If I cannot write about how tired I am... If I cannot write about how much I am working each day and each evening... If I cannot write about how much my ankle hurts...

Well, then I should get back to work.

Hours to go before I sleep...hours to go before I sleep.

Okay, I believe that it is time that I admit I have a colossal failure in my lawn. An entire bag of seed (enough for 4 times the size of my yard) wasted. I watered and watered by hand, but it appears as if the water was not enough to soak through the uppermost layer of topsoil. I am in mourning at this moment for a lawn that will not be.

I do believe that since is rather STINKING hot just now, I shall give up all current attempts at establishing a peaceful sea of green and pin my last hopes on the fall...crossing my fingers that those 2,400 lbs of top soil stay put and do NOT fill up with weeds welcoming the fertile opportunity to expand their domain.

~~~~

Madison's weight has inexplicably plummeted. I am worried about my avian friend...

NOTE: Should you be considering watching a cheezy Sci-Fi movie entitled Dark Breed...skip it.

Well, I am half ashamed to admit have finished watching six hours of the American Paintball Championships. By hour four, I had teams I was routing for and players I could identify. No words written, nary a one. More naps. Two books read. A whole vacation blown.

I did not wake up yesterday until 2:58 in the afternoon! I couldn't believe it. I feel as if I am being robbed of my mini-vacation. Today, while I managed to get out of bed by noon, I ended up lounging the whole day away reading and napping and nary a word written on either of my two novels.

I keep thinking that there is time to write still left today, but I am already thinking that another nap might be in order.

I suppose all that extra candle burning has caught up with me.

Today was my first day of my four-day holiday, but I practically spent the whole day running around with my father to help him get his Passport application off for processing and pick up a few things we both needed.

My b-day is just a week or so away and for it, I have asked those who might be leaning toward a gift to send just money because I would like to pool it toward a video camera. I want to start recording those things about my life that I am forgetting or might forget. I want to make memories for later. But I also want to do more. I want to capture the family stories that my father tells me nearly every time we are together. He is loath to be on film, but he is the only one left to carry this history and his memory if failing more quickly than mine. Never more have I been convinced of this than I have been today.

Last night, he called me back four times in a row to ask the same questions about coming over today. Five total calls and I still wondered if he would show up today.

He called this morning to say he was lost. This is the second time in three trips over here that he has had to point out landmarks and streets to me for me to figure out where he is and navigate him back toward my home. Those of you who know me understand the lucridiousness of this. I am, possibly, the most navigationly challenged person in America.

I had to walk him through his papers at the Post Office again and again. Once we finished and we had walked outside, he wanted to go back inside to retrieve his birth certificate. I had to reassured him again and again that he was supposed to submit it with his application and he would get it back. I told him so while we were at Target, at Petco, and when he was getting in the car.

He is only 63. I hate what is happening to him and the fact that he won't go see a doctor when there is so many good drugs these days for what he is experiencing.

I did have to get up at 8:00 after staying up until 2:00 to try and send the file. At least this morning it went through and I have tomorrow and Sunday and Monday to sleep.

Right now, my bed is calling me.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am taking the vacation day, but yet I am still working this evening! I turned off my Blackberry and vowed not to turn it back on until Tuesday. However, I have a project I need to get to the Printer before tomorrow morning. I stayed at the office until 8:00 waiting to get back in touch with my boss so that she could help proof the work. I made the three changes and then came home to PDF the document before using WinZip to package it for FPT via the Printer's website (For whatever reason, I cannot use any FTP site at work and always have to use my home computer to do so). And, alas, I discovered that the file on my flash drive is corrupted--according to Adobe PageMaker--and I have abandoned my three-hour plus attempt to repair it and am trying to transfer the original document from my work server to my home computer. However, the file is 49 Megs and the process is going to take a long while more, then I need to make the changes again and start the upload to the Printer process.

I want to be done...so desperately I do. Mentally, I feel like a child stamping her foot in a temper tantrum, but there is nothing that I can do. I just have to work through this before I can say that I am done until Tuesday.

What did I say I would do? Treat this all as an opportunity? Mmmm...perhaps a Dr. Pepper will help!

I think I will pop in a movie to help pass the time. Perhaps Deep Impact would be fitting? A disaster movie for a disastrous evening?

I could say that I was half-way through my marathon week, but thoughts of blowing a vacation day on Friday to extend the holiday weekend further are dancing around my head. Were that to be the case, I am on the downhill road to completing this arduous journey.

