Monthly Update: September So Far

 September has gone by faster than August, in my opinion. I’m still knocking back the coffee. I have not resolved to knock this chemical addiction which is draining my wallet and ruining my health. It is what it is, to sound trite. “Think about your face!” my mother laments. Well I have, and …it’s still there. 

I have spent less time on the blog and more time walking around the park talking on the phone (with my mother). Which has been leading to me getting, what I call harassed, by strange men: one guy asked for a lighter to light his cigarette and said something like “ain’t you pretty” (your southern charm won’t work here); another guy drove up and down the road several times to get a look at me, and it freaked me out and I ran in the house (Ray said “was he a grabber?”); and yet another pulled up slow beside me and also said I was pretty (fly for a white girl). I’m not bulging with cleavage (im actually part of the IBTC, if you know what that is) and I don’t wear a thong that’s hanging out, so I don’t think this is warranted. Maybe when it gets colder I can dress for the weather and all this nonsense will stop. Or I can stay on the porch with the ashtray and flower pots and start growing weeds myself. But I like walking and talking, and I like wearing shorts in Florida. I just wish these creeps would get a life, or find a wife, or get a hooker. Cause I’m not one (although Jim called me a “streetwalker.” How would you take that?). 

I started reading my Annie Dillard book again, but I skipped over PATC and opened it up to An American Childhood, and I really like it so far. She describes her childhood in so much detail, using verbs and adjectives I would never think of, and phrases I consider gold, like “dim and watery oblivion” (p. 286). And here’s a passage: “What a marvel it was that so many times a day the world, like a church bell, reminded me to recall and contemplate the durable fact that I was here, and had awakened once more to find myself set down in a going world” (p. 287). To me that is profound (there is so much I could quote). Other than that, the story makes me wish I grew up in the 50s. Dillard describes the populace of that era itching to “bake sugary cakes, burn gas, go to church together, get rich, and make babies” (p. 286). Perfectly said. But I’m still so grateful for the 90s -00s childhood I did experience, with minimal computer usage (only in school) and no cell phone. Was still watching VHS tapes. Played outside and read actual books. Dillard was fascinated by the book The Field Book of Ponds and Streams, which she continually checked out from the library; I was hooked on a book about tea parties. She liked to dig up old coins in the old, Pittsburgh dirt; I was a bit of an artifact hunter myself (mostly for old bottles). We should hope that all children, no matter what era, continue to experience the imaginative, adventurous, hands-on childhood they deserve to live. 

Sorry to bore you with literature. I should save that for my thesis paper.

So that has been my month so far, with a few trips to the beach sprinkled in. My flowers are coming up: three so far; I count them as they bloom. I’m excited for October, though I’m not sure why, though the month has always had good connotations for me: the beginning of “crisp” weather, changing leaves, and pumpkins and candy. I think I’d like a pumpkin spice latte (so sue me). “Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.” No, I’m in Florida. I’ll get my sweater ready.