Free, downloadable resources for Haiti at http://tinyurl.com/5t3jqe, including
• Where There Is No Doctor in Creole
• Where Women Have No Doctor in Creole
• Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment in Creole and French
• Water for Life: Community Water Security in French
• Cholera Prevention Factsheet in English

and many more

To the woman who almost killed me tonight

In a garden neighborhood in this small quiet town, on a warm night full of bikes and pedestrians, I was riding home on my bike, listening to my chain squeak and feeling sorry for myself.

Woman, when you barreled through that stop sign I figured you were on drugs or something because stop sign or no, you were going too fast. You did screech to a stop just in time, and I am so grateful. Your window was open, and I turned around and pulled up beside you. Though I rarely get angry at people (I get angry at things, like printers and staplers and doors) I wanted to lecture you about whatever it was that had made you so careless. But there you were with your gray hair, you in your big, loose clothing, someone's grandmother or sister. So I started in about the phone attached to your ear. "It's not on," you said, and you told me that your mind was racing with worry and you weren't paying attention. I know how that is.

Speeding woman in your lumpy dress, we have to let it go because whatever it is, it's not worth the guilt I know you would feel for the rest of your life if you'd hit me. "Well, be careful," I said, and you thanked me. Why did you thank me?

Woman, I have so much more to do before I die, yet my biggest struggle right now is starting this new chapter, and acknowledging that it is new. We don't just wake into the next thing, we transition, slowly, not in a morning but over a long block of years. And this is a very short life. You almost sped up that process for me, almost knocked me into something brand new, and now I see that there's grace in the slowness.

I hope that whoever yelled at you at work or cut in front of you in line or asked you to bake cookies for tomorrow's picnic is out of your head now, and forever.

I Need Some Space!

I'm going to focus on finding a job and preparing for interviews and writing, so I may disappear for a while. But I'll be back, and when I return, I'll be better than ever! I thank you for understanding that I need some space, and that I don't mean to be less than generous right now.

xo

Men Without Shirts!!!

Today was the ultimate perfect best day ever! If only it were my birthday as well, I think I'd be dead now.

I woke up this morning just on time to meet someone for a tennis game at Buena Vista Park, just down the street. It was already warm out at 8:30 in the morning, and so many people were out walking their dogs. I got to the courts and sat on a rock wall while I waited for my partner, watching the other players & trying to learn how they were doing what they were doing. After about a half hour I realized that my partner wasn't about to show, so I hiked up to the top of the park, where the vistas were muy buenas, indeed! Then I headed home, dropped off my racquet, and went for a run.

I'm still a very slow runner, but these days I occasionally pass other women who are also running, and while at first the women I passed tended to be in their sixties and seventies, lately I've been running faster than women my own age, and even younger! But TODAY I passed a guy who was not only younger than me, but he looked like he was in decent shape! Woo!

After that I rode my bike through the park and up to Matty's. On Sundays, they close a chunk of the main road through the park, which makes the whole area seem like a little utopian village of cyclists, runners, and roller bladers. Which, on a hot day, it is, because you know what? HORDES OF GORGEOUS MEN JOG THROUGH WITH THEIR SHIRTS OFF! Wow!

I spent the day with Matty and B, and we had lunch outside. It was great! Then back through the park & the shirtless hot men, and home, where I have some beers in the fridge. During my ride home, when I wasn't gawking at men, I thought about the perfect ending to this perfect day and I decided to drink a beer out on my front steps. When I got home the cops were here, watching my next-door neighbors' front window (a fairly common occurrence). So my housemate and I sat on the steps with our beers and talked to one of the (very cool) cops and learned that the car parked out in front of our neighbors' had been stolen. A tow truck showed up and we waited until they managed to tow away the car, and we talked to some of our neighbors as they walked by.

Now I am pleasantly tired, so I think I'll kick back for a while and read a book and set up some more tennis games with the other people who've lately answered my ad.

I know it's worrisome, but sometimes being laid off is really great!

Oh, by the way, I just love to see people enjoying themselves without restraint.

I'm Off To Play Me Some Tennis

That's right, suckas, It's Thursday morning, which, when you're unemployed, is like any Saturday morning, except quieter. After tennis I have a phone interview, then a doctor's appointment, then I'll have a few hours to look for a job.

Matty's birthday has happened, but we're going to celebrate on Sunday. Every day in November counts as Matty's birthday.

Happy Birthday, Matty!!!!!!

Today Matty is just a little bit older than me, as he will always be, no matter how many birthdays he amasses, a sparkling pile of years that collect like grains of sand in the bottom of a very large hourglass. Still spry despite time's ravages, Matty has escaped the toll that the decades can take and I only hope that I fare just as well as he has. I've always looked up to Matty as a sort of older-mentor-spirit-guide, and given our relative ages, I suppose that I always will. In return, I have tried to be a walker for him to lean on as he journeys down the cobblestone streets of his long, long life, and someday, if I am lucky enough to reach the milepost he has reached today, I hope to reflect back on my youth and have a hearty laugh about my follies, one last ray of sun before the sun's eternal setting. Matty, I'm so glad we've been able to bridge the invisible barrier society calls the "generation gap," because you are helping me prepare for the golden years, and though for me those years lie far in the golden future, given time, I too will find that I have nearly chased down the years. Only in the chase I will be behind you, always, because as I may have mentioned, I'm still a bit younger than you are.

Happy Birthday my dear, dear, dear friend! Honestly, you are wise and wonderful and strikingly handsome! I'm so jealous that you have such a hot boyfriend, too, you skinny bitch. Here's a birthday song for you: