I'm in a funk.  House is messy.  Stacks of stuff:  bills, paperwork, filing.  Folded laundry on the coffee table and sofa.  The dog's blond hair nestling on my new green Ikea rug (because he shit on the old one).  Neglected garden.  Kale that need to be pulled, along with its neighboring weeds, which are homesteading like Native Hawaiians on a Waimanalo beach, their presence screaming, "we were here first!"  Overgrown prickly blackberry vines threaten against hands that prune.  I've been eating like crap - deep fried foods and chicken wings washed down with Coke (if not a gin and tonic), peanut M&M's by the handful, stuff I clearly avoid when I run, which reminds me:  I haven't been running.  At first it was too cold (wimpy), then it became a habit (lazy).  I haven't been juicing nor taking my vitamins.  Cleaning the machine seems a pain, even though it's not really.  I'm afraid to start a project for fear I will not finish, which is my default modus operandi.  Stacks of drawings and paintings are proof.  Thank goodness for the computer, as evidence of my incomplete writings and photo projects are well hidden and take up no additional physical space in my small home, residing only within the confines of my cluttered brain and a little RAM.  I'll be lucky if I click "publish post" with this one.

I'm sad about the world.  Bird flu anyone?  What about a nuclear catastrophe, of the friendly fire variety as well as a terror attack?  Why are there so many mean people in the world? Are gays the new blacks?   And why must we keep defending and fighting for something so obvious?  Why do high schoolers have iphones?  Why is my daughter asking for a cell phone when she clearly doesn't need one?  And why is she in the minority?

This is the cycle I go through.  I will be fine.  I will go shopping (as George W instructed on the days following 9/11).  Such a brave and intelligent man to assume so little of fellow Americans.

At the end of the day, I hug Eric.  He tells me everything will be fine.  It's just stuff.  And fears...they're just fears.  I wipe my tears, and the weight is a little less heavy.  I hug my children and squeeze them so hard, and for that moment, my life is perfect.