Last night, we watched It Might Get Loud and I thought about art and what it means to struggle and then about important things like sentences and how pretty a black suit can be when set against a backdrop of grass so green it verges on neon. I thought about what it meant to play a guitar so hard your fingers bleed. I have finished (another) first draft of the book. I am taking a few weeks off, to give my brain a break, to try and get some distance, before jumping into heavy revisions.

Oliver has been impossibly cute these days. In the mornings, while Jesse showers I sit on our sink so we can chat before he rushes off to work. Oliver picked up on the pattern and now sits on my lap. Gracie sacks out on our bed (which is nice when I’ve already made it up, but poses a dilemma if I haven’t—do I move her to make it up? Oh, but she’s just so comfy!). I sit between our sinks, and Oliver sits on my lap, and Jesse showers, and we talk. The other day, I was getting ready to go somewhere and was putting on makeup while talking to Jesse. Oliver sat on the sink and meowed at me until I finished and sat down, at which point he quickly climbed into my lap and immediately began purring and licking his paws. He’s on my lap right now, as I type this. Making up for the fact that he was on the kitchen sink this morning, checking out the pan I’d left soaking from last night’s dinner, trying to see if he could find any morsels to supplement his diet-food breakfast.

I dreamed of Congo again last night. Jesse was there too, and we were eating Mama Lily’s cooking and I was showing him how to brush his teeth without using the tap water. Yesterday, I was thinking about electricity, how I have it whenever I want it, how it felt to sit around a living room with flashlights and candles, talking in the dark, about candlelit dinners that were born out of necessity rather than romanticism. Only ten percent of Congo’s population has access to electricity. That kind of blows my mind. And even the ones who do… Every day, we lost power at least once, and our compound had a generator. Bishop goes for days without power. He loves ice-cold soda. He apologizes to us when he has to serve it warm. Some days, it’s not war, it’s not rape, it’s just this—it’s just Bishop, looking embarrassed, handing his guests bottles of warm soda.

For days, I’ve been trying to write about Haiti, but it keeps coming out Congo. I have a friend who is tirelessly campaigning to get tents to Haiti, and she asked me to blog about it, and I’ve tried, I really have. I care about Haiti, and we’ve given money to relief efforts. But it’s not the same. Congo is more than a cause now. But what is it? I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I can’t write to you about Haiti right now, not with any real conviction or passion, you’d see right through me, you’d know my heart was saying Congo all that time, and while it makes me feel a little heartless, a little guilty, not to have enough room for both, what I really believe is that everyone has their Congo, whether they’ve found it yet or not, and we’ve all got to latch on and fight like mad to do something.

And there it is, the man who plays guitar until his fingers bleed, because he’s trying to say something. Something about life and about art, the way we couldn’t paint without dark colors, and there is a beauty about Bishop and his bottles of Coke and Sprite and Fanta that I will never find the words for. But I will not stop trying.

(If Haiti is your Congo, here’s one way to help: www.ahomeinhaiti.com. The rainy season starts soon.)

My favorite expressions these days is “through the wringer.” As in, “You’ve been through the wringer lately,” or, “Jesse and I have been through the wringer together.” As in, this sucks. Or, that sucked. Today I feel exhausted and, well, flattened. Yesterday was one of those wringer days.

It actually starts on Thursday night, when Jesse showed me this short film about a three-legged dog who dies. The film (“Last Minutes with Oden”) was well made, and I was fine in the beginning, before I realized that Oden was a dog. The dog who loves and accepts everyone, no matter how outcast they are. The dog who loves his tattooed owner and his balding friends, who doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve done. A dog who has cancer and is in pain. I lost it when Oden stood, revealing one front leg missing. One thing you must know about me is that I will instantly bawl upon seeing an animal of any variety that is missing a limb. You know that two-legged dog they parade around on talk shows? Yeah. I cry like a baby.

“But why?” Jesse asks. “It’s happy! It’s triumphing over adversity!”

