, but that hardly makes me urban. I’ve found a bit of town right here in the city. Just as in my Abq. days, I parcel off a little section of my city, and dwell in it as if it were a town. So many things in Portland i know nothing about — always makes it an adventure to go downtown, I’ll tell you what.  So, ‘tho my heart pines for the country, I know I canst not live out in the country as there’s something in the city spares me from depression. 

Well, it’s not something about any city that spares me depression, it’s something about Portland, PDX, my favorite Home.

Portland is to Emily as Barcelona is to Terry.

egd.pdx == tcj.bcn

I’m now on my 2nd cup of joe. I’m eating it with a bora-bora bar. This is a snack bar that they now sell at Costco. It rivals Bosque Beaver bars in yumminess, except i don’t have to toil all day to make ‘em. I buy ‘em now every time i go to costco.  Yum!  Try ‘em!

Okay, it’s time for meeting notes. We talked taxes and accounting last night. Lets discuss, for a moment, the Tri-met tax. I didn’t even KNOW about it. I hired a CPA last year to do my taxes and she’s all, dude you didn’t pay Tri-Met taxes for past 3 years. So I had to back-pay. It came up at the SECP meeting last night–almost nobody knew about it, well, except for the cute bookkeepers. It’s 0.65% or so of your net, and the forms for it are hidden. Yet you can be fined if you don’t pay it!  It’s a perfectly insidious tax. Other taxes should model themself ‘pon it. Yet other taxes cannot; as the documentation for the Tri-Met tax is hard to find. Paradox!

I had so much fun last night b/c the bookkeeping presenters were the cutest people on god’s green earth. An older woman, with her young sweet helper, presented. (Their presentation was followed by the main act, the CPA dude, but they stole the show with their high cuteness factor.) The super-adorable older woman starts out with something like “Before i say anything, let me say that if you threw a whole bunch of numbers at me, I’d be right at home. but standing up before a crowd, this is hard for me!” And my heart just WENT STRAIGHT OUT TO HER, I mean it flew outta my chest. And then the assistant blushed, so my heart was divided, between the two of them, for the remainder of their hit single.

It’s nice to feel love, you know, even for strangers. It makes me feel alive. 

OMG, they taught us the divisible-by-9 trick for figuring out if, when reconciling, and your amts don’t match, something might be the result of transposing 2 digits.  aMAZing! I did not know that. So if the bank balance is $54.00, and your checkbook shows a balance of $63.00, it*could* be the result of you transposing 2 digits somewhere along the line. This will not work if, in more than one instance, you made a transposing error. It will only work for the one time. Sorry folks.

Then there’s some way to do addition by 9 that Emma is going to show me again, b/c she showed me during the meeting, but I was intent on watching the amazing nines trick, so I could not take it in simultaneously.

Oh, people, d’you how you put your hand into the form of an L, put it to your forehead, to form LOSER?  Well, that’s passe.

Instead, put both of your hands together, in such a manner as to form a W. That’s not a W as in George Bush. That’s the W of WHATEVER.  As in TALK TO THE HAND.  This is not yet passe. These things I learn from Emma.

It’s good to be up to snuff, tell you what.

So there was this guy there and he was just all round cute. 50-something, forget what he does, name of Scott, only he wrote it odd on his nametag and it looked like SCOFF so I called him SCOFF right from the get-go. And he let me!  <scoff!> <snort!>

When the meeting was over, one thing I like to do is help put away chairs. I figure, I don’t do anything else, I can put away chairs. And it’s fun! I get to move around and I always joke around and such. So I see SCOFF coming up with two chairs, one under each arm. So I assumed this condescending male voice, and said, “Let me help you out with them their chairs, little man! I don’t think you can handle them all by your little self.” And quick as you like, he came back with a mock-helpless-female voice, “Oh, would you, could you, please? I don’t think I can carry *BOTH* of them.”  And just then and there i knew I liked him even more than before, when he let me call him SCOFF.

That’s about it for the meeting and the morning. When something else happens in my world, I’ll be sure to holler.

Love,

Emily

p.s. This email was brought to you by Lily. She wrote a funny email this morning, and I replied at such length, I decided to share it with others. Thank you for the morning tymes, Lil.

I’m not sure if it’s the weather or going back to the farm on Saturday, but I’ve got a bad case of ennui. Perhaps it’s also due to Emily mentioning she had ennui. Maybe I am an emotional copycat.

