Well, I don't know. Offers of negotiation continue; however I am skeptical as to whether they would actually lead to any real changes. It isn't that I see them as patently false, it's more like there have been SO many problems, and several of them have _always_ been here, that I'm not sure if it's possible. There is some agreement that an amicable parting would be desired if it proves inevitable.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm just flawed to be a wife for anybody. Or, maybe the wife role as commonly defined. When I think of a wife, I don't think of an equal, although I'm sure there are wives who are seen as equals...But to me, a wife is someone who is always smoothing things over, sweeping the conflicts and problems under the rug, keeping the peace, putting up with all sorts of things rather than dealing with them out in the open. A wife's role is to serve her husband, to wait on him and see his need before he asks, to put aside whatever she wants and think about her husband and children, until she forgets that she ever wanted anything herself aside from the happiness of her family. A wife is supposed to be *interested* in child rearing and homemaking. She can have other interests, as long as they're incidental and secondary to her main role in life, and the same with a job. If a wife has a job, it should be just for a little extra spending money, and it certainly shouldn't exceed what her husband makes. A wife is domestic, feminine, and self-abnegating.

In that context, I don't ever want to be a 'wife' again. Can't there be some other word to use, like spouse? Something that denotes equality and not sexism, where the two people are allies and best friends who've chosen to be together, permanently?

------------------------------Putting that aside for a moment------------------------------

Less than a week ago I drove out to a friend's to scan some artwork I'd done so I could upload it onto my site. When I left their place, I set the sketchbooks on the trunk while I put the baby into his carseat, meaning to pick it up when I got into the car. I forgot to do that. When I arrived home and realized they were gone, I called to see if they'd fallen in the driveway and my friend looked there, to no avail. We wondered if maybe I'd set them in the house. Yesterday, I get in touch again with them, and the art was not left in the house. So I packed my two oldest sons into the car and went drving up and down Highway 41 and the dirt road I was on, with the boys keeping their eyes peeled. We found one watercolor painting, and out of all that was lost, this one meant the most to me. It's an abstract, I had it tacked to the wall. I shouldn't have taken it. It was too big to scan anyway. The entire time I was looking, I was thinking about this work, and I felt just sick because it's irreplacable. When we found it, it'd been run over a time or two, and it's dirty. But the essence, the spirit of the feeling that inspired it is still there. Now that I have it back, when I get into exactly the right mood that created it, I'll try my best to make another very like it. Seeing as how the other work must have fallen off into the residential area, and we found no trace of it all all, I think someone picked it up. I'm going to call around at the police stations and local radio with call in advertisements and try to see if anyone's turned it in. I had been designing a business card for the goat business which had my name and address included in the preliminary sketches, so whoever found it will know where to send it or at the very least, my name (most of the work was signed). That was yesterday's adventure. Today I run in to Sandpoint to investigate college possibilities and get some concord grapes.

I've been editing my website this morning. I really should do the same to the goat site as well. I've got several ideas, and I haven't yet made up my mind which ones I want to implement.

Otherwise- I've kind of run out of steam. My partner has been playing one sad song after another about women who leave and the effect has been to make me feel absolutely miserable, depressed and guilty. Have to give him credit for strategy...I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't get a job soon here. I'd kind of like to fly off to some other place for a few months, but with breeding season being imminent and a whole battery of exciting A.I. breedings to execute, I can't really afford to go anywhere.

I'm remembering a time- it must have been the winter after I turned 16. Our family lived in a little cabin in the woods. To call it dilapidated would be kind...you could literally peek through the logs to see who was comign up the drive. Our woodstove was in a similar state- you could see through the rust holes in its sides when the fire was going. There was a windstorm that winter, and it happened that we ran out of firewod in the middle of it. It was so cold that the vehicles wouldn't start, and power lines were being blown down all over the county. The temps were down in the -35 to -40 range, plus 70 mph winds. We huddled around that pathetic little stove until the wood was gone, and then it became apparent that something had to be done, and quickly.

Fortuitously enough a tree blew down just 30 or 40' from the house. The other three kids, our stepdad, and myself went out to get it. We didn't really have much in the way of winterwear. I recall wearing two pairs of jeans, plus long johns, and two or three pairs of socks during any winter in that place. Our coats weren't all that warm, and the gloves were cotton work gloves, the kind that have little rubber dots all over them. The minute we stepped out the door, that wind cut right through us like a knife, and we had to brace ourselves against it to stand upright. We pulled the tree down farther, our stepdad sawed it into lengths, and we began carrying it to the house. This is the short version- in reality every step was an effort and a struggle. The firewood reached the house in time to keep the fire burning, and because our gloves were wet and we were *very* cold, the temptation to stand and dry the gloves for a moment or to exchange them for a dry pair was irresistible. We'd come in shaking profusely with a few logs, warm up a little, and then run back out again to get more wood.

