February 28, 2010                          Valparaiso, IN

Winter may almost be over, but I am still eating as if I were preparing for hibernation.

I'm popping out of all my pants, and even though I can keep my largest pair buttoned all day, the zipper can't take the strain and keeps falling down.

What looks like cellulite on my thighs I try to convince myself is just light-and-shadow play of winter optical illusion.

My partner says, "Why do they call it cellulite when it is all fat?"

I can tell his mind is also on the winter weight phenomenon.  He calls us "Beauty and the OBeast" (diplomatically refraining from saying which of us is which.)

Oh, well, I don't care.  It is the last day of February and I'm marching into March - with or without a lion! 

February 27, 2010                          Valparaiso, IN

Aaaah...aaah... one more day of February.

Cold.  Snow.  Stuffy nose.  Shoveled the sidewalks.  Knocked down icicles and cleaned the pieces off the walk.

Walked to the University Library a mile away hoping to buy a year's borrowing privileges and found it unexpectedly closed.

Spring break in the middle of a snowy wasteland.

There is not even a blade of grass to be seen, let alone an early snowdrop of the flowering kind.

Ha!   Ha ha ha ha ha ha... ha... sob!

February 26, 2010                              Valparaiso, IN

People don't believe in global warming.  I think they don't believe in it because they don't want to believe in it.  As Al Gore says, it is too inconvenient.

"Look at all the cold and snow," people say.  "Of course the earth is not warming up."

Don't believe the scientists if you don't want to.  After all, anyone can make a mistake, including scientists.  But you have to admit that they have studied the situation and have more specialized knowledge with which to draw conclusions than most of us.

Scientists say that global warming will cause it to get colder in some areas because of changes in water temperature and changes in the weather patterns.

You don't have to believe this if you don't want to.

But as my partner points out, when you get a fever and your temperature is spiking, you might shiver with cold.

Maybe we aren't getting a big warm "hug from God."

Maybe we are getting a bad case of the chills.

February 25, 2010                                 Valparaiso, IN

Well, I helped fulfill February's false promise yesterday for failing to work my shift at the Friends of the Library Book Sale Room.  I flatly forgot it.

Oh, I suppose snow-shoveling and recent family birthdays and visits and a partner's being slightly under the weather might have distracted me, but these do not provide an excuse.

I was even in the library an hour before my shift started and I forgot all about it.  Oh, of course, I am in the library almost every other day and I only work in the book sale room once a month, but still....

No, I am February wracked with guilt, inconsolable, and ultimately forced to take responsibility for my space-out.  Even February excuses falter in effectiveness.

See?  It is all February's fault!

February 24, 2010                                 Valparaiso, IN

I made a discovery today.  Being out in a bright heavy snowstorm provides a lot of light.  It's almost as cheerful as a bright sunny day.  Of course, there has to be a good layer of clean snow all over the place for the therapy to work.

I'm laughing a lot, reading funny books and watching funny movies.

Now if I can only learn to laugh at perverse people's impervious predispositions.  If I can only learn to laugh at the scofflaw Senate's stagnation.  If I can only learn to laugh at the Tea Party's poisonous brew.

No, I'm laughing at my futile attempt.  Time to see a movie.  Hope it's a funny one!   

February 23, 2010                                Valparaiso, IN

"You want to have your cake and eat it, too."

I remember my father saying that to me when I was a girl.  I remember not understanding it at all.

How did you go about "having" your cake without eating it?  How did you eat it without having it?

Who would want to keep their cake without eating it, anyway?  From the point of birthday candle blow-out on, it would only go downhill.  Melting, sagging frosting and stale dry cake.  And in my case, since my mother would put fresh flowers on it, wilted blossoms.  Yuk.

As for whatever contradictory real-life desires I harbored to inspire my father's admonition, who knows what they were?  I have no recollection of them whatsoever.

