Rainy Day

I just bought yogurt with a hundred dollar bill. Money I was saving for a rainy day. Last night I dug through my bathroom cabinet and pulled it from a half-crushed box that once held some beauty product that undoubtedly promised to make me younger or thinner or more beautiful. That hundred dollars survived most of the last decade, and then last evening as I pulled up to my local bank I discovered my ATM card was missing just hours before I'd be leaving on a trip.

I went home and called my bank and waited briefly on hold while I read yet another maddening email from my attorneys asking for information I've already detailed for them. I cancelled the card and came close to canceling the attorneys as well.

The ATM card and the attorneys are dominos. Things are falling down. Yesterday was a tumble of phone calls:
The guy who's appraising the farmland got two calls, neither of them returned just as the two or three others I've made to him in the last couple of weeks weren't returned. He has my money. I don't have his appraisal. Which is needed in order to calculate how much dough Mr. Ex owes me.
I called the investment bank too. They have even more of my money. A check gone missing.
I called the bar association. They don't have my money, but some of their members have cascades of it. If that money were rain, we'd be hovering around the TV watching some meteorologist yammer on about The Storm of the Century. I'm getting something for that phone call. A complaint form I can fill out.

My Internet also went missing yesterday. More money dispensed for a service I don't actually receive. Every day or two, I'm on my knees under my desk plugging and unplugging, shutting down and starting up. "I don't want you to shut down," my therapist says about my grief and anger. I plug myself into her words and try to stay up and running.

Mr. Ex says the money I used in the 14 months before my attorneys managed to wrench alimony out of him (why o fucking why did they wait so long?) is money that I "took." In his narcissistic book of life, it's not support, and now I owe him. I don't owe him anything. He was "the taker."

Took. Taken. I have. I was.
Taken when we were on our final family vacation and he had no time for family. I was taken by him while he was taken with the Soon to be Little Missus and slinking off to see her. I was taken while I sat next to him at our daughter' graduation. Taken in by his charade as the perfect dad. "He's divorcing you the same way he was married to you," my therapist said. A point well taken. "He ignored you during your marriage and now he's ignoring you in your divorce." Going on four years of ignoring.

I can't take it any more.

So.

I just went ahead and took the money. Take that, Mr. Ex.

Now I have it for the next rainy day.

It wasn't a phobia of flying at all

After my November debacle when 7 or 8 (or was it 9?) gin and tonics could not quell my terror on a flight back from the east coast, I went to see a therapist. I wouldn't be able to fly anymore, I feared, if I did not get help. I would never again see my mother, be forced to drive thousands of miles to M.'s graduation, to C.'s wedding, never visit Greece or France or anywhere across an ocean ever again. The anxiety was spilling over into driving. Freeway overpasses were difficult. Going anywhere after dark troubled me. A fellow writer and friend recommended someone.

Seven (or was it eight?) sessions later Terror stands in a corner empty handed, shrugging.

It didn't seem like a true phobia, the therapist said. General Anxiety Disorder, she said. Unresolved grief and anger, she said. Mr. Ex sounded like a classic Narcissist, she said.

So I flew to see my mother last week and went on to the AWP Conference in Washington D.C. Without the gin bath. Without a cranky silent husband next to me drugged to sleep before take-off. But I thought of The Narcissist and the trips we took, how he threw his things in the suitcase an hour before we left the house because he was never sure he could get away from the office. Oh the suspense...would he make it?
But I was always ready. I had the breasts full of milk to feed the baby. I had the diapers, the wet wipes, the juice and the snacks and the toys. I had the baby sling and the umbrella stroller. I had the dolls and the sketchbooks, the homework, the sweaters and the rain boots and the rain coats, the hats, mittens, scarves, and Christmas presents. I had the jump ropes and the story books. I had the theatre tickets, the dinner reservations, the excursions planned, the guidebooks and phrase books. I had the horseback riding reservations, float trip reservations, dinner cruise and fish fry reservations. I had the train and ferry schedules, the days which museums were closed and what to see where, and when we were getting together with which relatives or whom we were taking with us on this or that trip to Europe or New York.

I had it all.
Almost.

Associated Writers' Palace (a.k.a. AWP)

The photo above is the view from exiting the elevator on the way to my room. Shouldn't we writers be housed in garrets or quaint cottages or cabins with a view of  some pond?


Poets heard: Stephen Dunn, Marie Howe, Gregory Orr, Bob Hicok, Kevin Young, Elana Bell, Curtis Bauer, Tyehimba Jess, Aracelis Girmay.

Conversations with poets: Lee Ann Roripaugh, Allison Adele Hedge Coke, Natalia Trevino, Jen Lambert, Matthew Shimoda, William Trowbridge, Art Homer.

Superstar Author: Joyce Carol Oates reading from her new book--a memoir about the sudden death of her husband.

Panels attended: 2--one on teaching creative writing, one on writing abroad.

Fabulous meals savored: 3

Hours worked at my MFA program's table: 4

Books at the Book Fair:  5 bajillion.

Number of bedbugs in our room: zero

Inspiration: unfathomable

Who are you and what have you done with Denise ?

I've been enjoying the world of linked blogs. It's a whole new world when you dip into a stranger's blog. I've participated in Blog Gems a few times. And have again this week on their vacation theme.
http://hisbigfatindianwedding.blogspot.com/2010/05/everything-will-be-fine-i-said.html


I don't think I have the ability to channel Pollyanna every week. But I am looking at the Reasons to be Cheerful linky from a blogger in England.
http://mdplife.blogspot.com/p/reasons-to-be-cheerful.html

Really, it's me here. Really.
And here goes.
1. I am visiting my mom. Time and money have allowed me to do so.
2. My brother took off work today to drive her to the doctor even though I am here. He did so because I was uneasy about driving his truck in unfamiliar territory in iffy weather. And he did it with good cheer.
3. We had pizza for dinner and sat around the table talking about all the dogs we've ever had and I think my mom really enjoyed the conversation.