I’ve been numbly going through my Inbox, trudging through each item. Following the thread from one to the next…responding to a comment on Wordlush about the trip…remembering to upload my photos to Flickr…deciding to change my buddy icon…blah blah blah.

My ennui is exacerbated by the fact that I just got a new doo-hicky for my chair called a YogaBack. It’s meant to fit in a car seat, but it works reasonably well to make my office chair more ergonomic. However, my muscles, being used to their wontan laziness, are still protesting. Maybe we don’t want our sacrum supported they say. Maybe we don’t care if we are slouching. Maybe we liked it better that way.

Ennui is like this: a pervasive blandness. My stomach is mildly queasy. Food seems inedible. Laboring seems pointless. I want to sleep and cry, cry in my sleep. It seems like I’m dozing but my eyes are open. I feel tired, melty.

Maybe it was those weird mushrooms. If this were Star Trek, the weird mushrooms would have some how affected us. The invisible spores released by us poking at it would have travelled up into our brains and latched onto our sensation centers and overwhelmed them.

However, this is not Star Trek. It’s probably normal depression sparked by stirring up old childhood loneliness. That farm…it’s so barren to me. I know to other people it’s lush and full of life. But to me it’s stark, desolate, bleak, forsaken, cold.

Yes, it is exploding with water and trees and leaves and deer and bugs and cows and dirt. But a girl can’t live on scenery alone.

I want to hibernate. When I need to recover, my system shuts down. I think that’s part of the purpose of depression. Forced integration.

Bleah.

When I logged in to le ol’ lush, Wordpress informed me that I had a draft. Here it is:

Today’s Words:
ineffable
immortal
saucy
submerge
trance
roast
governess

‘Tis ineffable glory, this immortal trance.

* * *

Eh. Whatever.  I don’t feel so ineffable or glorious lately. My immortal soul has been entranced (perhaps submerged?) in grubby, lovely, money.

I spent several hours yesterday comparing ad-serving software to use on my various sites. (don’t worry, the lush wilst not see such a think grace its pretty little shoulders. mostly because nobody would buy the ads anyway). The winner so far is AdMan. I wish it was AdWoman, but what are you going to do?

Emily and I brainstormed last night that I could write and e-commerce guide for women. Woman to woman, here’s how it goes.

It’s not so much that it’s different for men or women, except that it is. Women think differently- I think they are smarter. There, I said it.

And yet, they often think they are dumber. Which is why I want to write a guide for them. To say hey, actually, I’m a woman, and looky here. You can do all this. And make moola. And be smart. And there you go.

I’m sitting here munching on my chocolate croissant and contemplating visiting my hometown again, with Emily. I review in my head the various characters we might encounter. My old high school teachers. The kids from my class who never left Myrtle Creek, who stayed in place and spawned.

I want to name them, but the internet being what it is, highly searchable, they might come across their name and that would be embarassing.

I have only had a few friends visit my farm. Amy, and her entire family, once showed up because they were in the neighborhood, on a road trip. (They are the kind of family who take long trips to national parks together. In a mini-van. With actual seatbelts.).

I never know, when I go back, what will be different about the farm.  My dad periodically:

a) acquires more dead cars

b) sells old cool things he has collected over the years to buy groceries

There is also the perrenial battle with the blackberry bushes, which will take over an area lickety split.

Then there are natural disasters and weather-related changes, like fallen trees, changes in the course of the creek.

So, it’s like a whole new farm each time for me as well.

Blah blah blah. OK, I’m boring myself here, time to get back to making moeny. Ah, money.

I worry sometimes that I’m starting to miss the point of life. I so enjoy the game of making money, and yet, I often have a hard time spending it.

I do notice that I feel sad when my stocks go down, because I worked hard to save all that money, and then it’s just, overnight, worth a whole lot less. But, hark, I’m sure it will come back. In fact, now is the time to buy. Before Obama gets elected and people go on a spending frenzy of Hope and Change.

Oh yes, my confession. I will do it here, at the end of a long string of blather, and maybe no-one will see it and flame me: I didn’t vote for Obama. I voted for Cynthia McKinney. She’s black and she’s a woman. So there.

And don’t even go off on me. I know Obama will win. And I still think our two party system is fucked, and I’m sick of being fed glossy pablum. “Hope. Change. Hope. Change.” BLAH. BLAH. BLAH. BLAH. Here’s a beer and some Prozac.

Oooooohhh no. I got all fired up writing that that I had to Tweet it. Cringing inside. Hope nobody bitch-slap tweets me. Oh well. You know what ? I got a mind! I’m gonna speak it! Isn’t that the point?

