fifty things, or, must water the blog

This isn't a meme. This is just...I have no direction. I want to talk to you but I don't have a nice crisp seed to grow into a recognizable post about a thing. So, then, fifty of them. Things.

1. I think I'm getting arthritis in my hands. I watered our lawn this morning and squeezing the nozzle of the hose made me feel like a troubled old lady in the before part of a pain relief commercial. Darn these hands. My begonias!
2. Briefly while I was watering the lawn I was able to not think at all for a few seconds here and there, and I was just watering the lawn. Sounds dull but it was sort of transcendent. Sunlight through the spray, the sound, the brightness, the force of the water, the goodness of the morning. No stupid chatter in my head. Just the thing happening in front of me.
3. Fifty things? I'll be lucky if I get to five. I have the baby monitor on and Finn is stirring a little.
4. Dave is working a lot more now, so I'm with Finn by myself in a much bigger way. It's good, it's beautiful, but I have no time to write, and all I want to do is write.
5. I don't even know what I want to write. I just want to.
6. I made it past five things! Maybe I will make it to fifty.
7. The beams across our living room ceiling, and the ceiling itself, are this honey-colored wood. The wood glows many different ways throughout the day and evening and night.
8. What the wood does, how it glows like that, is medicine for something in me.
9. I'm writing the event of my miscarriage to go into a movie a dear friend is making. I'm fictionalizing it. Does that sound -- oh, I'm not really asking. I'm glad I'm doing it.
10. What are these sounds Finn is making? Do you think he's going to wake up for real?
11. That I'm really asking.
12. I'm thinking a lot about George Harrison these days.
13. After George Harrison died, I had the strangest, most stunning dream with him in it. I was taken aback because I'd never been a notable fan one way or another. But he showed up in a dream a few days after his death, and we were kneeling on the floor in my old room, trying to decide if he was going to be my mentor. I will never be able to convey to you the amount of love that was there in that room, in that dream. Massive, piercing, all-encompassing love.
14. I had a dream like that about an acting teacher once. I was standing in front of him and I asked him, "Are you my teacher?" - I think I meant spiritual teacher - and then I was blown backwards in an explosion of light coming out of my heart as I heard the answer, "Yes."
15. So, two dreams like that in my life, with paradigm-blasting love in them, both about teacher/student relationships.
16. I don't know what those dreams meant, or if those two are or were my teachers, but all I know is when that much love shows up, even in a dream, that's got to be good for something. That counts for something.
17. But I don't know what. Life is a mystery.
18. And my mind wants to take life and hang it up like a pinata and smash it and get all the candy out. But instead of eating the candy, I just want to sit there and read the labels on the candy. WHAT KIND OF CANDY IS THIS?
19. It's better to just eat it.
20. Given the choice, always eat the candy instead of trying to figure the candy out.
21. Good luck to me, as I attempt to do both forever.
22. When I was watering the lawn, I was just eating the candy for a couple of seconds there.
23. The arthritis part wasn't the candy.
24. Dave and I were married in a little courthouse wedding on January 21st, 2005. I just read Pattie Boyd's memoir and learned that she and George Harrison were married in a little courthouse wedding on January 21st, 196...I'm going to say 6.
25. When I read that, I got goosebumps.
26. And then tried to eat the label of that small piece of candy.
27. Ever since I decided recently that I'd like to try to make a living as a writer, I have barely been able to write a word.
28. So that's promising.
29. A friend of mine has just fallen deeply in love. We were talking about this on the phone tonight, and it was a pleasure hearing about it. It reminded me so vividly of when Dave and I fell in love.
30. And then I remembered a night in Maui soon after Dave and I got together, when we were on that yoga retreat. We were all eating dinner on the porch of the house under the stars, but I couldn't eat and I couldn't speak. The love I was falling in was so busy transforming me...I could feel it, on a molecular level, right there at the picnic table. I felt like I was being reprogrammed to hum at a different level, like I was being refined. I couldn't do anything but sit there and change.
31. If we have another child, then I will really have to figure out how to carve some writing time for myself.
32. There's a thing, a concept out there. It's...babysitters. People can get them. Do you know about this? Babysitters? They're these people who come and sit with your babies while you do other things in other locations. My word! I never thought I'd live in such futuristic times! Have you ever tried out one of these babysitters? Are they like robots? Do they hover? Do they have antennae? They have a job for everything these days. Those French have a word for everything.
33. I never promised that every one of these fifty things would make sense.
34. But you can have your no dollars back if you want them.
35. Speaking of dollars back, we ordered in Indian food tonight, and paid cash - and the driver didn't have any change on him. Hi, accidental begrudged large tip.
36. I only ate one modest plateful! Of Indian food! A triumph of the human spirit.
37. We watched The Bachelorette while we ate. Then I called my mom and we compared notes on the bachelors and how their hometown dates went. I love this show, and all other shows that also suck.
38. Fifty things. Good crap. How'm I gonna....? Not like this. This can't be how. Talking about how hard it is.
39. I took Finn on a wild goose chase around Seattle on Sunday trying to find the gol dang MoveOn.org Obama bake sales. Gasworks Park? Not that I can see, but thanks for the walk in the park. Fremont? Um...I forgot the address and time, but let's try anyway. How...'bout...HERE! Nope. Well, then, how 'bout...HERE! Nope. Hey! Goods for the Planet! They're doing one of these bake sales! One last try.
40. Cupcakes for Obama for all of us.
41. Lemon bars for Obama for my mom and brother.
42. Molasses cookies for Obama for Finn.
43. Brownies for Obama for me.
44. Chocolate chip bars for Obama for also me.
45. Something baked for Obama should have been earmarked for Dave, but instead they got teethmarked and swallowed.
46. I am a bad wife.
47. I'm a wife who hogs the sweet things.
48. Thank goodness Dave prefers chips.
49. Else we'd be screwed.
50. Finn loves to have imaginary tea parties these days with a little silver teapot my mom gave him. So he was making 'tea' for me a couple of days ago and I was pretending to drink it, and I said, "Oh, Finn, this tea is so delicious. What kind of tea is it?" And he paused for a good while, stymied. And then came the reply, "........coffee."