Ungrateful, I owe you all

Tonight I feel like I will never be able to pay my debts, and I mean more than the Himalayas of my credit card balance. I mean all the kindnesses and generosities and allowances given to me by friends and parents of friends and parents and grandparents and uncles and the occasional shopkeeper, especially during all of this year.

Tonight I also feel ungrateful. These two feelings together make for a particularly desperate night.

Tomorrow I start my new job. I don't feel excited, which makes me nervous. I guess it's just been months of disappointments and shocks and difficulties, so I'm staying neutral, I guess. It also just seems impossible that this would come true. Why did they choose me? Aren't these jobs supposed to be terribly hard to get? Don't they pretty much not exist? I'm going to be working for a national glossy mag with 2 million circulation and a great reputation. This is me; they chose me.

I also don't entirely know what I'm going to be doing, or if the people will be nice, and I interviewed so so long ago I'm not sure I remember what the office looks like. The receptionist was very pretty. It was a beehive completely invisible from the street. There was a fancy color printer. They have Macs, not PCs. The editor wore shorts; Mary Giles wore jeans. It was over two months ago that I interviewed, with so much anxious searching in the meantime. Funny, I always knew I was a candidate--but I never expected I would get the job. I never expected this would actually happen.

Normal feels like a long, long time ago. Normal feels like something that never existed. When did I live in Brattleboro? Who was I then? What was I doing? Normal has never lasted very long, except high school, and camp, when the days were charted half-hour by half-hour.

But, Becky, you did get this job. This is happening. You got the job. You got the job. They chose you. You. Me. You. Rejoice.

Malaria, or Malaise?

Oy, I am feeling off tonight. Perhaps it was the summer squash sweet bread, or the late afternoon 1/2 cup of coffee, or the long nap yesterday, or that I've been reading too much of O Magazine, but I feel distinctly bad. I think I'm going to make myself a cup of hot milk and call it a brain dead night.

This morning I woke up early after a macabre and perverted dream about Russian aristocrats and went to garden. I harvested all the beets, as well as kale, chard, cilantro, dill, parsley, sage, lemon verbena, beans, and sungolds. And four Jetstars. All together, it was an impressive take--summer squash and one large zucchini, too.

It was fun putting everything together for Thom; the presentation part. My standards were much lower than Walker Farm's.

Okay. Maybe I have West Nile virus from all the mosquito bites, or cancer from the DEET. Whatever it is, I'm through.

the tired mind

I'm watching beach volleyball, which is a sport that involves a lot of wedgies. Even women's gymnastics' uniforms are more like shields (what are they made of, titatium?). And spandex practically glows. But the little white bikinis with the mesh at the sides; it's underwear. Lucky for the athletes, they have nothing they could possibly want to hide.

The other channel I'm watching is showing X-Men, and I love it, I think because it involves wheelchairs and telepathy and Anna Paquin, who can't help but look smart on the screen.

I spent the weekend at Gram's. She is delightful, odd, trying, and incredibly tough. I only snapped at her once (now the trampoline final--who knew?) when she had CNN on and John McCain was feeding illusion gruel to the Saddleback Church audience at the expense of women and gay people and poor people. I really hate what he said, especially that he'd remove Ginsberg and Sueter and Breyer and Stevens from the Supreme Court. It was all about pandering to the anti-abortion beliefs and it incredibly irresponsible and demeaning and gross. But how rude it is to take out your political frustrations on your grandmother?

I wish I had a glass of milk. That's as profound as I am tonight.

Swim

The West River in Dummerston is my favorite place to swim, though I'd like to give it some competition by knowing all the best swimming holes in Hampshire County.

But under the covered bridge, if there's been good rainfall, the water gallops by, maybe 5 or 6 feet deep as far out as I go, in waves and turrets and constant motion. It's the wonderful color of shallow rivers--the iron browns and red. I just love it. The rocks are smooth and a little slimy, with enough texture for toes to grab them and brace against the current.

The water was cold today, colder than the Conway pond where I've been swimming, and the current much too fast for tadpoles or newts. I shivered in and then splashed down and floated fast out of my tiny cove. I am still embarrassed by my body, as well as it treats me, so I paddled and scooted back to stay away from the other beach-goers.

Oh, I could have stayed there for hours, swimming with and against the current, floating, kicking, turning into riverwater as much as I could. I did take my hair out of it's bun and let it become mermaid. Then I had to get back in the car to drive home to work out--important, but less magnificent. I'd swim every day, if I could.