Adjusting (again), and remembering things past

Okay, I'm not so mad at the world anymore. I'm feeling more at home here in Magdalena -- my mom helped me clear all the boxes out of the back room so we have a comfortable living space (and so Antonio can watch movies at 2 a.m. back there without waking me up and pissing me off), and I've gotten some garden space planted, and I finally have my satellite Internet so I can browse the Web at leisure instead of over long-distance dial-up at 7 cents a minute. Word to the wise: when you move out to the middle of nowhere, you can still get (fairly) high-speed Internet, but it might take a while because the provider knows you have no other options.

It helps that I'm getting outside more. In Denver I was practically a hermit, both because it was winter (real winter, which I kind of forgot how to deal with and hadn't missed at all the seven years I was in California) and because I was too depressed to do much of anything. I had a pretty basic routine there: get up with Lazarus, make coffee, drink two big cups with Coffeemate fat-free hazelnut creamer and eat a bowl of cereal, surf the Web and answer email while Laz watched Sesame Street, go downstairs and give Laz his breakfast and greet grampa, watch the second half of JAG and then The Practice with him, and finally look at the clock and think, well, if I don't get a shower before 1:00 I might as well not bother. I had work now and then, and I had errands to run now and then, and once in a while I'd just take Laz out for a drive, but I had to make a real effort to get out of the house instead of retreating back upstairs with Lazarus after lunch. I kept making plans to take Lazarus to the zoo, to museums, to parks, but I just couldn't manage to follow through.

I still have to make an effort to get out of the house -- I always have -- but now it's my home again, and I have plenty here to keep me happy. This evening I planted most of my veggie seedlings, and watered the tiny flower seedlings just starting to come up in front. Lazarus has been sick the past few days, which makes me sad because I miss my sunny little buddy, but I'm hoping he'll be better soon... by his birthday, maybe, which is Tuesday. My little guy is almost a year old -- one year ago today I was lying on the bed wondering how many more weeks I could stand being huge and achey and immobile and fog-brained and throwing up every damn morning. Two days later, I held this creature in my arms:



This has been, far and away, the best year of my life. So far.