am i dreaming?

Yesterday morning, S asked me if I'd had bad dreams the night before. I said, "No; why, was I making noises?" He laughed and said that several of his Facebook friends reported having bad dreams. I guess he was trying to see how far reaching this plague was. He had taken Nyquil, so he slept drugged and dreamless for nine hours.

Last night, I was startled by a bad dream. It was a bad dream, but I couldn't say that's what it was while it was happening. Usually, a bad dream is all about the label "bad dream." One could be being chased by an ice cream truck or a goat in a tuxedo, and that could be considered a bad dream, and somewhere in the middle of it, you know it. (I've had both of those dreams, and they were bad!)

In my dream that is just now coming back to me, I was climbing to the widow's peak of an old wooden house. There was a beautiful woman in a long white night gown standing next to me at the top. She stood up on the edge of the roof line and took a nose dive into the misty green silence before us. A moment later, I looked over the edge, and she had surely splatted on the concrete far below. It was startling. I thought, "Oh my god, she's dead." And then I woke up and thought it was a bad omen to have someone die in a dream (though I'm not superstitious that way, I myself have died in my dreams numerous times).

Then I thought back on the dreams S reported (and that I saw) on Facebook; one person had dreamt a close acquaintance died.

But I also remember passing by two empty public pools in the previous day or so and having a weird non-fantasy visualization of climbing up on the diving board and doing a dive into the emptiness. The part that stuck with me was that it might not kill a person to dive into an empty pool; it could just paralyze them, and as P1 says, that would be worse than death.

Just past the pool around which I had that thought, my eyes caught the eyes of an elderly black woman at a bus stop. I smiled, but it was too late to see if she smiled back. I like to think she did. A few days before that, I was riding my bike through that same neighborhood and caught a long glance at a black woman dressed in church-going finery. I nodded my head and said hello, and she smiled and said hello back. She was the opposite of the woman in white who dove to her death in my dream.

Maybe I'm making connections where they don't belong, but I fell in love with that black woman a little bit, even though I'm pretty sure that was the best our relationship could ever have been.

(photo credit)

...is happy to be alive.

That's how I updated my Facebook status this morning, and I got several thumbs-ups and a "Nice" comment from friends. But I was serious. In the sense that it quite possibly could have been the other way around. Not just "unhappy" to be alive, but rather... not alive.

Last night, I went to see Kat Edmonson at the Elephant Room. I heard her on the radio a week ago or so, and her voice reminded me so much of a singer friend of mine that I couldn't get her out of my head, kept Googling her, listening to songs, watching videos, etc, and noticed that she was playing the Elephant Room last night. I've always wanted to go to the Elephant Room.

I was supposed to go see my friend G do a dance performance in a park somewhere yesterday evening at 6:30, but I got out of improv class a little late, had to ride my bike home, needed a shower by the time I got here, and it was after 7:00 by the time I got done with that, so I blew it off. I was planning on meeting up at G's performance with D, a friend of G's with whom I've become pretty good friends, so we texted back and forth a couple of times through the day and decided to go see Kat together.

I got to his house at 9:30, picking up a bottle of red wine he requested on the way. He was sitting at the dining room table with two women friends from his college days in San Marcos, M and the other woman's name escapes me. We hung out for about an hour, D and M drinking the bottle of wine - their second of the night. I had a few sips from the glass he poured me, because I don't really drink red wine, because I figured I would have a beer at the club, and because I had taken a hit of weed before I left the house.

D and M dated about six years ago when they were in school. She recently contacted him and they've been "hanging out." She had planned to head back to San Antonio (where she lives) last night but both of her friends suggested that maybe she shouldn't drive back (in her condition, I assumed).

The woman I didn't know headed home, D went to change, M and I talked briefly, then she disappeared and decided to go with us. While she changed clothes, D came back out and asked if I minded; of course, I didn't. Unrelated to that exchange, he left the room then came back and put his arms around me from behind and said, "I know we don't know each other very well, but I know I love you." Maybe he was loosened up from the wine he'd been drinking, but it felt sincere. I told him it was nice to hear it, and that was about it of the exchange.

I had thought about asking D to drive because he drives his dad's comfy car, but since there were three of us, it didn't even come up, because my truck doesn't seat three very comfortably. D also has cool electronic music, so we were able to enjoy his jams on his dad's fancy sound system. It was nice; I was buzzed, feeling good, and looking forward to some good jazz singing and playing.

We had to wait a little while because Kat is from Austin and the Elephant Room was packed. When we got in, we had to stand in an aisle. D went to the bathroom and M moved to a spot next to the bar; I stayed where I was. Besides sounding vaguely like my friend when singing a pop song, Kat has a voice like Billie Holliday or somebody like that when she sings standards (or turned-standards, like The Police's "Tea in the Sahara" for example). She was singing in front of a tight quintet led by a piano player, anchored by drums and upright bass, and acceoompanied by trombone and trumpet, with a special guest saxophonist.

M and D were talking some, and talking to a couple sitting on barstools behind them a bit, but I ignored them. I was far enough away from them to do so, rocking in my shoes, eyes half shut, grooving. We were there till the end, we stayed through two breaks. During the first break, several audience members left. I saw some seats next to the stage and told D; he said, "Let's go!" but by the time I got there, there were only two seats left, and they didn't follow me all the way, turned and went back to their place at the bar. I couldn't stand forever, my knees were already starting to hurt, so I sat and enjoyed the second set from there.

During the next break, we were able to get in a better position, a table with three seats close to the front. We sat and talked, and that's when I pissed M off. She and D had been talking when we first got there and the couple on the barstools said, "We can hear you over the music, can you please be quiet?" (Or maybe they said "shut up," as I heard the story.) M got pissy; D got cocky. M's point (to me) was that she has to do what other people tell her to do all week long, the weekend is hers, she doesn't want to be told what to do during her weekend. The guy asked them to move if they wanted to talk, and D said, "If you have a problem with us talking, you should move." I was glad I wasn't present. (D doesn't strike me as being this kind of a guy, so I am led to believe it had something to do with being with a woman he was having sex with...)

M made her point for a while, and obviously wanted me to concur, but I just couldn't. I said that I probably would have asked them to be quiet, too. She said it would be different if she were at the symphony and there were signs around that said "No Talking." I told her that there aren't signs at the symphony, that it is just kind of understood that there is no talking in a performance of any kind. She pressed her point some more but I just couldn't bring myself to agree with her - at one point I offered, "The best way to keep people from telling you what to do is to be quiet!" I was trying to be light, but it was the breaking point for her. She went back to her place at the bar. And of course D went too. I spent most of the next set happily alone with my beer.

