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So a friend who is gluten intolerant told me that I should look into it because it is usually connected with Hashimoto’s. Everything you read online states the same thing. So I went off gluten, and now every time I have any, I get sick to my stomach.

More education is needed on my part – basically you have to just throw it all away and start from scratch and luckily more people in the world are realizing how gluten intolerant they are and so much more products are on the market.

There you have it – the joys of hypothyroidism just keep a comin’.

Apparently, Psy’s video hit 1 billion views today for his Gangnam style. As a matter of fact, earlier today a six year old was asking to see the video again. This statistic might be frightening if it meant something, but it means nothing.

Meanwhile, Tin and I watched twice – our video limit – the following video and memorized the lyrics (except the Arabic ones). It’s only received a few hundred over a million hits – but a much better tune by far. This goes out to my …

I was down the street getting something at the store and ran into neighbors on the bayou and told them about selling the house. He said, “But did you see the pelican today?” And she said, “How could you leave the bayou? We’ve been here for 28 years and I guess once you’ve been here that long, you know we just wouldn’t think of leaving?”

How much did you pay for your house – $15K? I’m leaving because I have to. Clueless.

Then later I was asking someone about a lot for sale because they had approached me last year with two lots and they said the guy who built the big house on one lot, also bought one of the two and now is buying the other. Yet he doesn’t live here.

Why does he need ALL the lots? $$$? Geez Louise. Clueless.

So I came home and just had a thought that whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see.

And I guess that’s what makes it exciting.

I sat on the front porch looking at the pre-dawn light on the bayou and was thinking about building a house. Venus was bright as a bulb in the sky still. I had to laugh at myself. Are you crazy? Yes, I am I told the stars and planets. Crazy to think that I’m trying to simplify and have a blog I’m launching, a project staring down on me for work, a child, and am selling my house and moving to God knows where. Crazy.

My horoscope – appropriate as always:
December 22, 2012
Taurus (4/20-5/20)
Things are right on schedule in your life, no matter how much you have an urge to rush around today. Kick back, relax, and take time to enjoy all of the hard-earned successes you are having right now. If all you do is think about the next mountain you can climb, you will miss out on an amazing view! Stay right where you are for a while — be grounded, and live in the moment. Your family, friends, and familiar routine are what you should be focused on.

So the realtor sent over a lot of links to houses that look like houses, and since I’ve not lived in a house that looked like anyone else’s house in a while, I was a little discouraged. And then I went over to pick up the Yat Dictionaries that I had bought for a few friends for the holidays and ran into a woman who had trained Loca when she first came to live with me. Despite what you could say about Loca, she was well trained.

She sat me down and she said, “Look, you can’t leave the bayou, you have become part of the fabric of this area. You have to stay in this hood. You created something incredible and you can do it again. You need to find the right place and I can see a modern house rising from it. Then she told me about a tear down near her. The owners want too much for a triangle lot with a termite ridden house that needs to be torn down. Make an outrageous offer and see what they say.”

So I drove by the corner lot and two biracial boys were playing the front yard and I started imagining a different option, Option B, where I create my world instead of live in someone else’s creation and it made sense to me. It inspired me. And so more will be revealed in the New Year.

My horoscope is so appropriate as it is most of the time:
December 21, 2012
Taurus (4/20-5/20)
New beginnings are not always marked by commencement ceremonies or starting pistols. All it takes to branch out in a new direction or get that side project finally off the ground is you! Stop waiting for the green light — there isn’t going to be one. Right now, you need to move forward on your own. If the funding you’ve been waiting for is nowhere in sight, don’t let that stop you. If your partners haven’t materialized, forget them. Everything will soon fall into place. Get going!

And get going I have, we showed the house yesterday and are showing again today. We’ve sent out our request to the universe and friends that we are looking for a house – area undefined – but not Uptown.

