I got such amazing photos because they let me get up close. I mean, anybody would have gotten great pix because of the subject and proximity. But I just want a great, unique story too. What I need is a deadline. Then I’ll quit rolling it around and chewing on it.

Just bought four books from Writer’s Digest online. There’s a big sale with free shipping, so I let myself spend $40. One is The Writer’s Diet by Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist’s Way. I really love her ideas and the way she expresses herself, so I’m hoping that might inspire me to exercise and eat better.

I haven’t had a cigarette in I don’t know when, whenever I quit. Maybe two weeks ago. I chewed gum for a couple days but I didn’t like the taste. It’s great not to clear my throat every 10 minutes and not smell like smoke. I’m OK except when I see people on TV or a movie smoking. Isn’t that sad how susceptible I am to suggestion? If Robert still smoked, I’d find it very hard to quit. I think the socializing aspect was the hook for me, being so awkward at starting conversations and relationships. And I do feel lonely because I don’t flit around talking to people, and I don’t know anybody in Redfield. I wish there was something in the community to do. Well, I just wish it were bigger with maybe a community college to take fun classes at, or if it were just closer to Little Rock it would be nice.

We’re about 15 miles from Sheridan, which is a small community with fast food places, a nursery, Wal-Mart and the gym where Robert and I go swimming every Wednesday. It’s a heated indoor pool, and it’s cheap. We have the place to ourselves Wednesday nights. There’s a hot tub too. I can’t really use it because of my blood pressure, but it helps Robert’s slipped disc tremendously. Poor thing. He has gout, serious knee problems and a slipped disc. But he stays really active and has lost 15 pounds so far. I wish I had similar self discipline.

You all should check out Cats in the Stacks on 501Pets. Susan Loesch, librarian at the School for the Blind, is the author of a blog about her library cat Alex. She has such wonderful entries and photos! She’s been looking for just the right Halloween costume for Alex, who is the best, calmest cat. He let her sit him atop a cat tree in PetSmart, and she put all these costumes on him. Such cute photos!

I saw him outside the Afterthought in Hillcrest for a FuRR benefit, and he was thoroughly at ease in Susan’s arms as cars whizzed past and all manner of stranger mauled him with affection. He listens to the kids secrets and dutifully examines their presents to him just like Big Footsie used to.

I’m liking the cool weather; our very first preview was yesterday. My body is always hot, so it’s very soothing to walk into a cool breeze.

I have my own desk now, tucked into the lateman’s corner. I haven’t done anything with it besides hang a Turpentine Wildlife Refuge calendar and tape a business card to the side of the desk, an advertisement for 501Pets.com.

Tuesday I went to the cardiologist – finally. I was so worn out that I was scared to do the stress test, but it turned out I didn’t even get that far. The first nurse took my blood pressure: 190/140. Then another nurse: 180/150. Then another: 214/160. So at least part of that was the anxiety of having new people come in to take my pressure. It happens all the time, but it still makes me feel like a freak. You know, people react like, “Oh my God! I mean, oh, no big deal. Let me just run out the door and find somebody to witness this…Um, you’re not going to die before I get back, are you?”

Quickly, the doctor came in and must have gotten a similar reading. She immediately put me in the critical care unit and on IV medicine. I couldn’t tell you what all they tried on me.

She and a kidney doctor were working to regulate my pressure over four days, and now I have to take 12 pills. That’s better than having a stroke, but God, this medicine makes me so slow and tired, and I get awful headaches as my blood pressure rollercoasters. I sleep too much. The Lovaca makes me throw up. It’s fish oil. I have to be really careful about taking it and haven’t been able to take it all every day.

The plan was to have the cardiologist find out why the medicine isn’t working anymore, fix it and have a baby. The doctors learned that and both were against pregnancy but willing to work with us. There’s a one in three chance what happened with Casey will happen again. Not the greatest of odds, and I’m not even sure it’s fair to try with odds like that. Not fair to the baby, Robert or me.

The good news is I don’t have the suspected adrenal gland cancer or any serious blockages in my kidneys, which left the doctors stumped. Hearing my family history and observing me, they concluded it’s genetic. I keep thinking how my grandma had crazy numbers during her 20s-70s and lived to be 94. Maybe it’s just the way I’m made. Bryan, too, has numbers around 160/115.

Oh, and I’m prediabetic.

So I didn’t smoke for five days, two yesterday, one today. Being sick to my stomach helps me not smoke, for sure. I need to lose weight too: 15-20 pounds, the doctor said. But she’s being kind. I know I should lose more than that. The problem is I’m so worn out or lazy or something. I drag myself around all day and can’t stand for very long.

We’ve been eating much better, fruits and veggies, plain popcorn.

Robert’s been really good about everything, but I know he resents doing all the housework. I just can’t give a shit about housework right now. It’s not fair to him, I know, but I have so little energy. I have to do more to get more energy.

Robert’s gone to do a sleep study, so it’s just me and the monsters tonight. I’m 20 miles away from everything and bored. I should be writing. I should be cleaning the kitchen. I should be doing laundry. I should be doing a lot of things. But I’m an AC slug.

When I was a kid my parents would turn the AC off to get us up and outside in the summer. Such a vicious, effective tactic! I guess I could parent myself and turn off the AC and make myself do work, but we all know that’s not going to happen.

I’m reading Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg. It’s all about writing the personal memoir. I think it’s narcissistic to be writing one’s memoirs, but, shit, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing on paper for 18 years, online for 6.