Our mom got tired of that. She wanted us to leave the wood at the door and stay outside until we were through. After all, opening the door made the house cold. At first I was angry- she was cozy and warm by the wood we'd worked to cut, carry, and split, yet we couldn't partake of it's warmth ourselves, while she stayed in the house complacently. It seemed vastly unjust to me. But then, I stopped caring. Nothing mattered anymore. I just felt tired, very tired, confused, and sleepy, so I found a snowbank and curled up in it to take a nap. At the time it seemed a perfectly sane thing to do. I was exhausted. As through a dream, my sister called to me, told me to come inside. I told her I was warm, that everything was OK. She kept shaking and prodding me until I got up. Hypothermia does some pretty weird things to the mind.

And in a way, that's how I feel now; confused, disoriented, lacking perspective and objectivity, very tired, and so cold. Every so often, I get some distance from the situation, the course of action seems clear and apparent, and I try to act on it quickly, while the iron is hot. But then I'm thrust into the cold again, with the warmth of the house being only a sustaining memory, and the confusion sets in. What I need to do is to get some _serious_ distance, maybe. I've been thinking about going back east to visit my family this winter. But winter...it seems so far away.

I enjoyed 'things given' enough to go back to fray.com and look around some more. This time I read this one. Read it and see what you think. Frankly, I think the girl is beating herself up unnecessarily. She helped the guy, she wanted to be compassionate, but for some indefinable reason, she felt uncomfortable about taking the interactions any further. Why? She feels she was selfish. Yet, Andrew kept taking liberties with her, trying to touch her, acting a little too intimate, wanting to put her in uncomfortable, compromising situations. This isn't about a handicapped person needing help and being neglected, it's about a man trying to use guilt to manipulate the girl into intimacies she doesn't want to give.

Cut the wheelchair and disability out of it, and the picture becomes all too familiar, even redundant. The man may be young or older, weak or strong, ugly or handsome, poor or well off, disabled or perfectly healthy. It may be a father, husband, brother, teacher, pastor, friend, or a stranger. One they have in common- they see a woman more as a *thing* or an object, than a person with the right not to want them. In their eyes, the woman has an obligation to satisfy their needs. I have my doubts regarding whether those needs can truly be met by an unwilling but cooperative (or uncooperative) partner- it seems that true intimacy must be given freely and willingly, and forced intimacy would be distinctly unsatisfying. Maybe that's why some of them try to talk themselves into believing that the woman/girl "really wanted it" but was too passive to say so, or that she didn't really mean it when she refused them, or that her silence meant 'yes'. I have some more thoughts on this subject, but I need to incubate them a while longer...

Current mood- I don't know. Kind of bothered, though it's hard to articulate why. I spent most of yesterday applying for a job. First, I had to find a daycare that would take the baby for me. You just don't walk in job hunting with a kid on your hip. So I found a nice place after some roaming around, left him there. When I got to the place and pulled up in my shitty car in front of this professional looking building, surrounded by a lot of really nice vehicles, my confidence began to dive. The gal I spoke to apparently didn't think much of me either, didn't seem to think I should even bother filling out an application, but I did it anyway, since I'd already gone to quite a bit of trouble to do so. She said a lot of very qualified people had already applied, after which I felt about 3 inches tall. When I handed the application in, I mentioned that I have a bit of experience in several areas which would directly relate to the job in question, and wrote down the URLs to my websites as an afterthought. Now I wish I'd spent even more time updating and monkeying with them. I love to do it, but my partner just hates it for some reason, and it's hard to concentrate with so many kids running around. I've got a few ideas I want to implement in the next day or two. Anyway, so as I left, I began to feel very lonely, and...I don't know, just really depressed. I mean, what am I? What do I really have in the way of concrete acheivements? Even in my otherworld of thought, of books, music, visions, and ideas, is there anything new or noteworthy of significance? I sort of doubt it...I've always wanted to be different, always striven to be unconventional, but with a sense of panic I realized that I've become really ordinary, just a housewife and mother of five children, who dabbles in various pursuits with varying degrees of mediocrity. This whole single mother with kids in daycare role isn't one I've ever wanted to play. As I was driving back to pick up the baby, the thought crept into my mind, and then lodged there solidly: I'm a nothing. I've lived 30 years and nothing I've done has amounted to any consequence, none of it matters or means anything. I felt so bleak that I picked up the boys from home and drove around town and various places until the edge of the mood had been dulled somewhat, many hours later.

