Do I have gout? Do girls GET gout? My father has it; my grandfather on my mother's side had it. My ankle is swollen, top of my foot swollen, it aches unto hurts, is hard to walk on. Am I dehydrated? Did I sprain it again? We've changed insurance. I have no doctor. I can get a doctor. I haven't written much unto anything in weeks. Do my fingers have gout? What is gout?
I've begun reading a book called The Wisdom of Menopause. I tried to buy it at two different independent bookstores and then said fuck it and went to Barnes & Noble. I picked up the book and put it back on the shelf. There was a huge photo of the author/menopause guru on the cover. At the checkstand I was embarrassed, as though I'd picked up O Magazine (not Story of O though I would have felt squirmy about that too for different reasons,) or Martha Stewart Living. I also bought a book entitled The Homeowner's Guide to MOLD. Mold is in two inch high letters which look like they have mold on them. The cashier was my age and didn't belabor the B&N club issue, which was a huge relief. I made a crack about adding insult to injury what with my two books and then brazenly carried them out of the store without a bag, though Martha Stewart I mean the menopause book, the wisdom one, was wedged, face inwards, tight to my armpit. I know there's a good unto great replacement for the ugly smelly word armpit but I don't KNOW it. TWOM has it that my brain is altering/has altered - let's face it I stopped having periods two years ago - and that my not wanting to do anything for anybody ever again, wanting to slough (so sorry for the pun) nurturing, being accomodating, etc. is actually developmentally right where I should be. The comforting thing is having this phrased as a phase of growth rather than decline, an opportunity for growth. Yeah, and "may you live in interesting times" is a curse, pardon the pun.
I went to a work meeting yesterday and the average age of the players was half mine. The new hire gave me his card which had a quote on it I wanted to read but couldn't without glasses. He was very very young but wore glasses. I squinched my eyes, it was dark in the room, but couldn't get beyond the name of the source of the quote. He said the quote to me, perhaps thinking I'm vain and wasn't wearing my glasses, having as I had until I was in my forties, no clue that this woman (I) had lost due to age (ing) the ability to focus on small print in low light conditions. I can still do it with good light. Who cares? I have reading glasses, many pairs of them. Which I lose. Which my husband borrows. Which is funny when they're the pink ones with red hearts. But which I still demand be given back to me.
I told a friend yesterday that I have three squirt bottles of Shout! in my laundry room. We both said, "hmmmmm, what could that possibly mean?!" Then I went home and sprayed Shout! all over my new white blouse, where the red filled in circles of tomato based sauce had landed when a mussel lost its muscle in a tussle with me at the dinner table. In public. With my friend. I'm not thinking of the fun kind of shout like the group kind with the song playing. I'm thinking about the angry kind that gets you in big trouble with loved ones. If I speak my mind and live with the consequences I won't have to worry so much about shouting.
I've been working on my work room, not pretending to work on my work room which I did for several months actually years while staring at the computer and wishing the fairies would come and fix everything. I've carried bags and bags of books to second hand book places. Two days ago I took five very full double paper shopping bags full to 3rd Place Books at Ravenna. The guy would have given me twenty something bucks for the little stack he wanted out of the bunch or I could have forty something bucks in store credit. I exchanged the store credit and two dollars seventy cents for W.S. Merwin's Migration, beautiful cover from Copper Canyon Press and Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster. The Times (London) review of oh my god damn it another book by Auster so who cares??!! okay okay says, "No metaphysical writer can make you feel more like you're being read a bedtime tale by a gentle, hang-dog uncle... (elipses the book cover's) There is still a hint of the magical in the everyday events that he chronicles." I need a little babying.
I'm in a developmental stage where I want what I want but don't know what I want.
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