Still festive, mainly

I had an awesome Christmas, and I hope anyone else celebrating did likewise. I was given a new watch to replace the one that broke a month ago, so everyone I normally hang out with will now stop being plagued by me reaching for their wrists every (approximately) five minutes. I also got a zillion awesome books, peanut-butter bonbons, pickled carrots, a scratch-n-win Bingo that won me $3 (which I immediately blew on a second card, which won me nothing), slippers, a cloche hat (just like Virginia Woolf!), a tiny table, and dozens of hugs.

I also got another sinus infection!! This was not a gift but rather, I suppose, just payback for so much awesomeness. I still resent that I spent most of *Sherlock Holmes* yesterday a) sleeping or b) trying not to vomit (I didn't--win!), and thus have no idea what happened. But I still think it was a very good movie anyway. And the more I consider it, the more I actually think that this incident was the result of my over-the-counter sinus medication, because as soon as I stopped taking it the desire to puke and lose consciousness went away. So now I'm medication-free and largely functional, and if I can just get on a plane and travel across the country, I am pretty much guaranteed more hugs, plus naniamo bars. So that is today's goal.

So I gotta go pack, instead of writing a year's end list of best somethings or worst somethings, but I was likely not going to get around to doing that anyway. Thank goodness Maisonneuve did one of books and let me contribute.

I hope you guys have a great fake-boxing day tomorrow, and who knows--if I have a little downtime in my travels, I may yet get you a list of best/worst somethings, or possibly a picture of me in a cloche hat.

RR

Public Service Announcements

In case, you know, you need to know:

...how to cope with UPS. When you call UPS, there is no option in any menu to speak to an agent, but if you decline to press any buttons, even for English or French or to enter your tracking number (interesting: if you don't choose a language, you get English) they will eventually tell you that you can't speak to anyone unless you have tracking number, so call back when you've got one. Then a long pause that sounds like it might be permanent, then the weary voice of the autoprompt, asking "So do you still want to speak to an agent?" Say "yes" and the voice recognition software will direct you to an actual competent and (somewhat) sympathetic human. Man, that was tricky--but worth it.*


...what to give for a holiday gift. There's great recommendations (and little bios of their sources so you can check for cred [they all have cred]> at The Advent Book Blog. I recommended a book last week, and now that the person I was giving that gift to has received it, I can link to my recommendation.

...how do something nice. Could you be persuaded to give blood? I know many people can't because of low iron or certain prescriptions in their systems or other health problems, but if you can I think Canadian Blood Services could really use it this holiday season. I base this guess on the fact that last week, the gentleman donating in the chair next to mine experienced the briefest of dizzy spells, and *five* nurses were all over him like a bad suit--cold compresses, elevated legs, fans, cookies, ecetera! They were really really nice, but you just got the feeling they were a little underworked. A few more donators would keep the nurse/donator ratio a bit more even. I know nobody likes needles, and I personally loathe the whole process, but I feel SO GOOD afterwards, knowing I did something for someone (3 someones!), plus awesome karma for the day. I mean, just a few short hours after making this donation, I found a tambourine on the sidewalk!!!! Karmically amazing.

...describe people that are just too hyper. When someone described a potential project (going to see Sherlock Holmes on Boxing Day) as likely to be pandemonium, I said approximately, "Don't worry, we'll deal with the pandemaniacs."** He responded, "That's not a word," but I think it is now, and it's a pretty good one. I give it to you.

Hope that helps!
RR

* I just received the package, so I guess this is a win. But it took a week, four delivery attempts, one formal complaint, plus me saying morosely after I'd registered the complaint, "Can you write on it that I'm very sad?" (no, they can't), so I am not feeling very victor-like.

** What I actually said was dumber than the above, but the neologism was the same, and this is my blog and I'm allowed to edit the past if I choose...right?

The Haps

1) Joyland Stories will soon be a part of the daily dose of aweomse that is CellStories, a site that sends cell phone and Blackberry (etc.) users a new short story every day (you can also read the stories at the link above). Sounds like a great way to pass a commute, and is probably the second reason on my list of reasons to maybe possibly someday get a cellphone (the first being to receive amusing texts from AMT, and third being in case I am ever accidentally (or on purpose, I guess) locked in a closet.

2) The finalists for Journey Prize 21 will be announced at Ben McNally books on October 1, and I'll be there to help make the presentation. I'm really looking forward to celebrating such great work.

3) A story of mine called "Dykadelic" will be in the yet-to-be-launched journal *The Milan Review* sometime this fall.

