As the economy tanks and our country bankrupts itself beyond repair, I find myself divided between two camps: the vociferous gloom-and-doomers and the “hey what’s on TV tonight” types. I have elements of both personalities, and they’re warring with each other. The war comes down to this: Do I want to be a hawk, following the news at every soundbite? Or an ostrich, burying my head in the sand?

The minutes, hours, days, weeks, months following 9-11 found me glued to my TV, plowing through newspapers, eyes wide, mind blank for the filling. Now here we go again with another crisis, a real one, and I don’t think I can perform the surgery required to open my heart up to the terror. Not again. Fear creeps in with awareness–purposeful journalistic techniques–and I find it hard to exorcise the pure panic from my nervous system. I don’t have an instantaneous switch for “calm down.”

Not that reading two tributes to Paul Newman: (the airbrushed People cover article and the Entertainment Weekly version, in which he wears the same shirt but about 20 years more wrinkles) will make the economy pick up, or my country any less in ruins. But it might just save me from freaking out about it for another hour.

Today I will pick and choose my news sources and avoid shouting about the end of the world from the rooftoops. Ostrich? Maybe. But my hawk is skittish, still.

…Except for trying to find a restaurant in beef country that serves vegan meals. We don’t have restaurants like that in Sheridan–it’s taken as a personal affront to the ranchers. To make it worse, I’m gluten-free. So pizza and pasta are out. Most restaurant salads are out, too–because they load them up with bacon and cheese. In fact, the only thing I could find on the menu for our office breakfast was hash browns. 

At least I get to preserve my sense of moral superiority. I may be getting sick of nuts and raisins, but no animals suffered to make my breakfast. Plus, my arteries are free and clear! (Clearly not. See hash brows, above). Hmm. It might be time to rethink my food choices–if the physiological effects weren’t so unequivocal. I really do feel better. And I am someone who’s tried to “feel good” for my whole life.

Without meds, this is good as it gets.

Yanno what?

I’ll take it.

Yesterday the man and I agreed on a wedding date, then I came home from work and made an apple pie. Halfway through the coring/slicing/cinnamonification I realized: jeepers. I’m turning into a regular housewife.

That thought was scary enough to make me consider, semi-seriously, jabbing the the coring knife straight into my chest and adding my innards to the filling.

But why?

I think I’ve been much more concerned about the “goddess” part of the equation over the years that the “domestic” aspect has been shoved to the back of the closet and covered over with piles of jeans that no longer fit me. What frightens me is this: the man I am choosing to spend my life with doesn’t see every last bite of cake I eat as a potential notch on my belt–or me on his–but instead loves the innards I considered splashing inside a ceramic pie pan.

Now, I don’t plan on spending every night in the kitchen. In fact, tonight I will disappear inside my studio and indulge myself by writing dialogue for several hours. I feel much more like a goddess when I’m left to invent whole lives and stories and resolutions on sheets of copy paper. My own? Apparently it will include a wedding and some homemade desserts.

When I look at it that way, it’s not frightening at all.

I would say it’s a running joke between our offices, but it wasn’t ever very funny to begin with. For almost two years now, every time I wander downstairs to get the mail, the school receptionist asks me if her million dollar check was misdelivered to our box.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….

For first 365 days I managed to hold my scorn down to manageable levels by telling myself that yes, I have my “lottery” dreams, too. Mine are called “adult commercial fiction.” I told myself, even I have my pet phrases. I’m the one who delights to tell you “See you next year,” in late December, for example….

Yet even I know when a joke isn’t working. When the comic relief falls flat on its face for a couple Christmases in a row, maybe it’s time to get new material.

Sadly, today the receptionist asked me again about her check. I was doing my best to hide behind the plastic potted plant and then swing low, key outstretched, to open my mailbox. To no avail.

“Did my million dollar check come, yet?”

Please, Harper Collins, get me away from this monkey business. I seriously can’t stand to let this lady down for yet another day….

Today marks my fifth day eating a vegan diet.

