The core

For some time now, I have had to be on birth control pills. It's for what one of the pharmacists at my HMO referred to as "flow and cycle control." That makes me sound like a hydraulic system. At any rate, there is something off in my reproductive system. Not devastatingly off, just off.

I keep wanting to stop taking the pills. I shouldn't and every time I do, I lose control again. The seals are breeched and only hormones will hold them. The controlled flow and cycle are different from my normal cycle and yesterday I didn't feel great as a result. As I said to Honey/Teresa when she proposed a visit to the dog park, "it's not that there's anything really wrong with me, I just don't want to go." We did go and Biscuit and Scout appreciated it. At least I think they did. They acted like they did and I did get a little dog water-skiing in. Dog water skiing is when you have 70-80 pounds of dog pulling in the same direction. For some reason, I find it satisfying.

Last night I thought it best to OTC pill up, combining the woosh of liquid-gel Advils and some generic knock-offs of that Tylenol miracle "Simply Sleep."

At 12:30 or 1 in the morning, I was out. Dead to the world out. Then the dogs started barking and I struggled out of my fog. Both dogs were barking and Teresa was sitting up. I'm sure I mumbled something. Then I fell back asleep. I dreamed that Teresa and I took jobs at Target, but that we didn't really want to work there.

When Teresa let the dogs out this morning, they immediately began to bark. I got dressed and went out to see what was wrong. The story will be better told at neurotranscendence but one thing that struck me in looking at our fallen tree was its hollow center. I expect things, in general, to continue to exist and persist in the same way they always have. I also expect them to be solid through and through. A friend of a friend of ours was involved some years ago in movie theater preservation in Los Angeles. His group thought they had gotten two movie theaters on Ventura Blvd. (one in Studio City and one in Encino) preserved. Instead, they managed to only get the façades and box offices preserved. Those two box offices are really tickets to nowhere.

I am trying to not over-generalize about things like American democracy, my reproductive system, our dead tree, or the nature of modern life, but I can't help thinking that there isn't much more to most of it than façade. It's hard sometimes, but I try to remember that some things are good through and through. It can be hard on days like this.