"I'm Learning How to Live (Without You)" - Lucinda Williams

I am on Leila's laptop this morning and a penny has been sitting next to it for days. Just one penny.

I love it.

It is raining, windy, and the sky is a soothing gray. I am in my apartment and cozy like this at 9:37 am EST and may remain like this until I leave for school at 4 pm. Hallelujah!

Last night, I came home from school, watched Top Design, ate a burrito, and more of that damn cheesecake from Eastover, and fell into a funk and only until just a few minutes ago did it leave. When the cats were pestering me round eight, as they love to do, I could have thrown them out the window, but instead fed the pesky loves of my life.

Leila left me a note on the table and it soothed a lot. She and I are going for sushi tonight. Reason to live.

I think I need a vacation.

Now that sounds really 'chipley' (crybaby) because I have a fantastic schedule and should be ever so grateful and I am! I guess any routine gets old after a while. And it is midterm week at the school where I teach and that means surly students because they are being lambasted in every class and the aftermath of stacks and stacks of grading that HAS to be turned in three days after the midterm exams have been given out.

I've decided that if I couid find a customer service online job or wordprocessing, something where I was lodged at home, 24-7, well, that at least I could have some consistency. Commerical writing does not seem to spring from me. However, what I am learning is that - as is every aspect of life - writing is a process and I am growing as a writer (whether I know it or not) and who knows what might spring from me in this seclusion? Yes, I am growing that greedy. I want total consistency.

The novel, ever growing, deserves it.

Saw Peter Gelb, General Manager of The Metropolitan Opera on Charlie Rose on Good Friday and he said an artist's needs must be met in order for him or her to go on stage and give a full performance without worrying.

Aha!

I realized I was not being a big baby by asking the universe for support, for investors. So I'm still asking. I need 'a womb of my own' where I can go into my cocoon and produce! Get lost in the community I am making up, linked to my reality.

So I'm in a better place today. I am learning to trust, more and more, my instincts. That what my heart pangs for is correct. Even by marrying the man who fathered two tremendous daughters, it all matches up. Leila pulled me out of the fire last night and cooled my weary brow - even while she is going through her own trauma. I try to do the same for her and Sarah continues to give us fodder for a better day. She charges from us, too. It all works.

So things are as they should be and I am learning to live in the present.

I am learning how to ask.