Again, I have hours still to go, hours and hours and hours. I did manage to work with my writing student this evening. Our plans included spending one hour on homework/work items and two hours on our stories. We ended up working the entire time on our obligations instead of our desires. I must admit, though, that while I wanted to spend time with Megan and Aryanth, I surprised myself with some purely academic thinking. I am not through, but I am writing about the component concepts of communications without finding some sort of reference, thinking theoretical all on my own and loving it.

I discovered something surprising to me today. Last Monday, while golfing, I got a free Gatorade and ended up bringing it home. It was Orange, which I remember not liking, but I kept it because it was free (I'm still struggling with the ramifications of $4,500 combo of accident and new HVAC system). Tonight, I drank it because it was available in the refrigerator and I was reluctant to haul myself down the steps to the basement for a new bottle of the Gatorade that I prefer (Have I mentioned lately that I am tired?). Well, what do you know! I actually guzzled the Orange greedily and was saddened to see the empty bottle. I am thinking that my next Gatorade run should include more Orange.

Here is my thoughts on continuums that I popped into my concept paper:

Note: Many consider a continuum to be represented in one dimensional, linear format. However, often continuums are best represented in two or three dimensions. For example, questions inform answers and answers often lead to more questions. Therefore, the Q&A process exists on a continuum, one that may best be represented in a two dimensional format. One example would be a rectangle bisected from one corner to another. Any vertical line drawn within the box would have some part question and some part answer. Since, conversations can be written, aural, and/or visual, a three dimensional representation may serve best. A pyramid, with the three mechanisms of conversation represented on each side, could serve as a visual representation of a conversation, with the continuum being a plane, on any axis, slicing through the pyramid.

In many ways, my day is just beginning. I am certainly burning the candle on either end, with my valliant attempt to keep my new grass seeds sufficiently moist, willing them to grow, for the fourth time to be the "charm."

Tonight I am trying to organize thoughts for a future of which I am uncertain, working with half-knowledge of integral components and trying to maintain a positive outlook. I am still stubbornly clinging to the idea of possibility, but I find myself worn down by those who are mired in the what has been rather than the what could be.

I left ankle seems to hurt a bit more with each passing day.

Knowing that I have hours still to go, I thought perhaps I would treat myself to my first Thermacare pack, one for my neck since I am having ever increasing stiffness and pain in that area. Now, I just have to remember where I put the box when I unpacked my shopping bags a few weeks ago.

We had something like a five-hour meeting today that was needed, yet arduous. This week, I have multiple-meeting days, much homework for many of them, and still my own work to do. The very thought of it makes me weary. What I am trying to do, however, is to think of each one as an opportunity to do something different, to think critically, to delve into the experience.

How will I do?

I hurt my right ankle today. It is a bit inconvenient since I am still wearing a brace on my left ankle from a fall at work. My right ankle is bruised and swollen and hurts went I walk. But that does not bother me as much as the fact that I cannot remember how I hurt it. I remember that whatever happened hurt at the time and I remember wondering if it would be a momentary twinge or a longer-term hurt. However, I cannot remember actually hurting it. What happened is just not available to me. That frightens me more than the thought of two bum ankles.

I took Kashi for a walk and was attacked by two dogs. I called animal control and spent about an hour with the officer. I napped for about two hours because I awoke so tired that I was dizzy. I watered the lawn twice. I ate two left over burritos from Taco Bell, drank two Dr Peppers and a glass of milk, and munched on candy from that Variety Store. I put out more birdseed and watered the ever thirsty fountain on my deck. I remember all of that...I just don't remember how I hurt my ankle.

2,400 pounds of topsoil! Yep, that's right. Sixty 40-lb bags are now on my yard, filled with grass seed, watered, and carrying my hopes for a beautiful lawn.

I slept until noon. It would have been longer, but Fancy and Madison were impatient about getting out of their cage for the day since it is the weekend. I reluctantly rolled out of bed, let Kashi outside, and welcomed the day with my birds. For the next two hours, I sat on the couch and channel-surfed, thinking about my lawn.

I have tried twice to create a front yard after the whole sewage pipe fiasco...and failed twice. Of course, now that I have committed to stop murdering as I mow, I thought perhaps just one more try might be worth the labor.

So, I picked up the phone to see if my writing student's brother was available for hard labor. I half hoped he wasn't, but he was. I threw on some clothes and went to pick him up. Gloves in hand, he joined me in the car and off to Lowe's we went. I figured foregoing groceries a while longer (the time of depending on what's in the pantry is nearing an end--I'm running out of stuff) in favor of spending some money on the yard would be a great investment because pulling up to a green lawn each day would be quite a pleasure to me.