D spent some of his time trying to get M to come and sit with "us" at the table but she refused; I wasn't being supportive of her and was just as bad as the people who were trying to tell her what to do. I don't know how much D and M drank, but I saw her with a martini glass in front of her a couple of times, and he had pints of his beer in front of him. At the end of the night, I sampled her beer because she insisted (it was a different kind than what D and I were drinking), and because I was trying to make nice with her.

After the show ended, D went to the bathroom and sort of asked us to "talk." I made an attempt. M started in on her same story so I just dutifully shook my head and didn't respond too much otherwise.

It was suddenly 2:00 a.m. I know I had listened to a lot of great music, but didn't realize we'd been there three hours. We headed home. M sat in the front seat (I had sat up there on the way to the show, but took the back seat before she got to the car to show some sort of "respect"). It was misting out, D was driving a bit aggressively, or "cool" is probably a better description; it didn't strike me that he was driving drunk, just kind of like he normally does. We got on MoPac - which has a 70 mph speed limit. A car in the fast lane wasn't going quite that; D got close to the bumper, the car changed lanes, and D hit the gas and we flew down the wet road.

I thought of that billboard that insists on passengers speaking up against aggressive drivers. But that billboard annoys me. If you're in a car with an aggressive driver, particularly a drunk one, making a stink about the way they're driving seems to be a good way to cause a problem. I remained quiet. I knew D had had more to drink than me, but I don't drink very much; people have different saturation levels.

We exited MoPac at a higher speed than I thought was necessary. I braced myself and sunk my mind into the loud techno music playing. At the end of the exit ramp, D hung a right, fishtailed over-corrected - just like they say you do - and we spun around 270° so that we were facing the wrong direction on the two lanes we were in, at the same time continuing a sideways slide across the lanes into the oncoming traffic, had there been any, hitting the curbed median first with the back tire. In my mind, the sound brought the image of the tire and wheel being forced sideways under the car.

There was no oncoming traffic. There was no traffic at all, fortunately. It would have been a horrible mess had there been. I also thought later that there could easily have been a bicyclist on the road, or a pedestrian, even a dog or raccoon would have been a horrible addition to the scene. All of these thoughts keep flashing in my mind, and I am only left with gratitude for life.

After a brief moment of silence (D turned off the music), he apologized then drove back over the median, turned us in the proper direction and continued on at the speed limit, a raucous sound coming from the back tire. M leaned farther out her window than I thought was wise, to see where the racket was coming from. I tried to unclench my fists and jaw.

When D slowed, the noise got worse. We had a number of turns to get into the subdivision where his house is; he seemed determined to not slow down at any of them, then he said, "God! It's like the car doesn't even want to stop!" I was very, very sober, all the while trying to figure out if I would remember how to get back to my truck on foot, because if we stalled out or for any reason didn't make it all the way there in D's dad's comfy car, that was what I planned on doing.

As we pulled along the curb across the street from his address, there was the sound of glass shattering, like I imagine a champagne bottle hitting the bow of a ship might sound. But it wasn't glass. It was metal, two rounded pieces about a half-inch thick, one piece about six inches long, the other about three. It was the shattered rear brake rotor falling to the pavement when we stopped. I picked a piece up but could only hold it for a few seconds because it was very hot.

D was mumbling to himself saying "normalized" things like, "I guess I'll be making a trip to the brake store soon." I hugged him goodnight; we searched M out to say goodnight. She was hiding on the front porch behind a shrub. I told her to take care. She hugged me tentatively and said something like, "It's been real..."

I drove home, my head reeling with thoughts that I could have died. In that vein, I didn't hesitate even a moment to talk myself out of driving through Mrs. Johnson's, the Indian-owned late night donut shop, where they always give you one while you wait . I ate the freebie and another on the way home, then wrote "HELP YOUR SELF" on top of the box and left it on the kitchen counter.

S wasn't home yet. It was 3:00 a.m. He had gone to the bar. At 6:00 a.m. I awoke from a weird dream about D to the sound of the windchimes out of the bathroom window clanging like they had been run into. I could see under my door that S's bedroom light was still on and decided it was him, having forgotten his house key, trying to find an unlatched screen on an open window to climb through, even though I doubt he would never do such a thing. It didn't even occur to me that someone might be trying to break in; I had already had one near-death experience, I guess I figured I wasn't up for another so soon.

I looked out the bathroom window but saw nothing, closed the bathroom door and went back to sleep. At 11:00 I woke up, happy to be alive, happy to see S's light off. Later in the day, I noticed that the bush under the windchime had grown long enough that the wind sail had become caught, the striker was pulled outside of the metal pipes, and when the wind was strong (as it was all day) the pipes hit the striker the same way they had early that morning. I took wire cutters out and trimmed the bush.

D texted me this morning:

Wow! A little dramatic last night. Sorry about the intensity!!

I didn't know how to respond. S seemed to think I should tell him it was okay or that it was "no problem." But I wasn't sure I felt that it was okay or that I didn't have a problem. Not that I blamed him totally; I had just as much responsibility, if not more, for my well-being. I value his friendship, but I've been having a lot of consternation about friends lately.

Finally, I came up with this:

Let me know if you need a ride anywhere. Peace.

I haven't heard back from him yet.

death and rebirth

C called me from his car, on his way to Sunday morning dance. I had plans for lunch with G after dance, but I wasn't planning on going to the dance, but since C was going, and since he called me, I decided I would go. And I'm glad I did. I didn't dance with C for more than a few seconds, but I got a big hug and that was ample. I did dance with a lot of other people, people I haven't seen in a long time. It's nice to leave it behind for a while sometimes; it makes it more special.

G and I ate a macrobiotic lunch at Casa de Luz, after each buying a box of Girl Scout cookies from three persistent girls and their stage mother out in front of the yoga center where the dance happens. We scarfed down a few Thin Mints and Samoas (the two most popular GS cookies, according to Wikipedia) on the way and had a nice high fructose corn syrup buzz going before we ate the deadly nightshades, ginger sweet potato tahini soup, etc. All good. Intense conversation.

I've decided to just be who I am around the men I love. These are the soft, straight men who are as attracted to me as I am to them. Naturally, the attraction is different for each of us, but it is strong and it is nice, and I'm not going to shy away from in. I'm diving in. Clench your fists! Hold your horses!