4) I'll be reading at the Draft Reading Series on October 4 at the Blue Moon Pub. Only new drafty works are to be read there, so who knows what I'll be presenting.

5) Finally, for those who said it couldn't be done, I have made it through a week with a left hand mouse and, though I still hate it a lot, this morning when someone *moved my mouse* to the right side of the keyboard (oh, don't even ask) I *moved it back*. New neural pathways, here I come!

You let me down easy / you let me down hard
RR

First-world problems

I have recently been introduced to the term "first-world problems", used to describe those problems that sure enough do feel lousy when we have to experience them, but taken in the context of people who struggle for food, safety and clean drinking water, are a little less than earth-tilting. Ie.,

--ice cream melts too fast
--waiter forgets your wine, is rude when reminded
--ugly hotel room
--wallet in other pants
--trying to switch the hand you use your mouse with in order to stave off carpal tunnel syndrom and Altzheimer's disease makes you grouchy and confused

I'm trying to do that last one and it's making me very unhappy in a distinctly first-world way. On Wednesday, I did *one hour* of left-handed mousing, and when I got into bed that night and let my body go slack, the mouse-fingers on my left hand immediately started to twitch. Today, I've been at it about 3 hours, and I think I might go insane.

Now, I'm a prime target for carpal tunnel, since I'm in front of a computer an incredible number of hours, don't have an ergonomic setup, plus often use a laptop. There's nothing I don't think to be done about the laptop; I've been trying to use the touchpad with my left hand, but since it's right there in the middle, I immediately forget add allow my pushy pushy right hand to take over.

It's easier on the desktop, since I have an actual mouse that I have moved over to the left side of the keyboard. However, it is a very strange mouse since it the one associated with the drawing pallette I use in my work. Mine's not that nice, I just wanted a clear picture, but it is a pricey item and clearly it's not going to be replaced just so I can have a left-handed mouse to go with it, even if there was such a thing (wow, another first-world problem: my expensive technology not quiiiitte as nice as some).

So now I am left-clicking with my *ring-finger*, probably the weakest part of my body besides, like, my hair. Hence the twitching, I guess. I'm trying to feel the new, Alzheimer's-preventing neural pathways being formed as I do this, but mainly I just feel like I'm working really slowly as it often takes a couple tries to click on what I want. Also my ring-finger is tired. Also, several times when I got really involved with something, I discovered myself 45 degrees pivoted in my chair, gripping the mouse with my right hand through now will of my own. Also, for some reason, my right hand hurts; sympathy pains?

A friend of mine actually successfully made this switch, which is what inspired me to try, but that friend is superhuman in any number of regards, and I'm starting to think this is one of them. Maybe I'll just learn Suduko??

Why not smile?
RR

Post-weekend update

So I got to do my GritLit reading yesterday and it was awesome; therefore I am not allowed to complain about the myriad things that went wrong with the universe this weekend and continue to do so (snow??) Ahem.

Sometimes, when life is chaotic and difficult, I am comforted by filling out forms. Not hard forms, nothing tax-related--things I know the answer to. I like very short answers that fit in slots, or even better, can be checked off! So simple, so clear, so little room for chaos or difficulty.

I am particularly fond of the Canada Council form that writers have to fill out after participating in literary festivals funded by the CC. The form is short, direct, and easy (mainly opinion questions, which are hard to get wrong, as are items like one's own address). Also, since lit fests are inevitably so very much fun, the form is basically an invitation to have a good kvell about how great the committee was, how nice the venue was, what delicious food was served, how awesome the audience was, etc., etc.

So I filled out the form this morning and basked in the warm memory GritLit joys, and this mainly blotted out things like:

Cup of tea #1--site of bug drowning
Cup of tea #3--spilled on sweater
Weather--sleet
Voice--sounds as if I should be telling midnight callers what I'm wearing (sweater covered in tea)
Inbox--overflowing
Rose-coloured readers--far too dismissive of the works of Reese Witherspoon

They're tryin to tell me how to feel
RR

All panic, no disco

At less than 20 hours until my reading for 65 high school kids, I have nearly no voice. WTF? I'm not even sick, just silent.

Home remedies I have tried so far:
--green tea
--chamomile tea
--multivitamin
--gargling with salt water
--frosting (not really a remedy; I just found this cache of leftover frosting)

Any other suggestions for me? At this point, I can't even muster the voice to call to cancel the event. It's going to be extra lame if I have to get someone else to do it!!