Last night Chris Matthews said it about McCain.  I don't remember why.  All I have is an image of McCain holding a birthday cake with lots of candles, wondering how long he can have his cake before the flames are extinguished in the sugar roses.

February 22, 2010                            Valparaiso, IN

Oh, February!  That might make a good new curse.

This morning I shoveled inches of slush off the sidewalk.

We went to a great movie (Blind Side) but it was preceded by an outrageously dramatic ad for the National Guard.  I have seen this before, and it is almost enough to make me quit going to movies.  Glamorizing military service!  What a big lie.  I do believe if I manage to get to movies late enough, though, I will not have to see it.  The trouble is, impressionable young folk will be exposed to the strange disease of thinking war is cool.

The weather has gotten a little warmer, but the moisture gives the air that penetrating chill that gets through your warm layers.

One week left of February.  I hope my February bruises fade quickly.

February 21, 2010                                Valparaiso, IN

Have you heard the latest?  There is a group of people out there, so I hear, that wants the United States Constitution to apply only to Christians.

According to a reliable friend of mine, that is.

Nothing but gossip and rumor, so far, but I bet if I watch MSNBC tomorrow - Chris Matthews and/or Keith Olbermann and/or Rachel Maddow - I'll find out more about it.

Meantime I can imagine myself back in the Dark Ages - back in the time of the Crusades.

Or I can imagine I am a victim of an American Inquisition, threatened with any torture if I don't proclaim my Christianity in a public square.

When I was a girl, I read about the martyrs put to death for not renouncing Christianity.  Of course I identified with them and imagined myself like them.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the opposite happened?

What does it mean for a U.S. citizen if the Constitution doesn't protect her?  Maybe this new reading of the Constitution would mean I'm not a citizen at all.  Maybe all my votes were a mistake, according to the followers of this idea so reactionary it would put this country back into the centuries before our country ever existed.

Reminds me of Afghanistan, still stoning adulterers in Kabul.

Do these folks who want the Constitution to only apply to Christians really want to go back to the bad old days?

Beware - there can be as much hatred, bad blood, and antipathy between little Christian sects as between major religions .

The schism-lovers and secessionists and dissociatives will fight with each other until there is no one left but themselves.

And then, pared down to one person, that person will fight with himself.

February 20, 2010                              Valparaiso, IN

Just had the first pithy mango I have ever run across.

A loose dog has pooped in the yard.  I hope it has all integrated into the soil by the first time I have to mow.

The snow in the yards has begun to look like Swiss cheese, and the snow along the curbs is gray.

My partner threatens to turn the local squirrels into Brunswick stew, all except the little red squirrel, which has survived most of the winter and is too small to make into a stew anyway.

Today I had trouble balancing my checkbook for the second month in a row, which is quite a feat when you only write six checks.

Oh well, what can I expect?  It's February.

February 19, 2010                              Valparaiso, IN

Yesterday I took highway 6 to Portage and since I was close to the toll road, decided to keep my hand in at that kind of driving.  What the hell - the toll was only 35 cents or so.  Getting on was a little confusing, but I did it, and reached for the ticket they told me to get.  It stated the toll was 50 cents.  Not a surprising raise, and I thought I still had enough change.

I made the nine miles from Portage to the Valpo/Chesterton exit okay, and stuck my ticket into the machine.

It said I owed $1.50.

I was positive that the toll hadn't more than tripled in the past year.  But what could I do?  I scrambled for the $1.50 in change (I had no dollar bill, of course) and aside from the person behind me having to wait a little, there was no additional consequence.

I got out of the toll trap and came home.

But it has been nagging at me.  Sure, it was only an extra dollar.  But what if they have it (mis)set so that everyone has to pay an extra dollar or so?

Years ago in another city I felt that every time I went to get a green chile burger in a very popular establishment it cost a little more than it should.  One time I even said something, but was instantly squelched.  (I'm getting deja vu, have I written about this before?)  Finally I went one time with barely enough money to pay for the burger.  This time I dug in and fought.  I knew I was in the right, but I still couldn't get the guy at the counter to turn around and look at the price list.  I swear he was over-everyone charging by a dime for years.