Our first trip was 20 bags of top soil and 7 of mulch. I really wanted to mulch the flower bed I created with my best friend and got enough to finish the mulch in the front. Let me tell you, even with my helper, lugging the bags onto the cart, loading them into the car, and then schlepping them across the yard is quite draining and really not much fun. I had thought that 20 bags would do it. Boy, was I wrong.

So with the soil spread out and the mulch in place, we headed back to Lowe's with the ambitious goal of getting 40 more bags of top soil. That is 40 bags to get on the cart, into the car, and onto the yard. When we were checking out, the cashier watched us struggle to move the cart up and then told me that "next time" we could just pay for them and drive around back where someone would load the items into my car. Really, if I were a violent person, I would have slugged her just then. She did call for help to get the bags in the car. So my helper and I had our own help.

40 more bags later, I thought we had sufficient cover to the barren spots in the back and the side yards and all over the front yard. I ran my helper home and came back to start the seeding process. Worried a bit about the birds who've come to enjoy my backyard offerings, I put seed out, worked it into the soil, and covered the soil with seed again. Surely I will get a lawn out of this!

I actually am contemplating making the work of establishing a new lawn a bit harder. I will have to water twice a day, but I am considering keeping Kashi out of the back yard for at least a couple of weeks. Of course, he has already "needed" to be walked three times since I finished my labors. I am not sure I can keep it up, but there were two very barren spots at the bottom of my steps where he regularly lands as he leaps from them to the yard. I am hoping that if I could grow grass there, it might hold up under his enthusiastic coming and goings if given a proper start.

So, here I sit on the couch, weary from my labors, but excited as to the possibility, the potential of this day.

As tired as I am, as soon as I got home I stripped off my work clothes, put on my mowing ones, and headed outside. After raising the lawn mower four notches, I proceeded to work my way around the yard. I must admit that it is a wee bit hard for me to feel as if I did a proper job since it is not closely cropped, but I did give it a neat trim.

Kashi seem to like it. He rolled around a bit and found it quite cushy.

Since I am now officially birdie central, I sat out on the deck for a while listening to the local chatter. When I realized that I was growing hungry, I went back through the house to retrieve the pizza I had left in the car (free food from work). I stopped to let Fancy and Madison hop on my shoulder because I thought they would like to listen to the avian news.

Fancy has been out with me many times, but this was only Madison's third time. With his crest raised, he listened intently to the news and then joined the conversation. I just love hearing his trill. However, a car drove by and startled him. Madison took off and flew all the way down the street. I was horrified. Fancy had shot off back toward the house, so I left her to race down the street after Madison. I was terrified that another car would come before I could catch him. Thankfully, I found him safely perched on the rear view mirror of a truck.

I huffed and puffed my way back to my house, found Fancy in the rose bushes, and brought them both inside. While breathing asthma medicine through the nebulizer, I thought how remarkable it was that he flew so far on clipped wings. Really, he is such a stubborn bird!

My I am bleary-eyed with exhaustion, but I have work still to do.

I have worked every evening, well past midnight. I have gotten up early every morning to get in some more work before heading to the office. I have struggled with dizziness because of my fatigue. My muscles are weak and not holding my joints as they should. My ankle still hurts from a fall a week ago, my back and neck hurt from the arthritis (I have forgotten to take my medicine twice this week), and these strange bruises on my arms hurt. I am tired. Yet, I have work to do.

All this week, I have been looking forward to Friday...to the knowledge that even if I work this weekend, I will get to sleep in on Saturday as long as I wish.

I only hope that all of this will not be for naught.

Speaking of getting it right, I have learned that I have been torturing my grass.

"Mow it lower! You need to put it on the lowest setting. Get it right!" My mother has many times berated me about mowing the lawn right. So, for the past four years, I have ever vigilant about getting it lower and lower. My have I gotten good at it.

However, my best friend, during her last visit, very gently told me that I was mowing my lawn too low! What? I was ever so sure that she was completely wrong. Alas, come to find that a person's lawn should be much, much higher than a quarter of an inch.

http://www.turfgrasssod.org/lawninstitute/homelawn_programs.htm

Having studied the above, I realized why the new lawn I grew from seed last year died. I killed it. When I think of all those weeks of watering every morning and every evening as I did three cycles of seeding, I could cry since it was all for naught. ARGH!

So, I have not mowed for two weeks to see if I could let my new grass recover enough to save it from permanent harm. I may be succeeding. I think that now I know why the front yard died off so quickly, I might try again.