Life's too short. I had a realization today at the dance while L and I were locked in an embrace on the floor sobbing, her likely for her recently passed father, me for my recently passed cat, both of us for the other's broken heart. (I had an image of her heart, a cartoonish vision of it, broken in two by a jagged line, coming back together and the line disappearing as my left ear then right lay in the middle of her big bosom.)

C saw us embracing. He later commented that he saw us, but he wasn't aware of the tears, just the embrace. He was at the same moment that he saw us locked in a metaphorical futuristic embrace with a thin woman he had met at this very dance. He told me about it; he shares deeply with me, and I with him. Recently we had a very deep conversation and I fell in love with him, right there in his pecan shell colored eyes. I told him so. He smiled. I don't want to get into his pants, but I love him. We have become very close in the last couple of months. Since Christmas, I guess, when he came over for our Orphans' Xmas Brunch.

Maybe I shouldn't post this online for the world to see. I've been bruised by my candidness before. (I've gone back and "changed the names to protect the innocent.") But I also have been having a hard time blogging. Since Timmy. I haven't been completely warped by sorrow, but I have had my moments. I'm in mourning. I noticed in the midst of this that this feeling feels very specific; it is not similar to the feeling I get when I am depressed. It is pure sadness. It isn't attached to any deep hole that depression is. Timmy is very real; and now he's gone.

I've been distracting myself a bit. Or trying to. During these exercises I did a bit of writing again. I've been stuck on chapter 10. But it seems to be cranking up again. This is a very good feeling. The summer before I turned fourteen a great calamity pulled me from my gritty sheets to the door across the hall from my bedroom. The summer before, my half sister, newly pregnant, and Marco, the Cuban who had done the deed -- the man who supposedly belonged to our mother's best friend -- left Black Lake in the RV named Lady Liberty. She sailed out quietly like a houseboat under the full moon, left lot number ten empty except for the succulent weeds and a rusty barrel barbeque pit. Now the sun was in place of the moon, just as full but many times hotter, and another boat-like creation was floating into Black Lake, much bigger, like a brown and white ship, pulled behind a noisy truck on big wheels belching blue smoke. I stood in my underwear and watched the commotion until mama stirred coughing on the sofabed, still asleep, a hand reaching for a cigarette. The TV was on, playing music to accompany the cartoons I normally would find myself sitting in front of.

S says he likes it -- I read a bit to him last night. Maybe he's being gentle so as not to discourage me, but I think not. I don't think he would lie to me. Definitely not about this.

I wrote what I wrote at home, on the front porch. I had tried -- and may try again -- going to a nearby coffeeshop (20 minutes by bike) to write. I have been trying to create a schedule for myself. I carried my entire novel, all 35 chapters and some notes in the big European bicycle basket to the coffeeshop. But I was distracted. I had gone hungry, and then overate. It wasn't even four o'clock and I wanted a cigarette. And J called to ask if I could pick P up from school. I couldn't. --I could've, but he didn't want to pull me away from what I was doing.

I wasn't doing anything.

The day before, Inauguration Day, the first day I didn't feel like crying since Timmy's death, I took my truck to the mechanic, and thought I would find a coffeeshop and sit while it was being worked on. I carried my entire novel in its bulky three-ring binder, plus other necessary items, with me. But I needed to stop by C's work for some Chinese herbs. C is an herbologist. He recently gave me a salve that markedly reduced the spider veins on my right ankle (caused mostly by my 11 years as a transcriptionist, relentlessly pressing a foot pedal), so when my shingles scars -- I had shingles when I was six years old -- started flaring up, I thought to ask him his opinion. He rattled off a list of Chinese words that sounded like a song. Pills and another salve. I told him I was taking my truck to the mechanic a few blocks from his office, and he told me the hours he was free, so I carried my entire novel the many blocks (more than I thought), and I've had a crick in my neck since then.

I got the meds and headed on to a coffeeshop and ended up at a cafe next door to his office. We wound up spending the afternoon together enjoying inaugural events, visiting a shop where he bought herbs and I bought white sage, which I used to sage my bedroom, the house and yard, and cried even though I didn't think I was going to that day.

At the cafe, I did what I'd been trying to make myself do for a while: I put the chapters of my novel in chronological order

3, 10, 17, 24, 31, 4, 11, 18, 25, 32, 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 6, 13, 20, 27, 34

which is the story of Randy Reardon, then the story of the title character's parents

5, 12, 19, 26, 33

then the performance art pieces that the title character writes (supposedly)

7, 14, 21, 28, 35

S finds all of this numerological stuff boring. Or at least my fascination with it. I think he understands that it's important -- and necessary -- for me to play with the order of the chapters (which directly affects the story itself), but when I start talking excitedly about it, his eyes glaze over like I'm talking in depth about the latest features of a Texas Instruments calculator.

But now I only have to carry around five chapters at a time with me.

I dressed, made my way to the kitchen and carried a box of Fruity Pebbles out the front door with me to watch the new home being backed into lot number ten. Several men, darker and skinnier than Marco but with the same oil black hair spoke their foreign language over the noises of the truck and the complaining parts of the trailerhome all morning until I reached the bottom of the cereal box and was sticking tongue-moistened fingers down in to the bottom for the last bits of multi-colored sugary dust.

A day or two after Timmy died, P came home with the head of a gray felt cat she was working on at school. I don't know if the project started before Timmy died or if the opportunity to memorialize him came about suddenly, but I was definitely touched by the final product, and particularly by the fact that she insisted on naming him Timmy.

The top picture is the headstone for Timmy's grave. I liked the quote by Anatole France so much that I used it on his stone (though I didn't give credit to the person who said it).

ugly little gift

I hate that I am so neurotic about my neurotic cat, Timmy, but that's just the way it is. I can't help it; I am totally in love with this cat. I read a story in the current issue of Sun Magazine the other day called "Baggage: A Love Story," by a woman who was dating a man who had a cat that had some health issues. She was a little worried about loving a man who was so in love with his cat. I can relate.

This morning, I woke up to find Timmy not at the foot of the bed as per usual. He likes to go out at night, and being the neurotic Timmy lover that I am, I often have to wear earplugs because the cat door is kind of squeaky, and it's above the air conditioner in the window next to my bed. It's not totally annoying, but I sleep light, particularly when I'm thinking about Timmy and hear his coming ins and going outs.

