If I were an animal, I'd probably be a slug. Seriously. I will put unpleasant things off until they absolutely have to be done and then I'll take my time while I meander through the experience. I suppose that's the evil/lazy twin of my inner ex-control freak showing her butt. My favorite high school teacher told me 35 years ago that "the coolest thing about gettin' old is that you can say anything you want and get away with it." Heh. He's the same one that organized a dumpster funeral for the cats we dissected in senior Biochemistry. My cat's name was Ubasti, and I wrote a kickass eulogy,if I say so myself.

The paradox about procrastination is that many times we put off the good stuff too, waiting for a fixed point in time to take a leap of faith. Your gut can tell you all day long that something is meant to be, yet the timing isn't quite right because the house is dirty or it's a bad hair day. And then Big Ernie sends you a message in the form of a life event that scares the poop out of you and makes you aware, once again, that you've just been passing time instead of living life and using the talents that were so generously given. My co-favorite teacher back at DHS was the one who taught me to type. Sure, I took shorthand as a freshman in college, but Bill Gates and Al Gore changed the world and I've forgotten the very.first.symbol I ever memorized to ace that class. My steno book is my "to do" list for the next day or week. "cat food" "CALL YKW" "keep the faith" ^j^

I knew that I was truly a spiritual person when I began to turn things over to the Ernster and let he or she handle it. All I have to do is show up and do my best with whatever life brings my way. Looking back, I see a gradual change somewhere around the time I went into therapy with a pastoral counselor. I hated her for grilling me week after week after month about who I was and where I came from and why I was so scared. But I paid her for the torture, and another one after her. It was worth every tear of the entire experience. I learned that the only way to get rid of ghosts is to face them and live with faith.

For me that has meant making major life changes. I've been divorced..twice..from the same man who was nice but had a whole lot of baggage. Our daughter was 11 the first time and 17 the last time. She loves both of us with all her heart, but there's a big old part of her heritage that she doesn't know about because Daddy finds it all too painful to confront. I understand. You'd need a roadmap to keep up with the characters that raised him up and delivered him to manhood and my apartment on Tickle Street. Funny how I lived so close to the hospital for all those years I was growin' up Poopie. When BabyGirl was just a little thang, we moved into the old house that still needs work. This farm is all I've ever known as home and I feel sorry for those who don't know that secure feeling.

Y'all go 'holla at Hoss and tell him not to pinch the OR nurses too hard while he's gettin' his aorta fixed tomorrow. Those poor folks don't need no more anesthesia induced drama, bless their hearts.