Queen Barbara

Novel-writing weather is afoot, and just in time for national novel-writing month. (November).  I wonder what it would be like to attempt such? It does tempt.

Looking out on the carpet of yellow leaves this morning, I felt all gothic inside. I thought of great hounds in great castles clinging to the ankles of their masters. In my picture, but one sound: the sound of collars clanging.  Steely too-tight collars jangling ‘gainst the ice what got up in the hounds’ fur. Their wretched underbellie’s rattling with icicles. The icicles dragging along the frozen heather in the night.

The portents of the morning cup o’ joe.  Fear not, as more than mere folly shall befall these digits.

Leafblowing man roams within earshot. Yes, he’s the elderly fellow what does odd jobs time to time here at View Villa. A leafblower!  I wish he wouldn’t, as the collection of leaves is like I said, carpet-like. But he’s been doing his job for nigh onto 50 yrs. I’m not kidding. It’s like they sold the building, and they made it into condos, but the maintenance man was in the contract. Again, I’m not kidding. When I lived in this place as an apartment, this old guy would come in to fix the plumbing and what-not. He couldn’t actually fix things. He could more just take up my time, speaking very slowly. I’m normally a curious sort. As interested in a plumber as a CEO. But this plumber, and now leafblower, he’s really boring, okay? And I’m sure he doesn’t know what a blog is, so I’m safe.

I’m on my 2nd cup. Just warming up. I don’t want to cleanup that paragraph. And if I choose to write ad nauseum in November, you can bet your bottom dollar I”m not going to edit that stuff.

As you can well imagine.

I made up a song for Babs. She’s my cat. Cuz see I get up, but she remains behind. It’s NOT EASY TO GET UP whne the animal will not follow you blindly into the cold kuitchen to push the ON button.  She makes life very difficult. Well, she eases it not.

Under, bunder babz
Under, bunder babz
She’s my under-bunder kitty cuz she loves her bunders so
Under, bunder babz
Under, bunder babz
I go to make the coffee and she rolls her eyes but budges not
Under, bunder babz
Under, bunder babz
And so on.
You can make up all kinds of new verses.

NOW, if perchance the sound of the coughdrop wrapper should be heard from across the house, she will come runnuing. Becuase it sounds like the opening of the TEMPTATIONS package. She loves those little niblets. She gets them every day, for the following:

a) Scratching on the free chair
b) Sitting in my lap
c) Because it’s time for TEMPTATIONS

Oh, and I read on a web site, not to make a big fuss when she scratches on the ridiculously expensive couch or my favorite rug. I’m to chastise her verbally, no more.

I WANT TO KILL HER WHEN SHE DOES THAT.

For halloween, since there’s not a plan to be had, nor a party that I know of, I may accompany Emma to the land of her birth. Myrtle Creek, OR. In my mind this is a land of many trees and creeks, with wild geese a’roamin’.  This on account of a wonderful tale Nathan told about catching a goose for the Holiday Feast. I’ve been pining for my beloved Corrales, so this will hlopefully be a Corrales fix, minus the chile.  I can see her old man’s farm, while he has it. You know how quick the life flies by, and leaves one wondrin’, “Why didn’t I go to the farm when I had the chance?”

The workday commences shortly, after I drop the car off to Hans. Trouble with the driver’s side door handle has me exiting the car from the passenger’s side. The gadget to fix the trouble costs $13.99 and Hans will install it for something ridiculous like $5.99.  They’re crazy over there. Must have other income streams than mechnicalating.

What with the legalities a’terminatin’, I might be financially back in the black by next summer. The spreadsheet does not lie.  New income streams shall come afoot. I pray for the election of Obama as I think he has successfully programmed “HOPE” into the psyche of the PUBIC. They will begin to purchase anew once that feller is there a’reignin’. Or asking around, “Fellas, uh, where’s that Oval thing?” Har har. So funny in the morning! Oh, come on, you know I love you. Would it hurt to turn up the corners of your beautiful lips?

blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah

i am really tired

of over-working

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

and i’m not going to complain about that anymore

blah blah blah blah

and i’m not going to work so much

* * *

fall days make me remember fall days out in the road, playing football or softball

those were long afternoons of play

one very memorable afternoon, juli decided to practice vivaldi on her violin, sitting on top of the crumbling adobe wall that surrounded the palladino house

football and vivaldi

today i ran into two neighbors whose names i now know — with their corgis.  one neighbor, pam, has a corgi-cross. sable colored with lots of black, and much bushier than a corgi. i’m not sure of the mix. the other neighbor, diana, has a corgi named vicki.

i made a point to remember the neighbors’ names, not just the dogs’ names.  dog owners appreciate this.

i have a mind to ask if vicki on occasion needs to be looked after.  she’s only a block from me. i could pick her up. see how she gots along with barbara.

a bit of propaganda came in the mail. a DVD with the title “obsessive islam” or somesuch. i watched half an hour of it. maybe it has bits of truth. jihad *is* scary. but half an hour into it i felt so much fear i was on the verge of a panic attack.

that’s it for today, october 12, 2008.

