Happy Halloween!

She's An Angel

I met someone at the dog show
She was holding my left arm
But everyone was acting normal so I tried to look nonchalant.
We both said, "I really love you,"
The Shriners loaned us cars
We raced up and down the sidewalk twenty thousand million times
Why did they send her over anyone else?
How should I react?
These things happen to other people
They don't happen at all, in fact
When you're following an angel
Does it mean you have to throw your body off a building?
Somewhere they're meeting on a pinhead
Calling you an angel, calling you the nicest things
I heard they had a space program
When they sing you can't hear, there's no air
Sometimes I think I kind of like that and
Other times I think I'm already there

-- They Might Be Giants
Photos are from the Van Cortlandt Park Howl-O-Ween dog costume party. Which was more fun than it had any right to be.
Dorrie's friend Sabine was Buffalo Bill's horse.

Even a Blind Man Can Tell When He's Walking in the Sun

So… jeez. I’ve been a shitty blogger.

There are reasons, of course. You want reasons? I’ve been… hmm, let’s just say Under the Weather for a while. Bad allergic reaction to some stuff, nasty horrible skin issues. Supposedly on the mend, but not fast enough, and I’ve been keeping well-medicated in the name of sleeping at night and not clawing myself to ribbons. I look like a kid who’s just had chicken pox, or like someone Mother Teresa might have prayed over.

So my brain’s been mush, and since work has demanded that I be mostly ON, that’s where much of my mental energy’s been going.

But beyond that, I was just getting sick of the sound of my own voice. That last series of cute animal posts was kind of a flailing about on my part in order not to spew what I really wanted the world to know. I even had a graphic picked out:
It was the end of summer and we had not left the city ONCE, I had not been in more water at one time than my bathtub, the garden had kind of tanked, and I was in the middle of taking a week and a half’s vacation at home just to use up personal days and get away from the office for a while. One day while I was hanging around surfing I found a contest on someone’s blog to win something or other, the kind of thing where you leave a comment in response to a question and they pick one at random. I can’t remember whose blog or what the prize was, but the question brought me up short: What fun thing have YOU done this summer?

And I couldn’t think of a single solitary fucking thing. I was broke and unmotivated, my house was hot, J and I both such slaves to our jobs that we couldn’t even arrange to take a week off at the same time. I had a bright neon sign across my forehead that blinked all day long: LOSER. LOSER. LOSER.

Let’s just say you all are lucky I wasn’t blogging. It takes a bigger talent than mine to make that much self-pity entertaining.

So… what happened to all that? You may well ask, but I’m not exactly sure. In the past few weeks the world, which was already in strange and scary shape, has gotten stranger and scarier by large degrees. But because I seem to always be slightly out of synch with the world, as events unspooled and the economy slid into the toilet and the runup to the election took on the proportions of a National Lampoon parody, I’ve found myself feeling strangely reassured.

Because there’s nothing like freaky times to make you sit back and take stock. And whereas counting blessings is always a good exercise, promoting deep breaths and some psychic gear-shifting, it’s still a matter of imposing gratitude on yourself from the outside in. It’s certainly better than wallowing.

But what I’ve found myself feeling lately is working its way out from the inside, like crossing over to the sunny side of the street on a cool day. Nothing like a change in perspective to illuminate the same tired shit in a whole new way. What I’m thinking, the worse things get, is that I’ve made some really good choices in my life.

First, most important, I’ve surrounded myself with love, our sweet little cobbled-together family. That most of them are four-legged in no way diminishes the returns I get, the degree to which they make me feel protected and warmed all the way through. Things may well get evil out there, but we can circle the wagons. I am enormously blessed.

Some fortuitous timing: I made a big career change five years ago, one of those last ditch do-what-you-love-and-the-money-will-follow leaps. The money part – eh, it’s taken its sweet time. But the point is, I did it when times were better – I saw my chance and I took it. I’d never dare do something like that now. And whereas nothing, it seems, is secure anymore, at least I’m on the ladder. I’m finally starting to feel like I have some chops professionally – I’ve earned a little confidence.

I did take a hard financial hit, and I’m still pulling myself up out of that hole. But I’ve been colossally disciplined about it. Which means I have kickass credit, and it means that I have no real lifestyle to lose, if things come to that. I know how to cook beans and make soup out of bones, and the belt still has a few notches left. Tight times don’t scare me.

I bought a house when a good opportunity presented itself, and put a lot of money down. It’s one of the reasons I have very little liquidity – at the time I was mostly thinking about not having to pay mortgage insurance. But whatever my reasons, I had a little windfall – a settlement from a bad landlord who tried to screw me, and some life insurance money from my dad, and instead of blowing through it some other way I put a fat down payment on my house.

So we have a roof over our heads and the mortgage is low. If we end up needing to cut some corners here and there, we can do that. For some reason London after the Blitz comes to mind – we could be that nice couple who takes in boarders, if it came to that.

And with that thought comes the really important one, the one that’s been generating some warmth:
It’s a big house. There’s an attic, two extra bedrooms – Gideon’s room and the one J uses as an office – and storage space in the basement. If things get really bad and funky, I will take people in. I’ll build a shed in the back yard. I’ll put them on the sofa bed in the living room. I’ll pitch a tent.

Understand, I’m not saying I want things to come to such a head, not by a long shot. I don’t imagine it would be a big old party and I don’t think it would be romantic like making brownies after hours in the Vassar dorms with Mary McCarthy. But the thing is, I have this resource to make sure that on my watch, no one I love will fall through the cracks. That is huge for me. HUGE. People have been so unremittingly generous and kind to me over the years, and the thought that I could find myself in a position to help someone else out – the thought that I have something real and necessary to offer – means a whole lot. I’m not even sure if I’m explaining it well.

Maybe it takes shaking shit up a bit to clear my vision, I don’t know. But I really have rethought this No Fun issue and I’ve realized that honestly, I have a pretty damn good time just about every day. It’s all right if it gets cold and the wind blows; I think I have a handle right now on what I need.