I peeked out of the curtain and didn't see him on top of the a/c outside, but it was kind of foggy. I started making up the bed, getting ready for my day. Like a mother, I could've sworn I heard Timmy meowing somewhere in the distance. I checked the doors at the end of the hall past S's room, which were closed. I opened them, but Timmy wasn't in the other part of the house. I came back to my bedroom and looked out of the window again and saw only fog again, but heard his distinct little voice outside, sort of a quiet meow, not a real sound of distress.

I went outside and he was sitting on the ground beneath the a/c. I picked him up and noticed that he was a little bit floppy, but he's always kind of floppy in my arms; he gives himself over to me fully. That's part of the reason I love him so much. Who else gives everything over to me so fully? Nobody these days. So I brought him in, lay him on the bed, examined him a little bit. He seemed fine. --No, wait, he seemed to be kind of not using his back legs. He started to get up and then lay back down. He wasn't crying as if in pain or anything; he was just sort of being his usual mellow self.

Then I found a wound, sort of a gash on his back left leg, the ankle area, and another smaller wound on the side of his foot. I picked him up and noticed the floppiness, noticed that this wasn't the floppiness of giving himself over to me, it was more sort of the fact that he wasn't using those legs. I called my vet. The doctor wasn't in -- it was 7:25 a.m. -- but the assistant told me to take him to the emergency clinic, which is open 24 hours, and is actually closer to our new address than the vet.

Timmy usually hates riding in the truck, but he was pretty calm -- maybe lethargic is a better word -- and only meowed a couple of times. As long as I kept a hand on him, he was calm, purring even. My guess was that he had been hit by a car, but I also thought that he might've been attacked by a wild animal or a feral cat. I wasn't sure which was a worse scenario to think about, except that his not having front claws would make me feel pretty bad if he had been attacked, and having not updated his rabies shots (which were due early December) could fuck with me, too.

In my defense, Timmy wouldn't have put up with being trapped in the house, even though he has no front claws. He is neurotic, poops on the bed, pees on furniture when he's upset. I would rather something tragic happen to him than have him for 20 relatively unhappy years.

The doctor's best guess was the same as mine: hit by a car. He did the tapping thing on the more limp of the two legs and didn't get much of a response. This was likely the cause of spinal injury. But of course he wanted to take x-rays, do blood work. They wouldn't know anything definitive until all of that was done, $260.60 later. The worst case estimate was something like $1,550.00, but they only require the best case estimate as a down payment.

They gave him a shot for pain, took him away, sent me home, called back in less than an hour. The worst case estimate was shy of what they found. He had a cracked pelvis, a dislocated hip bone, et cetera, et cetera, more things that I can't (and don't want to) recall right now. He was also dehydrated. The doctor said he definitely needed surgery to put the hip bone back into place. There was also a broken tip of some bone that was pushing into his intestines or somehow obstructing him organs, which could cause problems with defecating.

He said that sometimes with cats having cracked pelvises they can be caged for six to eight weeks until it heals. But I knew would be the end of Timmy. I don't think I'm being selfish saying that; I just know my cat.

Surgery isn't something they do at the emergency clinic. He said they could refer me to somebody. I told him I would call back shortly. He said okay. I hung up and sobbed. I knew what had to be done. Considering the many thousands of dollars it would take to right the problems -- money I don't have -- with possibilities all along the way of things not going right, or not going well, and knowing how difficult it would be for him to deal with healing, and how difficult it would be for me emotionally, financially, et cetera, while he heals, I called the doctor back and told him the most difficult I could possibly have had to say.

S offered to go with me, which I so greatly appreciated. It isn't an easy thing to do with your closest friend at your side, particularly having been at each other's side in more than a couple of similar situations previously, but doing it alone would have been unthinkable. They asked if I wasnted to be present when they euthanized him; I did.

I told M&J on the way out of the house what was going on and asked if they would dig a hole for us in the pet cemetery (next to our future shipping container house); Jeff was just finishing up when we returned.

Timmy didn't seem to be in pain. They brought him into the Exam Room #3 with a bulky bandage and catheter on his front leg. He was still a bit in shock, I think, and trembling a bit, because of that, or maybe because he was also feeling pain. So I didn't wait long before I pushed the little doorbell the assistant had put on the exam table and said to use when we were ready for the doctor.

He came in, said some comforting words. Timmy was pretty alert, head up, looking around -- pupils very dilated. The doctor injected the pink solution into the catheter and Timmy's head drooped down to the towel he was lying on, his eyes stayed open and he was looking at me as he drifted away. Then the doctor injected the clearish solution, checked him with the stethoscope and said, "He's gone."

It was a gift that Timmy made his way from whatever road he was on, whatever car he'd gotten in the way of, dragged himself home with a broken pelvis, dislocated hip bone, et cetera, et cetera, cuts on his better leg, to let me know where he was. I can only imagine the emotional agony we all would have gone through had he just disappeared, or worse, had I found him dead on the street. So, thank you, Timmy, for that little gift.

I know he loved me as much as I loved him; our neuroses were quite compatible.

We put the blanket that he usually slept on at the foot of my bed (the same one he would knead and suckle if I had it opened and pulled up to the top of the bed) in the bottom of the grave; I lay his still warm body, eyes still slightly open, facing our future house, my bedroom; then we put the top of the blanket fold over him and covered him over with dirt.

And now, it's very, very quiet.

birthday season update #3

the power of the prayer

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

photo of the day

I'm totally blown away by this. You might look at this picture and say, "Eh! What's the big deal?" It's not a big deal, except that this is the first picture, taken on March 31, 1979, by a guy named Hugh Crawford. He decided on that day to take a Polaroid picture a day, and called the project something like Photo of the Day. He was 22 when he took this picture, and he took pictures almost every day without fail for a little more than eighteen years, until his untimely death shortly after his forty-first birthday. The website is indexed by month, and a click on the month brings up all of that month's photographs. I find myself just scanning through them, putting together an imaginary life story as I go. What strikes me most is that it looks like Hugh and I share the same birthday. He was born seven years before me, but right around October 28, or so it seems (because of several birthday cakes and party scenes in the photos). It is also very moving to see his illness and death captured in the Polaroids, the last one -- as with others in the serious -- obviously taken of him by someone else. I just thought it should be shared.

inevitable

A few nights ago I was sitting on the porch, fretting about the wasps, perhaps, when I saw what looked like a feather in the concave end of the rolled up matchstick bamboo curtain hanging on the front side of the porch. I went to pull the feather and it pulled back! It was a sparrow, sleeping. I let it be. The next day, it was gone, but was back again the next night. How sweet! Tonight, I was sitting on the porch, feeling sad, wishing the sparrow was there to make me feel that sweetness again.