Now I have the same uncomfortable feeling.  Being over-charged by one dollar on a fifty cent ticket is a lot, but doesn't exactly break my budget (which I don't really have, by the way).  But what if everyone is being overcharged?

If the state collects and the money goes back into state coffers, I don't mind so much.  But is it under private ownership or administration now?  That could add up to millions in a year!

I guess I'll act on it just as a matter of principle.

On the other hand, I don't want to cost taxpayers $10 to iron out a one dollar mistake.

What to do, what to do?

I'm in a February quandry.

February 18, 2010                               Valparaiso, IN

What has happened to Obama as President of the United States might serve as a cautionary tale to the first woman president.

Just because you are elected doesn't mean, unfortunately, that our elected congressional representatives will give us what we want.  If the good old (white) boys in Congress and the Senate want to chop off Uncle Sam's nose to spite his face and collectively spit in ours, they are quite capable of doing just that.

Meanwhile, keep the faith, President Obama, and teach us women how it can be done when it is our turn.  May you not experience what Hilary experienced as first lady, and may the first woman president not experience it either.

People criticize you for being optimistic.  Well, of course you are, or you wouldn't be in the White House now.  Of course you have to be, or you will not succeed in any of your major objectives.

And, with failure the racists, (and mark my words, in the future they will show themselves to be sexists, also) will have their way.  So get even more wily and clever and diplomatic, so that we women will know how to be effective when it is (finally!) our turn.

Otherwise, we will have to turn around when we finally have a Madame President, and show you!

February 17, 2010                             Valparaiso, IN

I just had a weird experience:  I woke up from an anxiety dream and started feeling worse about my real life than I had about the dream!

Admittedly, it was no nightmare, but still, I felt very alone.

Then I realized, maybe this is why I write.  I feel (or felt when I got into this habit of writing) alone.

At first I was going to write:

The writer is alone.

But that really doesn't make too much sense because we are all alone, ultimately, physically at least.  There are enough rumors of afterlife in enough cultures to make me believe in the possibility of their truth, but our bodies at least live and die individually.

Maybe what the writer does is just feel alone, and says to the reader, "Come along with me for a little while, listen to a story."

Or maybe the writer is just confused.

Especially in February.

Brain-freezing, mind-benumbing, thought-fumbling February. 

February 16, 2010                                 Valparaiso, IN

Sometimes in February, I feel like doing to the keyboard what I used to do with my oboe:  blow and go al;kdfj ;slkjg;lju ;lkmf.  Really loudly.  How come my keyboard doesn't have different tones for different letters?

Do some keyboards have that?  Is that how computer music is generated, or do the letters represent the same tones on the staff?  Shows how much I know about my options.

Would a note-touch keyboard help a blind person more than a braille keyboard?  Or would it only help a person familiar with the Eastern Indian scale who also has perfect pitch?

Even if it didn't make real music, it might be fun to have a function that plays a different note every time you hit a key.

I wonder if typing a serious subject would sound darker than if you are blythe and bonny in your subject matter.

I want a musical keyboard!

;alkiduj ;oineoituqpo4j5/g,mn/;OITU]

/aeljb[pib rpyi[2po5rgj  'aptki bptjk'rghyhpppupppp!

That's the kind of thought I sometimes have in February.

February 15, 2010                                 Valparaiso, IN

Flurries and worries.

Furries and purries.

Surreys and curries.

Hurries and Scurries .

Febrrrrrys.

February 14, 2010                             Valparaiso, IN

It's Valentine's Day.  The weather has taken a lingering cold, and I have one, too.

I was reminded in the early hours of the real meaning of Valentine's Day, so this Chinese New Year bodes well in some ways.

Yes, it is a double holiday today.  Whoopee!  Party time!  We went on a long walk and tried to concentrate on the sunny blue sky instead of the cold.