He could not know another tiger
RR

En-flu'd

So you live in an apartment for ages, get used to all the tricks of the door locks and the shower faucet, keep your shorts available during the winter because you know the heat is unpredictable, realize there is a tiny bloodstain on a floortile here or there and don't worry about it because it's probably yours, tape things to every available surface, install splitters on the phone jack and a power bar on the electrical jack and generally just assume that the place is your domain and you know it cold.

And then, one day you get the flu. And you spend that day, and subsequent ones, in a semi-coherent haze on your couch, unable to tolerate food or music or conversation or even text most of the time. Supine on your couch, you simply try to keep as silent and still as possible (sometimes motion-sickness can be triggered by the motion of a footstep, or even rolling over too quickly). And during one of your more lucid, conscious periods, you suddenly realize:

Everything in this apartment makes a tiny tiny noise.

Aside from the resounding *thunk* of the refrigerator switching off, it has a steady, low-tenor hum at all times, it seems. Hours after the DVD has ended and the TV set been turned off, it still makes static-y little clicks. The laptop's motor whirs at random hours for no reason at all (yes, the laptop is always on, "just in case"), and I can hear the elevator cable down the hall making horrible squeaking noise each time it ascends (this does not increase my desire to ride the elevator). Also, the west-wall neighbour takes a lot of showers and I think their shower is directly behind my stove. The north-wall neighbour is passionate and vocal about hockey. And the ceiling neighbour has a deeply confusing erotic life that I still haven't figured out.

I know so much now, way too much. I'm pleased to be sitting up today for extended periods (I was doing quite will on a 15-minutes work/45-minutes nap schedule there for a while) and I hope to keep the stereo on throughout. If I owe you an email or a phone call, you'll get it soon, and if you've already received one that read or sounded like a fever dream--well, it probably was. Sorry. I hope I didn't mention the rattle in the heating ducts.

She runs guns / everyone wants guns
RR

Sleep camel

I learned that term from the Idler's Glossary, in a discussion about those who will *not* idle, who make a contest of activity and reserve leisure for unconsciousness. A sleep camel is one who stays up to all hours during the week, usually in order to work extremely hard, and then crashes out all weekend.

I am very fond of sleeping, and try to do as much as possible, and yet I find myself more and more verging on the camel-type, popping out of bed bright-eyed on Mondays, only to be red-eyed and whiny come Friday. It's not *exactly* that I'm a hard worker though; more that I am an average worker who works on several different things, and also does a lot of random but entertaining non-work whenever the opportunity presents itself. For instance, this week I stayed up very late every night, doing the following:

Monday--Saw taping of So You Think You Can Dance, Canada? (go, Izaac!!) followed by work.
Tuesday--Read in support of Harold Hoefle's launch of the *The Mountain Clinic*, followed by hanging out at the bar, followed by work.
Wednesday--Fancy dinner with friends, followed by insufficient amount of work.
Thursday--Work.

What has happened to my life? It is full of frolic, obviously, but also marked sleep debt. I have to manage my time better. Or have less fun. Or something I'm too tired to think of right now. Whatever. Don't call too late tonight is I think my point.

You overthink
RR

Vibes

Of course, I exist in a perpetual state of vague well-wishing to all Rose-coloured readers, and indeed, most of humanity--I hope, despite my occasional moments of snark, you have felt the good vibes. But today I shall focus and amplify the wishing of wellness on those who are currently undergoing periodontal surgery. Chin up, my friend--or down, or whatever is most comfortable.

Let's go down to the fashion show
RR

Excitement all around

I am actually not feeling very excited about anything at the moment, suffering as I am from a new variety of headache that I have never encountered before, which is shooting little lightning bolts of pain across my cheekbones for some reason, despite the best efforts of generic-brand painkillers. Nevertheless, there is much that is good in the world, so I will try not to let my enthusiasm be *too* dampened by semi-agony.

Some good: last night's launch of IV Nights, which was super-fun and very well-organized (mental note: Tranzac=awesome reading space).

Also very good, except for my nerves--my own reading tomrrow, in celebration of the UofT spring reunion (see link at right). The headliner will be Elizabeth Hay, and the moderator Rosemary Sullivan, so if you are an alum, you may well want to come (you have to register via the aforementioned link). And/or the reading prior to ours, featuring the wise and witty Barry Callaghan and my esteemed classmate, Lauren Kirshner. And then, if no one falls off the stage and it turns out that I am not having a mini-aneurysm right now (!!), we will go out for Chinese food.

So, other than the library recalling The Book of Negroes before I could read it, all is serene. But, headache!!!!!!!