I was feeling sad because today I killed a little bird, quite by accident; the image of it keeps playing in my mind. I went to M&J's to show them the drawings of the compost toilet for the new space we'll soon be building on their property, and also to celebrate what M called Father's and Uncle's Day. J was fixing a broken gas line when I got there. M and I shared a beer and J came in soon thereafter to join us. P was watching a movie and wasn't paying much attention to us at first, which was okay, but M encouraged her to show me the three frogs she'd won yesterday; I never did get a story about where or how she'd won them. She's usually more animated. Maybe it was the heat...

They weren't real frogs -- they were red stuffed animals with black spots, cute -- not that it would be such a surprise for P to have frogs. In fact, later on, she showed me two tadpoles in a glass of water she was watching grow. "We don't know yet if they're frogs or toads," she told me in her wise six-year-old way. They have lots of real animals around the Rogge Ranch: a pot-bellied pig named Tinkerbell, a rescued boxer named Bones, and a little blue parakeet named Wendy. "My little blue chicken," M calls him (most likely a him, according to the blue marking over his nose).

J was drawing pictures of the windows he's working on for a movie that will likely/hopefully find their way into the Rogge Studios where S and I will live in the not too distant future. Wendy was on the table, chattering away (his latest phrase: "Here, kitty, kitty!") He was flying from shoulder to shoulder, biting at the pen J was drawing with, being a (cute) nuisance. A short while later, I saw him riding on Tinkerbell's back, happy as he could be.

It was time for me to go; I had plans to go to A's for a dinner party with an eclectic group of people. J asked if I had fifteen minutes to go to the shop with him so he could show me some of the props, and I was happy to oblige. I was getting ready, putting my glass away, I walked across the kitchen toward the sink and stepped on what I thought was a squeak toy -- because it squeaked. I didn't think anything of it for a second, until I looked back and saw Bones licking a splayed out Wendy on the floor. M jumped up, "Bones, no!" And then it hit me. I had stepped on the bird.

M picked Wendy up, he flopped around a little bit and then died fairly quickly in her hands (which is the only "good" part of the story). Fuck! P wasn't right there at the time, but with all the commotion, she was over with us quickly. "What happened?" M didn't tell her I stepped on Wendy, she said Bones was in the way and Wendy got stepped on. I couldn't say anything. I cried. M&J both tried to tell me that it was inevitable. And maybe it was inevitable, but why did it have to be me?

J said Wendy has gotten out of the house four times, and he was surprised every time the bird came back. M said she was surprised Bones never snapped at Wendy. None of this made me feel better. M told P to hug me, she did, and she said, "I want to go outside." That's when she showed me the tadpoles.

They got a shoe box with colorful Disney characters on it, put in a piece of blue velvet and Wendy on top with some flowers from the yard, a toy butterfly; they took some pictures. I found the shovel by the house where J had been digging up the gas line and went to the graveyard near where the Rogge Studios will be, where Junior's body, and Mookie and Brutus' ashes are -- all boxers -- as well as the ducks that got killed by a raccoon and the dead squirrel they found in the duck pond. I dug into the hard ground and while we were having our little memorial service, P's playmate I and her parents arrived. I was relieved that P had something to occupy her for the rest of the day. But she wasn't nearly as upset and M and I (me) were.

I went to the dinner party, which was nice; I made a beet greens and kale quiche; there was green salad and basil tomatoes and a rice dish, two hens, et cetera, et cetera. I felt a little numb but continued through the meal okay. On the way home, I felt this weariness that I guess comes with mourning. It's the feeling I've had when I've been to a funeral, which I always associated with lots of crying. I cried a little, not a lot, over Wendy, mostly because I didn't want to completely fall apart in front of P, though it would have been easy to do. So I think now that that feeling isn't so much about wearing yourself out crying, but more just the heaviness of death.

big empty house

I don't need to talk to you, but now that you're gone (and not even 24 hours) I miss not being able to talk to you, being able to share the minutiae of my life that nobody else cares about. Maybe you don't care about it either, but I know you find it at least interesting enough as a trade-off for me listening to your little stuff.

I was gonna go that that documentary at the Ritz last night but talked myself out of it because I'm so broke right now. The movie was only $2, but you know how hard it is to go there and not order food, or at least a beer. Since I'm going out to see a movie with P and A tonight (after P feeds us -- yay!) I decided I could do without a movie last night. I felt so all-of-a-sudden alone and lonely when I dropped you off at the airport. Kinda crazy. It's that desire to fill up space instead of being with the quiet and emptiness, which I sometimes crave. I'd like to learn to appreciate it when it's given to me.

There has also been almost no work, so that financial strain puts me a little on edge, having to hover over the computer pushing the F9 key every other minute waiting for a transcription to show up. Yesterday, I missed four of them; this morning I got one and just finished it so now I'm making lunch. At least I can be released when four o'clock rolls around (five o'clock in NYC) if there is no work to be had; those people don't often stay past five. I decided last night that I could/should work on chapter sixteen, this monster, instead of avoiding it again by going out or making up songs on Garage Band.

When I dropped you at the airport, I had an hour before yoga. Not enough time, I told myself, to get involved with writing, so I did play on Garage Band awhile, but made myself turn it off when I got back, and I did get some good writing done, I think. I had a beer and a cigarette and then some pot because I figured that's what I would've done had I gone to the movie, and I didn't want to deny myself any of my vices!

When I got to my yoga teacher's apartment building, I came upon a barn swallow on the railing at the top of the stairs. It was so beautiful, with his rusty head, white belly and iridescent blue-black back, and those little scissor tail feathers (which aren't really all that "little," they were at least as long as his body). I got almost close enough to reach out and touch him before he flew off (not that I tried). We had a nice moment together.

