Not so very long ago, when we were nuzzled in our little house on County Road 5 in Colorado, we were going to start a campground. We were going to move back and “get some land”, and start a campground. Then we were going to work our way up to a Bed and Breakfast, with a Dining Hall, Workshop, and Demonstration Gardens. And on… and on… and on…

And then we were going to be the Gypsy Junkyard. We were going to buy things from the auction and flip them for ridiculous amounts. Storefront. Online. Whatever. It was cool shit. And it was cheap. There just HAD to be a way to make that pay a bill or two. Instead I just paid for a domain name for no reason for a year.

Then, we were onto Market Gardening. We had a booth at an up-scale Farmer’s Market, and we were gonna make a go of being “Tomato Farmers”. Well. That was fun. But it didn’t pay any bills. We barely had time to ENJOY our harvest, let alone focus on storing it for a truly “sustaining” crop. We barely canned anything. Much went to waste.

And then there’s the soap. The unexpected whirlwind in my little universe. People liked it. We made more. People still like it. So I’m still making more. The thing is.. I don’t know that I’ve actually “made” any money yet. I’m numerically challenged, I can’t get my bank and Quickbooks to connect so I have no pie charts, and… well… I’m still where I am. I’m not sure where all of these shinanigans have gotten me. Self assessment is a son of a bitch. And the bank account is getting low. What the hell am I doing?

I’m pretty sure the answer is right here, but I can’t read it.

Background:
me – one glass of red wine down the hatch
bryan – one bottle, minus one glass of red wine down the hatch
Set: on bed
me – working on new web page design
bryan – thwacking me in the leg repeatedly with a piece of his newly broken sunglasses
“This is the second time in a row we’ve been in this bed and I’ve wanted to strangle you.” I say.
“What?” says Bryan.
“Last night fighting over the stupid blankets. I’m sure you wanted to kill me too. It was ridiculous.”
“What are you talking about?” his innocence persists.
“Oh,” he says. “You mean when you kept yanking the blankets off of me so I yanked them back?”
I smile, close my eyes, and bow my head.
“Yes,” I say. “That is what I’m referring too.”
“Whaaaaa-uut..?” he persists. “Why are you making that face?”
Seriously? We have to go here?
We go there.
He really thinks that I’m maniacally hogging the blanket and wasn’t struggling to get enough to get warm, too. No. That could have ONLY been BRYAN’s reality. It could never have been that the blanket was all fucked up and turned around and that it was happening to BOTH of us, no- no. Only Bryan was shorted on the bedsheets last night, and inconvenienced with the curse of sleeplessness. MY mistake. I’m still trying to smile and find some amusement in the stupidity of the entire reenactment, but “whatevers” are tossed about and Bryan leaves the room.

Give me a fucking break.
Lesson #1= Red wine must be consumed in equal parts by both parties in order to prevent toxic levels of unnecessary drama from contaminating conversation.
Lesson #2= Always make the god-forsaken bed and make sure that the blankets and sheets are on correctly before commencing exhausted plummet into sleepy-land.  On the rare occasions one forgets to do so, one is very, very regretful.

Some day I am going to wake up and know what I’m doing.

The things on my to-do list will be things that can actually be done.

I will get them done, and AT LAST…

I will sleep like a baby.

And no, it’s not a poem.  That’s just how it should be said.

My humble “corner” office: corner, in so far as it is shoved into the corner of the bedroom.  It’s okay, though, because the bed doubles as an excellent conference table when I really need to spread out what I’m working on.  It’s like being a teenager, all over again; claustrophobic hormonal insanity included.

I’m not usually one to openly admit incompetence, but I must face the fact that I have no CLUE what I’m doing.  Since the farmers’ market began in May, I have been trying to piece together a life AND a living.  I have started a business, built web pages, joined social media sites, sold things online, and god-forbid – I have tweeted.  All of this I have done from scratch, so to speak.  I have a degree in Literature, for pete’s sake.  Not online marketing.  How the hell did I get here?  And why the hell didn’t I take any appropriately useful classes in college?  I’m not even thirty years old yet, but the contents of my daily to-do list make me feel like a geezer.  I check 4 email accounts, 6 websites, and pacify myself the whole while by playing shitty but amusing music on YouTube in the background.  I don’t want to spend my life in front of this god-forsaken computer!  My goal is to get everything up and rolling, and then maybe… just maybe I can unplug for a few hours a day.

