A Question For The Ladies From A Brain Dead Zombie

I am brain dead, as my poor friend ginab can attest; we talked on the phone for a couple of hours and I don't think I said a thing worth remembering, though I have some pretty vivid memories of what SHE said. I'm afraid I've become horribly uninteresting, and I'm not sure why.

Anyway, here's my question. How many of you ladies have been told, sternly, by some dude you don't know very well that you shouldn't flush your tampons down the toilet? As if you didn't know better? As if this is something all women do, habitually?

Whenever a man scolds me in advance for this, I wonder if he believes that I bleed every minute of every day. Does he think my purse and pockets are stuffed with tampons? Maybe he imagines me at the grocery store pushing a cart of unwrapped Tampax, strings a-dangling, plus a couple of bottles of Midol and a frozen pizza. If he were pressed to describe a woman, would menstrual be his adjective of choice?

I flush a lot of things down the can, as I'm sure you can imagine. Unpaid bills, retired wigs, broken appliances, dead pets, and live grenades. Obviously, my brain has made that circuit and is now somewhere in the sewers. But a tampon? Never.

Mode

I'm averaging six hours of sleep a night, which is enough to get by on, but it's not really enough. I started a new part-time job to supplement my earnings, because I'm now officially a slave to my exorbitant rent. Right now, life is fairly dreary. But in a week or two, when I adjust to the new schedule and the new-job-anxiety settles down, my existence will be fun again. I know it will. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because I'd rather not pack up and move again for a long, long time. I only have a few more moves in me -- that is, if I'm not going to share the adventure with someone else who's moving along with me. I'd like that. I'd like to join forces with someone and go it together. Four shoes instead of two, a full pot of coffee, and "how was your day?" That is my goal.



Long-term, I mean. In the short term, my goal is only to sleep until the sun comes up, to dream unbroken dreams full of spring meadows and honey, to walk an expanding spiral around my new place without no goal except to observe, to observe fully and with all of my senses, to eat what I have made and to drink what comes from the tap, to put everything in its proper place once and for all, to be as responsible to myself as I am to others, and to think positively.

Today I spent a couple of hours with children, as I will five days a week for a few months, until summer. The world is frightening, and it's fun, and I can't believe that I'm surviving this particular expedition.

Moving Out

All righty -- I got that place in the Lower Haight, and I'm moving tomorrow. I've MOSTLY got everything packed up, and I have the rest of the month to pick up the odds and ends (Grandma's china -- where on earth will I put it?). I hope to get the bulk of it moved tomorrow, but it's going to take quite a few trips. I have too much stuff!

And I got a part-time job tutoring, which will pay for my groceries. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be BUSY -- I have a full-time training thing during the days, and the bookstore at night, plus I need to sell a bunch of my furniture and things. Then there's taxes, jury duty, a work meeting, a T.B. test, two book group meetings, and figuring out where I'll do laundry/buy groceries/get internet access/bank. The schedule is quite overwhelming, actually. But I can do it! I can! I just have to push myself for a bit longer.

But my new apartment is pretty. Yellow walls, pergo floor. I'm spending tomorrow night at Matty's, as I don't have a bed. I'm afraid Matty's on the verge of catching a cold, and he's got a lot on his plate with his new job. So no matter what, I'm going to be positive and cheerful tomorrow night. I would kill for a ticket to Hawaii. But then again, maybe my new neighborhood will be like Hawaii. As I said, there are lots of really cute guys in my 'hood, and I'm so close to Golden Gate Park, and once things calm down I'll have evenings free.

I wonder who lives in the building? Will I make some new friends? I hear there are a couple of dogs residing there. I love dogs, though I'm not ready to have one of my own. If I get lonely, I'll get a goldfish. But I don't think I'll get too lonely. I haven't felt lonely for a while now. In so many ways, I've lucked out. It's tough not to take that for granted.