What is going on with me? I just got home from Ken's, where we had a nice, companionable dinner and he really liked what I cooked, actually ate a lot of the leftover pork I sliced thinly and cooked with barbecue sauce for him. I listened to him tell me some new stories and some old stories, mostly about his brother and his uncle and the days they spent trapping foxes and minks, selling pelts for $50 a long time ago. Now I'm home, collapsing in a heap of tears and helplessness. There's a lot happening inside of me, literally and figuratively.

I have cramps. This makes me think I have endometriosis again, though I don't see how this can be possible, and I had my physical recently and all was declared ok, but it reminds me how afraid of this disease I truly am. Maybe I never let myself be afraid of the disease, since it wasn't cancer and was never going to kill me. All it did was do a lot of damage, cause a lot of pain and alter the course of my life. Anyway, strange feelings inside of me.

I had to retrieve my dogs from far, far away. Nearly two miles from my house, down the black top. They were at the Beach House, playing with the neighborhood children (who are wonderful, sweet and loving children and reminded me why I adore children so much: they loved my dogs and were so much fun for me to play with while I was getting my dogs). It was the chocolate girls, of course, and they followed a jogger all the way there, then stopped to play with a dog who was with the kids. Luckily Laura, Leroy's daughter who bartends, called me to tell me my dogs were there. Neighbors are good (but need to be kept at a distance). My dogs are bad. I'm worried about the future of my dogs.

I had to vacuum my bed. The whole concept of vacuuming a bed is fairly disgusting, is it not. The dogs (I know it was really Tess) got into the basket dye again. The powdered stuff, activated by water. She spread it all over the bedspread, and I had to vacuum it up before it got wet and stained the lovely spread Lin gave me to improve the look of my bedroom. There's only a small green stain, where she licked the package open. I noticed, however, that the maple floor is covered with blue dots from the time she spread the blue dye all over the place and it apprently rained in by the window and the dye was on the floor. Meanwhile, Jackson the blonde dog had dye up to his ankles this morning when he first went outside and the dye got wet so he now has green feet. Looks like a leprachaun. This part is amusing. They are very bright green. He would be endearing if he did not have diarrhea.

I am having a very hard time dealing with my brother's death today. For some reason it's worse today than other days. Nothing triggered it, it just started on the way to work in the car and has continued off and on all day. I don't know how to deal with this. I feel as if I've made an offer that was grossly inappropriate, but was made in total innocence, and made as a gesture to help and be supportive. Well, that's the story of my life in many ways. Act first, deal with the consequences. I feel as if I'm always apologizing for my actions, as if I'm so often misunderstood, and therefore very lonely. Which brings me to my brother, who helped me get away from that by helping me remove that feeling from within me. But the process wasn't completed and I lost my source of strength, so here I am. My this sounds whiny and insecure. But that's how I'm feeling right now. whine away.

I have too much work to do to and around my house and I can't seem to get started on any of it. I have to stack firewood. I have to weed my gardens. I have to mow my lawn. First I have to buy a gas can and fill it with gas. I have to get lumber to build a new deck, then I have to build a new deck. Mostly I have to stack firewood. I have to go to the dump. I have to clear off my deck. I have to vacuum the living room (heck, now that the bed is done you'd think I'd be all warmed up...). I have to clean the library so you can at least see the floor. I have to register Sonci's new boat. OK, so I've just made a list. Write these things down so you can cross them off when/if you get them done.

And now the dryer stopped running (it tick tick ticks when it goes round), the dogs are asleep and it's absolutely quiet, dead still in the house. I love it. I have to decide whether to sleep in the boat house or not.