Because woman cannot live on crackers and water alone (it’s a nausea thing), I cuddled under a soft, comforting throw and watched the first episode of the new season of Project Runway. At the end of every season, I tell myself THIS IS IT and yell at myself for getting invested in the fashion creations when I have the style sense of an old boxing manager. I’m schlocky. Not Rocky.

Like turning to crackers and water to keep my stomach from rolling into a tsunami of letting it all flow out, tonight’s television show sustenance was more medical than artisanal.

Or so I thought.

Halfway through the segments, one contestant breaks down into heavy tears, explaining how lost she feels without her mom, dead two years already. Losing her greatest fan, losing the one true voice of unconditional love, losing the embrace of the person who believed in her as an artist took the contestant’s confidence down 5000 notches. And suddenly I was crying with her, feeling an instant kindred pain with this broken spirit. The tears were ugly and impossible to have imagined minutes earlier when I tuned in to a show merely to keep me from throwing up.

You never know when that knife of unavoidable sadness will cut deep into the heart of darkness. I don’t have a mother or a father anymore. Who will tell me I’m the greatest kid in the world ever again? Who will think I can do anything and succeed? Who will laugh at my insane song parodies?

Who will be there when I don’t win Project Runway? Who will tell me “You’ll be all right” and “You are More Better” and do what it takes to make me believe it?

Who will meet me every week for coffee and doughnuts and conversations only a mother and daughter can share?

The nausea is on hold. The bad, boring, physical nausea. I did not see those tears or these words coming out of me like drenching rain because a reality show contestant triggered me when I least expected to feel anything.

Another lost day, sweating out the infection by doing nothing but sleep. Trusting my instincts to ride this one out. Unfortunately, my horse is taking the long way home.

Typing nonsense to keep my mind healthy and focused while the rest of me sinks into a static trance.

Hope to get back to normal tomorrow. Stay tuned.

And I didn’t have to call in and fake a cough.

I knew the crackling pain in my ear meant something. Intuition borne from experience.
The doctor took me in although apparently half of Long Island decided to be sick yesterday as well.
I waited more than 90 minutes to be told what I suspected: Ear infection. How does that happen after toddlerhood? <g> Amoxycillin and steroid drops are my new best friend. Temporarily. The side effects of feeling dizzy and sleepy are true. I would not do well on a whale watch today. “I must go down to the sea again.”
But not today.
Today, I whine. My body feels hot and not in a good way. ;>

Advertising and editorial images are not real life.
Fabrication sells.

No one wants to see what you really look like asleep in your brand new mattress.

No one wants to see what you really look like making a salad in your spotless kitchen, courtesy of the handy dandy superior vacuum promising to change your life.

So stock image companies: Please. Stop.

Stop making women writers look cute and cuddly and adorable and silly sitting cross-legged on the floor as they write.

It is embarrassing.

Show us how we really look.

A mess surrounded by mess!

It is not cute or pretty but …

writers get the job done.

It’s not fun.

It is work.

Work, work!

Sidebar note: The above was written in my doctor’s examination room. Waiting to be seen. As you may be able to guess, I waited a long time to be seen. I did not write on the floor in my too-cute pajamas and slouchy socks. I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille. Mask on. Examination table for a chair. Clock ticking. Flat hair. Steamy reading glasses.

In other words? Not camera ready. End scene.

There are many things I coulda-would-a should-a do today. I chucked it all to watch a multitude of leaves descend from rapidly undressing branches and to feel the stubborn sun kiss my cool cheeks.

I could go inside and do things. Mundane things. To Do List things.

I’d rather pretend I am Henry David Thoreau. Doing nothing but observe didn’t cramp his lifestyle or future legacy. That may be a double negative but even my anal compunction to edit is taking a backseat to the positive purity of this quintessential autumn day!

Ah! That’s not a leaf on legs. I spy a baby squirrel! The eyes still have it.

Mission accomplished.

Tell me with a straight face there isn’t a powerful and omnipotent force out there writing our stories in the book of life.

Someone or something has a hand in the sky. Keep writing.

Follow the writer’s maxim, G-d. Butt in Chair. For you? Its Butt in Air. 💃🏻

The daily crows of a nearby rooster is
the daily reminder I’m not in Brooklyn anymore.

My urban ears grew up on a special diet of ambulances, bus squeals, and the inescapable chatter of neighbors.

There’s a tiny, dark baby squirrel running in the grass near my shoeless feet.

I think it’s a squirrel. I’m afraid of the tiny, rodent alternative.

I hear a symphony of birds and squirrels and falling leaves. Noisier than any city day in my memory book.

Eeek! Nature! It’s a twister!

I like to drive home following a particular route because this view, this sight, always reminds me why I love New York and why I love being a City Girl.

Closing up shop on a building in a few hours. No longer the master of that domain. One part of me will belong to another owner tomorrow. Take good care of our family’s jewel.

Photos: Pamela Ross

From Lilith.org

Lost Ladies of Lit is a book podcast hosted by writing partners Amy Helmes and Kim Askew. Guests include biographers, journalists, authors, and …

More on the “Jewish Jane Austen”

Nothing like a mouth ache the size of Alaska to make you forget you have (other) troubles. As in… at least 49 other states of discontent.

Today was a deadline for a humor writing contest.

It’s not funny

to gnaw your jaw

and hold your chin

while sending something witty to win.

Adding a wet blanket to the day was the dumping of decades of things that made my father Master Cutting Table.

Oh yes. This was a day to be down in the dumps.

Tomorrow will be better. I hope.

Oh no. I have a physical in the afternoon. One day more of stress and I will explode like a 6th grade homemade volcano science project gone wrong. (I still carry the emotional scars of that humiliating moment.)

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”- Muhammad Ali