Argh.

She was box-car-hopping
RR

Spring Fever

I am ill. Ill! Not anything anyone should be concerned about, just sniffling and coughing and swollen lymph nodes that make neck feel it's about to sprout ridges like an iguana. But still. It's spring! Lilacs are out, and crabapple (proofreading note: I originally wrote "cranapple" there and below--apparently, I have been thoroughly indoctrinated by the Ocean Spray people) blossoms and magnolias and forsythia. On Monday the road that runs by my office smelled *so good* on the walk home because of crabapple blossoms, but today I can no longer smell it. Bah!

(Possibly, one could note here that I should stop wandering around outside trying to smell things, grocery shopping in the rain, leaving the house with wet hair, etc., if I do not wish to be sick. But no, I think I'd rather continue to do those things, and complain.)

It's so ridiculous / I can barely stop
RR

Compassion

I have extremely weak eyes. Aside from being some godawful prescription that renders me unable to go to the beach with people whose hands I feel uncomfortable asking to hold, my eyes also water at almost anything. Pepper, bright reflections, laughter: all render me teary. Wind is the worst--it totally reproduces the effects of tragedy on me. In addition to streaming tears, wind actually turns my eyes red; even the edges of my nose. If I have to walk very far on a windy day, I look like my heart is broken.

Which never used to matter, until I became a pedestrian in chill and populous cities. Now long walks are one of my principal means of locomotion, and I can't stay home because it's gusty. Thus, I find myself the recipient of many compassionate stares as I stroll through Toronto, bouncing to my iPod, carrying my groceries, looking like I'm about to throw myself on the casket. People offer tight-lipped smiles, encouraging nods, nervous stares. Bus drivers look horrified, possibly worried I will look to them as authority figures to solve whatever problem I am having (many, it seems, do).

I can't explain, because no one ever asks. Not once in all my watery years in Toronto has anyone asked the question I see itching behind their own eyes: "Are you ok?" Compassionate people, Torontonians, but even compassion has its limits.

A little boy under a table with cake is his hair
RR

Circadian Reading

Though I don't know too much about the science of it, I put a lot of faith in personal circadian rhythms, the cycles by which an individual organism reacts to light, dark, and other stimulus to determine when and how much we sleep. Obviously, humans are diurnal, and want mainly to be asleep when it's dark and awake when it's light, but most believe that there are fairly wide variations in exactly what hours a given human will not only prefer but biologically be more able to be conscious. I have to believe that, otherwise I'm just a giant loser that prefers to be in bed by 10:30, maybe 10. Call me at 6 am, though; then we can chat. But you won't, because your circadian clock is different than mine, as it is with most people. Ah, the majesty of human difference.

I have been wondering recently if the body *and* the mind have an innate preference for doing *everything* at certain hours. Obviously, we are flexible, can do things on schedules that accommodate our jobs and loved ones and the hours that busses are running, and also maybe there is no ideal hour to reprogramme the heat levels on the microwave (perhaps the ideal is never.) But really, on a lazy weekend day (ie. today) on which I am not expected anywhere and have no particular tasks to do, I find the day orders itself into it's ideal form, which involves several hours of reading starting just past dawn.

I prefer to read in the morning--I'm better able to focus, to sit still, to immerse myself in the book for longer periods. I don't of course, usually get three hours in the morning to read, being employed as I am, but I do get 45 minutes or so to read while doing cardio at the gym at dawn, and I really love that, too. And I read on the bus *to* work with much more concentration than on the bus home.

I wonder if there is something in that, some sort of perceptive nozzle that is switched higher in the earlier part of the day than later... I wonder if there is a good time to do everything--I write best in the evenings, I know, and I'm more charming to talk to before 9pm. Perhaps there is a laundry hour, a speechifying hour, a pancake flipping hour. Perhaps there's some minute of the day when, for the first time in the seven years of our relationship, it would become intuitable to me how, or even why, one would want to alter the heat levels on the microwave.

This is just yammering, of course, since there's no way I'm going to look beyond the already slightly esoteric Wikipedia article to find out more about this subject. But it is worth, as always, playing to one's strengths.

Seven drops of blood fall
RR

Free Associative

So I have a cold, which is making me insane! It's a pretty minor cold, as these things go, I'm sure, but since I'm rarely ill, I have poor coping skills. My eyes have been itchy, even in my sleep. The other night, I dreamed I went to the bathroom mirror to see if I had an eyelash or something in there. In the dream, the pink bit of the corner of my eye had tiny plastic snowflakes in it, and I couldn't get them out. It was weird, and icky, and then I woke up.