Okay, what's with straight men and me? My yoga teacher reached between my legs from behind while I was in downward dog, to assist me in the stretch, pretty high up on my thighs. Of course, no one could accuse him of anything for that (least of all me), but later, when I was doing a standing pose with my legs spread, my hands clasped behind me, bent over, he came to help lengthen my stretch by gently pushing my arms further over my head. He stood in front of me, told me to lean into him -- which I do happily... Yesterday, while he was gently manipulating my bound hands, I swear he rubbed them across the scruff of his unshaved face. I couldn't see what was happening, so I don't know if it was an accident or what really happened, so I really don't know what his intent was -- and he could surely deny any accusation I could make (not that I ever would), but dang! It sure makes me curious... It does help me to keep up my yoga practice, if not other things (ha-ha).

Speaking of which, I've decided lately to start injaculating when I masturbate, in hopes of keeping my creative (and other) energies within me. I know it sounds kind of new agey, but I actually think it's working.

Back to my vices, though, and my number one (and perhaps yours, too?): sugar. I finished off the blackberry cobbler (ala mode, natch) when I got home from yoga and was still thinking I would go to the movie at the Ritz at 10 (and have "dinner" there). Shortly after I decided against going out, I heated up a little posole and had that (because I was feeling kind of funky from that sugar blast on an empty stomach after an intense yoga workout). I also had the beer, cig and weed I already mentioned and had to talk myself out of having another dessert later in the evening when the munchies struck!

Actually, I didn't have very much posole, so when I moved my writing operation in from the front porch to the bed, I got myself a little bowl of chips and then another. I wrote until 12: 30 last night -- and, hey, it's 12:30 again right now! I've been working pretty steadily on chapter sixteen all day, except for the hour-and-a-half of transcription work I managed to snag. I'm at the kitchen table now, finished with lunch; I probably oughta go back to the computer to wait for more work and write more there.

Oh, and I meant to mention this bad/sad bit of news: While I was writing on the front porch last night, back house R came by to tell me that upstairs R's younger brother committed suicide on Saturday. That poor woman, what a fucked up family that must be.

Anyway, I hate to end on a downer note, but I'll write more later. Oh, here's something "cheery": My mom might come stay with me for a weekend while you're gone. That'll be fun.

Love you,

John Slatin, 1952 - 2008

This is my favorite picture of John. It looks the most like I remember him. The glass of wine in the foreground is more like his wife A's; he stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine when he first went through chemo in 2005.

This picture was blown up (along with half a dozen others) inside the UT Alumni Center, where John's memorial service was held this past Sunday. S & I walked over and got there at about a quarter to 2:00, right before it was scheduled to start. There were lots of people there -- people from the Dance group; people from UT; people from the Web Accessibility group which John had a huge hand in creating and maintaining over the years; friends; family; etc. Some were milling about in their cliquish little groups, some were crossing over into other groups, some were lined up along the left wall behind a table, writing on long strips of colorful paper and weaving them into a yarn hanging, an artsy little prayer/wish/memorial thing.

When I saw the pictures on tripods inside the entryway, it warmed my heart to see John in various phases of his life -- at the Kennedy Center to perform in a dance piece with his guide dog, Dillon; on a beach with A; etc. When I saw the above picture, it hit me: John's gone. My good friend who cracked me up so much, who struggled through this illness, struggled through treatments with such aplomb and level-headed assuredness. I was there to get him from one appointment to the next during his 2006 - 2007 Houston hospital stay, and I was there after that to organize his medicines into baggies so that it would be easier for him to take the right ones at the right times. But I felt like I was also there to offer some comic relief. John loved to laugh, and it didn't seem like there was a situation too uncomfortable or degrading in which he couldn't roll his eyes (his blind eyes) and cut that smile (the one pictured above) and let everybody know it was okay. It wasn't okay, but it was okay.

I don't think most of the different communities that John was a part of interacted with the others; some of the people probably didn't even realize that some of the others of John's circles even existed. I was in a rare and enviable position, having spent so much time with him in the hospital and in his house, when people came to visit, to have met a lot of the people from the various communities. I didn't always feel comfortable socially around these people, but that wasn't really the point; I could tell that they appreciated the fact that I was there helping John, that they were comforted in knowing that he was being taken care of by someone they knew or didn't know, but someone who was obviously fond of him, because I was very fond of John.

Had I known what a mover and shaker, what an intellectual, what a geek John was, I think I might have been intimidated by him, at least before I got to know him. I didn't know him at all the first time I went over to their house to volunteer my time. I barely knew him, anyway, had only seen him a handful of times at the Dance group where we met. I had worked out an agreement with the company that employs me that allowed me more free time, more flexibility in my schedule. I decided I wanted to volunteer my time; less than two weeks after I made that internal decision, after I had started looking into hospices and other places where I could volunteer my time (which would be enriching for me as well), LR made an announcement at Dance that John & A were in need of helpers. I didn't know LR very well at the time either; she is this kind of Mother Earth hippie love spectacle thing who is at once frightening and delightful (until you get to know her, and then the fright quickly melts away). Similarly, all intimidation on the part of John disappears about thirty seconds into your first conversation with him.

The first time I went to their house to sit with John, to read with him or whatever, John wasn't feeling well. The first day I was there, instead of being able to help, John had to go to the hospital right away, and he was there for a couple of weeks (months?). This was shortly before the bone marrow transplant. And so I didn't volunteer at their house, I volunteered at Seton Hospital here in Austin, and then I spent three days a week at MD Anderson in Houston during the BMT.

It was nice to see all of John's circles in one place on Sunday, though it was a heartbreaking experience for all of us. I saw P, the blind woman who reminds me of one of my great aunts on my father's side. She taught John to read braille back when he first needed it. I met her at a dance performance -- an homage to Elvis called "The King & I" -- performed by Allison Orr (the choreographer of the piece that took John and Dillon to the Kennedy Center). P and John had headphones and a "professional describer" on the sidelines of the audience describing to them the dance moves onstage while they listened to the music and audience reactions to color in the piece more fully.

Knowing John was an interesting experience. At first I felt guilty that, as a writer, one of my big reasons for wanting to be around John was because he was blind. I had never known a blind person, had never known what they experience, how they see the world, so to speak, I was curious. Of course, when I share my guilt about this to friends, they always assure me that what I did was a good thing; both John and I got a lot out of the experience. I know that in my heart.

The memorial service was a full two hours. S had to go home directly afterward to study for school. For a second I thought I would stay at the alumni center and mingle, but my social awkwardness kicked in and I found myself making a quick getaway. In fact, I somehow got ahead of S and found him coming up behind me halfway home.

