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I read somewhere that you should drink two glasses of water when you get up because that is when you are the most dehydrated. So I started doing it and I feel so much better. Who knew?

You can rewire your brain to think differently. Hard to believe? It’s true. For people like myself who seem to obsess about people, places, ideas, anything. You have to find it in yourself to say SHUT UP – stop the nonsense. And this is accomplished through good, clean living. To sleep early, rise early. A purposeful intention when you get out of bed. A walk in the park with your trusty dog at your side. A seat on the bench with 3 to 5 minutes of deep breathing. Several key things to look forward to – 1) the next time I have Jake, 2) hanging out at my house with my dogs and a slight chill in the air, 3) social events, 4) spending the holidays in New Orleans at the LaLa, 5) everything else that awaits me.

I spoke with mom who has been fighting off depression – runs in the family; I don’t have to tell her – the men are rage-a-holics and the women are depressed – great combo. So I told her she needed to say her daily affirmation to bust through the cloud of darkness. “Like what?” she asked darkly. I said, “Like you are a wonderful person and deserve to be happy and you’ve had a relatively good life and are relatively in good health and not suffering.” “Oh that,” she said thinly.

I told her how I was saved – saved by my own mind that recalibrated a bunch of bad shit that happened and came out on the other side smelling like a rose – well, okay rose is a stretch, maybe more like a night-blooming jasmine – a little too cloying, and only late at night, and particularly, mostly when it’s warm outside – but still you get the point – bad to good – that’s the trajectory and path we are trying to stay on here, MOM!

She said, “Eh, whatever.”

J is going to be a Ninja Turtle for Halloween – he said he doesn’t have a cape but he has a shell and that’s all he needs because he and his sisters and his mother and father were attacked by a huge dinosaur the other day who ate all their bones but miraculously he grew his back. I said, “Wow, great costume.”

Then we were at Blockbuster replenishing the Scooby Doo inventory here at the LaLa and I saw a man with a tee shirt that said, “I’m overworked and underfucked” – so I texted J’s mother and said I just found my Halloween costume – the tee and some devil horns says me all over it. She pooh pooh the idea, distraught that this man would be wearing that at the Blockbuster in front of her child (who can’t read, I might add) – I wrote back, “u luv it and u know it.” And she responded, “Yeah, u right.”

1) Rainy days are good for “to do” lists that include computers, telephones, and notepads.
2) Rainy days are good for being inside and feeling dry, safe, centered.
3) Rainy days are reminders of why people go outside as often as possible.

Water, water everywhere – up, down, all around.

Early to bed, early to rise. To pouring down rain that is. I mean pouring. I woke to the rain and didn’t want to get out of bed. Monday morning, rain, too much to do – what was my motivation? I looked over at the door to where the Smiley face was hanging and had to smile myself.

Loca stood nose to window for most of the morning while I waited for a break in the action to get them outside. It came quickly, and just as quickly was gone. In the meantime, I made my cay tea and ate a bowl of oatmeal.

Today a list of things to do, but first I started with an acceptance that some things are what they are and I cannot will them, think them, reconsider them into something else. If I accept at face value that these things have happened, then I can go forward. It’s the holding onto the “ifs” that keep me from progress. I accept that.

In the face of all the things that could have happened differently over the course of 2007 – things happened the way they did – and I accept that and am finished with them.

Doors close, others open – such is the way of the world, Grasshopper.

There are two choices in life – happiness or misery. Make the right choice every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, lifetime. It matters.

I woke to JINDAL in all caps on the front page of the Times Picayune. A new governor. As long as he doesn’t start preaching about morals, I hope he does something to improve the status quo in our government. Next I saw TL walking around the bayou, he got about 700+ votes for Councilman At Large – I don’t think I know 700+ people to vote for me, so not bad out the gate.

I voted to make this Lazy Sunday – no agenda – nothing absolutely to do. The dogs and I did our routine walk and then after a nice breakfast of black tea and chrysanthemum (it’s cooling for your insides) and oatmeal, I got on my bike and headed to the lakefront for a long, solo ride. Two and a half hours later, I returned a better person.

Some catch up on work, email perusal and purge, I went to take a long hot soak in the bathtub and ended up in there for about almost an hour – I was lost in thought, reading and listening to Jessye Norman sing Four Last Songs by Strauss. Then it was all the piddling stuff – dirt devil the dusty ceiling fans, laundry, sorting piles and making lists, Sunday paper, and one TIVO’d episode of Gray’s Anatomy.

It’s all good – inside and out.

When I got back from the movie, J came over to have a glass of wine before going out to the tennis tournament party. As often happens, sitting on the porch tends to attract others to come join in. Musa and Metin drove by and ended up stopping. Musa was up to his usual charm. He wanted to go have breakfast in the morning and at one point, I said, “Let’s just start with the premise that you are full of shit.” And he and his brother thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. A visit from Musa is often good for my spirit – on some deeper level, we already know the answer before the question is asked.