For me, those days in the late 60s pulsed with freedom. I saw the sanitized, variety-TV versions of what was going on. But I had known the restraints, I thought, that were now loosed: girls no longer had to wear dresses to school; boys could have hair cuts other than crew-length. And I liked guys in longer hair. Oh, yes.

I hadn’t come from the 50s or the 40s. Didn’t really get the first-hand anger of those older kids who’d felt repressed by previous generations’ rules that lacked meaning for them. The ground had shifted under everyone, because it somehow had to. The kids had broken free; their way was so cool. And yet, the world wasn’t everything it should be, still.

We new crop of teenagers just needed to dance wildly, swing our long hair and macrame accessories, and hope the draft would end soon.

Young adults today, at least the ones I’m closest to, tend to think the peace-out children of the sixties had the right ideas, in some ways, at least. But they’re not going to react the same vociferous ways in the public arena. Times now call for lower case typing online and movie-watching etiquette. Subtlety. They don’t wish to expose every body hair on stage. It’s been done. Disillusionment was, I suppose, unavoidable.

But hair’s still long, and for this gift, usually, I say, “Right on.”

Saturday, the sun was saying, “I’m still up here.” The breeze blew, not from Alaska, but from somewhere south of Yreka. My feet and calves and shins and every part (except my knees) itched to climb.

One problem. I was on my own. Husband and daughter helping St. John’s Orthodox with all sorts of workday projects. Son busy being twenty. Two dear friends who love to walk do not savor the feel of steep inclines, no matter how the view beckons.

It was beckoning me. So I decided to go out there, to Mt. Pisgah, by my lonesome. Nothing new to spend solitary time, and yet I thought how nice conversation with a real, other person might be.

Enter Facebook, of all things. I posited telling the little (big) world there that I was planning a hike and would like someone to call, to come. I almost didn’t. Here’s why:

I have tried many things over a few recent, reinventing-myself years. A lot of them haven’t worked. Life is like that, I know. But for many previous seasons my main concerns had been two little people under my feet and wings. The project was fairly singular, the scope long-term. I felt secure. These years since my daughter moved away (the first time), I have faced many wobbly days. Even though I’ve come to not fear death any longer, I have often feared living.

That was the problem last Saturday. Self-conscious and what-iffy, I imagined no one responding to my hiking request. Simply meaning nobody could or wanted to come. But looking like I wear the label “Loser.”

As I stirred eggs for an omelet breakfast, I grimaced. But then I grinned. Sometimes, once in a while, things work out. I would go for it.

Right before I put on my hiking clothes, as I tucked my camera in its bag, Ann called. She was glad I put up the notice. We made a plan.

And then it was sun and sweet air (and sore knees, later, but who cares). We conversed about life while joining ranks of vitamin-D-deprived people walking, shuffling, leaping up and down that hill.

We were enjoying KLSR-TV’s annual Christmas dinner, and the traditional gift steal game began. The first opened gift, promptly snatched by newslady Natasha Chughtai, was a leopard-patterned snuggie.

Those blankets with arms looked kind of nifty on the infomercials. I whispered to Tim I wouldn’t mind having it. He winked and gave me total discretion when our gift number came up.

I suppose it was my annual free-Margarita glow. Wobbling over in high heels, I held out my hand to poor Natasha, who had stashed the snuggie under her table. But the gift was still up for grabs by the game rules. It could be stolen once more. I got it.

Later I felt badly and told Natasha with all sincerity she could have it back, but she laughed and said keep it. She was happy with her glowing wall stickers or whatever gift she finally got (my brain was still fuzzy at the time).

Now of an evening I am saved in the recliner from cold and our cat Westley’s heavy shedding. I can scratch beneath his purring chin while under cover. In fact, he sees me grabbing the snuggie from the closet and he’s in position to pounce and commence kneading my chest. I sigh, deflect claws carefully, and reflect on the one time in my life crime paid.

Tim was in the Navy long ago, when we were first married. I’ve written another online-accepted piece, this one inspired by events during our first married year, in a land not-so-far away but that might as well have been the moon, with two creatures alien to one another trying to navigate its craters.

You can read the tale here, at Long Story Short, where apparently it fits their Valentine sensibilities.

Just when everybody else revs up in excitement over NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, and all the other greatest things to do in and around cyberland, I start to chill out.

Or maybe it’s cozy up. Today our fire burned clear, strong, blithely, and glowingly throughout the hours, while chili simmered in the slow cooker. I’ve been reading through old journals, something I typically get a yen for this season. And I’ve got a novel going, but not one I or anyone penned recently. It’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Perfect for the yellowing light reflected by maple leaves nearly drifted off the front tree. Fun for Friday the thirteenth tomorrow. A tale about evil, but from the points of view of “innocents,” those wanting to do good. At least that’s how the story looks so far.