Yesterday, in real-life (I think), I was leaving work when a very sleepy fat raccoon lumbered out of the bushes. Its tail had been mainly lopped off somehow, and it was very very puffy and fat--it looked like an animate dust-bunny. It was headed drunkenly for the road (aren't raccoons supposed to be hibernating in winter?) I am scared of raccoons, ever since one tried to crawl up my skirt while I was eating on the rooftop patio at Hemingway's, but I didn't want to see this one squished by a car. I yelled, "Bad raccoon!" to no avail. Even though it was like 5:04 right outside my office, I was mysteriously alone outside.

"Bad raccoon! No road!" I yelled, and then I found a stick on the ground and tried to chase the raccoon away. Only, the raccoon would not be chased and *ran towards me*. I panicked, and threw the stick at the raccoon, who very wearily, like a teenaged babysitter consenting to a game of Boggle, turned and went back into the bushes. "Yeah! And stay there!" I told it, and the greyish snowy dark beside the road.

I think I have a low-grade fever.

The eventual downfall / is just the bill from the restaurant
RR

Tapping out

What's really been bothering me lately is the expression "tapped out." Where does it come from? I always assumed that it came from wrestling: when a man is pinned and gives up unpinning himself, he taps the other wrestler to indicate his surrender. But then, when you come to the end of a long grey day and realize that you haven't the strength for even one more useful task, shouldn't you say, "I've tapped out," or "I'm tapping out," as opposed to what one does say, which is "I'm tapped out."

That grammar would indicate that the etymology (can you have etymology of a phrase?) is rooted in a beer keg. When you pour beer from a keg you tap it, and when it's empty it's tapped out, right? (obviously, I'm way out of my depth here) Then the conjugation makes sense, because when you say "I'm tapped out" you are just substituting yourself for the beer keg, you being empty of energy, not beer.

But three dictionaries neither confirm nor deny this hypothesis (including Canadian Oxford!) and the definition of an expression is distressingly hard to Google. Now I'm worried I've made the whole thing up, and in fact no one says "tap out" in any context, ever, except me!

You know, I think I am. Tapped out, I mean. It's been a really long week. Perhaps I'll leave this question for better minds than mine, and go do something fun.

Can you bring me back a cardinal from Kentucky?
RR

PS--My orthodonist unexpectedly announced this morning that I don't have to wear my retainer during the day anymore. Unexpectedly because he'd said before that it would be maybe as much as six months before I'd have this luxury. I think he gave me the worst case scenario because he knows I don't take disappointment too well, but I take unexpected good news very well. Despite my exhaustion, I am ebullient. I went right to the dep and bought gum, Raspberry Extra, which is repulsive, but which I am chewing right now for the lack of anything else. On my way to the fun, I'll buy something better.

Hallowe'en

Ok, I'm not exactly the vampire that I planned to be when I realized that I was getting my braces off the week before Hallowe'en. Yesterday I went back to the orthodontist's to pick up my retainer and they informed me that it is not just for at night, it's for all the time unless I am eating, brushing my teeth or doing something very very important and enunciation intensive and brief, like my wedding vows or something. I will have to give up grazing on snacks, chewing gum (I whined for a few hours about this as if I were dying. I realized later what a wanker I was being!) and speaking clearly. On the upside, the retainer is in fact nearly invisible. Everyone always *said* the braces were invisible, but they were lying.

I suppose I could've invoked some sort wedding-status for the office wide costume constest that just took place, but I was over the wankery by that point, and just dolled myself up in purple glitter cape, purple eyeshadow, purple glitter false eyelashes, black lipstick, with splashes of glitter blood all over my chin, throat and sternum, and went as an orthontically challenged vampire, with my retainer firmly in place and my fangs in the retainer case. My prize (participant!) is a sack of Hallowe'en candy, if anybody needs any candy.

You might have noticed around Rose-coloured many mentions of my lovely friend and blogger, Kerry Clare. It would most likely be Kerry who introduced the very useful word "wanker" to my vocabularly (see above) and, even better, has a new story "The New Peppermint" in the fall issue of The New Quarterly and even though my issue has not arrived yet (me and Canada Post, it's a love/hate thing) I know it's brilliant.

What are you dressed as?

Trapped and well-concealed
RR

Zero Days!

I don't have braces! I am a person without braces!!! I am a normal adult (HA! I *look* like a normal adult!)

