Dex

We actually checked this framed poster-print out from the Iowa City Public Library. It's now hanging on our living room wall. I've fallen totally in love with it. So now Robert Motherwell is my man. Before he became famous as a painter, he was a student of rhetoric and philosophy. Because of this, he was able to explain abstract expressionism to the masses. So now he's my man x2.

Today I got some bad news about Stella: She's got bone spurs in her thoracic spine. I found this out after noticing her having real trouble getting around the house (this suddenly, one day last week, then continuing all week long), which is when Janelle took her to the vet (today, while I was teaching). They sedated her and kept her 1/2 the day, to shoot x-rays and do some bloodwork. Janelle, Eleanor, & I were at a Writer's Workshop potluck when the vet called. I was on the cell phone, getting the bad news, while I looked out across the sea of writers, noshing and chatting under the elms.

So Stella's got arthritis in her back, spurs of calcium forming between her vertebrae, which has been causing her all kinds of pain. All week, I've been carrying her up and down the long flight of stairs that leads to our pad. When I do so, she trembles in my arms. Late one night, at 3 a.m. she woke us all up, thrashing around in pain, throwing herself against the wall and panting. I gathered her up, laid down next to her, and told her everything was cool, that I was gonna watch over her. This means, of course, that the Old Gal is getting older, and that that mean-assed bastard Mr. Bones is sharpening his scythe. I thought about that fact, there under the elms, and felt a little crazy.

Between Stella being arthritic now and Eleanor being in daycare, my heart's damn raw from the first week of classes. I just sorta wanna roll myself into a leaf somewhere and get caught by a far-off breeze. Maybe blow away to Avalon, listening to Dexter Gordon in the daylilies.