I’ve been sick most of the week. Still working through it, but the drugs have just kicked in, so for the moment I’m willing to be funny about it. Truthfully, I am not too good with illness or pain. I quickly get to the point where my throat only wants honeyed tea, but I cannot stand the thought of drinking another cup of it.  I get all woozy and wobbly but I cannot stand the idea of eating anything. Basically, the thought of anything that will make me feel better in the long term makes me feel nauseated in the short term. And thus I find myself left alone with what I refer to mentally as The Groaning.

I don’t know whether you guys are into this? When I’m sick, it eventually becomes the only thing that makes me feel better. It’s pretty simple, really. I lie around and I clutch whatever hurts, usually my head, and I groan. I mean, I GROOOOOOOAAN. It isn’t a pity move — The Groaning is best used when I am alone in the house. In fact, I’m not sure Gene has ever gotten to hear it. (Though I’m pretty sure he’s heard its little sister, The Whimpering. The Whimpering is TOTALLY a pity move.) I guess The Groaning is just a way to register my unhappiness with the universe.

The Groaning starts off small, with a little bit of “urrrr.” Inspired by my success, I then move on to a nice, robust “rrrrraaaaaahh.”  This is where it gets tricky. You don’t want to crescendo too early, but you need to keep building on your momentum, so here I like to go with a “yerrrrr,” followed by a quiet “gruh.” After that, I pretty much let my artist’s sensibility dictate the remainder of the performance, but it almost always ends with a sad little sigh.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a little of my folk medicine with you guys. And now I’ve been sitting up and not groaning for way too long, so if you will excuse me I’m going to return to staring at the wall and clutching my head.

URRRRR.

Last night, Gene and I took the first of six disaster-preparedness classes offered by Alameda’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). I still don’t have an emergency kit in the house, but at least I know a little more about what items I’ll be missing in the next big quake.

(If you are wondering, I’ve finally pinned down the reason why I’m dragging my feet on this kit. It’s the meal planning. Planning seven days of breakfasts, lunches and dinners entirely out of canned food is just stumping me. I don’t know what comes in cans, except for a few kinds of things! And, I mean, how many times in a row can you serve your husband chili for dinner, even in the apocalypse? See, it’s tough)

Anyway, here are a few things I learned in this class:

1. Though most places recommend having ONE gallon of water per person, per day, and stocking a three-day supply, Alameda CERT recommends having TWO gallons per person, per day and stocking a seven-day supply. This is partly because…

2. We are mostly landfill, which means when the next giant quake hits the Hayward fault line, we’re going to feel it like nobody’s business. Also, we’re an island. Could be difficult to get to us once the bridges and tunnels get quaked. (Our instructor’s advice for knowing whether bridges and tunnels are safe to cross: “Just wait for the one guy who decides it’s a great idea to drive on through and watch what happens to him. Then you’ll know.”) Basically, expect some serious delays in service. And that quake…

3. Is almost certainly going to hit us in our lifetime, because they predict a massive Hayward fault line quake every 140 years or so, and we’re plenty overdue for the next one. Also, remember Japan? Now that scientists saw all that business, they’ve figured out that…

4. Tsunamis happen! Yeah, we can easily have one of those here on the island. All of which means that our choice to buy this house was…

5. The best choice ever! This house is awesome. Jeez, Debbie Downer, what did you think I was gonna say?

But seriously folks. I do believe this is my week to take a little trip through the canned food aisles at FoodMaxx. I’m going to save big on disaster readiness!

Richard III starring Kevin Spacey was awesome, if you’re wondering. I mean, I heard it was awesome. I’ll never actually know. I was all geared up to go tonight, and then realized my tickets were for last night’s show.

I am dumber than every dumb thing that has ever been dumb. Sigh.

I just finished a lovely birthday weekend, which means it’s time to start thinking about Halloween. Ladies, may I suggest something sexy? I love those drawings, especially the Sexy Inflammatory Email. I actually did dress as a Sexy Flame War one year. Well…if I’m honest, it was not actually that sexy. Except when I made out with the Sexy Marionette:

This year, if I wind up doing anything at all for Halloween, I intend to dress as Sexy Holly Golightly, which is pretty much the same as normal Holly Golightly except I won’t spout off a bunch of mood-killing nonsense about ownership or sing “Moon River.”

Last night I walked into the office and read this to Gene, from Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse:  “Perhaps it was my life, my quiet scholarly life, immersed in books, shut off from the world, that was the wasted one. Life at second hand. Be honest now, was I getting kicks out of life? A very unfamiliar idea! The truth was, of course, that I didn’t want kicks. But there again, perhaps I ought to?”

Gene looked at me for a minute. “Well?”

“Well, that’s me!” I said. “I just sit around reading books and don’t have any kicks. And I don’t want any kicks. But I should want kicks, shouldn’t I?”

Gene screwed his face up in honest bewilderment. “Who wants to be kicked?” he said.

A few years ago I had a viable business as a freelance writer, in which I found clients, convinced them to hire me, set my own fees, and met multiple and sometimes conflicting deadlines. I was brave, I was motivated, I was a shy and disorganized person who forced myself to become socially adept(-ish) and organized. I pushed my own limits every day.

And what do I do now? Crafts and housework. A friend asked me recently what I’ve been doing these days and I could not think of one interesting thing to say.

I am happier now than I have ever been. If you look at basic, day-to-day contentment levels, you really can’t beat what I’ve got going on right now, waking up when I am ready, reading and fiddling around with house projects, and occasionally writing a few pages of a story now and then. But is it really a satisfying answer to the question of what to do with my life? Just “being happy,” not producing anything, not achieving anything? I’m not striving towards anything at all.

The thing is, I’ve striven. There’s only one thing I’ve wanted consistently for my whole life, as long as I can remember wanting things, and that is to be a published writer. Well, I achieved that before I was 30. So what next? I don’t want to go on being a journalist; I don’t actually like journalism much, certainly not enough to build a life’s work on it. But how do I jump into my next consuming desire?

It’s easy to look at my life now (ghost-costumed wine bottles? Really?) and say that I am stagnating, but how quickly did you bounce into the next thing, the last time you achieved a lifelong goal?

…Sorry. Little defensive here. It does wear on me after a while. Being asked what I do and telling people that I’m a housewife.  There’s always that blank second of adjustment, and then they say “Oh…well, nothing wrong with that,” meaning “Whoa, something is wrong with that.” When told that I don’t work, one working mom asked whether I had kids, and when I said no, she said “Jesus, then what are you doing with yourself?”

I am making chalkboard magnet bats, lady. Obviously.

But of course there is another goal on the horizon. I know it, you know it. I should be writing fiction. And what is taking me so long, you might ask, and I wonder too, sometimes. What’s the appropriate transition time from one dream to the next? Do you know? It was not in my manual.

And while I figure it out, I paint the kitchen island. I re-read Jane Austen. I enjoy myself. I guess that’s what I’m doing these days.