Exciting week.

Egon Spengler, Ray Stanz.
by Owen Shipley, 2012.

I've spent the morning daydreaming about spring break.  Being a single and working mother, I don't get to spend as much quality time with the child as either of us would like.  I spend time with him, but lately it seems spent correcting tone of voice, hollering about video games, arguing about dinner and whether or not he should eat it, talking about poop, loose teeth, insisting he wear socks, convincing him to wear tee shirts.  We are ready for spring.  Last year we flew out west to visit Sarah in South Dakota.  This year we go east.  Our grand plan is centered around an Amtrak trip.  We will visit Ioanna in Washington, D.C., and Dorger in New York City.  Grannie Annie may be joining us on our adventure this time.  One of the highlights of the trip will be a self-guided Ghostbuster's tour of NYC.  Spring Break '12, WOOOO-STER!!

I feel like a fool,
walking indoors,
but I think of the ice and then of the fall and the stairs and the fall again.
My back, just to think of it, clenches.
I feel like a fool. I like to walk in the cemetery, but the last time
the rain came cold down and I walked down a rise I thought I had walked up.
I looked up and around; there were no graves. I looked up and there were trees. It still smelled like
death. Raindrops fell. The sky had changed from blue and fluffy white of afternoon to the murky brown grey and steel of storm and evening. The wet ground released the century of formaldehyde and decay.  I strode the decline to what I hoped was the return path.  The wind gained its strength as I felt mine waning.  The backs of my legs burned and my arms itched.  My heart raced from more than the exercise and I struggled to keep a steady breathe in breathe out.
Falling is the scariest feeling.