That’s just it. I don’t think I can fully explain it, but there is something about a creature who has never hurt someone, never been obnoxious or rude, who (probably) cannot understand what is happening to it, there’s something about a creature like that, who shouldn’t even have lived, hopping around the stage of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. There’s something about it.

So you can imagine my state as the tattooed man carried the three-legged Oden to the car, as his friends said goodbye, asking the dog to tell Jesus hello for them, as they drove to the vet’s office. As a grown man covered in ink, his hands looking worn and his face gently lined, sobbed on the floor of the vet’s office, sobbed as the needle went into one of the remaining legs, sobbed as the dog closed his eyes, as his head sunk in the man’s hands.

I was a mess.

That was Thursday night, just before bed. Friday started early, because I had the Pampered Chef party to prepare for. The day was normal for about twenty minutes. The sun wasn’t up, not because it was too early for that, but because the sky was a stubborn mess of clouds. I got a phone call with some bad news and spent the rest of the morning a complete mess again. Finally I pulled it together and went to my babysitting job. At which I whimpered again, looking at a precious blond two-year-old and telling him he didn’t need to know about the sad parts of life yet, that he could wait longer for that, knowing he wasn’t understanding what I was saying.

At naptime, I took the boy upstairs and we went through the nap-rituals, and I sang “Old MacDonald” to him as I rocked him, as his head fell back onto my shoulder, heavy and tired. I sang until I ran out of barnyard animals, and then I kept singing, adding things like monkeys and, when I became really desperate, cheese. Finally, I put him in his crib and went downstairs.

The house is a lovely older home, eclectically decorated, with a large window in the kitchen that overlooks the backyard and a series of birdfeeders and squirrel feeders, which are densely populated in the mornings. The neighborhood is nice—no, more than nice. But a couple weeks ago, the boy’s father told me to keep the doors locked if we left for a walk, as there’d been some incidents of people looking for open doors, looking for easy targets for a burglary.

So, after the singing and the sleepy baby, I tiptoed downstairs, a dirty diaper in my right hand to throw into the trash can on the back porch. I walked into the kitchen. Where the back door stood open.

I instantly freaked out, spinning around, sure I would see someone standing behind me. No one was there, so I spun back toward the open door, and then stood frozen in the kitchen, the diaper raised like a weapon. If I were in my own house, I would have grabbed a kitchen knife or a broom or something. But, there, in a house that wasn’t foreign but also wasn’t my own, I just raised the diaper and turned back and forth, from the open door to the rest of the house. The sky outside was still a slate gray, the sun hidden, and the house was dark, except for the weak light from the windows. I listened for a moment, then finally became conscious of the diaper, which I quickly threw away before searching the downstairs for the intruder I thought was surely there.

But the dog was in the playroom, asleep. And I found no one in the house. I pushed the door closed, and locked it, hoping it had opened because of the wind. And for the next two hours I stayed very still and very quiet, listening, watching.

After that, the day was a shocking flurry of errands, which I performed without excitement or drive, my mind preoccupied with the news I received that morning, with the open door, which seemed like an omen. The sky never brightened, the sun having given up at some point in the afternoon, the clouds staying the meanest shade of gray, so that the whole day felt like the morning had never ended, that time was not really passing.

Little things that would normally be annoyingly amusing got under my skin. In the Wal-Mart parking lot, the trunk of my car kept slamming shut, so that by the time I turned to my cart to get another bag, it would blow shut, and I would have to open it again. I finally propped it open with one hand and loaded it with the other, which given my back injuries, the weight of the my trunk lid, and the fact that the remaining purchases were cat litter, soda, and other heavier items, meant I could add a backache to the festivities of the day. When I unloaded the groceries at home, a two-liter tore its bag and landed on my foot. When I went to move a bag of cereal to the pantry, it came open and spilled generic Golden Grahams all over my clean kitchen floor. Oliver took the opportunity to jump onto my clean kitchen counters, and when I chased him to put him into the master bedroom to keep him out of trouble, I skidded onto the carpet next to the dining room table he had run under. Only then did I remember the jeans I wore had holes in the knees. (Knees which, therefore, were rug-burned.)