Reticulated reds.
An onslaught of oranges.
Unyielding yellows.
It is fall where I live.  So many trees.  So little time.
I could not ask for a more beautiful landscape.
I decide that once we own our own land we will plant a minimum of 3 acres of sumac, for the sole purpose of walking around in at exactly this phase of fall.  I have never seen such a beautiful display of doom.  Each chilly night seems to crank the gears in their color wheels, and a shade is lost, here and there, leaving behind ridiculous florescent renditions.  Others are so blood red that they almost look painted, the way they eat the light.  It makes me wish October lasted until February.  How could I possibly see all of the colors between now and compost?

My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,
My brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d,
Let the old timbers part, I will not part,
I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,
Thee, Thee at least I know

Is it the prophet’s thought I speak, or am I raving?
What do I know of life? what of myself?
I know not even my own work past or present,
Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
Of newer better worlds, their mighty purturition,
Mocking, perplexing me.

And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes,
Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,
And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.

The leaves are falling in fast-forward with a storm moving in.  I have a supply order in the room.  The room that is my bedroom, office, living room, and general catch-all room.  It is maybe 12″x12″.  In a trailer that we share with Grandpa.  It’s his trailer.  Just this room is ours.  It is where I live.  It is where I hide.

As the lightening moves closer I unplug my laptop to spare any casualties.  Even though there is a power-strip thingy, it is still a trailer.  Everyone knows that everything bad that can happen is more likely to happen in a trailer.  Some sort of cosmic rule of the Universe.

So, there’s this supply order on the bed,.  On the bed, and on the floor, over the vent (which I have to remember to move before Grandpa gets sneaky and turns the heat on in the middle of the night – that heat could melt some of my precious bottles of essential oils and such, what a mess that would be!).  But there’s simply nowhere else for it to go right now.  I can barely lift it, and it blocks a necessary walkway if I put it anywhere NOT on the vent.  Options are limited.

I didn’t know we could function in such close quarters.  This is similar, I should think, to sharing space on a boat.  Constantly falling over one another, tripping on shoes and discarded clothing instead of rolling waves, but stumbling about none the less.  Trying not to breathe too much of the other’s air, not to step on their toes, not to invade precious moments of peace and solitude.  It’s tricky, it is – living so close together.  We haven’t killed each other yet.

But now the market season draws to an end, Bryan has pulled up the garden, and we face the possibilities of a long and cold winter in this trailer.  I think we are both panicking.  I don’t want to make decisions out of fear.  But it is also necessity.  Necessity that I move forward with this, whether I know what I’m doing or not.  I have no road map, and my navigator has abandoned ship.  I know not weather I am on land or at sea or at war.  All I am sure of is that if I spend another season shoved in the corner of this trailer with a crappy internet connection and virus-riddled computer we are never going to get anywhere as a business.  Partly because there’s only so much I can do with what we don’t have, and partly because I am going to go f-ing nuts.  A woman should be able to be free of the smell of fried pork products for at least a few hours every day.  It should be an inalienable right.

So.  I think I’m going to spend the money I don’t really have to buy a piece of sanity.  More than six square inches to call my own, a new computer, and the potential for walk-in customers…for $200/mo plus water and electric.  Is that reasonable?  Is that irresponsible?  I have no idea what I’m doing.  But I’m doing it.  I’m going to go order the new computer so that I can immediately install the bookkeeping software so that MAYBE I have a chance of surviving this.

May the spirits watch over my soul!

After approximately 3 minutes in said ponytail, I have concluded the following:

1.  Ponytails are necessary to KICK ASS.
     One cannot take over the world with short annoying stray hairs
     poking her in the eyeballs all day.

2.  Everyone says that short hair is easier to maintain.
     This is an OUTRIGHT LIE.
     There is nothing easier than a god-damned ponytail.

3.  I have never been so scared, unsure, ungrounded, angry and
     confused as I am right now.
     But the Ponytail is helping.
     A little.
     Perhaps the self-confidence provided by the ponytail
     is in direct relation to the size of the ponytail.
     In which case I’m screwed.

Note to Self:  Grow hair LONG.  Really, really long.