So I don't know; what do I live for? What really matters and makes the hassle that we call life bearable and palatable, makes me *glad* to be alive? What is there to strive towards?

• Love- as far as I'm concerned this is just about the only thing really worth living for. Were you to talk to me in person about it, I'd sound pretty jaded and cynical, but that's only because it matters so much and I'm disappointed with the way things have worked out. I have a very definite idea of exactly what I want, and I won't compromise for anything else. So, moving right along here,
  
• Art- If I could be a serious artist and do the sort of work that expresses what I want it to, that'd be worth living for. I could sublimate the drive for the above into my art and be reasonably content. Maybe. With that in mind, I went through my sketchbooks and drawings this morning. There's very little recent work, and virtually none from the past five or six years. I've been too preoccupied with mudane tasks, and there just isn't much to show for it. What there is, tends to be good, but not what I'd call stellar. It's a little too self concious and constrained. Anyway, maybe there's hope here. We'll see.
  
• The goats- To me, goats fall into the same category as art. They're labors of love. And to some extent, a well bred dairy goat is like a walking, living sculpture, always changing position. I've done a lot of work with the genetics and the goats definitely have some potential, if only we could feed and manage them a little better. People are constantly telling me to give up the goats. They don't realize what they're asking.
  
• The children- I don't care if this _should_be_ at the top of the list. I can't afford to have it there. I'm not good enough at mothering to make it my main goal in life. But I do care about them deeply and whenever I feel suicidal they're most of the reason why I stay.

I wish I could say that writing down this list has given me some perspective or made me feel better in some way, but it hasn't. It only makes me aware of the deficiencies. Anyway- this is the last day I have alone to establish any changes I want to make, so I should curtail the navel gazing and get working- (on what, though?). God, I miss you.

Hmmmm. Looked at this tonight. I don't know yet what to think about it. I couldn't believe how the list went on and on, one guy after another. People aren't something to use up and throw away. I guess that for the sake of brevity, she didn't list all the facts, and there may've been more to it than what she wrote. But still...to play around with someone's heart like that...to induce them to let down their guard, and then walk away, knowing that they love you...why start in the first place? Why not spare them the pain?

Could I write such a list- I don't know. Objectivity tends to be a strong trait for me, but not in that area. Emotional stuff is my achilles heel, which is why I tend to steer clear of it if I can. Maybe that's why I don't even want to think about compiling my own series of accounts. The other thing is that, well, to look at people and relationships that way, as in 'what did I get out of it', bothers me. I can honestly say that in every serious relationship I've had, I was hoping it'd be THE one, THE soulmate and lifelong companion and confidante. Maybe that was asking too much, but I still feel that a mate should be more than a sex partner, they should also be a best friend, the sort of person you trust above all others and would gladly walk through hell for if they needed you. Anything less just isn't worth bothering with. There's nothing like looking into someone's eyes, knowing that they understand you, that you can be honest with them, that your minds mesh, to have that tacit communication that transcends words. It's rare, but it's the only thing worth having, IMO. Settling for less just highlights the absence of what should be and isn't.

Enh. :shakes off sentimentality for a moment, knowing it will likely settle onto me again, like a veil: There is still a lot of work I have to do around here. Trash to run to the dump (again- there's a lot of it built up over the years), cleaning, people to email, bills to pay, the worst of it is letter writing. I hate writing letters except when I'm truly inspired. The insincerity of filling an entire page with trivialities and polite nothings irks me to no end, and then you have to start all over on yet another, and another... I love my relatives, but they aren't interested in the things that really matter to me, so why write? Maybe if I set a quota; one letter a day. God, that sounds like some kind of a sentence or punishment. I suppose I could make a marathon of it and get it all over with in an hour or two. Unfortunately, they sometimes compare letters, so I have to dredge up *different* insincere trivialities for each letter, and by the time I've done two or three, my mind runs dry and blank. If only I could paint a picture instead, and scrawl a short note on the back- 'Thanks for the X, here is what bloomed today in the garden'. I should try that sometime. It'd be a lot more palatable to me. It isn't the usual, but they've long since become accustomed to other than expected interactions by now anyway. I could tell them all about my breedign plans for the goats and that the bucks are coming into rut, and the does in heat...but on second thought, I do believe they'd rather have a picture. ;^D