What do you think? Can I get it right?

This time...Kashi did not get my cookie. But then again...neither did I.

Kashi has been stalking my bag for a few days. I could not figure out why since I couldn't remember leaving any food in it. Couldn't remember? I should have known to look.

This evening, I emptied out the entire bag since I nearly lost a finger getting near it. I pulled out all the things I am working on and my bible verse memory cards and my inhalers and my pens and my emergency injector...and...a very hard cookie.

Will I ever get it right?

I had the best golf day of my life.
I had the worst golf day of my life.

I putted with confidence and accuracy.
I wore golf shoes for the first time.
In a best ball format, my ball was best part of the time.
I had several clutch shots.
It was cool and breezy.
On the green, my foursome looked to my stroke.
I laughed with joy.
I was part of an 80.

I killed a goose.
Standing over a drive, I hit with sureness of my stroke.
I heard it before my head rose up from the swing.
I killed a goose.
I stood there, tears streaming down my face.
I watched it suffer.
I watched the other geese gather round in confusion.
I wanted in horror as it bled and died.
I killed.

That is not the way golf is supposed to be.
Fancy and Madison carry my heart.
I find joy in my avian visitors who partake of my backyard offerings.
Even now, as I type, the tears are flowing once more.
I killed a goose.

This was my best day of golf.
This was my worst day of golf.

We are about to start movie number 10.

My dad stayed another day, bumming around and fully engaged in my movie marathon quest. The last time we did this was my birthday, last year or the year before. I cannot remember.

I took a movie at the breakfast dive where we eat together when he comes over. Having the small video feature on the phone makes me even more desirous of a camcorder for my birthday. I am working up the nerve to just ask those who consider gifts to just send a check. There is too much I do not remember. Too much my father is losing. I wanted to capture life for both of us.


I would NOT recommend MI 2. The darned thing was so long because at least half the movie is shot in slow motion. It got old. I introduced Dad to The Game. He was amazed by it and was glad we picked up a copy for him during our brief Walmart trip yesterday (yes...that should be added to the list of reasons why we only got 4 movies in...along with my boss' phone call, which prompted me needed to log onto the work server and take care of a few things). Spiderman 2 was sad and not the best choice when trying to just escape for a while. Terminator 3 was interesting, though that freaky female terminator's stare got a bit old as well. Batman Begins was just as satisfying the second time round as it was the first. Escape from Alcatraz was great...and led to a viewing of The Rock. Wanting to see a bit more of Clint, we popped in Absolute Power. Hackman is a great bad guy. Pleasantville is quite thought provoking, ...lots of 'what ifs' to flit around your mind...as is the next on the pile of movies... The Majestic.


NOTE: It is probably a sound recommendation to only order Eggs Benedict at upscale restaurants. Should you fail to abide by this recommendation and do so at a place, say, like a breakfast dive and have a plate set down before you on which your two breakfast muffins could not be seen for the lake of runny yellow sauce that passed as bernaise sauce, save yourself a bit of discomfort and DO NOT bite into soggy muffins from the stupid belief that you should at least eat some of it. Trust me...you will still be shuddering at the taste hours later.

We only managed to get in four movies today. I am not sure why...but perhaps I can blame Ruby Tuesdays. Dad wanted to eat there and we spent quite a bit of time waiting on our waitress. Perhaps even a whole movie's time.

And then there is the fact that all the movies we watched today were long ones.

It is good to be with someone who not only is content, but also enjoys watching movie after movie, talking during them to discuss characters and such, and does not tire of the couch/green chair.

Monday was my day off to rest before the big event, to write for me. I worked all day and didn't add but two words to my story.

I worked until 8:00 tonight because tomorrow I am trying again to take a day off. I sifted through all the things that have been lingering a bit and tossed a few productive emails and returned four calls and cleared my desk and...and...transfered to my flash drive the work I wanted to cover for the weekend.

The flash drive is sitting in my computer still.

Is that a sign? I could transfer the files via our remote connection (that would take practically half the weekend), but is leaving it behind a sign that I really shouldn't try to squeeze in a few things this long weekend?

I called my father. He is coming over at 11:00 in the morning armed with a dozen movies and an overnight bag. We are going to see how many we can watch in a twenty-four hour period. I plan to greet him at the door in my pajamas and the remote.

Dad has the list, but a few that I can remember are: Absolute Power, MI 2, Escape from Alcatraz, X-men 2, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Spiderman 2.

