Paula’s down the hall listening to opera, and I’m in here listening to Louis Armstrong, the Hot Fives and Sevens, which I could pretty much listen to for the rest of my life, and nothing else, and be completely happy.  I can also hear the tires on the wet road out the window and if I don’t look it sounds like the wind.

Just this very second, I started to have a worry and then I edited the worry, realized pretty quickly it weren’t nothing to worry over.  Worry always seems like a good idea at the time, like somehow I’m gonna figure something out I’ve yet to or like I’ve made some fine discovery heretofore undiscovered.

Downstairs here in the library they’re gearing up for a show of photographs–portraits–to open in eighteen minutes.  It’s true I’m going to see the photographs; it’s also true I didn’t bring enough food today and need some vittles, no doubt cheese slices and strawberries.

I love the holy heck outta Edie.

It’s the fourth day of Christmas. I’ve long pondered on how to celebrate the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, not having (or wanting, really) any maids-a-milking or swans-a-swimming at my disposal. But I like the idea. Seems like in other countries celebrations last longer than a day, like Carnival. Here we’re so eager to get back to work.

But some years back I decided not to pay any attention to the post-Christmas blues. That the New Year is something to celebrate. One time I drove down to Columbus, Georgia in search of Ma Rainey’s house and grave. Another time I went hiking in the Slickrock Wilderness—that’s when I had my first panic attack but it was a good trip nonetheless. That was back when I had more time off so now that I don’t I’m trying to think of things that are celebrations for Edie and future critter. Right now, it’s 5:43 in the a.m. and JB’s fixing to go hunting as it’s the last week of deer season and you can only hunt does the first and last weeks.

The pot of coffee in the kitchen’s calling my name.

So I thought of this Robert Pinsky poem, “Sayings of the Old” I read recently in The New Yorker and he writes:

One hates the sanctimonious Buddha-goo
But loves to meditate. To think one word
And the breath balanced on its floor of muscle

Falling and rising like years, The brain-roof chatter
Settling among the eaves. All falling and rising
And falling again in the calm brute rhythm of hooves.

Decided to just get over myself and maybe stop thinking that everybody practicing something for thousands of years aren’t idiots.  I chanted.  It helped.

I’m meditating to help with panic attacks.  Panic attacks are so godawful that a person gets to a point where they humble themselves and become open to things they might otherwise be too snooty to try.

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The theme of this morning was poop on limbs.  First dog poop on Edie’s shoes, then her poop on her legs.  In the process of cleaning both, I got poop on my fingers.  At her school—her Monday Wednesday school, that is—they have a monkey they call the Super Diaper Monkey.  Edie loves that.  Super Diaper Monkey even has a cape.  Not that I had any doubts but it’s little things like that makes me know she’s in the right place.

Edie says “bless you” when she hears somebody sneeze.  And she asks “not nice?” when she tests out various mischiefs.  If I say “that’s nice” when she kisses Maizie, as opposed to pulling her by the tail off the dryer, she says “nice” and nods her head.  There’s a lot she wishes were nice like kicking when she’s getting her diaper—which she calls a bubble when it’s full—changed and sticking her toes in my eyes when she’s nursing.  The more tired she is, the more “nice” things she tries out.

When I pull in the driveway at the end of the day, I see the brown thrasher fly into the crape myrtle.  That’s his hiding spot.

After I got home last night, Edie and I sang Old Macdonald and rolled around on the floor then JB fake snored which cracked her up and made her clap. Nicodemus tagged her just below the eye last night in response to her torturing him with hugs and kisses.  Yesterday morning she ate a whole bowl of oatmeal with molasses.

Edie wants to hear the same two books—Dr. Seuss’s ABC and Hand Hand Fingers Thumb.  Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum.  That’s a book I never owned but remember looking at whenever we went to the flying saucer orthodontist with Mary.  That book and old issues of Highlights.

We have so many morning glories—weeds, volunteers—that they’re growing across the grass off the driveway.

The bright side is JB made pancakes.  We had leftover buttermilk.  Pancakes taste good.