The laundry is done. The extra goats are gone. :breathes a huge sigh of relief and satisfaction: Now I need to find a job, and soon- before I fall back into the pit of despair. Momentum!! It used to be that I had to trek halfway across a city on foot, (in the days when I was homeless) before I got to a Job Service and registered. Filling out the resume was always a problem....Now, it's a lot easier since it can all be done online. No waiting in line, eyeing other homeless and migrant workers, no exchanges of where the best free lunch is, don't I miss it all?? Nope, not a bit! See, I've been there already, time and again. I have hit rock bottom a few too many times and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend the rest of my life there.

I figure that by now, whatever sort of penance or punishment I may've deserved or had coming has long since been meted out. Much of it seems to have been self induced, anyway...but that's another story in a moldy, mildewy chapter, and now that I've got access to the laundromat, I hope never to see moldy clothing again. I'm rambling....speaking of homelessness and mildew, I found a few thigns while sorting through a box of papers (now that I've abandoned organized religion, there are a LOT of irrelevant pamphelts and magazines and etc, etc that can be disposed of). I'd forgotten about this, but I ran across a newspaper article and booklet of some artwork I'd sold when I was homeless in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Cheyenne is a crappy place to be homeless...let me tell you. The people there do NOT want homeless people around. I think they had a soup kitchen, though. It served roadkill antelope stew. Don't think there was a shelter, I honestly don't recall where we slept. They did have a Wyoming Coalition For the Homeless; it was just a rundown old building where you could hang out during the day. They had this deal where they'd pay $3.00 per drawing or piece of art, and so I sold them quite a few. I kept the originals: they just copied the work. I thought little more of it. The money was welcome either for gas, food or diapers. A year or two later, envelopes arrived at my dad's mailign address: the artwork, mine as well as other's, had been exhibited and featured in a newspaper or two. One paper has a full color reproduction of mine on it's front page. I leafed through them, the work embarrasses me a little now. It's so...dreamy and idealistic/romantic. I guess it was my escape from the all too unpleasant realities of life.

The dreamer lives on, a little disillusioned but quite alive nonetheless. It's just that pipedreams aren't enough, there has to be action and change or nothing happens. And you know, it's a little ironic. Because for as miserable as life was with my first husband, I was able to endure it. Why? Because he didn't crush my dreams. They were always possibilities he was willing to entertain and consider acting on. The guy was a nutcase, true. Now, things are actually quite a bit easier, but without a dream, without a purpose in life, a passion, something to love or to strive for, what good is it? Hardship is tolerable. A pointless existence is not. So- :shaking off black shreds of melancholy: I have to recapture the dream (while maintaining objectivity and sensibility, of course).

That reminds me: I had the wierdest dream last night. In it, the world was falling apart, to pieces, literally. But I wasn't scared- I braced myself for it and handled it just fine. When the blow had struck, I saw a group of goats, and realized that all the evolution and hundreds of thousands of years of breeding dairy goats had reverted to square one. These goats were feral, wilder than anything I've ever seen. They had long, black shaggy hair, horns, were small, wiry, and had the wildest, craziest eyes I've ever seen. Oh, and they were *aggressive*. I felt a sinking in my stomach to see that this was all I'd have to start out with in recreating the dairy goat, and just how far removed the two were, as to be almost unrecognizable as even related species...They were leaping around with blazing eyes like creatures possessed, and they reared at me. But I grabbed their horns and broke them off, broke all the horns off all the goats, and then they stood quietly, their eyes became calm and golden like a domestic goat's eyes, and I knew it wouldn't be hard to effect the rest of the change. Strange as dreams go, but it seems auspicious enough. :-)

Well, I don't know what was up with that. All I can figure is that maybe it was my heart playing tricks on me again. (No, not that one; I mean the physical, muscular organ located in the thoraic cavity. The only thing I've ever understood about the other one is that it's very stubborn, loves to find new ways to humiliate me, and resistance is futile.) The cardiac organ gave me some trouble during and after my last pregnancy, but I thought it'd calmed down. Whatever. It's fine today.

