Yesterday, Pete and I took our camera and had a frigging adventure. The man can take a picture that tells a whole story.

Midday, Donaldson Park from the Third Avenue Entrance. The water beyond the trees is the river.

We started at the park, where the park rangers had taped off the roadway. The river regularly floods and overflows into the park, which is why it is a park. The county forgot this and put in some very expensive, years-long renovations. They are about to be junk. People in town talk about the renovations in statements that trail off and nobody knows what to make of it all. Officially, I mean. We know these mistakes make for awesome, dramatic photos and fat, obnoxious geese. A whole herd of folks in rugged raingear turned up to see what they knew they’d see and what they’ll see again: the floodplain, flooded.

The tree stood next to the old farm house around which the tiny town was built. Just out of frame to the left is a destroyed car barely visible under the treetop. Yes, we were driving by.

We drove around town, dodging fallen trees and crunching over branches. This house is about five blocks from where we live under trees just as tall. The roaring wind the night before had made Pete and the cats antsy.

Early afternoon: Easton Avenue in Somerset, which Trout described as “the canoe-thru Wendy’s.” Through the trees, the canal and the river are running at the same height as the road, which I can only remember seeing a few times before.

We had to plot and scheme to get to the grocery store in our hometown, about 2.5 miles away. Fortunately, we rode bikes on the back roads as teenagers, but we had to outwit lost yuppies who moved into town ten years ago. When we got to the fence above Easton Avenue, about a dozen other people were snapping pictures before storming the grocery store, where cashiers loudly exclaimed they thought we were crazy to be out in driving rain, which we weren’t. The surface of the water is smooth.

Late afternoon: Donaldson Park from the Second Avenue entrance. The county has been renovating this park since Hurricane Floyd wrecked it in a way that looked pretty much just like this, except with fewer brand new backstops and soccer goals.

Less than five miles upstream, two towns sit below sea level. They get creamed in serious, fatal ways during and after nor’easters. It’s hard to watch the same drama play out every seven or eight years. We put on boots and take pictures and join in the cosmic joke.

Seriously, I have a house guest hangover. Sabrina’s on a train to Secaucus. I’m draped over my desk, blurting, “I’m awake!” each time a co-worker trots past my desk. Pete, Sabrina and I talked all Saturday evening, all day Sunday and I wish I could have stayed home but I was afraid someone would talk to me, so I came to work, where people are used to me growling and baring my teeth.

Omigod. I’m exhausted! My hair, while really nice, is pointing towards magnetic north. I put on makeup this morning but it’s like my face soaked up color and demanded more. I’m wearing a pink shirt. Why do I own a pink shirt?

This is better than when I used to wake up with strange people and mysterious tattoos – but not by much!

Resulting braciole.

Indeed, Central New Jersey is experiencing the kind of snowfall I have only seen a few times in my adult life, forcing me to face the hilarious contradiction of my current life. On one hand, I shoveled mountains of snow several times today to protect Pete from straining his back because I am strong and capable; on the other hand, there’s no way I’m leaving the house until sidewalk and road surfaces are clear because if I slip I could significantly damage my hip. As Valkyries go, I’ve corralled a cranky horse. Never mind! From the stationary bike tonight, I watched the fox hunt scene in Auntie Mame, bolstering my confidence that things end well for the woman with the magnificent seat. If I do say so myself.

Today, I went back to the physical therapy building for an appointment with the massage therapist. Massage on my right hip is like lemon-scented Hell on Earth, so I lay on the table, laughing to keep from screaming for just over half an hour. He was working on one blindingly painful spot, moved to the other side and asked how that side felt. I allowed as how it was uncomfortable but not like the other side, where I wanted to slap his ancestors. He laughed nervously, probably because he was twice my size and I have another appointment next week.

Though I awoke an hour before the alarm this morning thinking about it, I neglected to take chicken out of the freezer. I’m all in bits and pieces. Last week, an email arrived, and I was delighted to see these words in this order:

I am told that the truck is now placed in such a manner that we can squeeze by.

Yes, that’s true. We are all hoping to squeeze by.

