And Marilyn Coughs in the Night

In what feels like the passing of a few years of yesterdays sunsets and roadways of Left Coast Greyhound rides and trains through the mountains have turned into the fading colors and brightly hued sunsets of an East Coast fall with sunflowers between sun's rays and around the corner of protruding Halloween decorations.  If we pause to blink we will surely miss it as Christmas will erupt upon our collective souls before Thanksgiving has come or even settled in our bulging stomachs.  

After six weeks of living from a suitcase, a carry on, and one large backpack the need and desire to roll around in piles of clothes has fallen to the wayside.  More like, the accruements of a capsule wardrobe are still enveloping me and the resting of ideals of using less, writing more, and finding a greater balance and return on take home pay threaten to become dethroned with the pressings of life and need to pay rent.  There's probably a deeper analogy embedded in those bags; underneath the socks; in-between the running shoes, underneath the well worn, five dollar, bike helmet that sees the world with me; and hidden inside the notebooks with scribbles of research, article ideas, and notes of life itself.  It is alluding me at the moment.  

The Tillamook yogurt has been long eaten, after I schlepped it from Corvallis, to Seattle, to the suburbs of Graham, WA, and then to my over-priced shoebox in Queens.  The sand is finally out of the bikini, the grass stain from Vashon Island is out of my jeans, and the suitcase is resting under the bed collecting dust until the next voyage hits.  Yet, lessons of the road and life goals are not packed away, washed away, and taken away so easily.  

The yarn from Corvallis, dyed just for the Stash store, is knitted into cowls and hats (with one hat on a little girl in Seattle and one needing to find its way to Turkey to match the cowl I made to go with it).  My cowl waits here for the temps to drop enough for it to become a needed accessory. 

I would say that I won't wear it like a unibomber cast alike, but this is me and we already know you can't take me out or leave me out alone.   And, yes, just when you thought I'd given up the DIY life I have not.   And, yes, yarn from stops along the way beats a key chain any day.  I sat for an hour at night, watching the sun's rays fall and listening to the trains echo through the OSU campus, and knitted.  Those cowls, with an understated lace pattern and the variegated coloring, invoke a sense of calm in my mind's eye . . . much like a smooth drink at the end of a brutal day.  Yet, the peace hidden within those stitches is calmer and smoother if you will.  

I finished the toeless wonder socks from yarn I procured in Eugene, and the name Unicorn Poop for the color-way was a bigger factor to make me shell out 25 bones for a skein than the local factor.  Sad, but true.  I danced the sad, quirky dance of a single lady living alone in them the other night.  But, as I've been battling a virus and another virus and a third virus it was more shimmy shake, cough, cough, cry for a quick death, cough, and then collapse on the bed from exhaustion as the coughing was more of a cardio and ab workout than an hour of crossfit could give you.  As my carcass sat there gasping for air, sweating from the unexpected workout, I honestly had a Bridget Jones moment wondering how long it would take to discover my body. 

I've been on my sewing machine some, since being back.  Mainly for basics . . . and who really wants to read me waxing poetic on another bra or tee shirt? We all know, though, that when a woman finds a bra she will wear it day in and day out.  I wear the wired ones maybe once a week, but every chance I can I wear a damned no wire wonder in homage to my 1970s sisters and in to the power of that I can.  After more renditions that I care to admit, I've got the bra and fabric choices down so well that my girls are cradled better than a couple of man hands can.  And yeah, that should tell you the elongated state of affairs over here.  

Yes, I know . . . the power of a bra pick.  

There's a couple of Penny Raglan's that really . . . well, it's all about the fabric.  A little drape goes a long way.  Kind like a little bit of happiness can go a long way.  Even better, Penny Raglan's fit into the mantra of a capsule wardrobe, or more practically, into the mantra you can eat a bunch of food and hide your food baby.  If you do that kind of thing . . .  If you're wondering, I was balancing on one foot there--thinking that I still have the grace of a twenty year old, which oh hell I never did have that kind of grace--and right after I got to coughing and we're just going to say I meant to collapse onto the floor as I wanted to make sure dust bunnies hadn't built up under the bookshelf.  Of course, since I live in a studio the size of a child's blow up wading pool not hitting the bed and landing on the floor takes talent.  Talent.  

Of course, that is the image of a woman who has got Marilyn down to an art.  I mean, when you can take a sleeping pill in the afternoon and still not sleep until near 4 am . . . I mean, that is some serious insomnia at play.  Though, in desperation I googled the side of effects of the antibiotic I'm eating as a small snack this week.  Yeah, two negatives do not make a positive outside of the chemistry and math lab.  Yeah, enter the non-seedy, non-porn watching storyline of Taxi Driver . . . Yeah, you know it . . . "on every street in every city, there's nobody who dreams of being a somebody." Right now I'm wondering if I'll ever sleep again.  There's little better than walking around in a sleep filled state resembling the Kennedy's or something.  Though . . . I've been lounging on this bed of mine, moderately hazed from a lack of sleep and the mass consumption of cough drops (I already said this is Marilyn hour), and you give me another hour or so and I'll be able to call myself a roadie girl from some circa 1989 Guns and Roses video.  

Aside from those sleeping pills that are failing me, and piles of cough drops, I've been downing some herb, meets roses, meets menthol tea I picked up in Antalya last November.  I've now pulverized the second bag that was gifted to me last spring, and perhaps tomorrow I'll crawl out to the store and pick up the sugar to mix with it.  There's something magical about that tea . . . 

Though, that makes me wonder . . . Oregon is a legal weed state ya'll.  Same with Washington. In my love this past summer, as I knitted those understated lace cowls, wrote, processed documents, and realized I wasn't as bored or lonely as I feared I would be the mountain basin summer nights were laced with an open window, a cool night's air, and  . . . the wafts of smokers outside my window.  The great dynamic there: unlike NYC where skank weed wafts in from the moment the air hits above 40 degrees fahrenheit, in places of legal weed  the skank factor tends to diminish greatly.  Though, in legal lands   . . . when you go to the basement, to do your laundry and deposit your leftover hangers, shampoo, bath rug, and leftover roll of washi tape you find great displays on the donation, free use table.  

And it was even sealed, neatly and cleanly, in that Ziplock container.  And look . . . the partly used roach was even stashed and stowed.  And the packages were unopened.  Now that is some fine senses of communal giving and collective need.  I mean, in a country where health insurance is a rarity (as in now you know why I waited so long, cobbling days together on DayQuil Severe (which makes me a little wonky) and some leftover amphetamines disguised as over-the-counter cold meds from Romania before seeing my favorite MD). . .  I mean . . . 20 bucks for a co pay and 3.87 for some drugs . . . that's remarkably different that the 200 and some change it would have been otherwise.

Why yes, in a country where health care is a rarity, a golden ring economically out of comfort reach from the masses you can find medical grade, clean, good weed for free on the donation table.

On that note, I leave you while I sip tea in the radiant pink October light.