I was reading a book where they ask you to find the common denominators between the people you've been in love with. I had a really hard time finding any. About all I could come up with was intelligence, eyebrows, and gentleness. Eyes and hands are nice, but I can't really draw any definite preferences; blue, green, brown, strong square hands or long attenuated ones. All that seems to matter is that the eyes be intelligent and well framed with expressive eyebrows and that the hands be gentle! Oh and smell: scent is a *must*. But it's such an ineffable quality. The book's premise seemed to be that loving someone is a disastrous state of affairs that should be avoided, and I'm not sure that I agree with that. It definitely takes one past the comfort zone at light speed, but isn't life all about pushing boundaries and reaching new discoveries and conclusions? Doesn't taking the safe route lead ever more to stagnation and inertia? I can't see any point in living a safe, predictable life where nothing new or interesting ever happens.

I guess that's been part of the problem with things here. There must be more to life than just schhlepping through it day after day, never really having a deep or meaningful interaction, just dealing with one dirty diaper or non-functional homestead component after another. Even if everything worked, simulataneously, it'd still be boring as hell, and lonelier.

On that note, my deep and meaningful task of the day is to go to the laundromat and get back in time to meet the goat buyer. *nirg*

Man, I feel weird tonight, kind of woozy and lightheaded; sort of like you do if you lose a lot of blood, only I haven't lost any. Managed to milk the goats, though. I spent most of the day cleaning up trash and getting a load of stuff together for the thrift store, and then we donated the stuff and ran to the dump, where we found a bunch of perfectly good children's outdoor toys. Most of them are better than what my kids already had, so we brought them home. Oh, I can't think. Brain feels all befuddled. Tomorrow a gal comes by to buy up 7 or 8 goats. She's a meat buyer, and I hate to do it, but that's just the way things are sometimes.

I was looking at my paintings tonight, remembering what they meant/mean when I did them, trying to imagine another one. Putting my thoughts/feelings into words, especially verbally, is never easy for me...it always seems to come out half hearted or not quite right somehow, lacking force, or if it is fully expressed, tends to embarrass me. Expression is definitely not a strong point here, which is why art and music mean so much to me. Actually, it's probably why I like Elton John's music- because it's soooo expressive. Anyway, where was I headed with this? Oh, yeah. If I could make a painting now, it'd express that people are like onions. Or nuts, maybe. What I mean is that there is this facade, this shell that gets presented to the extrernal world, and it's like a protection, but the inner person is underneath all that. Some people have a whole lot of facade and not much under it. Not infrequently, the outward identity doesn't match with the inner one. Artichokes, they have all these layers and layers of leaves (petals actually- it's a flowerbud) and only the barest hint of its true nature at the base of each leaf. And then, after a lot of work and perseverence, you encounter a rosette of prickly. spikey thorns, enclosing the soft and tender heart. To look at the plant, it's hard to believe that something so weedy could possibly yield anything like an artichoke heart. It looks for all the world like a thistle on steroids. Anyway, I've been rambling again...but it just goes to show that appearances can be deceptive.

Then there is role playing. People play their little roles and do what they're expected to do because after all, it's the acceptable thing (acceptable to others, that is...) and between that and the frigging facades, they could just about forget they ever had any other kind of an identity. I'm so sick and tired of living by someone else's script. Let them live their own roles if that's what they want. And why would anyone want to deal with other people on a daily basis with whom they have to constantly maintain a kind of protection? It's a strain and a pain, and it's why I don't have more than a few friends. If you can't be real with someone, why bother at all beyond the barest necessities?
*********************************************************************

So that's my rant for tonight. I'm lonely. I don't think I've really given anyone a hug in.....you know, I honestly can't remember. Probably one of my kids or a goat. It's been a long time. :-/

I'm not depressed though. Things are definitely changing for the better. Today I passed the driving test and finally got my license! It may seem like a small thing until you consider I've had the instruction permit for about 7-8 years and renewed it several times. Finally having the license is going to be a huge difference. Next I need to procure a job and living arrangements of some kind. Also, to streamline the goat herd and trim it down to only what is needed for the breeding program. It looks as though there are at least seven that can go immediately, plus two to butcher, and two being boarded temporarily. So that's -11 right there. I have no idea how many are out there at present, about 30? Too many. Which reminds me- I need to milk and feed them now. ;-)

Current mood is fairly upbeat: I just got back from the Interstate Fair where I showed 16 of my goats. They did well enough, all things considered, and I had a really nice time. A friend came with me, and I have to say that it made all the difference in the world in terms of actually enjoying the fair. The years past seem incredibly stressful and...well, sort of hollow and empty by comparison. Being alone in huge crowds of people isn't much fun.

