I’m getting over my wee bug. The fever was gone in the morning Wednesday…the sore throat faded Wednesday night, and was largely replaced with some coughs and what I call The Muppet Voice of Doom! It is a reedy tenor with a distinct croaking quality. I feel, when I speak, that I am Kermit the Frog’s funky cousin Wanda, from the wrong side of the swamp. I envision a mottled frog-muppet with mis-matched gigantic earrings and a moth-eaten colorful hat. She carries a large carpet bag and gives out foul-tasting cough drops to children, pretending they’re sweets. Then she laughs at the faces they make.

The voice is improving as time goes on — I’m back at work today, despite the voice and the occasional cough. But heed my words and fear me, people, for I am the Voice of Wanda!

Sometimes I have these dreams - especially when I’ve spent a lot of time on one activity or TV show during a day. The dreams haunt me, exist in my thoughts even when I’m half-awake. They’re anxious worries about whatever it was I was watching or doing - for instance, worries about vampires and foiling evil plans, if I’ve been watching Buffy. Usually they’re something silly like that, and I shake it off when I get all the way awake. Sometimes they return, but usually a sharp jolt of waking logic and pleasant thoughts on returning to bed dispel them. “That’s silly and unreal,” I inform myself, and go back to sleep.

Last night I had a fever, and those half-dreams on top of it. Except the half-dreams weren’t about vampires, xenomorphs, or anything I could dispel with a shake of my head and a little self-scolding. I was fretting about Iraq, about the increasing quagmire, about the soldiers and contractors abusing prisoners and the death-spiral US-Middle East relations seem to be tracing. Of course it wasn’t so cogent—snatches of stories from an Iraqi girl’s blog, news stories, fleeting impressions of helmets and gunfire. And every time I woke up, I couldn’t shake it away, because it isn’t silly, and it isn’t unreal. The fever only made it more real, more gripping. I was confused, unhappy, and mournful.

So I’ve been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer all day. Here’s to silly, unreal anxiety dreams!

Maybe it first came home to me when I was in Ireland, where the blooms of magenta rhododendrons that choke the roads are a curse, an invading army. But rhodies are intimidating. They grow huge and thick, blocking out the windows of any house whose developer or owner foolishly landscaped with their ilk. They buzz with the mildly ominous sound of bees. They pop out of harmless greenery overnight, from green to a riot of deep purple, red-orange, or bee-humping lavendar stripes while your back is turned. They’re everywhere. They dominate the landscape, paint the land in their colors, grow huge and bushy and crowd out the other plants.

Plus, I found a magenta bloom on a white rhododendron this morning. I think they’re hybridizing to make an army.

The Grey City I

The two girls clunked slowly down the gangway, sniffing like cautious animals at the eddying fog. Carys held a venerable old suitcase built along the lines of a small trunk, and Eirian clung to a carpetbag, almost free for the moment of anxiety and fear in the pride of being trusted with half their worldly goods. The stream of grown-up people drummed down the pier and onto the dimly seen streets of the city. After a hurried glance at the docks and the dark shapes looming among the crates, Carys squeezed the elbow her sister held tight against her, and set off in the midst of the crowd.

To Carys, long-used to green hills and views that stretched off into the sea, dotted with slate slopes and coppices, the shrouded city was a wilderness of sound, impressing itself upon her ears rather than her eyes, dizzying her with the shape of its echoes, hawkers’ calls, wheels and footsteps, satiric songs, arguments, business deals, fights between strays. The sound of a great bell ricocheted through the alleyways, arriving at the pair distorted and broken, no longer one note. Lights shone out from the shops and houses as if night were already come, but the streets were still full of folk. Pulling Eirian along by the squeezed hand – to occasional shrill protests – Carys found a nook between two abutting houses, and dug in Eirian’s carpet-bag.

“What’re you looking for,” Eirian scowled, “I can find it!”

“I’m sure you could dear, but – here it is.” She drew out a creased envelope and studied the direction with no more success than she had had at home, or on the ship. Looking up, she saw a young woman walking at a leisurely pace, her eyes sliding from shop sign to shop sign. “Excuse me!” Carys bleated, starting out into the rain, “excuse me, ma’am! Might you have a moment to help me to find out this address? It’s just that I can’t read joined writing….”

The woman’s eyes fell on Carys, then trickled down to the envelope. “It’s in the Southdowns,” she sniffed. “Over yonder,” she waved dismissively.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am. But may I trouble you to read me the – "

The young woman’s dark brows drew together, and she spat, “I’ve humored you enough, little vagabond. Be on your way or I’ll have the Runners on you.”