Smile smile smile smile smile.

My teeth are so smoooooth! I had heard teeth can get scarred when you have braces on for a long time, but it turns out not usually, unless you don't brush or have a bad orthodontist.

I brush! I have a good orthodontist! I have beautiful shiny ridiculously straight teeth!

Smile smile smile smile!!!!

The receptionist at the ortho's said she'd never seen anyone so excited to have her braces off. I am mystified--doesn't everybody want their braces off? Stupid disaffected teens. And that was actually somewhat subdued excitement by the end of the visit when I got her to take my (first) "after" picture. Subdued because the appointment was 2.5 hours long, and fairly painful, in that with enamel braces they sort of have to snap them off and the shock reverberates through your skull. And then they get out this vibrating thing and file the glue off, which is also not very fun.

But it's the sort of thing one forgets immediately when everyone crowds your desk at work to look at your mouth approvingly, and to give you candy and gum! I am chewing Juicy Fruit right now, and it's the best thing ever. Apparently, while I was away from the land of gum, they reinvented it as a capsule. Sweeetttt!

Smile smile smile smile.

I can*not* stop licking my teeth, even with the gum in. I should really go home.

Happy Friday!!!!!

When you're beautiful
RR

Minor things going wrong

Yesterday I got chocolate pudding on my desk dictionary, which is embarrassing because not everyone who sits in my section has one, so mine is often borrowed and I do not want to get the reputation as one who cannot keep her afternoon snack on the spoon. This was the only major hitch yesterday; otherwise it was a productive and pleasant day. Which causes me to wonder why I spent most of last night dreaming about the apocolypse... Surely the pudding spill couldn't cause an anxiety dream by itself...perhaps I should examine my subconscious a bit more closely.

I do not dream often of the end of the world, but it does seem to recur more frequently in my dreamworld than, say, taking exams unprepared or in the nude or what have you. Though I was deeply upset by my dream when I awoke, I have to admit that this one, when examined in the cold light of day, bore more than a passing ressemblance to the very-good film, Last Night. I loved that movie, but it is both sad and lame that my subconscious is too lazy to come up with original material with which to terrorize me.

*Last Night* stars the very funny Don Mckellar whose twisted world on the tv show Twitch City so coloured my impressions of what it would be like to live in big bad Toronto. When I moved here a few years later, I found that while his vision is accurate re: a certain variant of Toronto life, it doesn't *have* to be that way. I guess it helps that I have no roommate, or cat.

Well, maybe I'll give up pudding once my brace-free lifestyle allows for more crunchy snacking options. Really, though, a fair number of those are open to me now, but I've gotten sort of addicted to mush. And blogging. There are worse addictions to have, really.

In your endless summer night / I'll be on your other side
RR

4 More Days!

Another thing I've gotten behind on is reporting my count-down to the Great Becky Brace-Off, which is on *Friday* if you can believe it. Though you haven't been seeing it here, I've most definitely been thinking about it, to the point at which my lunchmates are surely sick of me looking enviously at their handheld fruits and telling of my plans to have my own soon. Perhaps you are sick if it, too. Other things I am looking forward to include:
--the end of the teeny elastic bands that I must use to wire shut my mouth every night. Those things, in addition to being hard to apply when one is very tired, *hurt*, as well as look stupid and make it very hard to talk, post-application.
--ease of applying lipstick increased by the fact that I will soon be able to press my lips flat over my teeth, and press hard with a lipliner. I use lipliner about twice a year, and for costumes at that, but this incidence may go up for the sheer pleasure of being able to do it.

More to come!

Asleep or dead?
RR

13 days, plus thanks!

Soon, the mystery will be solved as to whether I am a poor enunciator because of jaw deformity/orthodontia/surgical recovery, or simply sloppiness. Even if the latter, I imagine I can solve it somehow, possibly with a book or else elecution lessons in the manner of Anne Shirley and also my mother when, as a child, she developed a Brooklyn accent (due to growing up in Brooklyn) and her midwestern mother wouldn't stand for it. My point is, once the braces are off, I'll be able to get to work on this issue.

I am thankful for this possibility, and many other things, like how it is now Thanksgiving weekend and within the hour I am headed to the tiny town from whence I sprang. This evening I shall visit the house of my friend Mary, a house for which she and her husband have been hoping, pining, scrimping and saving for five years now. I have a vague idea what it looks like, but whatever it is, I know it's a dream house, and I am thankful I get to see it tonight!

And lots of other things. More soon!

All the yellow roses on her wedding cake
RR