This sounds simple enough:

The Department of Sexual Assault Services and Crime Victim Assistance, New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and AmeriCorps are sponsoring a clothing drive for survivors of sexual violence. All donations will benefit female and male survivors of sexual assault whose clothing is collected as evidence. Items most needed include any size new or gently used pants, shirts, flip flops, and new underwear, socks, and general hygiene items, such as toothbrushes and paste, mouthwash, soap, deodorant, brushes, combs, and women’s sanitary items.

The wording seems odd, doesn’t it?

All donations will benefit female and male survivors of sexual assault whose clothing is collected as evidence.

Why doesn’t that announcement skip mention of gender – we often function on the assumption there are two, both are described – and go straight to the survivors? Must be because we also assume only women suffer the pain and humiliation of assault, followed by confiscation of clothing by the police. We try not to think much about those women but we know they exist. We don’t think of those men at all. The world is wide, though, and we are so small.

Last night, I made yogurt and polished my nails. These are small tasks, unremarkable in any picture large enough to squeeze shoulders through the frame. Just after Christmas, two people of my acquaintance went to the hospital for what are projected to be lengthy stays. Pete’s lifelong friend neglected an abcessed tooth until infection coursed through his blood to his heart and brain. The ten year old daughter of my lifelong friend has a rare leukemia the family has seen before. Neither is local, or the casserole dishes would pile up in my kitchen, so my nails are red and my fridge is filled with fresh yogurt.

Now is the time to sit quietly and meditate on gardens we can plant come spring.

Call me crazy, but I’ve always thought Caravaggio’s Judith didn’t want to get her hands dirty.
Let’s review:

Yehudit (Judith) was a widow living in the city of Bethulia. The Assyrian King, Nabuchodonosor, sent his general Holofernes to punish the city. Holofernes went and cut off the water supply and laid siege to the city.

With the death of Holofernes, his army was in disarray and the Jews were able to mount an offensive and defeat the Assyrian army. The account of this story is in the book of Yehudit, which is part of the apocrypha and, while it was originally written in Hebrew, only the Greek version survived to be translated.

All my life, men have given me knives. Perhaps I was the only one who didn’t know why.

These are the words, just a few words. I’d count them like daisy petals: He loves me. He loves me not. It always comes out even, though. Somehow, I find it in my heart to be surprised every time. Once I said to a man packing his bags to go, “You love you the most.” Without blinking, he said, “Of course.”

And that took away my breath.

In another life, I could sing the lives of the saints. In another life, after the ashes scattered in the wind, only the stories mattered. We don’t listen to stories anymore. Stories interfere with the words we tell each other. We say words like protection and safety, when what we mean is keep your distance and love is infection.

Artemesia Gentileschi understood Judith, because Artemesia was raped and painted with every enraged fiber of her being. This painting, Judith And the Maid Servant With the Head of Holofernes, captures the fear of being trapped so viscerally that one might not at first notice the maid servant stuffing the bloody head into a bag. Judith is afraid but not ashamed.

In a dining room cabinet with a glass door sits a pile of pen knives. One, given to me by a woman who loved me but could not stay, is a tiny mermaid keychain. It is the kind of treasure one might easily overlook.

I am not trapped on the wrong side of any line. It does not make me brave to say so.

Let us be perfectly clear: the people we hear talking about healthcare reform are the people who will neither benefit from it, nor will they suffer. The voices we hear and the writers we read will lose nothing. They are almost uniformly wealthy, and nothing will touch them. Then, there’s everyone else; there’s us. We can talk to one another, but no one will hear us. Our words interfere with the stories.

One by one, we must cross into the enemy’s tents and test our courage. Each of us must draw the knife. Each of us must find her own reason not to live in fear anymore. I myself will listen past the words to the stories, and I will not back down.

I am not afraid and I will stand my ground.

What, then, is this ground?

What is it?

In another life, I could sing the lives of the saints. In another life, only the stories matter. In my story, reproductive freedom is a concern of the distant past, but that’s not the end of me.

This law that limits the bodily autonomy of poor and middle class women – a fair-sized number of the people this law is supposed to help – will be enacted, if not word for word. It’s going to kill women you and I don’t know, but those women are real. Their stories matter, if not in the tangle of words.

I am sharpening my knives.