“Until one is committed, there is a hesitancy, the chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness…” ~W.H. Murray

I move across the tundra to process things but once I’ve made that decision, I move like an avalanche and so it is that people outside my intimate circle are shocked by my decision to sell the LaLa. Anyone who knows that sacrifices I’ve made and the burden I’ve carried is not surprised in the least.

This was my dream house. My dreams changed. Out with the old, in with the new.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.” ~Goethe

“What bold decision might invent new possibilities in your life?”
~W.H. Murray, in The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, 1951

I was sound asleep and in the middle of the night was roused by a woman outside, yelling, “Miracle. Come!” This went on for fifteen minutes. I’m not sure if I was still sleeping, if this indeed happened, and if it was a cat or a dog or what she was calling.

This morning, I listed the LaLa and this afternoon, prospective buyers are coming to look.

Miracle. Come!

Story from Another Inquisition

Deborah wasn’t a Jew, and then
she is: one day, the salt from lox—so
flushed, so red—no longer
cloys, but harkens to a parted sea,

a mat of smoke and ocean
on the tongue. Or maybe
a relative in Argentina picks up
the phone, calls Deborah, speaks

the Barchu slowly, the Hebrew filling
her ears, unlocking like a door. This relative,
a quiet old refugee Jew, speaks Spanish
to his mailman, but whispers

“I love you” to his wife in Polish each night
before bed—the candlesticks
kept polished in the closet, a habit
of secrets. Maybe Deborah’s always been good

at keeping her own secrets—the clarinet
that makes her weep, street-corner Klezmer,
the melody she knew before she came
into existence. She’s always felt old, so

old, older than all the graves
of Europe, older than Eve, who,
like all Jews, had to learn the truth
at the site of her hungry mouth.

RACHEL MENNIES
Cimarron Review
Fall 2012

I said to myself, self I said, go forward and in doing so the cards were falling in a perfect flush. Tomorrow the realtor comes by to list the house. I found a house that is interesting, bye bye bayou, maybe, just a maybe now, hello Isle of Denial (more will be revealed). Tonight, we were supposed to head to Evan’s concert at St. Louis Cathedral, which I was looking forward to but I ended up on the couch with an unnapped kid who just wanted to read the Cat in the Hat. The guy who is going to fix the front stairs is coming tomorrow to take a look see on what needs to be done. The guy who usually works on my house morphed into the Fish Fairy and brought yet another sack of filet trout. I got fish for days in the freezer and all it needs is a nice little trip to the Asian grocery for greens and noodles and we’ll be a’ight around here.

I will miss these neighbors who have brought a cornucopia to my doorstep, but like my neighbor told me tonight, you’re like that woman who invites the man from QuickTrip where you get your coffee every morning to your child’s graduation party.

Sometimes you just spin the wheel of fortune and BONG it doesn’t land on the number you imagined = sometimes you spin and lady luck is screaming your name. Deja vu again.

I spent the day contemplating my new life free of the LaLa – foot loose and fancy free and that is my new jam. My neighbor brought out her trusty mortgage calculator and determined that I could be living in a house and paying 1/4 of what I am now and hey, taking myself out for a celebratory lunch or dinner every week. I say live instead of die a slow mortgage death.

The greater part about today was sitting out at the playground and watching the kids play and chit chatting with the moms on a picnic blanket spread on the grass. It’s 77 degrees here – hard to beat – who cares about boots and coats when you can just sit in the sunshine on December 19th?

This evening, I sat with my neighbor having wine and looked at the bayou and watched the grimmacing night runners go by – they kept a coming while we talked about assisted living and nursing homes. Lord Today. And she said the last thing she wanted to be was like the woman who lives across the bayou and walks every day – who is alone – who is 96 years old. She wants to rock on with her peeps in some communal fashion.

My horoscope today said to appreciate my friends and so I spent whatever free time I had doing so – I appreciate you and you and you.

At the end of the day, I have felt like I was carrying the whole world on my shoulders and now I just hitched my left shoulder up and let roll off my back the gigantic atlas that has been sinking me into the earth. They say if you can’t walk away from something, it’s got you. I say freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.