my fingertips are sore cuz i’m trying to learn how to play the guitar. i’ve done this before… it seems like i always give up right around the time my callouses form.

maybe i’ve been hibernating… sitting, staring at things like flames, dirty teacups, pillow forts left out from the night before, almost empty bowls of popcorn. i’m liking the quiet. i’m liking the mess– evidence/remnants of a life that is being lived well.

i like sweeping.

the celery in my garden is beginning to get floppy from the cold. everyday i walk by it and think i need to cut it down and turn it into juice. celery-fennel-green-apple juice. i made peanut ginger soup and whole grain blueberry muffins with extra extra blueberries.

nina simone. johnny cash. tom waits.

“and the german dwarf dances with the butchers son”

the other day i was parallel parking and this lady maneuvered her car around mine and side swiped my car… i got out and as i approached her she said “are you the one that hit my car?” she was an older lady with wild white hair and a solid presence. she talked like she was in charge. i was taken aback for a moment. i liked her hair. she said she was too tired to file a report or wait for the police because she had pancreatic cancer. i went home thinking about her pancreas and cancer cells rapidly dividing. thought about the headline i’d read earlier– “research finds cancer cells best targeted by chemo are already on the verge of self-destruction”. i didn’t read the rest.

i’ve never touched a pancreas. i don’t even know what a pancreas looks like. but really, who goes around touching pancreases? i don’t know anyone who touches pancreases.