Can you see a theme there?

I am trying to think of this day, to remember how it went. I am trying to recall what I accomplished, what I managed to do. I cannot remember.


I keep thinking about yesterday and everything it was, everything it wasn't.

I keep thinking about my job, everything it is, everything it isn't, everything it could be.

I keep thinking about the words hurled at me last week, changing my life in but a moment.


I awoke last night (this morning) at 3:00 am and could not go back to sleep. I tried for hours. I cried for hours. I prayed. I read the bible. I logged onto the server and worked. But really...it was all for naught.

I know I stumbled my way through this day.

If I send you two, not once but twice, schedules outlining the sequence of an event, shouldn't that be enough? I think so. Yet, for this event, somehow once again I have some sort of communications failure because someone couldn't get by with one letter, one postcard, approximately one dozen emails (to the person's staff), and two schedules. Yep, I failed as a communicator.

I am weary.

Several residents took the wine bottle center pieces I made... I guess they liked them, at least...

One victory was that I hit the money right on with the food. Just some cheese was left over, nothing much. The residents chowed down in my cafe. I was glad for that. The honoree was satisfied.

Still, I am weary.

Do you know how long it takes to remove the labels from 11 wine bottles, stick on new labels, and then drip candle wax all over them? TOO LONG!

I have been at it since about 7:00 PM and am not nearly finished.

Will anyone appreciate the cafe ambiance that I am struggling so hard to create with my non-artsy nature? I have decorative menu boards, flowers, hanging baskets, and now these candle-drippy wine bottles.

For a vacation day, I have done more work than I usually do in a work day... Tomorrow is going to be a long, long, long day.

I gardened with my best friend today!

We puttered in the soil together, ripping out plants that had overtaken my side flowerbed and restored beauty to the area. She is a great worker, my friend, out planting me by a mile. Of course, I was working on the side with more of that lovely Virginia clay than she had. Still, she wields a mighty trowel.

They both helped me with a bit more pruning. I really, really did not want to do so, but she was right to push me to trim even more on one of my Rose of Sharon bushes-turned trees.

After a wonderful time of shared oneness with the soil, we had a really great meal, followed by ice cream cones (her husband had coffee) made sweeter by walking around Old Towne a bit.

I was saddened to see them go, but I was so very thankful for the visit. You see, I was quite grumpy and short tempered a bit yesterday whilst sneezing ten, fifteen times in a row. But neither of them criticized me for it or punished me for it. They just gave me a bit of space (and plenty of quickly-handed-to-me-Kleenex) and went on with our day.

To be accepted for who you are is a many splendored thing.

On an errand for work, my friends and I visited a Variety Store in search of drippy candles. [I am trying to create the ambiance of an outdoor cafe for a community center dedication ceremony on Tuesday.] Walking through the doors was like walking through time.

I, of course, noticed the candy isle right away and found myself delighted to greet two of my childhood friends: sugar babies and sugar daddies. Yum. I may just possibly have abandoned my strict no-spending-because-of-the-car-accident-and-HVAC-work policy to fill a bag of the sweets from yesteryears.

I found the candles...and much more. There were those plastic coin purses that you squeeze to open and Chinese finger traps. My best friend's husband enjoyed the match car filled toy isle. I found a miniature ceramic frog for one of my bonsai pots. I moaned and groaned over a lady bug mug, but managed to resist. My best friend found a small lady bug magnet and managed to sneak it past me to surprise as a gift. I bought her a miniature purple flashlight key chain and a purple Le Pen pen. [She likes all things purple].

We really sort of rushed through the store for it was late and we had had a long day. Such good friends they are...walking examples of Christ's love. In the morning, my friend had made the most sumptuous breakfast casserole. I then started on the worst allergy attack that I have had since moving here 8 years ago. We went off to Target to get some medicine (and a bathing suit for her daughter and Saran wrap for me). Even though we were all hungry, they let me dash into The Home Depot for some more of that miracle clog bust Zep since bathing Kashi was the last straw for my upstairs bathtub drain.

After all my errands were done and we had gotten a bite to eat, I dropped them off at Mount Vernon and took their sweet child home for a nap. I rested myself, read the bible, and then wrote some on my novel.

When I went to pick them up, tired as they were, they were willing to make the trek to the store so that I could get my candles.

A pizza, a game of Phase 10, and a movie topped off this day.

The sweet taste of childhood savored with the sweet taste of friendship.

My friend was a bit delayed by the bane of my existence: traffic.