The evening went on. The house was cleaned, the kitchen prepped, the carpets vacuumed. The party was fun. It wrapped up late and a few girlfriends stayed and we talked some more, and the conversation turned to child predators, and it felt fitting somehow that the day would end there, that the sun would not in fact ever show itself.

And today the sun is out, and all I want to do is go outside in a bathing suit and soak it up, all I want to do is be in warmth, to be internalizing the sun. But I know it’s far too cold for that. I know it will be months before I will warm up. But I also know that summer will come, one day when I’m not expecting it, and I will go to the beach by myself, and I will lie flat, face-up, and spread my arms and feel relief.

So, the year in review, twenty-ten so far: Watching kids who are growing faster than I realize. When they’re this size (“this size” being dangerously close to age two), I don’t perceive that very much is changing on a week-to-week basis, but I have a feeling that the year will breeze by and in January of ’11 I’ll think back to now and murmur to myself, My, how fast they’ve grown. Or something else suitably nostalgic and maternal.

Also, The Great Calendar Hunt of Twenty-Ten. I thought I’d be clever and wait until after New Year’s to get my calendar. Thought I’d get a good deal. Ha. Apparently, in a recession, everyone waits until January for their new wall calendars. The selection at Barnes and Nobel consisted of Betty Boop, Playboy, and Twilight. None of which I want on my kitchen wall. So, after a day of searching in what apparently were all the wrong places, I went home calendar-less. Which, for me, means: disoriented and slightly panicked, with no idea what she’s supposed to be doing the next day.

After much lament, I decided to give my computer’s calendar program another whirl. In the past, I just haven’t warmed to the digital calendar. But this year might be different. Twenty-ten, you know, it’s the future. Right? And of course, since deciding this and taking the time to set up my recurring appointments and obligations, I found plenty of calendars, all half-off, just lying around waiting to be bought by me. But I still want to give the (free) iCal a chance, a really fair shake this time. And paying six bucks for a wall calendar when January is practically over (okay, fine, almost half over) makes me feel I just won’t be getting my money’s worth. You don’t just get those two weeks back.

And there’s the Pampered Chef party I’m having next Friday. (If you’re in town, come over. If not, order kitchen stuff here: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/amydegler — just put in “Erin Bond” and buy stuff! I want free kitchen accessories! I’m poor!) Sending postcards and setting up online invites and realizing I really have to have my house cleaned up by then. Just tonight I finally did the last load of laundry from the holidays. Said load is still in the dryer and must be put away, but I’m nearly there…

Tonight was nice—easy, calming, a late dinner of bone-in chicken breasts roasted in garlic butter, and one or our favorites, corn maque choux, a creamy, buttery, tangy mess of deliciousness. Corn maque choux is comfort food at its ideal—even making it is comforting. Chopping the onion and the red pepper, slicing the kernels off the corncobs, stirring in the cream. While the chicken roasted, I prepped everything on the enormous butcher block that came home with me over the holidays. It’s so nice and big that I could push each veggie off to the side while I chopped the next one. When it was time to make the dish, I just scooped each new ingredient into my hands and dumped it into the waiting pan. Like a cooking-show host, just without the cool glass bowls.

The slow evening was the perfect follow up to a blissfully productive day. I had a meeting with Sue, who has agreed to mentor me in leadership, and she’s just a brilliant woman. Girl knows her stuff. I’m doing this for the pod, because I want it to be incredible, because I want us all to grow, because I want twenty-ten to be transformative, to have an unstoppable momentum. And Sue was perfect; I left her place charged up and ready to go. We talked about vision, about leading with the end in mind, about scheduling, about communication, about flowers. (More on that later.) I came home and made a master task list and got to work, not allowing myself to get on Facebook until this evening. Tonight, before bed I’ll make my “six things” list for tomorrow, the six things that must get done (and no more, so I won’t get frustrated if I don’t finish the list).