I was starving and talked myself into going to the BBQ in John's honor at the Salt Lick Pavilion in Driftwood, Texas, half an hour from Austin. It was supposed to start at 5:00; I got there at a quarter to 6:00 and was one of the first to arrive. Yikes! I managed to get through conversations with different people I kinda sorta know, and then, when the food was finally served (vegetarian option was pasta with veggies, but I also had lots of cole slaw, potato salad, red beans and bread -- and later chocolate cake), I found myself hanging onto M, and she onto me; we spent the rest of the evening pretty much in each other's company.

I had mentioned to her that I smoke a cigarette once in awhile, and towards the end of the evening, a group of five or six of us were out at my truck in the mostly emptied parking lot, me rolling three cigarettes (which sounds really "cool") in a cigarette rolling machine (which is really "dorky"), all of us laughing and enjoying each other.

I only smoked a couple puffs of the cigarette I'd rolled for myself because I realized I don't really like to smoke in front of other people. Not because of the guilt -- as M put it regarding another friend of ours who doesn't smoke in front of other people -- but more because I really enjoy sitting on my porch contemplating the universe and sucking in a little nicotine. And that's what I did. I came home, rolled myself a fresh, thin cigarette, sat on the front porch and let the memories of John wash over me.

now to get on with it

It wasn't at all like I thought it'd be. I called A's assistant, D, who has been taking care of J's dog Dillon while J was in the hospital, to ask about Dillon; she said Dillon's doing about the same (he's on a lot of pain medicine for his cancer). I also mentioned that if she needed any help, to let me know. She said that LR was going to be at A's house to work on it before A's return home -- this was on Tuesday -- and said if I had any time that I could be utilized. I called LR and she told me she was going to "tornado" through the house. I kind of assumed that meant she was going to clean, but when I got there, she was rearranging stuff. Come to find out, she was going to rearrange the furniture and the artwork and knick-knacks, everything in every room so that it didn't remind A of J, so that she didn't have anything to make her aware of his absence in her home. (This was actually A's idea, I think, which is really kind of brilliant.)

I was put in charge of getting all of J's medicines out of the house; I started in his personal bathroom (which LR made an obvious point of not calling it that anymore -- ditto for his personal closet, it was now being called "the bedroom closet," which seemed a little weird, but okay, that's fine), put every Rx bottle with J's name on it in a garbage bag, along with face masks and latex gloves and dry mouth toothpaste, etc. I also put the portable potty chair in the back of my truck so that it could be dealt with later, donated to a hospice or something, perhaps.

After that, I started cleaning off all that covered J's desk in what would now be called "the sitting room" (actually, every room had a sitting area in it), boxing up CDs and post-it notes, pens, headphones, etc.

Before long, other people started arriving -- mostly people from the Dance group that we all belong or belonged to -- everybody given a job by LR as soon as they walked through the front door (unless they had a specific project in mind, like K, who arrived with white sage and set about "cleansing" every nook and cranny in the house).

At one point, when there were well over a dozen people working on moving furniture, boxing the contents of "the bedroom closet," dusting, vacuuming, I clashed with someone on what I thought would be the next part of the job I would do. It wasn't a major thing, just somebody saying, "Don't do that because I have to do this," even though it was the second part of a job I'd started when I first arrived (and was the only helper involved). I guess what annoyed me a little was that he said, "Why don't you go do this instead." It wasn't so annoying that I lashed out or anything, it just made me want to be done and go home. I had been there a few hours by this time.

From that point on -- while I found myself in charge of organizing the laundry room which is connected to the garage, and having to constantly move boxes from other parts of the house that people put in the place I had cleared away for a zippered closet someone was supposedly going to purchase at some point during the day for J's hanging clothes -- I kept looking for my opportunity to leave. But there was so much to do. And I kept jumping onto other projects, and kept having people "assigned" to help me, and they were usually people I liked hanging out with. So I didn't go and I didn't go, and then it was suddenly seven o'clock and someone said, "A's here," and I looked around, amazed that everything had actually come together, because not thirty minutes before that moment, there were piles of bedding and piles of furniture and stacks of artwork that didn't look like they would find their proper places or hiding places by the time A arrived, but they did.

I was in the garage when she walked into the house. I thought about sneaking out the back gate, not because I didn't want to see or say anything to A, but because it was such a huge group of people; I thought she might be overwhelmed. (I should have known it was exactly the thing A loved; I should have been honest with myself that it was the kind of thing that would more likely overwhelm me!) I decided instead to stick my head into the front room and give a hug. And as soon as I did, A's son M saw me and came over to hug me, bursting out into loud sobs as he came. We hugged for a long time; A came and joined us. I had met M at the hospital (and in Austin) a couple of times around J's illness -- he and his sister L both live in San Francisco now. I guess they had just been talking about me or something; M said, "We were just saying we couldn't wait to throw out all of J's medicines!" I told him I understood and had already taken care of it.

People arrived with food (of course) and a couple of hours later, I was still there, drinking wine, visiting with J's brother P, A's infant grandbaby W, and other people I know from the Dance group and from other places in J's life. It was a pretty spectacular event.

Every day since then -- and ongoing through tomorrow -- they are sitting Shivah at A's with the family (her kids, their partners, J's brother and father). I decided to make some brownies to take today. I always used to take J brownies when I visited, because he loved them, and because he always needed more calories. I found a recipe online for black bean brownies that I wanted to try. I set out to make them yesterday and had to go to the store twice, had to shell pecans for forever, and used almost every mixing bowl in the house -- the process took four hours in all (and then I couldn't even sample them until this morning because they have to set in the refrigerator overnight because they're so moist and crumbly).

But it was worth it. I had half of one this morning -- S had the other half -- and right now I feel like I made a mistake by putting that in my body at 7:30 a.m.! I feel all speedy and hyper (the recipe has instant coffee in it, and lots of black beans). It's surprising that they doesn't taste beany at all. The taste is very similar to flourless chocolate cake; they are quite yummy. Here's a link to the recipe.

Sunday is J's memorial. It's an all-day affair. I'm sure there will be a special Dance in his honor, but I doubt I'll go to that (I've been enjoying going to Austin Dharma Punx lately). From 2:00-4:00 the service is at the alumni building on the UT campus (J was a professor). After that, from 5:30 on, there will be BBQ at a place called the Salt-Lick Pavilion (in a town thirty miles from here called Driftwood, Texas), with LZ Love providing musical entertainment. There will be an open mike there as well.

goodbye to a dear friend

I got the email yesterday: Medicines pulled, John will pass soon, his soul will live on.