I have been eating more than usual lately and for the first time in a long time have been getting the hiccups.  There's a theory for you.  Do you seem to get hiccups more often when you eat more at one sitting?

A board meeting scheduled on the Sunday before the third Saturday of the month (contradance time!) is on schedule tonight.  I love the members of my board, but I hope I don't have a year chock full of board meetings.

Well, Chinese New Years falls on a different day every year.  Valentine's Day is always on the 14th of February.  One unfailing way to celebrate Valentine's Day is to rejoice that the month of February is half gone for another year!

Whoopee!  Party time!

February 13, 2010                              Valparaiso, IN

Yesterday I gave in to an impulse to vote against Sarah Palin for cadidate (ha, Freudian slip) for President in 2012.

The poll was so constructed that when I gave up in disgust at a point where my mote (I mean vote) was registered, it counted my vote anyway.  Supposedly.  At least, they sent me an email to send me the "results" of their poll, including a bunch of questions that weren't seen by me.  Or so they seemed to be saying.

At any rate, the results of the poll were that an overwhelming 86% of the respondents thought Sarah Palin should run.  Maybe.  Maybe Democrats think she should run because whoever was running against her would win.  Anyone!

In spite of this, though, I mistrust the poll.  Anyone who says your vote won't count (for the record I am anti Palin being considered a serious candidate - something obvious to anyone who has read much of my blahg) and then proceeds to count it is disingenuous at best.

A good February poll, though, full of treachery, deceit, and false expectations (that it would be a serious effort to find out my opinion.)

Oh, I just remembered why I logged off.  They were offering a free copy of Sarah Palin's book.  Or the possibility of winning a free copy of her book.  Or the possibility of thinking you might have a chance at winning a free copy of her book.

In other words, they were selling Sarah Palin.

Well, that's February for you.  Palindrones and all.

February 12, 2010                               Valparaiso, IN

Yesterday my partner said Valentine's Day means nothing to him.  "It's a made-up holiday" designed to sell candy and flowers.

Well, that's a sentiment you hear a lot, especially from men.

But so what?  Christmas is a made-up holiday, too.  And Easter.  And Halloween.

Since I no longer really consider myself a Christian, they are all made-up holidays, when people are pressured to spend a lot of money.

The only celebrations left are anniversaries and birthdays.  Anniversaries - definitely made up by the people who did something on a certain date chosen by them.

Birthdays?  Who really knows his own birthday?  You can only go by the witness of others.

Speaking of birthdays, why are the birthers, who refuse to believe that Obama is an American citizen in spite of notices of his birth in his local newspaper and a county birth certificate, so often also the people who believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Jerusalem two thousand years ago?

Whew!  Talk about different codes for different folks!

So, okay, no more meaningless holidays.  The only thing left are solstices and equinoxes.  But if it weren't for the observations of ancient others and scientists, I wouldn't even know those natural phenomena were occurring.

So why celebrate them?

I seem to have talked myself out of ever spending money and having fun.

Sounds like February to me.

I think my Chinese New Year's resolution will be to make every day an excuse to celebrate.  No made-up holidays for me.

The sun comes up, and whoopee!  Party time! 

February 11, 2010                               Valparaiso, IN

I was talking to my daughter about how it must feel to be a baby boomer who, though perfectly good at his job, is being threatened with replacement by someone younger (and, often cheaper.)

She was sympathetic, but could really relate to the flip side of the situation.  She has many friends who have no work.  It isn't as easy for her friends, she says, as it was for my generation.

I agreed, and said that our coming of age was not as easy employment-wise as my parents' generation, either.  At least we didn't have the depression or World War II.

Well, I find it pretty easy to not have a job gracefully.  Maybe others of my generation should emulate me.  But if they have no more social security than I do, it would be very unwise to go gently into the bad night of unemployment!

For the young to expect us to sacrifice our work identities voluntarily might be just too much.

