My Journals of a Mad Mind:

Back in 1972 I began journalling my moods, thoughts, prayers, hopes, dreams, and inner life. Looking back to a journal just several years ago it is sometimes funny. Everyone gets blue once in awhile, and mostly my journals were a way of combatting those moods, so there are a lot written of blue days making my life seem like something it was not. For the most part I'm an up person. When I'm down, I do not like bringing another down with me, so I write about it. For some reason my 2003-2004 journal was out laying around in sight, and I cracked open a day in June... and for no reason, I was in a bad mood back then, and in trying to figure out why, I kind of liked this description:
"I don't know what sour and dour thoughts tramp on my deepest unconscious with heavy mud-trodden boots."

The next day back then I had considered sharing with a friend, as in my depression I hadn't kept in touch with her, but I nixed that idea, writing in the journal instead, as she would try so hard to help and said this of getting in touch with her: "...(she) would second guess my silence, but if I told her I am depressed, she'd get all flowery and empathetic or give me fifty million ways to defeat it. It's like a common cold of my brain. I will feel better in a few days."

Actually it's always reassuring when I read back a few years, as it makes me think that things are actually better now. Back then, 2003-2004, my knees still hurt. But it may have been that following autumn when I started walking with my ski poles so my upper body would be less exhausted once there was snow and I'd begin my routine of cross country skiing instead of walking. It was after that regime that I'd noticed that my knees were no longer bothering me, and the upper body exercise caused deeper breathing, my arms were stronger, and from then on I actually felt better in the winter than during the summer. That seemed opposite from the way arthritis usually affects people. When I realized that the poles helped keep my knees from getting tired, I used them year round. So, for almost 5 years I've been using ski poles and now LL Bean Trekking poles for walking and my knees are fine. So... my eroding mind and body seems to be getting better, not worse when I compare them to what I've written years ago. That's encouraging. I just hope that if I die and someone reads all my gazillion journals they don't think of me as a depressive personality. But, believe me, if I talked to you every time I felt down, you'd want me to turn to an inanimate journal to sort out my mad mind.

THE MYSTERY OF THE FAT CAN






Polly was out back licking the outside of this. When I took whatever from her, I realized it was a fat can. She didn't like that I took her prize from her. I brought it in to Tom it was because I wondered what the heck the holes were from and how one of the holes was peeled up inward. He said it didn't appear to be one we used. When we want to trash ours we put it in the freezer, and put it in the trash on the day of trash collection. Tom said it looked like target practice on a fat can. But, I think it was taken from a neighbor's rubbish by a bear... probably the same one we think got into our trash without much luck as we freeze anything biodegradable... but, nevertheless, there were signs of a bear having gone through the area about one or two weeks ago. Tom didn't think it would put holes of this sort into a can. I think it did. His fangs are longer than the other teeth, and there was a dent about that distant on the other side of the can parallel to the round hole. I think he grabbed the can, squeezing it so he couldn't get his tongue in all the way. Then tried chewing and ripping the can peeling up a roll of tin like a key wound on a canned ham, and not having much luck, dropped it and looked for something better, forgetting about the can, and eventually, Polly found it.

I love these suburban mysteries.

THE JUNK DRAWER

Everyone should have at least one junk drawer. Within mine are the small tools one seldom uses, like the glue gun; and the small "De-fuzzit" - like a razor - that takes the piling off sweaters and blankets, even the cheap flannel sheets (we should have paid the difference at LL Bean). It's also a battery drawer as well as a craft drawer (...I guess we could call it the latter). There's everything from paper clips to crayons; rubber bands to florist wire...buttons...beads...bottle caps...corks of all kinds.

The last time I looked for something in the drawer was for repairing a homemade skimmer for skimming the pond algae. With some fragments of fine wire, I laced it together again.

Just before that I found two of those modern rubber-like wine corks for Tom to convert to tips for his trekking poles. He had already made tips for mine from those corks, and it's working well. I hate walking and picking up leaves at the same time like someone cleaning up a park with one of those picks that pick up paper. I had previously looked through the furniture department of several stores to see if they had something for the metal chairs... but the tips were too broad and the holes for attaching to the pole were also too big. I think we hit upon something. I'd patent it if I thought it would sell well. The companies who make the poles should take note. Their poles come with hard plastic ends that come off too easily... I lost mine while my expensive LL Bean Mountain Trek poles were still new. When the poles are jammed into the hard rubber of those corks-- a drilled hole smaller than the tip of the pole, it is not going to slip off even if you stick it into the sucking mud of a cow pasture.

There's packaging tape; springs from click type ball point pens (want to save those for making those woodpecker like birds that move down a skinny pole to a base). There's electrical tape; screws; nuts; and other small stuff kept in small hard plastic boxes. And there are more empty boxes to spare for more small stuff to be stored. There are florist vials--those things in bouquets that keep some of the flowers fresh. I put an ounce of water in and take those along on country rides in case I see an unusual wildflower.

There are the extra vacuum belts; empty spools; golf tees and many other things too many to list, but if you need a what-cha-ma-call-it, for a thing-a-ma-jig...look in the junk drawer. There's a good chance you'll can find something that would do the job.