Yesterday's storm rushed up just after the hillside funeral. We missed out on thunder and lightning, missed the hail, which exhausted themselves at the Oregon border. But the sky gave us water all night long, and it continues today. Nearly noon and it hasn't even paused to reconsider.
This morning's sales so far: The Jepson Manual of the Higher Plants of California, The Last Emperor (VHS), Infinite Life by Robert Thurman, the novel Perfume in hardcover with protected dust jacket.
Aunt Judi in Louisiana is beginning to panic on my behalf. She phones several times a week to check the status of my relocation plans. Will I still move? Have I begun packing? Have I placed the llamas yet? Last night, at her wit's end, she cried, "Sam, time is running out! It's the end of April already." But I try to approach these things methodically. The only thing I never have time for is panic. But I do love my Aunt Judi.
I've been writing all morning. I have a half-dozen more poems in progress--hip-deep, I am, in inspiration. Notions swarm like little fishes nibbling at my knees and I'm thrashing around trying to get a competent grip on even one of them. It's very pleasant in my room with the electric teakettle clicking in the corner and the yellow lamplight on the wall, dogs deep in slumber, and a steady rain all around. But I have increasing trouble with bone pain, especially on rainy days, particularly in my hips and legs. This is the second time in two weeks I've resorted to (buffered) aspirin to take the edge off so I can sit and write. Moving and walking is easy; it's the stillness of writing time this impedes. Best, of course, is full-length on my back in bed, wrapped in warm blankets, but then I feel sluglike and ashamed. The good news is that the daily soy and vitex has the flashes under control, reduced them by at least 80 percent in the past 48 hours, and that is a great release. Probably my bones want me to walk and hike, and so I shall. Oh, and dance, too.
You see how we become old women before your very eyes?
Time to post this and wrap items for mailing (two more books sold as I keyboarded this). If the rain and chill continue into late afternoon, I'll make a hot fire in the back-room woodstove and pop corn and watch Lawrence of Arabia.
11:28:10 AM 
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