This evening, I looked around to see what an abortion costs. No one offered me anesthesia when I had mine, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that it cost extra. Trust an old woman: pay it. From now on, I will never be without what it costs to prevent words from interfering with the stories of women around me. Make no mistake: this is not a conversation we should have to have, but we will. Because time has run out. Because words have come between us. Because I am sharpening all my knives.

In 2009, I struggled with questions for which I’m still awaiting answers. Life is very complicated – unless it isn’t. As for the new year: I am hopeful that while our national discourse has taken a turn for the disastrously stupid and craven, in our own lives, we can think the smart thoughts and make the smart moves. For us – for you – here is what I wish –

In 2010 – and not a decade too soon – I want a political talk show host to finally turn to William Kristol and slowly, deliberately ask this important question:

“Bill, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

But our host can’t stop there.

“Bill, what the fuck is wrong with you? You’ve been saying the exact same things about different brown people around the globe since the first time we had the misfortune of hearing your name. You are always wrong. You hate yourself and every living being. You stink of death and misery and I can smell you from here. For the sake of your favorite sky god, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Balm, like the laughter of little children, it is!

In 2010 – and not a decade too soon – I want a political talk show host to finally turn to Thomas Friedman and slowly, deliberately ask this important question:

“Tom, what is the matter with you?”

But our host can’t stop there.

“Tom, what’s the matter with you? To call you stupid is to insult stupid people everywhere and to call those things you think ideas is to dignify suggestions to lick frozen flagposts. You have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the world, the damage you’re doing or the political use to which you’ve been put. If you had any decency you’d put out a Times supplement in which you hand wrote apologies to every literate man, woman and child in the world, drew pictures for the rest and never wrote another word. There’s no excuse for your continuing to inflict yourself on a world desperate for adult interaction. What is the matter with you?”

Brings a tear to the eye, I know!

In 2010 – and not a decade too soon – I want a political talk show host to finally turn to Jonah Goldberg and slowly, deliberately ask this important question:

“Jonah, what in vomitrocious tarnation is your frigging problem?”

But our host can’t stop there. No. Our host is on a roll.

“Jonah, what in vomitrocious tarnation is your frigging problem? Your ancestors roll over in their graves every time you touch a keyboard. Actual fascists wink when you leave the room. You’re overdressed in pajamas and underdressed in a tux. No matter what your mom told you you are not a smart person. You just aren’t. You’re stupid and dangerous, and what is your frigging problem?”

Much like this magical moment –
– when for just an instant the truth was spoken, America heard it and laughed, laughter has the power to free us from the spell of tiresome, murderous trolls. I hope in 2010, many more heroes will slay evil with simple truths, delivered fearlessly. I wish this for you – for us – not just because it would be a pleasure and a delight to watch the venal meet justice on at least an Auntie Mame scale, if not on the Brothers Grimms’, but because we need it now. We stand at the crossroads of history. Let us hope the messenger comes armed with both a punchline and a broadsword.

I just gift-wrapped 35 bookmarks.

Sometimes I wish I still drank tequila.

The lengthy episode with the car – while amusing – has become expensive, inconvenient and frustrating. This morning, AAA instructed me to wait for the tow truck with my AAA card and my car’s documents in hand. The truck driver put my car up on the rig. I asked if he wanted to see my documents, but he demurred: everything he needed was on his computer. As he drove away, I looked at the documents in my hand and thought, ‘Huh. That’s going to come up in conversation,’ and the mechanic called to ask did I, by any chance, have them? If I weren’t vain to the very core of my being, I’d consider sticking my head in the oven. But I won’t: imagine compounding a shittastic day with split ends.

Exactly. I could be driven to suicide, but not if it messes up my hair. That’s too much commitment.

Mom and I are back now from visiting Grandpa in his impossibly good nursing home. Mom baked him cookies this morning and we brought him coffee. Mom wandered off. I sat on the edge of his bed. He and I ate cookies, drank coffee and laughed.

Tata: This is a good cookie!
Grandpa: This is a good cookie!
Tata: Pretty good coffee, too!
Grandpa: You can’t usually get coffee this good!
Tata: And how about this cookie? This is a good cookie!
Grandpa: Your mother bakes a good cookie!
Tata: I like this coffee!
Grandpa: It’s good coffee!

As conversations go, it’s one of my favorites.