And a week passes between updates! Woo hoo!

I think I slept through that tornado or something - my only experience of it has been the aftermath. There’s a picture on Kris’ blog of a downed tree. Kris lives only a neighborhood or so away. Leland tells me someone else lost their roof. We’re all good here and have a roof over our heads, still. Thanks, Lady!

Speaking of Kris, she’s going on vacation and has asked me to provide a guest blogging post, which I whipped up for her yesterday. It’s a how-to on connecting with your muses, of which I have many! I’m pleased with how it came out and it was fun writing a piece like that (which I haven’t done in a while).

I have other writing crap to mention but this place has felt like a pimpfest lately, and I hate that. So I’ll wait ’til I get actual copies of things in my hands.

On Sunday we’re heading up to Maine yet again, this time to fetch the last of the things I want to keep before my parents sell the house. Who knows when that will actually be - they’ve been saying “two years” for a little while now, but on the other hand… we’ve had 5 deaths (yep, three more that I haven’t mentioned here) in our immediate circle since April. It might be time to stop and smell the roses. So I need to clear out what remains of my stuff, which is… a lot. I bought a lot of books back then, too, and many of them are still in my closet. But I think I’m just going to let them go. They’ve been out-of-sight, out-of-mind for years now, and I already fetched the folkloric tomes, such as the copy of Italo Calvino’s ITALIAN FOLKTALES that I shamelessly stole from Orono High School. I stole Iona & Peter Opie’s CLASSIC FAIRY TALES too. (Well, okay… I guess it’s not stealing when you tell Mr. Blair that you’re doing it. But still!)

Wait… wait… hold the phone… I think my impressive collection of Time-Life’s “Mysteries of the Unknown” series are still there. I may have to make an exception… (hold the phone pt. 2… check it!)

We shall see. What I really care about is all the paper: old journals, scrapbooks, tons of notes and handmade things from Bee, and wobbly, towering pile of poems (not mine), spelling tests, reading lists and jibba-jabba from high school English classes. Sandy and Mr. Blair always gave out the good stuff. And it’s big fun to go through it now and rediscover what I totally forgot about and yet, looking from here, has so obviously wormed its way into my psyche. Like I’m holding a piece of paper going, “Whoa… I am so all over this.”

Bee culled her end of the mementos ages ago. She says her rule was, “If I couldn’t remember it, I threw it out.” Good rule of thumb. I don’t know if I’m going to have the strength (or time, really) to do all that while we’re there, plus it might be a little less traumatic to handle that part of it in Brooklyn.

I guess it’s so important to me because it’s a direct link to a teenager’s brain. Yes, my journals from back then are waaay over-the-top melodramatic (ooo! here’s an idea: cringe reading night). The trick is to read between the lines. I think I’m pretty good at that. Then again, it’s my own lines we’re talking about. We shall see.

I never throw journals away, though. Never.

My records, I’m sorry to say, will be staying behind. I gotta be strong on that one. I may just take a picture of them, though.