Her delay gave me the opportunity to get the bird cage cleaned, the dog bathed, and the house vacuumed (I had to empty the container three times). Since she had yet to arrive, I went outside to work in the yard.

I mowed the dying weeds in the front yard (when I put out the weed killer to see what would happen, I failed to consider how much uglier brown weeds are than green ones) and the grass in the back yard. I also mowed the easement/alley (I usually do so every third mow or so). I also raked the leaves than had fallen since my last yard work session into the easement and mulched them with the mower so that I did not have to bag them. I planted the three begonias that were replacements in the front bed and the ivy that was a replacement for the one that sits on the table next to my couch (my heart is a bit more greener than my thumb). I also planted the rest of the begonia pack in four of the empty pots on my deck. I just love a bit of color out there! Finally, I hand watered the lawn, the new plants, the old plants, and for good measure the dying weeds.

I was spraying the bird droppings off my car when she finally arrived. I was most glad to see my friend and her daughter and husband and greet her baby-to-bed. I was a wee bit glad because she saved me from getting to work on polishing the silver (the next chore on my list).

Already my friend has found two things that were lost (yes, she found the Corticool practically the first moment she cast her eyes about the living room after sitting down on the couch). She is most that brilliant way.

I am blessed.

I have dusted all three levels, cleaned the basement bathroom, swept and mopped the laminate floor in the basement, cleaned the kitchen, and cleaned the microwave. Tomorrow my plan is to vacuum, clean the bird cage, and give Kashi a bath. Everything is getting a once over so that my best friend does not have to avert her eyes from the less-than-cleanly environment of my home. I am cleaning to let her know that I am thankful she is still visiting despite the change in plans and no longer needing her to sit with my babies. Lately, I have been too tired do much cleaning for myself.

I have much practice in averting my eyes...

Last night, I worked until 3 AM writing press pieces for work. One is something I believe is good, but my boss believes is good writing, but the wrong focus. Today, I made my argument for its use. She told me it was a good case. That she absolutely disagreed with me. That I could use it. That she was proud of me for arguing with her. I am confused.

I took courage and stood up for myself again this evening. Doing so was a disaster...I received back absolute vitriol. Does it count that I tried?

Have I lost or gained?

How can I lose something in my rather small abode?

Just this morning I was telling my best friend that I have four small poison ivy blisters that I have been coating in Corticool in the hopes that I can keep them from bursting and thus spreading into a full blown attack. If that happens, I will have to take prednisone and I really, really, really do not want to do so. Three are on the inside of my forearm and one in on my left knee. [Darn that yard work!]

I was telling her of my dilemma about how the clear covering rubs off half way through my day at work. If I took the tube of medicine to work, I would surely leave it there and most likely start scratching myself at night while I am sleeping. But not having it during the day is an equal risk. The tube cost $7, so I was loath to run out and purchase another for the office. "No," I told her, "I was better off keeping it right on my bathroom sink where I could always find it."

I came home today and discovered it is gone. Where could it be? I checked my bedroom, my study (near the computer), and next to the couch to no avail. It takes a while for the stuff to dry, but I usually just read until I can put clothing over the areas. Why would I move it from the place it should be given how faulty my MS riddled brain is? It just doesn't make sense. I spoke about it this morning and then I lose it!

ARGH!

I am itching just thinking about it.


NOTE: Putting scotch tape over poison ivy blisters as a protective covering is not advised as a replacement for Corticool.

In most books or stories, today, the reader or the audience is not oft addressed as was the case in years past. Recently, I listened to Jane Eyre on tape. I've read the book several times, yet I didn't seem to remember that Bronte addresses her reader directly, sometimes as “dear reader.”

I wonder. Did she ever envision, as she wrote those words, that I would be her reader in the next century while listening to her story on an audio-tape? Of course she would not have known about audio-tapes, and she most likely never dreamed about them, but did she dream about how long her story would last, how many it would touch?

How did she think about her audience? Did she write for one particular audience and find herself championed by others? Did she work at her literacy craft hoping someday it would become the subject in courses of higher learning? Or did she just think of another woman who might lose herself in the loves and losses of someone like Jane?

What did she really think of Jane? Did she understand her? Respect her? Wish she were stronger?

Despite being a published author, was Bronte writing for her audience or was she really just writing for herself? Was she just working, making an earning by wordsmithing, or did she find herself compelled to play with words, arranging and rearranging them to create the images and stories she envisioned, to make meaning for one person and another, always the same, always different?

Dear Reader, what do you think?