She writes beautifully, and there are all these great exercises designed to jog your memory. It’s emotional, the kind of book you have to take a break from, which I guess is what I’ve been doing. Very interesting. Here are some examples of her writing prompts:

Give me a memory of sound. Try not to use the word sound in your writing.

Give me a memory of the color red. Do not write the word “red” but use words that engender the color red when you hear them: ruby, apple, blood.

I just watered the flowers, which are barely hanging on in this oppressive heat. I’m hosting a Mary Kay party at my house for Nancy, my friend from college who never wore makeup. Never thought Nancy would be a Mary Kay rep, but babies change everything. I’m going to string these cool lights around the back deck. They are just clear christmas lights with miniature chinese lanterns over them. They look so cool!

I’ll get a bouquet of flowers and finger foods, drinks. Besides cleaning, I guess that’s it. Not a party hoster, so it’s all new to me. Robert knows all about it, coming from such a big family. I’m learning.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Naturally, I decided my back porch needed some contemplative frogs in honor of Emily Dickinson and how cute they are.

Emily sits at left near the petunias.

But pictured above and located on the right side of my back porch is Dick. … Short for Dickinson.

In this photo, Dick appears to be supervising the zinnias, a job he’s done well as they’ve grown out overnight.

MiracleGrow might have something to do with it, but you never know.

I hope my dog doesn’t knock off Emily and Dick. Also, Robert didn’t seem as charmed by them as I was. He doesn’t understand the power of Garden Junk JuJu.

Garden Junk JuJu is like Feng Shui, only Southern.

It’s having just the right mix of statuary, “Bless my Garden” rocks, windchimes and such up amongst your flowers. I’m building my Garden Junk JuJu slowly.

Beyond the container gardens on the deck, I’ve added a red glass hummingbird feeder hanging on a sheperd’s hook and a tiny bed of half-dead irises given to me by a girl at work.

A water feature is most necessary. A pool would be a dream come true, but I know we don’t have money for a pool.

So, I’ll make believe with a cheap fountain maybe, or just a bird bath.

For the front yard I have decided to get a gazing ball. You just know somebody with a gazing ball in their front yard is going to be interesting, know what I mean?

Anyway, slowly growin’. Slowly.

The next day, we rented a pontoon, though my dad was scared about spending the money, as he always has been. My brother and I split it – $33 each.

I dove off the boat into Lake Norfolk, green and choppy. The unanchored pontoon was floating steadily off, and the rough waters seemed to pull me in the other direction. I swam toward the boat but could tell I couldn’t make up the distance. So I tried the ever-easy backstroke, ending up parallel to the boat but no closer. Treading water murky and littered, I waited. I was an island, and I never feel afraid in water – even when I should. My father yelled to swim to the boat. I told them to come to me. My father was convinced I’d be chopped into a million pieces by the rusty propeller. (The boat went 30 mph when it was opened up.) Robert understood, swung around, and I swam round the boat to the ladder.

I wasn’t exhausted, but I knew I was too out of shape to make it back on my own. Sad, considering how powerfully I used to swim.

Been a long time since I felt that way; figuratively, I feel that way all the time: When I took a new job requiring a skill set I did not have, when I gave up the opportunity for a more powerful and time-consuming job I realized I didn’t want.

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to go the distance; sometimes it does. I guess we have our twilight years to figure that out.

Robert and I took off fishing, just playing because about a third of the campground was underwater. The soft lake breeze drew me in. I said screw it, and waded into lake up to my waist, dangling a dead cricket on a string for any potential fish hiding beneath a partially submerged tree, near a fully submerged picnic table. The grass between my toes was already forming algae, but the water was clear, not even a minow in sight. I thought about my grandma and how I wish I could still buy her presents and tell her about going fishing. I thought of my Aunt Aleta too. She died Tuesday. I sent flowers but could not get all the way up to Alton, Mo., for the funeral. My brother tells me scores of people were there with delicious food and wonderful stories of “Granny.” I wish I had known her better. There was a rift in the family when I was still in elementary school, so I never got close.

The camping trip, while I’m glad I did it, was largely uncomfortable and lousy with ghosts. (My family camped in that area every year from before I was born until I stopped going at age 18.)

The public shower was my refuge. I even took a candy bar in there, savoring the sweetness and the hard caramel, so brittle you end up sucking on dozens of slivers until they disappear. And I don’t even like candy. It was just comforting. Washing off the lake with filtered lake water, I thought of my mother who always showered with me in these public bath houses and who taught me to always shower in shoes.

She loved that area, Lakes Norfolk and Bull Shoals, always wanted to ride in a pontoon, but my father wouldn’t spend the money. That day, I sort of insisted. There was nothing else to do besides sit around and talk, dangerous and exhausting with my father.

My brother said, “She was there with us,” of my mother on the boat ride. I didn’t bother to check if I felt her. Looking back, maybe she was there, in the choppy green, saying, “wait on the boat.”

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night,
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.

I had no idea she was bisexual and an adulteress and all the rest of it. Man, she could write, though!

Anyway, I’m glad I’m done with the book. While it fired my imagination early on, it’s also been a sort of depressant, but I couldn’t put it down till I was done.

I bought petunias, zinnias and double impatiens Wednesday. The white-pink impatiens are in a brown glazed pot by the front door, the petunias — white-yellow and dark purple — line the back-deck railing, and the bright mix of zinnias sit in a pot outside the back door. It smells lovely after dark, the blooms fragrant from hours of Southern sunshine.