Wow this blog has boring. Anyone reading it would think that I think only about one thing, and believe it or not, that isn't exactly the truth.

Sitting on the smooth black leathery surface of my purse here at the library is a willow leaf, long, slender, yellow speckled with gentle brown, like a banana. It also reminds me of a gondola, the way its tip curls up.

On the wall to my right is a big (3.5 X 4') painting of local type scenery. It is a little trite and tiresome.... I'd like to be able to say that I find it inspiring..alas I do not. The only thing about it that I really like are the hills, which are rising from the water (Lake Pend Oreille?? Priest Lake?? The river? Soemthign like that). They are just as earthily sensuous in their rounded bulk as the real thing is to me, and the artists treatment sort of obliterates or blends the trees in, so that the rounded, drowsy voloptousness is even more apparent than it would be in 'real life'. (Whatever the hell that is...)

Yeah, what is real life, anyway? Working life? Is this life, to slave away, hardly concious of my own body or mind, feeling lost....living only in my thoughts and silent conversations with you, conversations that you will never hear.....To struggle...throughout the day...how to tell you, how to explain...that....it wasn't like that, not exactly...and to sit helplessly and mutely before the moniter at night...still unable to express it...knowing it doesn't really matter anyway.....

To look at my children, my goats, my former life, the parts of it that I loved, and wonder how to integrate that into the present and not entirely agreeable reality I've found myself in? I have to have them. They are not a burden, they are the only things I can communicate with, they are my sanity. I have to get the goats back, and I have to work out something more feasible for the children.

No, that isn't true. I communicated with you....somehow......how can I tell you that that was enough, that I didn't *expect* more....that....That I know I'll be alone...and it's OK, it's tolerable, I think....oh, whatever.....my life is a mess.

Here is the thing: I have this agreement, that when I fuck thigns up really badly, I'm mad at myself, yes. But what gi9ves me the strength to go on, to keep living, is that I determine not to make that particular mistake again.

For example: not to marry or sleep with someone out of pity or because I don't know how to refuse them.

Not to fool around with soemone I don't evem *like*.

Or with someone married; I inadvertently repeated this one, and I'm really ticked about that....I don't have time to repeat mistakes.

Or with someone who'll be unhappy....however much I love them, I never, ever want to do that again.