Yesterday I had a work “training” that only served to deepen the website issues we’re having.  The lady spent a good five minutes trying to show me how to upload a picture of John Milton—the whole time telling me we really shouldn’t put pictures on the new website—even though I told her we had no reason to put up any pictures, especially ones of John Milton. However, the question I did have—how to upload ADA documents with this new system—I’m still unsure about.

When we buckle Edie into her car seat, we always ask her to help us.  We say “one, two, three” going through the three buckles.  Yesterday, I said “one” and she said “two” and I know all kids do this, but nonetheless it floored me.  The process of learning language is fascinating because what she copies sheds light on what she hears which causes me to think about the things I say, and with what pitch/rhythm I say them.  Like when she started saying (to all cats), “Hey, Maizie” J.B. realized she was greeting her the exact same way I greet Maizie whenever I see her.  I think this is the only way I’m ever gonna learn Spanish or French, if someone teaches me the names of animals or says the same things over and over.  That’s how I finally learned sign language, from 1^st graders.  The things they talked about were things someone with limited language ability could understand—and respond to—and they also had no problem correcting me.  Adults just smile and nod.

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One of my favorite lines on Andy Griffith is when Barney’s cousin Virgil comes to visit from New Jersey.  Virgil explains how he was gonna send Barney a funny postcard with crab on it that says “Things are really bitin’ down here.”  Andy forces a laugh and then says, “I always love a good crab joke.”

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Yesterday evening, I got struck with the malaise.  It had to do with the dirty dishes and the dog hair and ever-present stuff Edie manages to scatter in a day.  The fact that these things gave me the malaise was the problem, not the existence of those things.  We went for a walk.  It was a quiet one, up Oak to the Coliseum, passed a couple people, the little man with the thick little eyeglasses and the little dog.  He’s a nice fella.  I like it when folks in their fifties and sixties wear Chucks.  And the dusty corner dog ran out and greeted us.  And Kelly and the fake Chope who was out of the fence for the first time and sporting a new hair cut.

The old lady across the street died a little over a month ago.  All her things ended up on the porch and the curb.  Folks picked over all of it.  She told me one day she had twenty-seven grandchildren.  It was one of her great-grandchildren who used to stand in the yard and holler at me, You like Spongebob? 

I don’t know what I’m talking about now.  This is what this kind of heavy does, leads to doubt and anxiety and perseveration.  Not that those things are all bad.  But they do take up space.  Hard to think on other things.  All I seem to be able to do is work in the garden, pull the five different kinds of weeds–”oh hey, you again”–plant seeds, trim dead plant matter, spread mulch.  They give my brain stretching out space.  Edie comes and likes to help.  You can’t fool her.  You can sit her down in a patch of the five weeds and she will damn sure crawl outta that patch to the tomato plants and try to pull them up.  Today she painted my legs in dirt.

Feels like there’s something or somebody I’m missing but I don’t know what or who it is.  If anything.  Maybe it’s me I miss.  I’ve been here before where I lost me for a little while.  But it’s all right.  There’s still ice water and The Carter Family.

I have a tired so deep in my muscles—an exhaustion—only matched by the time I walked out of the Grand Canyon, from the river to the rim, and had to concentrate on the voices of Mennonite ladies singing who’d I occasionally catch glimpses of around switchbacks. This current tired is the result of a couple strings of nights of staying up too late—to do things like read! which I never seem to get done during the day!–and baby girl waking up several nights in a row. Teeth, I’m pretty sure. She managed to sleep through the night last night which is why I’m up now. But night before last she woke up at 12:35 and wanted to play until dang near 3. Yesterday at work we had a QEP meeting we had to attend, where we sit and listen to presentations of faculty revisions of writing assignments and they give us free lunch in exchange. I thought I was going to slip right off my chair and form a sleeping, drooling puddle on the floor. I turned my body in all kinds of configurations so nobody could see me—not so I could sleep but, if I should nod off—which I kept doing and catching myself—hopefully it wouldn’t be too obvious. That’s the kicker with that kind of sleepy—it creeps up and before you know it somebody lays their pen down which sounds like they just dropped a whole tray of silverware and you realize you have no idea what your face just looked like or what angle you were turned and across the room sits the man who retired but is always there, with his persistent dedication to the institution, and who would never, ever fall asleep in a meeting, nope.