Ah yes...the serotonin levels are still soaring (it's truly amazing that the sort of blows and downfalls that'd normally crush me, for days maybe, glide right over me at times like this). I expect that pretty soon it's going to drop significantly, so I've stocked up on dark Dove chocolate to cushion the landing somewhat.

Problems always seem harder when you're right in them, and being away has given me the perspective and objectivity I needed (well, maybe not all of it, but enough!) to go ahead and make some decisions and move in the right direction. Live surrounded by problems long enough, and they begin to seem insoluble (is that the right word?), and in time, one comes to accept them as necessary. It's a nasty trap, and the only way I've found combat it is to physically leave until the monster shrinks to mortal proportions, after which it can be dissected and solved.

Despite having a very happy week, I've actually gotten only a little sleep, having had a teething baby on my hands pretty much all the time. Poor kid- like all my children, he cuts his teeth in pairs; by the time they get the first four through the gums, their patience (and mine!) and has worn verrrry thin. So I think I'll catch some sleep now. :yawn:

So I've been wrestling with my new website this morning. I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing wrong, but I *cannot* get a seperate area for text on the right hand side of the page. The left side has a list of links, and anything added after this ends up after the links. I've tried all sorts of commands...and none of it has any effect. It's really irritating, because I know that the reason must be something fairly simple that I've been overlooking all this time.

Also dysfunctional today are: my main e-mail account, the group of forums that I hang out on several times a day (and had posted some time sensitive questions on), and my yahoo mail account, which seems to be so riddled with viruses that I'm going to have to cancel it. I am cut off from the world, like a withered branch broken from its tree! It looks like I'll have to rediscover whatever it was I did before we got the computer. :-P

Well, so much has been going on lately, I hardly know where to begin. My birthday has come and gone; I'm another year older. The past year hasn't been an easy one for me, and it looks as though the one to come is going to involve a lot of restructuring. The time of my birthday also marks the general anniversery of my partnership- seven years now. Seven years is a long time. It's a major chunk of my life. Seven years ago, I was considering medical school. Had I done that, I'd have one more year to go before my internship (assuming I'd made it that far). I don't regret not doing that, but, three more children later, I do wish I'd taken the opportunity to go to school. I've devoted seven years of my life towards trying to make this thing work...and it isn't. The difficulties that were present at it's inception are still present for the most part, and more aggravated for having been there for that time; and then there are others that I hadn't considered or even dreamed of. I like my partner as a person. We've shared some good times together. So I honestly don't see much sense in our tormenting one another any longer, until we can't stand the sight of each other.

It's not an easy conclusion to come to, but I don't know what else to do. I've tried just about everything I can think of. Meanwhile, I've dropped all the religious dogma that made it possible to tolerate the intolerable; which makes me more assertive (difficult!) and outspoken (militant!!).

Other than that....the fair is coming right up. I've been getting ready for it; my clippers are nonfunctional, which means A: I can't clip the goats and B: therefore, there is a lot less preparing to do. I can't help wondering if it'll be the last goat show I ever go to, or maybe the last for some time, anyway. :-(

For my B-day, my friend gave me a book about the artist Aubrey Beardsley. This guy's work is very talented, and oh, so funny and entertaining. I love satire. Drawn by another artist, the subject matter might be offensive. But this guy has a way of making what should be perceived as naughty, elegant and beautiful (while still naughty, of course!). It isn't all that way, but even the 'decent' work tends to have an acid wit interwoven with stylized flowers, vines, and women. Google for him...you'll see what I mean.

Life has been good. I advertised some goats for sale in the newspaper, and sold two today, as well as arranging a barter for another, and it looks like the others have buyers lined up, too. It's a relief, since I really didn't want to send them to the sale barn. When you do that, you never know who is going to buy them and what sort of life they'll have.

I just finished another painting- this one of three plums. I'm not sure why, but I'm having a difficult time blending one area of color into another. It's not that it can't be done or that I cannot do it, but it doesn't agree with me much. Plums don't generally have broken color, as would say, a peach or nectarine. The colors in a plum flow smoothly and subtly. Not my plums. Oh well. I like them. It seems that I've blended and gradated colors in watercolor before..,maybe not much though. I tend to break the subject down into shapes dictated by the color areas and natural lines, and then fill these in with solid colors. They make have slight variations in tone, any more than that is broken off into another fragment. Anyway, I like the plums. They've got personality, more than the actual fruit did. Which remings me- painting fruit is almost as bad as painting cyclamens! It doesn't move and twist, but it *does* change color, appreciably, from day to day. I'd expect this from a banana, but never before realized a plum did it until I looked, carefully, at the same three fruits over a weeklong period. By the end of the week they were hardly the same, because the shape changes too as they ripen and soften.

