Keep me company

I'm excited about have a bit of company this weekend. (Well, for 24 hours or so).  Dr. Benton Quest and husband are dropping in for an overnight.  I love to have company and meet fellow bloggers.

My mood/malaise/merde is better.  Still many things to sit with, work through, embrace, be transformed by, and all that stuff.  Life can get so serious sometimes!  But never too we hope.

Work is a place where I have not been able to focus much.  Ugh. In order to provide some direction and relief in that quarter, I am taking vacation the next two weeks.  Don't know that I'll go anywhere (as that costs money), and I want to spend time with youngest child before the return of college days for her (and tuition days for me).  Maybe some day trips or overnights, here and there.

So life goes on.  The beat goes on.  cha cha cha.

Perhaps I'll have something more interesting to write another day.

Better than yesterday

OK, well, as much as I liked the "all black" template, I suddenly noted how many others are using the same thing!  I couldn't have that.  So, another template change.  Maybe a bit cheerier.  We can all use that.

Several kind, supportive comments have come my way, and I am very grateful.  I get way too serious on occasion.  Forgive.  Oh, it's all still there, but naming the struggle helps.  Lordy, I'm not all that bad off.  I'm managing.

Today I nearly lost it with mail-off prescription jerks I must use with my medical insurance.  Not such a big deal but complicated.  Details.  Explanations.  Things done clearly and in linear fashion.  NOT my strongest gift.  And, I hate dealing with folk telephonically.  I much prefer face to face.  Alas.

A friend visiting this weekend should help my mood.  I'll try not to spread my morose mood.

A new template - maybe

So, we will have a new look for a while.  Wouldn't it be easy if we could rearrange life as easily, with the click of a few "virtual" buttons.

Electrons on a screen rearrange so easily.  Life, not.

I've been in on of those moods. Depressed?  Well, not exactly.  More morose? Reflective?  Pensive.  Not sure. (I didn't know this was going to turn out to be multiple choice).

Life isn't always multiple choice.  OK. some words of a spiritual / religious / transcendent sort-of nature.  If that's not your bent, it's all right to leave now.

Darkness.  It seems to crowd in, sometimes.  All our short-comings, inadequacies, things-left-undone, self-doubts, etc. come crashing in.  Perhaps "creeping in" is better.  They sneak up on you.  You face the darkness.  And it ain't pretty.

Trusting in God seems a troublesome thing.  Where the hell is that holy and mysterious One?  I know, it isn't all about comfort, and nice feelings, and warm fuzzies.  It's about God.  And God is not what many think (not warm fuzzy, comfort, problems-solved, etc.  --  that's more toward magic:  The ATM god who gives us what we want when we do the right things, enter the correct code, follow the rules).

The Presence of God is just that:  Presence.  Knowing we are not alone. (Perhaps "knowing" is too shallow a  word - grokking?)  There is a comfort, assurance, a "resting" in God - but it's still not always (or often?) "happy happy joy joy."

Trust is that believing in Presence is in the midst of Absence.  Beholding Nothing, but trusting that One is there.  Here.  Now.

Look, I know this probably sounds really "out there."  Well, that's where I am right now.  Finances, loneliness, decisions, the Future, all my inadequacies - all these things seem very present to me now.  And that's not the Presence I'm needing.

Somehow, somewhere, someday.  I am held. I am not alone, nor abandoned.  But I am lonely.

maybe I should get a dog.

Good books make it better

The cold is better.  Still drainage, sniffles, etc., but I have more energy.  But being sick always "brigns me down."

And, with the work stuff, I can sometimes plummet over the edge of the chasm into a real pity party.  Some time, distance, and a walk by the river always help, and they have.  Up and down.

Time to myself with a good book always helps, too.  I think I've mentioned finishing up A Clearing in the Distance about F. L. Olmsted.  Also finished Grand Avenues, about Pierre Charles L'Enfant.  It's that thing with planning / design / engineering stuff that I just love.  I'm weird, but fun.

With some Barnes & Noble gift cards to be used, youngest child and I went on a spree.  A now-in-paperback Steve Berry novel was one of my purchase, along with something new in the biography/memoir section:  The Bucolic Plague.  OK. Two gay men from Manhattan start a goat farm in upstate New York.  Sounds interesting?  So far it's funny and charming.  They've started a business, and with all the connections they have, it's turned into a marketing mania.  I've checked out their website, watched some of the videos, and would love to see the "reality" TV show (The Fabulous Beekman Boys).  I've seen enough to know I'm in love with Farmer John.  Woof.  Note to Sean and Jeffrey:  They're not far from you all.

Even though I realize it's a big marketing thing (hey, they've got to make a living, too), I've enjoyed reading about a gay couple making a life.  There are so many of us out there, it's good to see it in the media in a positive way.  Yes, that they are gay is "part of the plot" because it's unexpected.  But they are there, working, making it.  Out there.  Out there.

I hope to be out more and more.  Now I just have to find the partner.  And be found.

Sniffle, snort, ugh

By now I'd hope to share a bit more of the big adventure.  But work has been very full (of shtufft) and a bad summer cold has got me snorting, coughing, sneezing, and sniffling.  Ugh.

And, I've been in a reflective mood, and a bit down.  The non-profit with which I work is (as are so many) running out of money.  So, the big weekend meeting to say "We're running out of money," was a big downer.  Ugh.  And I felt like ~zx%df.>rt()@<#, to boot.

Nonetheless, we persevere.  Onward!  cough cough.  snort sniffle.