54123--nothing to say

The new couch arrived at the exact time they said they would deliver it. They guys brought it in and set it up, and we sat down on it.

It's bigger than the old couch--we wanted something where we could both stretch out at the same time, and this one is perfect.

That's about it.

54124--a coherent narrative

I didn't really have much planned for today. The only thing I had to do was go to the store and buy some pork and marinate it so Malida can enjoy korean bbq tomorrow. She wanted me to go early, but I wasn't in a go to the store early frame of mind, so I left it for later.

I took out the trash and straitened up the house. I repositioned the new couch a little so that the older cat could use it as a jumping-off-point for the high window in the family room. I watched her try to jump up and miss yesterday after I had moved everything around, and didn't want her to lose her special vantage point.

The UPS guy delivered all five seasons of Six Feet Under that I ordered from Amazon yesterday. I wanted to be able to watch it from the beginning.


I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean, but it means something. These figures belonged to my grandpa. I don't know where he got them or what they meant to him, but I know that he always had them "on display" somewhere in the house, and that he liked to move them around.

After he died, I kept some of his ashes in a small wooden container, and these guys have kept watch over it ever since. They live in a little corner nook with a couple of buddha images, the holy family and some other stuff.

I have photographed them before, and every time I do I think about their relationship to each other. Sometimes they make eye contact, but today there is a distance between them. Perhaps it is the distance that separates the living from the dead. I used to think that the distance was insurmountable, but now I know that there are connections that still bridge the gap, tenuous though they may be.

I went to the store and bought pork and beef for our lunch tomorrow. I got some asparagus too. I thought about buying asparagus at the farmers market on Sunday and didn't, and wished I had. I'll grill it tomorrow.


I was drawn to the detail of a mural on the front wall of the market. It is of a giant sunflower. I think this is one of the seeds.

While I was sitting home doing nothing, a woman called. She was the therapist I was referred to after I got hit, but never saw. She wanted to know what happened--why I had never made an appointment. I told her that the symptoms had pretty much gone away on their own. She asked if I still felt like I needed to see her. I thought about it for a minute and said yes. She had a cancellation this afternoon and offered the time to me, and I took it.

I met her at 5 pm. She's just a few blocks from the hospital and just across the street from the little franciscan church. She's been a therapist since 2005. I told her about getting hit, and the feelings I had after, and how they have mostly gone away. Then I started in on my my story--how I got to this point in my life.

It feels like a bunch of disjointed stories, all overlapping, but somewhat incoherent. She asked me to think about what I want to get out of therapy for our next session. What I want is to be able to construct a coherent narrative for my life so far. I don't need to understand it all--I just want to be able to put it all together.

I like this therapist--she is an artist, and has some of her work on the walls of her office. I have another appointment next week, just before my appointment with the Bishop. We should have plenty to talk about.