The lady at the library really wants me to bring in my art so she can take down some of the other stuff. ;^) And, my friend found a horse trailer I can use to haul the goats to the fair in. Yeah!

Well, I've got about a gazillion things to do. There are goats to tattoo and clip before the fair, as well as other preparations in that arena, a chapter of a book that I got drafted into assisting into editing-the deadline is sometime soon, a very banal piece of cross-stitch that I owe as barter, and the list goes on (and on, and on, and on, like energizer batteries). Therefore, what am I doing? I've been painting. Yeah, been painting up a regular storm here. I actually like some of it, too. And I don't think I've felt suicidal even once in the last, what?, four or five days. And that, my friend, is progress! No, you don't need to call the funny farm for me. For one thing, I'm fine right now. For another, melancholy seems to be a normal state of mind at least part of the time, or maybe I've become accustomed to it. At any rate, I've lived until now with it, so.....

About the paintings- most of the recent work is fruit or botanical. There was a library book sale last weekend, and we bought up a _lot_ more books. More on that later, perhaps. While there, I checked out the art that is displayed there, as well as the library books in that vein. The art on the walls is for sale. Some of it sells for upwards of $150, which surprised me. I mean, this is rednecksville! To behonest, the work was of that genre. Which is to say, it tends to be trite and shallow, without much depth or thoguht into the subject. Some of the artists have their technique down better than I do. I only started oils this year, and being self taught, it's pretty much trial and error for me. Apparently these artists have a club, as the quilters have a quilt guild (which I'm still part of although I hardly ever quilt these days), and they display their art in the library and local businesses and sell it. There is no commision taken and there is a high turnover- most of the work gets sold! (This is truly incredible to me, having seen the work. Sorry, but it's the truth.) I'm going to have to look into this further.

Other, extraneous thoughts: I wonder how other people think. How do their minds work? It's become apparent to me that my mode of thought isn't at all standard. For example; a single thought or subject can (and often does) torment, niggle, and weigh heavily upon my mind for days, weeks, even months or years on end. People tell me to 'quit thinking about X'. Huh? Quit thinking? How do you do that? The only easy way for me to quit thinking about one thing is to adopt another, different thought, and the new thought has to be pretty captivating. Then, I'll think about that for a long, long time, wear it out, and move on to something else, or mull over one of the old subjects again. What do other people think about? Do they not concentrate on one or two subjects? Their minds simply flit from one thing to another, never delving deeply into any of it? Do they *think*? Or do they react to whatever external stimuli they encounter throughout the day and that's all? Wouldn't it be sort of annoying to surrender one's thoughts in such a way? I mean, I react too, but only if it seems more important than whatever is on my mind, and even as I'm reacting, my mind is likely to still be churning over some interesting subject while my body deals with the humdrum everyday stuff. Ahhh...introverted thinking. Absent minded professers are not at all absent from their minds. Absent from conventional reality, perhaps. But who gives a damn about conventions, anyway? Not me! ;-)

Music- Today I painted a peach while listening to this song. It's perfect, the song that is. The peach turned out well too; nectarines are OK but they can't even approach the passionate luciousness of a peach. I love that song, it expresses everything so perfectly- the wistful, breathlessness of it all. :sigh:
Where was I? Oh yeah; so that was what I listened to earlier. Right now it's this. I can certainly relate to _that_. Sometimes I think we've been led astray and ripped off by our culture. I mean, maybe love is a pipe dream that most of us will never realize for any appreciable length of time. Perhaps if people weren't brought up with stupid fairy tales and hopeless ideals, they'd be better prepared for happiness in the real world. It could be asserted that the problem has to do with so many children growing up in broken homes and longing to find healing and fulfillment in a mate; however the truth of it is that even at the beginning of the last century, it wasn't uncommon for one of the parents to die due to various reasons, and of the ones who did have two parents, who's to say their life was actually happier than the average single parent child today? The fact that these fairy tales have been around for so long tells me the idealized love isn't a new fad, yet I still maintain that our culture weights love too heavily with too many expectations that it can't even begin to fill. Companionship, for example: if you can't be close friends with someone before falling in love with them, why in the heck should it be assumed that hormones will result in a friendship? And there are all sorts of other considerations and criteria necessary if a long term bond is desired. OK, so maybe I'm cynical. Whatever. Unfortunately for myself, I do still believe in love (Hey, yet another Elton JOhn song). It's just that, to borrow a line from another of his songs: "Tell me how does it work? How do you make things fit? Spent all my life trying to get it right, I put it together and it falls apart..."

