Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to just get in the car and drive.

Just point the car in one direction on the highway and keep going. When the cash runs out, use credit cards. When the credit cards run out, oh, I don't know what to do then. Do I give up and turn myself into the police? Do I try to live in my truck and get a job? Or do I just drive off a bridge into the icy cold water of a river below?

Sometimes I just like to drive. I want to know what's beyond my town. What is beyond my state. I could be a different person if I only went somewhere else. The world is full of possibilities. Surely somewhere else, I am wittier, prettier, and able to speak to strange men. I like looking at maps, so I can plan where to go.

But then I think of Frank, and home I go again. He needs me to take care of him.  ¶ 4:05 AM

  My mother called this morning to tell me my cousin is getting divorced.

Again.

Whatever happened to staying with someone until somebody dies?

True, if you read some of the not-so-modern uplifting authors like Lillian Helman or Eudora Weltly, patiently enduring is more of a virtue than the notion of marrying for the romantic ideals found in that Barbara Cartland fluff. Real life does not involve one kiss, whispered "I love you"s and happily ever after. And the sooner young girls get that idiotic notion knocked out of their skulls, the better off they'll be.

Romance has almost nothing to do with real day-to-day love that you have to slog through to stay mostly happily married to someone. Romance says, "To hell with laundry, I will buy you new socks every day! And we break the glasses after one sip so that no greater toast may be made upon them!" Romance doesn't need any clothes that don't make you look better- if it needs any clothes at all.

But romance doesn't sweep up the broken glass shards, or pay the credit card bills, or pinch or hurt in uncomfortable clothes. That's what you have to do every day- whether romance urges or not.

It's love that puts up with smelly socks and stained undies, and the pile of dishes abandoned in odd corners, and the snoring, the insults about your mother or other people you like and he doesn't, the cleaning up after the sickness, and all of the million tiny little things that peck away at the daily grind of living. It's like that one proverb I like: "Before war, there is washing dishes and chopping wood. After War, there is washing dishes and chopping wood." Love helps you wash dishes and chop wood. Romance doesn't need to bother.

My cousin thinks Romance should last through marriage. It can't. Not unless you win the lottery too. One must be content with the occassional smile or compliment, the casual kiss on the cheek as you walk by. The long term lasting is built on the foundation of cleaned socks and washed dishes, and paid bills. I will never get my cousin to understand this.

Of course, I do enjoy the patiently waiting for the other person to die. But that's more of a contest of wills. I will miss him when he is gone, of course. But sometimes, I still miss him while he is here.  ¶ 5:09 AM

  The nightmares have started again.

I didn't want to tell anyone. But I can tell you, quite safely.

I don't want to sleep when I have nightmares. but then when I fall asleep, I can't rest, and the nightmares find me. At least the couch doctor taught me about how to avoid a spoonful of cordial. My name isn't Mary Poppins, so I do not sleep better for a spoonful of sugar or whatever other nasty drugs, so I do not bother with that stuff. Too many little white pills and elephants in their tutus will come out and perform a ballet.

And most of the time, that is worse than my nightmares. In them, I can run for days through an empty house. I can hear the echoes of my footsteps. There are only a few rugs in the oasises of marbled or hardwood floors. There is no furniture. All of the curtains to the tall windows are sheer and billowing, moving in ways that are not reassuring to the troubled mind. All of the ceilings high- gothic arches meld into coffered vaults as I move from room to room, slowly at first, just exploring, and I keep finding more doors and more doorways, and sometimes I have to crawl through doors, and others open as I approach. Then I run faster. I must find someone. Anyone. I must find someone to talk to, who understands. But there is no one.

Franks says my whimpering wakes him at night. But he doesn't wake me. Why wouldn't he wake me? I do not want these nightmares.  ¶ 5:13 AM

  I begin to look forward to hearing Tony's songs on the radio these days. I wonder what it's like to be a rock star of his magnatude with lots of people around and taking care of you and wanting to see you and be with you, and I imagine he likely doesn't get much of a moment to himself. The tapes are no longer hiding in my sock drawer, but I haven't been playing them either. I keep them next to pile on the counter.

I have perhaps way too much time to myself. I do have a lot to do. The house is never clean, no matter what I do, and there is always baking. I am glad our church has a weekly bake sale for this, that and the other thing every week, as I have excuses to make things. There is somehting so satisfactory about beating a mixture with the smell of cinnamon warmly rising through the air, or chocolate melting in the double-boiler. Schafenberger for cooking. Lindt for eating. And everyone really ought to make their own vanilla at least once- I don't care how hard it is to get Everclear or Madagascar vanilla beans!

One may think that with all of these sweets I may be a bit too fat. But I cured myself of wanting to eat these baked goods by working in a bakery when I was younger. I love the smell and the look and the effort, but not so much of the taste. And Frank, of course, enjoys it.

Frank is appreciative of anything I cook. Once, just to test the issue, I burned the biscuits and served almost raw chicken. He wanted seconds. Strange man.  ¶ 7:48 AM

  Having a baby is the ultimate in optimism.

The world is a terrible place with shootings at schools and wars in various places in half of the world, terrorists planting bombs for their causes- whether it be for Islam or christians fighting abortions or perceived injustices- and drugs and gangs rampant. There have been robberies even on my block, and I don't mean the casual mischeif of rearranging one person's lawn furniture on someone else's lawn (oh that was a lovely evening when I had nipped into the blueberry again). I overhear things all the time about someone bringing a gun to school or even the blessed Mrs. Beasley-Beasley's one and only caught stealing a car.

But you pour your hopes and dreams into that little bundle, and you want them to have all of the chances that you never had, to do what you never did, and of course they are doomed to dissappoint you. They come up with their own wants and aspiration, and they don't respect your thoughts. You can't prevent their mistakes. And they will fight you and try to break your heart.

And only if you are really lucky, will they grow older than you and take care of you when you are old, and maybe, just maybe, they may come to understand you. And that is what motivates one to try to have them in the first place.

Definitely, you have to be an optimist to think this will happen.   ¶ 7:19 PM