February 10, 2010                              Valparaiso, IN

Michael Steele, Chairman of the national GOP, made a huge gaffe last week.  He said, "Trust me.  After taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money."

Well, of course I didn't trust him before he made that statement.  But no one except Marie Antoinette could trust him afterwards, and she's dead!

My partner and I could probably live for several decades at our present standard of living on what was left from a million dollars after Uncle Sam took his bite.  A vast majority of people in this country probably could.

I would laugh, except that on The View this morning, Elizabeth Hassel... - well, that's enough of her last name, it describes her - criticized Robert Gibbs for mocking Sarah Palin during a White House press conference because, she said, we have so many serious problems facing us now.

So what now, the press don't have the right to have a life as fun and interesting as she has?  Has she ever heard of gallows humor or seen crime scene dramas?

You know, there is always somebody suffering and/or dying in this world, and I reserve the right to laugh anyway.  In return, I give the rest of the world permission to laugh when I am suffering and dying.

You're welcome.  It's the least I can do!

(However, if you are within my sight and reach while you are laughing in spite of my suffering, you may regret it!  Ha, ha!)

I think it's funny that Republicans seem to want us to take so many things so seriously.  I guess they can't have fun, maybe, while so many people have problems, but it won't put them off their chow or get them to drive cheap cars.  They will pull long faces for the less fortunate in their expensive sheets in their king-size beds in their spacious mansions in their gated suburban communities, I guess.

And if you are a Republican and this description does not fit your life, you better quit the Party.  It is not on your side. 

February 9, 2010                                Valparaiso, IN

One of my fears this now-snowy February is the new anti-intellectualism.  This is worse than the old Bush version because it is fueled by racism and characterized by the refusal to face the fact that a desire for simplistic solutions and lack of self-examination of our leaders' motives are what got us into an inappropriate (to say the least) and expensive war in Iraq in the first place.

Love may be blind, but hate is blinder.

I'm not afraid of Virginia Woolf, I'm terrified by the woman my partner calls, "the half-baked Alaskan."

She seems too stupid for run for President, but maybe that's why many members of the public love her.

She's flippant and crass - that's why they love her.

She's ignorant and proud of it - that's why they love her.

In the end, she will grab all the power she can get and run amok with it - and that's why they love her.

I guess.

Sarah Palin is already giving me indigestion.

But it's amazing how many people like raw cookie dough.  

February 8, 2010                                Valparaiso, IN

My partner and I were talking about family dysfunction this morning, and I was reminded about something another partner taught me about fruit trees (and other crops, I suppose) years ago.

If you are planting in an area where spring frosts can be a problem, plant your fruit trees on a slight northern slope.  Even an almost imperceptible grade towards the north keeps the sun from reaching the ground as much as a level or southern-facing slope.

If your tree roots are not warmed as early, spring comes a little later.  The bloom may be a few days or a week behind the blossoms on the neighboring trees, so if there is a late frost, the flowers and therefore, ultimately, the fruit will be spared.

This idea may also be helpful in harvesting.  (I'm not sure of this, though.  That may depend too much on external things too, like day length and temperature.)  Maybe in a year without late frost, the trees on southern slopes will ripen before the trees on northern slopes.  If this is true, your harvesting will have a natural order - a nice spacing of labor - rather than everything ripening all at once. 

So how does all this relate to family dysfunction?  My original idea was that the family doesn't have to have major violence, drug addiction or extreme poverty to be damaging to its members.  Even what seems like just average, run-of-the-mill abuse or problems can have a retarding effect on the blossoming and functionality of family members.

At times, good might come of it, I suppose, the way a late frost might spare the late-bloomer and thus allow it to bear fruit when trees with a better aspect for blooming early are blighted.

I guess that depends on unpredictable externals - the whether!

February 7, 2010                                Valparaiso, IN

One week down and three to go.  That's the cool thing about February - it is usually exactly four weeks.