Current mood? How about a weather forecast: Severe storms culminating in hell and despair through Thursday and Friday. By early Saturday morning the storms had abated somewhat and the skies remained darkly overcast with frequent showers of anxiety throughout most of the day. Saturday evening showed us a few lightning strikes and thunder in the distance. Overnight, a northern front moved in and the temperature dropped resulting in cool, clear resolve throughout most of Sunday. Forecast for the next few weeks: the cold front is expected to remain for some days with a high probablity of ice storms. Preperation and precautions for this are advised. As the cold front and severe weather recedes, we expect to see partly cloudy skies turning to mostly sunny after several weeks. There is a possibility of more hellstorms around that time, but currently it is too soon to tell.

Finished the nectarine painting. It isn't perfect, but succumbing to the temptation of overworking a piece tends to ruin it completely. The essence of the idea is there, which is what counts (I guess). The other oil painting, the one with the tree, may have to wait a while longer. I want cerulean blue for it, and can't get the color locally. I could settle for lightening up the cobalt blue, but it wouldn't be the exact color I want, so i'll wait.

I've reconnected with several old friends/family members in the past week and a half. It makes me feel profoundly depressed and lonely; they have so much feeling and richness to their lives, and here I am like some sort of an emotional retard. I mean- they gush, they've missed me, one of them had been 'mourning' for me, and what do I feel? Very little. It's hard to know how to respond to that sort of thing, but it does make me feel guilty. I try to think of the people I do care about enough to really miss (more than momentarily), and I can count them on one hand or less. It's true that there's a depth there that could be missing in those who have many connections, but who am I to determine or compare that? Can one go through life like an android or the Tin Man? Sometimes I don't like myself very well. :-/

Full moon tonight, and meteorites, too. I'm getting tired of the banner ads here. They're boring. Let's see if I can change them: Renew rational thought process! Revolutionary breakthrough proves herbal formula causes impotence! Jungian type tests show that there aren't nearly enough NT's in the world, and altogether too many extraverts! Self help manual for over sexed INTP s! Ancient formula for love and aphrodiasiac capsules has been proven to be as ineffective as we all suspected in the first place! MBTI and IQ analysis indicates intelligence can be a contraindication to romance! Better than viagra! Meet sexy nerds now!!!

Let's see...did I miss anything? ROFL.... I get such a kick out of spam even as it annoys me. There must actually be people in the world who fall for it, or it wouldn't still be around.

Well, it's 1:21 AM and I'm still up and only moderately tired. The pony arrived today; he's quite small but very gentle. I don't think it'll be any trouble at all to train him. I cycled into town, got groceries, and after dinner and milking started on two oil paintings. One is of a tree/landscape, the other is a large nectarine. I used to think of nectarines as sort of androgynous, but I've revised my opinion of them. They're quite sensuous fruits that simply get overshadowed by their very female sister the peach. They've got a little more acidity and firmness to them, too. Maybe I could actually grow to prefer them to peaches. Perhaps.

Random thought for tonight- when people feel driven to fulfill societiy's expectations and demands, why do they do it? Do they feel obligated to do so out of duty? Who defines these epectations? Consensus. Why would anyone want to live that that and how can they bear to do it?? If they want to do XYZ that's fine, but simply to do it because everybody does XYZ and that's the way it's done? What do they have to look forward to or to strive towards? Why don't they ever question it? Are they afraid? Or merely complacent?

My dad always told me I had to be conventional. I couldn't do it and never actually tried...He used to say that wherever I went, it'd be the same, that people wouldn't accept me, that I'd have to jump through hoops and do things the normal way. Being stubborn, I had to try to prove him wrong. The truth of the matter is that I've got no tolerance for people who don't make the slightest attempt to think for themselves, and I care very little whether they approve of me or not! Except, he was right. in a way. It is lonely, and I don't fit in anywhere. His mistake was in thinking I could be anything else.

Yes. The reason they do it, the reason they conform, is that life is less kind for the outsider. They're bound together by a sort of permanent, pervasive, and lifelong peer pressure. Herd animals.