I wish each of you contentment in your pursuits this month. I think I’ll be around, but then again, maybe not. I’ll keep crafting an essay, reading journals and books, and seeing what blows by with the leaves, what skitters past in the shadows.

Last year, the economy motivated his trick:

His boss didn’t even recognize him.

This time, a loan from a friend, inspired use of his brush cutter, and kudos to a Buffy episode made him trickier than ever:

He scared off a delivery guy.

First prize, two years running. And I get to share in the treats.

Why, on the first Monday in October, did window washing strike my fancy? Since around May I’ve planned to do it, but only now, when storms will soon blow rain against my north-facing bedroom glass, did I whip into cleaning action. Ah, well. At least my westerly view from the treadmill should remain much clearer. Boy, I hadn’t washed that window in a looonngg time.

Change has arrived with crisp mornings. Last Friday marked the first time in nine weeks that I didn’t send out two submissions, per my modest goal. After finally putting ten different pieces of writing out to editors, I allowed the shift in rhythm. I’m back to work on my memoir. New form, new title. Lots of helpful input by writer and reader friends.

I also have a new buddy at the keyboard:
Support in many forms infuses my days.

Now that October’s been breached, more reasons exist to let the writing momentum slow. They’re good reasons, peopled by loved ones beneath harvest moons. They wear spooky costumes and plan for meals with gravy and stuffing. They wax creative with ideas to wrap in bright paper and place under aromatic evergreens.

Summer’s writing pace will slacken, but autumn’s holiday sprinting won’t scare word work completely away. The web of mind will still interact with the clicking of keyboard, at least until somebody needs an eaarrly shopping partner the morning after Thanksgiving.

1. Comedian Eddie Izzard has been running marathons around the UK all summer. I mean, he has run one every day, six days a week. Amazing. You can read the story with a couple side interviews here.

I came to enjoy Izzard’s stand-up humor almost against my will. He’s irresistible, though, his imagination making connections everyplace as he rants about computers and describes queuing up at the supermarket. There’s cussing, yeah, his f-word is an adjective. But by the time I got sucked in to the videos of his my kids were watching, I’d become much more comfortable with our cultural, colorful word phenomenon than I used to be. I’d made some conscious decisions about what I think language is doing in different circumstances. Now, what a guy is doing in heels onstage may be another matter, maybe. But at least he had the good sense not to run in them. Go, Eddie!

2. A post, over on Fresca’s blog, about, um, Cheesus. It turns quite thoughtful regarding ignorant arrogance and, as often do things at her site, serves up a perspective free from blind obedience to one cultural/political side or another. But the opening and the close are at least as funny as Izzard’s best. You kinda have to see it.

I guess a good question of the week might be:
What sort of stuff brings out your best belly laughs, providing as good a workout as a London marathon in the rain?

Today the heat probably broke a temperature record. Will it be our last hot hot day of the year?

Will, a good friend of my son, James, leaves this week for college far away. Today Will’s mom, Shelley, and I chatted in the shade out at their country home, while her dogs wrestled in the dust nearby. Our lives transition as our sons, somehow, have changed from pudgy, Pokemon-crazy kids into tall young men.

I finished an essay draft today. Now it can rest while I begin a new piece of writing tomorrow.

This week I may flub the sending-two-things-out goal. I want to make it, to cast about for something, anything in my files and fling it toward an editor. Will the editor appreciate this?

Tim hates the heat.

Fortunately for Tim, the transmitter site he worked at today was a few miles from the beach, over at the cool coast.

Tim just phoned. Now back in town, he gets to fix the TV station’s air conditioner (it always blinks out on hot days) and then he plans to ride home on his bike, after things cool down.

So I’ll see him in the wee hours, when I get up tomorrow, I suppose.

I don’t think I’m especially good at these listy updates.

My inspiration, though, came from a book by Emily Smucker, age 19, titled Emily. I got to chat with Emily and her mom, Dorcas, recently at their home. Since then I’ve read Emily’s book and am reading the newest one by Dorcas. The daughter’s pages, many compiled from her blog, tell the story of her struggle with West Nile Virus, using honesty, style, and well-done random lists. I highly recommend it.

Last Saturday the Smucker authors gave a talk and book signing at Barnes and Noble. A crowd filled the aisles and clogged the magazine area. Emily’s books sold out, and the ones by Dorcas, titled Downstairs the Queen is Knitting, almost did.

I brought my camera.

A Barnes and Noble employee asked if I’d like to be in a shot, and I eagerly agreed.