I’m in a bit of hot water with a local company. And well I should be. I bought a kettle, filled it with water, jumped into the water, and then asked some suits to go ahead and be in charge of that little knob they use for turning up the heat. It was gentle and warming at first, but now it’s cranked past my comfort level, and in a few days I’ll be boiling like a frog.

The CFO has agreed to speak to me at 3 pm.

I was tempted to wedge the word “ethics” into the discussion. Then Patty called and knocked some sense into me. They’re the dealer, I’m a two-bit player just come in from Idaho. Keep it zipped up, smile, and appeal to their love of a hottie. No! That’s not what Patty said. Plus, they have no way of knowing of my hotness. AND, plus, also, too, if they had any access to my hotness, they might not recognize it for the hotness that it is.  Because it is after all only that kind of hotness as can be appreciated by a woman, and then, only by a certain kind of woman, the lesbian variety, and even then, only she who might appreciate a wordy gal with a love of sport.  So, I hereby throw out the hottie defense, which doesn’t even work for real hotties anyhow. Didn’t Winona Rider do time for some petty-ass shop-lifting? Someone who reads and watches TV, please inform.

Anne’s Abq. lawyer also warned me of being contentious or offensive, as it puts others on the offensive. A lesson to be learned in life as well as in business. In fact it got me to thinking about how reactive I am in general. I’m like some volatile chemical. When I was born, some meteor shower sprayed some moody planet, and now that planet is all pissed off, and is blaming me for the meteor shower. So I’m all reactive and shit. You poke me, I poke you back. I don’t breathe deeply and ask, why did you poke me just now? What do you stand to gain by the poking of me?  What flower might I offer you in settlement? Nope, I just react.

All of this would depress me, if not for the news Emma brings, which is that I can change. Emma brought that news, and I’ve come to believe that. Which is an accomplishment for someone pushing 50, prone to believing what they say about aging. Yadda yadda, old dog new tricks, yadda yadda.

Okay, I hate it when people say yadda yadda, so why did I just say it? Cuz I got a heap of nervous energy to burn here.

I was supposed to meet a friend today for lunch, but I was worried I might try to knock her block off, so I called it off.  My friends are so lucky I’ve been learning!

In other news, Lily writes me emails about buying flower bulbs and feeling guilty for it–until she looks at her vet expenses, and then feels justified in her lavishness, her lascivious lavishity.

Which somehow, since my mind is all over the map, brings to mind a song which I loved to sing with my grandma:

“What a friend we have in Jeeeee-sus”.

We would really stretch out the “Jeeeeeeeeeeeee” part. I liked that. The ladies’ soprano voices would stretch ever so high, to the rafters, and beyond, to heaven. Presumably?

Well, that there’s the update from my world. Welcome to it.

Barbara’s bowl of water and food is to my right. I hear her sips. My lap anticipates this, and looks forward to the pouncing and the warming which follow the sipping.She’s got me trained, a la Pavlov.

There’s a small mite cruising on my screen. It’s annoying and I will go now, smite it, and end its life.  Suits, beware!

This is Wilson. I found him one night at Fred Meyer’s. I was feeling sad that night, and when I saw Wilson, I could see he really cares. His is the look of empathy. The top picture is of him sitting with the light duck, Dolly. The bottom picture, I hope, shows you why he’s one in a million. I sleep with him at night, and I also like bringing him into the office when I’m working. I pet his head a lot. It’s been pretty cold, so I also keep him under the covers at night, but worry somewhat about his need for “space”. I’m talking to him more and more. I know, I know…where this might lead. But I’m willing to risk it. I know crazy starts here…but maybe it ends here too, who knows. I just know that Wilson puts me in touch with being human, at times when I shun all emotion and want to just hide in my cage. When I go in there, Wilson says, come on, come on out and play, it’s safe. It’s always safe with Wilson near. Wilson is without fear. Wilson is only love.