It was difficult to focus on my writing, so I did organizational stuff . I walked to yoga at four, got back at six, talked to P awhile on the phone. I had thought about going to the Dance (where I met J) but couldn't muster up the desire after S and I got home from 2-for-1 veggie burgers at Hut's; I just wasn't sure I wanted to be in the energy that I thought I might find at the Dance. I had transcription work to do, so I did that for a few hours. At eleven o'clock, I got an email from M -- who was going to cat sit this weekend while S and I went to Houston to visit J & A, and then go to my grandfather's 94th the next day: You may already know ~ John died tonight. That was the first I'd heard, but it wasn't a surprise. The night before, I'd had a dream. I saw J in a hospital hallway, he was wearing a blond wig and was smiling and looking around (he was blind). I said to him, "You look like you came back from the dead -- if I can say that...!" He said, "You can say whatever you want!" (That was the night after Easter.)

J was a sweet man, gentle, compassionate, brave (S said he was the bravest person he'd ever seen go through such a thing); but my relationship to J was more about his humor. We shared a sort of twisted humor, which did both of us a lot of good. You have to find a way to laugh when you're spending all that time in a hospital. We spent many hours together in different rooms, me ushering him around while he got blood drawn and spinal taps and checks for this and checks for that and waiting for prescriptions, etc. This was a year to a year-and-a-half ago. He made funny faces which cracked me up, and since he couldn't see me, I felt the need to vocalize my funny faces back to him. Sometimes A would just ignore us -- we were grown men acting like junior high schoolers -- other times, I think she just didn't get it.

That's the thing about having a humor connection with somebody. Sometimes it's obvious to others what funny thing is going on, other times it is just for the two people who share it. Good ol' J; I'll miss that goofy smile and those upward gazing eyes.

And he liked brownies. I love somebody who has a well developed sweet tooth. When the hospital portion of his treatment was over, when he was back in Austin and I would go to their house to organize prescriptions into baggies, I often stopped and bought him a brownie. I got them from different places; I tried to get them from a different place each time. He usually liked them. I usually knew what they tasted like, though, because I usually got one for myself as well!

He also liked animals. Well, I should rephrase that. He had a strong connection to one animal in particular, Dillon, his guide dog. I started crying last night when I realized that J wouldn't be coming home to Dillon, and what will Dillon do? Dillon has been battling cancer of his own for the past six months or so. It's interesting how connected those two are.

I don't know what else to say. I'm sad.

I was able to get some writing done last night after all. I couldn't just sit here and think about the sadness, so I wrote. And I seemed to have a burst of inspiration. I won't say it was J inspiring me from beyond, but he was certainly on my mind. When I got into bed, I had to keep turning on the light because little ideas kept popping into my head, great little ideas that I had to write down, that I would be kicking myself over this morning if I had thought I would remember them because I probably wouldn't have.

This morning, when I awoke, I got the next email: John passed away peacefully at 10pm Mon, March 24. I have a feeling his memorial service is going to be quite the celebration.

sugar for the soul

I was a little worried about turning on my computer today. I got an email from A regarding my friend, her husband J's condition (he had a bone marrow transplant for leukemia about a year ago and has had recent complications), which P, who is a social worker, said sounds like he's in the last stages. I was afraid I would open up my gmail to a message I'm not looking forward to reading.

I don't feel the same kind of sadness about death and dying as I do about life and love. I think I'm pretty square on the end of life thing. I don't want people to suffer -- I don't want to suffer -- but it seems like, after death, there's not a lot to worry about, not for the dead anyway.

But J's health has brought up some issues for me that go back twenty-eight years, back to when my father went into the hospital (the same hospital in Houston that John is in) for surgery on a brain condition -- an intusion, I think it was called -- after which he died in recovery a couple of weeks later. It is further complicated by the fact that we were a very religious family (Asssembly of God), and I prayed that he would die... because I was 16 and because our connection was tenuous at best.

I'm not wishing for anything but recovery (or at the very least comfort) for J. I was there during the BMT process, spent three days a week in Houston going back and forth, to help out J & A during the whole episode. He came back to Austin and was doing pretty well for a while, but then mold-like spots started appearing on the EEGs and he was put on medications to try to get rid of that, and now he's got pneumonia, and more recently, he's stopped talking, can't walk or even sit up on his own...

I realized when the need for brain surgery came about, I pulled away from J & A physically and emotionally. I didn't stop going to their house on a weekly basis to organize his myriad of pills (something like fifty to seventy-five a day) into baggies -- BREAKFAST/ LUNCH/ DINNER/ BEDTIME -- because J is also blind and A is overwhelmed as it is, but I did feel a real disconnect when the brain thing came about (even though the leukemia was in his brain, it didn't seem like the same thing as the words "brain surgery"). I realized I have some residual difficult emotions around my father and his death and my guilt for years (not anymore) over my possible hand in his death.

S and I are going to Bigtown (my hometown) next weekend for my grandfather's ninety-fourth birthday. (At first I was thinking Why not wait until his ninety-fifth birthday, wouldn't that make more sense? But then I realized that when you get to be as old as he is, each birthday is worthy of celebration.) We're going to stay the Saturday night before the party in Houston, visiting with J & A, taking her out to dinner -- like she's done for me/us so many times before. That'll be nice. I just pray I don't get a sad email before then.

This weekend -- tomorrow -- is S's birthday. I'm gonna make my Aunt Melba's "Dream Chocolate Cake with Fudge Icing" (as written out for me by my dearly departed Nana, her younger sister):

I

• 1 stick Oleo
• 1 C. Water
• 1/2 C. shorting
• 1/4 C. Coco

: Bring to a boil

II

• 2 C. flour
• 2 C. sugar

: start mixing.


III

• 1/2 C. butter milk
• 1 t soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla

Pour #1 over #2 mix well mix in #3 mix well Bake 1 hr 300 º Grease & flour loaf Cake pan This will not work in tube pan.

Fudge icing

• 1 stick oleo
• 1/2 C. coco
• 1/3 C. milk
  

:bring to a boil and pour over powdered sugar

• 1 box powdered sugar
• 1 T. vanilla

if its too thin add a little more sugar etc.

I invited some people over -- neighbors and friends -- and we're gonna have cake and ice cream! Tonight, I'm taking S out for dinner at a restaurant of his choosing: an Indian vegetarian buffet called Madras Pavilion. Sounds good to me.