Uh, except.  Except for leap year, which has been turned into another love thing, when all the rules get turned upside down and then the women are supposedly gonna get the chance to take the initiative.  Like when the girls get to ask the boys to a Sadie Hawkins dance.

Did I ever go to one of those?  Maybe, but if I did I didn't have any fun.

Did I ever ask a guy to marry me in leap year?  Maybe I wanted to, but I don't remember ever going through with it.  I remember proposing to a former boyfriend once, but it didn't work.  Must not have been leap year.

Why am I torturing myself with old concerns of the heart, when presently things are going swimmingly?

It's obligatory.  It's February!

February 6, 2010                                 Valparaiso, IN

Just read a cool article about the little ridges on your keyboard that help you locate where your fingers are without looking.  So I wrote about having to turn on a light for years (waste of my energy and electricity!) so I could see to type, while all along there were these little ridges there to help me orient myself at keyboard home.

It reminded me of my internal alarm clock, which I rediscovered last night, and of the unconscious part of ourselves which is also right under our noses just waiting to aid us with all sorts of problems.  All we need to do is direct its attention to them.

So I wrote about it.

When I finished, I decided (just experimentally) to see if I could find the little ridges on my keys with my eyes closed.  How much time would it take?

Hmm, I thought, this is harder than I expected.  I started feeling around - oops!  I just felt the keypad (is that what you call that thing you can use instead of a mouse?)

Dang!  I had failed to save my article before experimenting with the keyboard and hit the damn pad!  When I do that, I lose what I just wrote and nothing seems able to get it back.

Well, my unconscious mind must have had an opinion about that article!

So I wrote this one instead.

And saved it quick.

Or maybe that article was A okay wonderful and that's just February for you! 

February 5, 2010                                 Valparaiso, IN

About fifteen years ago while I was working for an attorney who enjoyed doing employment and civil rights cases, I read a few administrative procedure cases about people who were discriminated against because they were gay.  (That is around the time General Powell expressed his opinion that openly gay people in the military would be a bad thing.)

I was shocked that gays had no protection under the law the way so many other groups had.  (Not that the protection is any more effective, you understand, than a restraining order against an individual who is threatening his ex-wife;  if people not hired because of age or race died the streets would be littered with us.  The social security budget problem would be solved!)

Nevertheless, I am delighted that the military (thank you, generals!) has come around to allowing that perhaps living a lie might not be the best modus operandi for our armed forces.

It is also good to know that we aren't going to lose more than a few good men and women (will those we have fired be reinstatable?) because of old unscientific prejudices and attitudes.

Let's face it - if expressed, our sexual practices really can't take up very much of our time.  Even the most obsessed and highly-sexed individuals have plenty of hours a day to pursue other activities.

Um, I take that back.  I'm merely one person.  What do I know about how many hours a male (or another female, for that matter) can spend around sexual pursuit?

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that satisfied or at least non-covert sexuality is not as time-consuming to a person as unfulfilled, secretive sexuality is.  Frustrated sex can take a huge amount of mental time.

Hey, what do you know - there is another apologia for anti-Valentine's Day sentiment.  Why bring up and dwell on what is already a sore point for many?  It just puts salt on the wounds!

Well, at any rate.  The guys and gals in the military who love those of their own sex will have to tatoo their hearts under their sleeves this year, perhaps.

Hopefully, next year they can wear them under their stripes!

(Eeek, what image have I conjured?  I'm just kidding, generals!  (But you just might see that kind of style on the runway!  Well, not you, of course.  You don't care about fashion.  But maybe in a few years, the generals of the future will....

No.  I take that back, too.  Judging by what they wear now, NOBODY in the military could possibly care about fashion!)

February 3, 2010                                  Valparaiso, IN

I wonder why it is that I have taken against February so?

For one thing, it starts with an "F."  That is a hateful letter to any student.  ("E" is so innocuous that it was completely passed over as grade material.  But "F" means Fail!)

