Summer

Now it's summer. Well, since Saturday. On Saturday you'd never have guessed it -- the rain was torrential and it was darned cold outside. But today is sunny and warm. I saw on the news the other day that we'd broken the rainfall record for June. I'm not sure if that was meant to make me happy. There are some records I'd rather not break.

Bicycles

We have bicycles. And helmets (mine's a youth-sized helmet). We just got back from our first bike ride. I'm still a clutz when it comes to turning at slow speeds. I just can't coordinate it smoothly. But it was fun. It's good exercise because it doesn't feel like exercise. It feels like looking around the neighborhood.

So my bicycle is a red and silver Specialized Crossroads. Bicycles are very different from what they were when we were kids. This is not my little red bicycle with the training wheels. Eric's bicycle is a blue Fisher Tiburon. He seems to like it.

Maybe now I'll finally lose this stupid extra weight.

Not much more to say right now. I just thought I'd check in since I haven't in a while.

--Mary

Remicade

Eric had his Remicade infusion today. We're hoping it lasts the full 8 weeks this time. If not, he might need a change in dosage or frequency. At least it's done.

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It was a beautiful day today -- weather-wise. The first in a very long time. Even now, at 8 pm, it's nice outside. Maybe I should get Eric to take a walk with me up to get an Italian ice. Hmmm...
--Mary

Writing

More rain. I'm getting tired of talking about it.

Everything here is going at a snail's pace, but going. The ferrets are beginning to get stressed with having only the bedroom for a play area. It's time to buckle down and finish ferretproofing the rest of the place. It's a bear of a job -- but we can do it.

I've begun a more disciplined approach to my poetry -- it's about bloody time. I'm doing a little exercise I devised to get me writing something, even if it is fairly awful. I randomly pick a word out of the dictionary and use it to "inspire" me to write something. I try to pick words I can work with -- for example, I rejected the word "Jerusalem" in favor of "reveal" today. No need to make myself crazy. I've only been doing this a few days, but it's been a good way to exercise my concentration.

In the beginning -- my beginning -- I wrote poetry. Well, maybe back then it was just poems (poetry being the stuff that takes the top of your head off, as Emily Dickinson pointed out). I wrote a lot. All through high school and college -- and even after college. But over time and for many different reasons, I slowed and then stopped dead. In the last few years I've picked it up again. It's much more difficult for me now to maintain the concentration to get a poem onto a page, but that's the point of these exercises. Now that my depression is under control, it's much easier to focus. It's a sin to let a gift go stale or come to naught. You can take that however you like. A sin in the religious sense or simply a shame.

I'll keep you informed of my progress. It's very exciting to be able to sit down and work through the words the way I used to. There's no high like getting poetry onto a page.

--Mary