Not knowing what a Runner was, but unwilling to find out, Carys retreated to the eaves with a gulp, and met Eirian’s entreaties with more confidence than she felt. “It’s quite nearby!” she lied, “We’ll find them in no time, I’m sure.” She stared at the sky and wondered whether it was morning or afternoon. With an effort, she hoisted the suitcase again, and frowned Eirian’s hand back onto her arm. At Eirian’s frank, honest face, which admitted silently, I am tired, frightened, cold, but I will be quiet because I love you, she dropped her stern frown and sighed. “I don’t know if we’ll find them today. But we will find them. We’ll have a family again.” And she kissed the little one’s clammy forehead, and led her off into the misty din of the city.

The Grey City III

It is a beautiful day. There are approximately seven colors of rhododendrons and four of azaleas blooming hereabouts. The sun is shining, the birds are insolently flitting about, and there is SUCH a baby being dandled in my environs.

She has rosy cheeks like ripening apples. She has a sweet, beatific face full of curiosity. She has clear blue eyes, fine brown hair, and a flowery dress she keeps kicking at with her dimpled knees. She likes to stand up with help, and scorns her pacifier in favor of long ribbons hanging off her dress. She is ADORABLE. She held onto my finger. I got the corner of a smile all to myself. Her name is Aurelia.

No, you aren’t getting anything interesting or coherent out of me today.

I was just washing my Big Ol Latte Mug, designed to hold far too much frothing beverage, and purchased by me in order to hold a full can’s worth of soup. And as I dried said object, I found myself smiling. Why? Because it’s cute! It’s a mug, but it’s big!

Where is the logic in this? Why is a miniature chair or an oversized chair cuter than a normal chair? Is it some deep expression of humor? Because it’s the wrong size, it doesn’t belong, and carries some primal hint of the absurd?

Fingernail polish is bad. Its glistening promise chips and peels too quickly. There is not enough time in the world to have your fingers always perfect, always in that one early moment of perfection, when the fumes are gone, the shining shellac is hard, and you can run the smooth shining surface along your lip or cheek and feel its perfection.

Fingernail polish is bad. Your husband wrinkles his nose, rolls his eyes, makes pronouncements and exhibits flinches. You smell faintly chemical for hours, the artificiality hovering miasmically around the beauty.

Fingernail polish is bad. They want three or four bucks for one tantalizing vial, one subtly different shade full of pearlescence and vivid hues. You want a panoply, an infinity of choice—and yet how much will you spend for a bag full of clinking colors you never seem to use?

So on Saturday I rose late, and as I surveyed the swampy parkland in regal satisfaction, something caught my eye on the sweeping spiral stairs which ascend to our front door. It was pine cones - though the pine tree is far from those steps. And no pine cones ever fell in so regular an arrangement! No, at last my eyes made sense of what lay before me - the sinister message, ‘I ♥ U’. I blinked, and withdrew from the picture window.

My husband did not make this shape - we chose to think for the moment that some Friendlandian well-wisher had happened by while we were out…at Friendland…the night before - well, well, illogic aside, very good, very good. After all, why would anyone around here stalk either of us? All I did the day before in the park was write in my journal! Just darkly cynical sci fi, that’s all!

I avoided calling Friendland to inquire. I was just slightly uncomfortable about the whole thing, and wished to maintain the irrational illusion of Friendlandian influence for as long as possible. It was only later, when I was nonchalantly sweeping the front steps to dispose of the message, that the truth came home to me.

I knew who had left this message. The same person who posts comments to my website, has pictures of me, calls me incessantly, attended my wedding and college graduation, knows where I live, has taken pictures of me sleeping... has been following me for twenty-three years!

Even in pinecones, you have tidy writing, sister sledge.

I have a friend. He met a girl. They agreed to keep in touch, but failed to exchange the means of so doing. Therefore we, the romantics of the world, attempt to raise him in Google’s results for “Ryan software engineer Portland”—as this is all she knows of him. Therefore, search-bots, please attend: Ryan is a software engineer in Portland. Portland, OR contains software engineer Ryan. Ryan engineers and writes software in Portland.

You know you believe in love. Add a link to Ryan’s website or even Ryan’s frustrated romantic comedy to your website with the words “Ryan software engineer”. It’s like magic, except it just might work.

Nothing rhymes with ‘doggerel’.