The first syllable "Feb" reminds me of "febrile" and "feeble." 

Now think back to when you were a kid in school, learning how to spell the months of the year - those months you had been pronouncing for years.

January, okay, that's straightforward enough.  So Febuary - here the teacher pauses.  Febuary is not so easy.  Febuary has a little hidden twist in it - a silent letter.  R.  So it is spelled February.

No wonder I thought the word "embouchre" (a much-used word if you play a woodwind) had a hidden "r" after the "b" until I was in my fifties!

And the hidden letter is not a new concept for me.  My name Esther, after all, has a silent "h" in it.  I can't imagine what an unfair development February's silent "r" might seem for someone named Jane or Ben!  Only a Worchester comes better prepared for a silent letter than someone named Esther or John.  (Hmm, maybe that secret sympathy is why I married that - oh, never mind.)

Still, to have a silent letter introduced in only the second month out of twelve sets you up with issues for the whole next year!  What other unexpected complications are you going to have to face?

The timing itself of the month February is part of its treachery.  The light is coming back, but so what?  You feel just as cold.  Precipitation feels just as miserable.

So what if the days are beginning to lengthen?  The sky is so covered up with nasty old gray clouds it makes no difference anyway.

February, more than April even, is the month of false promise. 

Definitely the wrong month to try to celebrate love.

Ironic, isn't it, that this is the month we have chosen to celebrate President's Day?

The best thing you can say about February is that it's short.  Except of course, for its spelling (with that nasty sneaky self-righteous intrusive little silent "r!")

February 2, 2010                                   Valparaiso, IN

Thwap!  Thwap!  After a good start yesterday, the dark gray clouds and emotional blows of February have begun.

There is something in the stars of February inimical to Mrigasira/Gemini/Pig me, and all I can do is try to survive the next twenty-seven days with as much stoicism as I can muster.

In sunny New Mexico I had a few Februarys that weren't too bad, but the one time I had a three-week flu was in February in New Mexico, so the sun is no guarantee of diffusion of or protection from the curses of Februarys past and the promise of a crappy month this year.

Wait!  I have chocolate!  How could I forget!

I'll try to find enough love in me tomorrow to resume the topic of the month, but today I only feel resentment, anger and hatred.

Oink!  Double oink!  Angry double oink!  February.

February 1, 2010                                    Valparaiso, IN

Well, here we are, embarking upon February.

I have fortified myself not only with things I've mentioned before, but also with some special dark chocolate candies from the South Bend Chocolate Factory here in Valparaiso.  Sometimes plain ol' regular healthy dark chocolate just doesn't cut it.  February is one of those times, and who is going to wait for Valentine's Day?

Not me.

For those of you who don't know what to do for people on Valentine's Day this year, how about some psychic heart surgery?

Nutty, but at worst harmless.

I first heard about psychic surgery by reading the ads in local Santa Fe, New Mexico newspapers.  Those surgeries might have been potentially harmful because the "practitioners" were dealing with real physical disease which might perhaps be more responsive to physical remedies.

My psychic surgery is more emotional.  I was first inspired to do it because I felt helpless to reach a lover who had pulled away.  (Not out, away.  Well, both I guess ha, ha.)  Anyway, I had this image of his heart being full of big nails almost the size of railroad spikes.  I gently mentally pulled them out and tried to heal the wounds and pat his heart back to the proper shape.

He subsequently met and married his current wife, so I can at least imagine that my surgery worked!  At least it didn't hurt.

I have performed several such imaginary surgeries since.  Sometimes the people seem to improve, sometimes not.  It doesn't really matter to me personally anyway, because like any other surgery patient, my "patients" ultimately went on their way into the world.  We are not necessarily in touch.

Obviously, this February, part of my fortification is to pre-emptively address affairs of the heart.  Kind of an innoculation against Valentine's Day - the VD of my emotional year.

Does my heart need psychic surgery?  Probably - but I'm not sure this is an area in which a physician can heal herself!

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