Yes, I am currently vegan in addition to being gluten-free and sugar free. Yes, there is plenty of food to eat. And yes, I do eat it. No, I haven’t given up wearing leather, nor do I plan to pour paint on any fur coats. I won’t berate anyone about their meat-eating ways. I like animal products. I just didn’t like the way I was feeling–bloated–and thought maybe this diet would help. I’ve certainly read enough propaganda about it over the years….

I have to admit: I really do feel better!

Now, my improved mood could still have something to do with the fact that I’m less than a week back from vacation…or it could be the seventies-with-sunshine days we’ve been having. Or else it could be that I was lactose intolerant and am finally not indulging in daily doses of allergens.

Or something else entirely.

But as someone with a lifetime diagnosis of depression, to go a full week without crying about something is pretty amazing. 

Call it what you will…I’ll be the one steering clear of cheeseburgers.

Saw this shelf at a bookstore in the MSP airport on Sunday:

Scientology tomes beat F. Scott Fitzgerald 5:1!

I, of course, find deep meaning behind Hubbard’s shelfmates: John McCain and Garrison Keillor. Hmm… The serial killer Dexter, too, looms just above the alien abduction freakshow–I mean religious texts.

(We’ll just assume Denis Johnson’s presence was a fluke).

Thanks but I’ll stick to the library. At least I can get my fair share of mental junk food without having to pay to get to the next level….

It’s almost noon on 9/11 and so far not a single person has mentioned–even casually–that something might have happened on this date in relatively recent history. Not a one. Nobody even gave me that wordless half-grin/half-grimace that means “I have no idea what to say, but I want you to know I care.” Oh, well. People here were 2,000 miles away when the tower squashed my uncle. They didn’t smell burned bodies. They didn’t get their hearts broken on a daily basis for months as missing posters were bleached by the sun, soaked through by fall weather and eventually left for dead.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Guess I’ll have to provide my own honor, my own memory. I’ll start by packing a suitcase. I’ve had enough of this small-town, world-events-are-for-other-people crap. By tomorrow night I’ll be back with people who understand that polo ponies are a poor substitute for living history.

Sorry, Wyoming. Ignoring the events of the past seven years won’t make them disappear.

I have a hard time getting dressed in September. The mornings are cold up in the mountains. I’m talking iced-over windshields. It’s hard to imagine, as I’m scraping my car at 7:00 in the morning, that the day will warm up enough to warrant sandals. It’s also hard to make myself scrape my durned windshield in the dark.

To add to my confusion, the weather can range 50 degrees within a single day. I’ve personally experienced this. It’s pretty easy to deal with such weather craziness when the backseat of my car can double as a second closet. But it’s much harder to pack half my closet and hoist it onto the NWA baggage scale.

No matter what I bring with me, I’ll wind up too hot or too cold. Just like Goldilocks, tasting her porridge. It’s a rare day, indeed, when I wind up dressed appropriately for the weather. I might just wind up repeating the same jeans and sweaters, or the same sundresses, at the risk of shoving more than I could possibly lug up a subway platform into my suitcase. Back injuries, after all, are never in fashion.

Worst case scenario, I can always go shopping….

Ever in search of the perfect pair of footwear, I’m also enough of a pragmatist to realize that such a lofty goal can never be realized. My favorite boots in WYO won’t work on NYC streets–at least not without an additional couple hundred bucks budgeted to cabs. I guess I’ll have to pass on the four inch platforms for my ten day vacation. I’ll be taller when I don’t have to walk so much.

Today, however, I received a package that melted away years of shoe cynicism. My new running shoes arrived, wrapped in miles of bubble wrap and weighing no more than a pair of socks. I cradled them both, one in each hand, staring at the fine work those Vietnamese children put into my Nike Luna Racers. They’re so lightweight, so finely constructed, that I do believe they might run themselves. I certainly hope so, as I don’t particularly have the energy to put in the effort myself.

Looking at this work of man-made material genius, I’m convinced that these shoes will run faster, farther, and for so long that I can eat dinner AND dessert. 

I just might skip my outbound flight and run the 2,000 miles to Manhattan. Look for the neon blur racing past Kansas on Friday morning….