Until today, twenty-ten has felt busy without being particularly productive, freezing cold with no snow, time passing both quickly and slowly. Is January not over yet? Memories of a rough January last year. But it’s supposed to be sixty-four on Friday, and tomorrow I’ll have six things that will get done, and disappointments will eventually fade into memories, and there’s a whole year of changes still in this story.

Tomorrow will be the first Thanksgiving we’ve spent without seeing any family.

We had plans to spend Thanksgiving in Florida and Christmas in North Carolina but at the last minute things got switched up and so we find ourselves in North Carolina, all by our lonesomes. Everyone’s going out of town, it seems. Or having family come in town. The city feels empty, regardless.

I think up until today, I’ve been in a bit of denial that we’ll be alone for Thanksgiving. I even bought a turkey and the stuff to make a green bean casserole (it was on sale). For the Thanksgiving dinner I won’t be making this year. (And how am I going to con our friends—who will likely be spending the weekend eating so much they won’t want to even see another turkey until next November—into coming over to help us eat our eighteen-pound bird?)

I remember Thanksgiving in college, when Marianne would pass up invitations to join us in Titusville for Thanksgiving dinner, her parents being all the way in Japan. I couldn’t understand it then—Thanksgiving with non-family was better than no Thanksgiving at all, wasn’t it? But now I totally get it. I’d rather just cancel the holiday altogether and skip right onto Christmas.

Tomorrow we’re going to John and Michelle’s “Thanksgiving for the people who don’t get to be with family” party, and I’m sure we’ll have a nice time. And people have been really sweet to us, inviting us over and everything. I’m just ready for the whole thing to be over. I don’t want any more reminders. Ungrateful much? Yeah. And during the holiday where the whole point is gratitude. Don’t think I don’t get the irony. Ha. Well, I promise the wallowing will be over by the time everyone gets back in town.

So, anyway. Here’s looking forward to Friday.

This is one of those days with too much to think about. Sentences to write and laundry to do. There is Kierkegaard, a NY Times blog about the difference between depression and despair (Kierkegaard on the Couch).

Jesse goes to get his stitches out today. He had something removed from his back, a little persistent thing, and since the biopsy came back negative I haven’t thought much of it, except to put Vaseline and a band-aid on it every morning. I could not be a nurse, cringing at the sight of the stitches. I don’t know if it was the stitches themselves, or the fact of them on that back, where my stomach says they should not be.

There is the futon; since my in-laws left, I haven’t moved the featherbed off it, so now it’s folded up on the couch, lengthwise, and it dips slightly in the middle, making this perfect little nest, exactly the right thing to take a nap on. Which I did yesterday, a solid hour of staying in exactly the same position, dreaming about something I can’t remember anymore.

And of course, a bit of frustration with myself over the yard sale thing. Jesse got in touch with the lady, and she acted, I don’t know, confused? Said, the money’s in the account. And she was right. It was there. On the one hand, I’m glad I let Jesse handle it. He had what I lacked—compassion, a willingness to suspend judgment. So, letting him take over was the right thing to do. But on the other hand, I wonder, why is it I still can’t keep myself from jumping to conclusions? Why am I so quick to see the bad in people, to think the worst? Yes, it looked bad. I’ll give myself that. The bad phone number was what did it. And there still hasn’t been an explanation for that. But, goodness, I of all people should know there’s an answer for everything, there’s a reason, whether it’s obvious or not. So, I’m sheepish today over this, the fact that I couldn’t extend just a bit of grace and wait before thinking I knew everything I needed to in this situation. And, the story of the servant whose debts are forgiven, going straight out and throwing someone else in jail because of what he was owed. Ugh.

(But, Michael, what you suggested about the local crime ring is probably true, and once they knew I was hot on their trail, they aborted the mission, put the money back in the account. I’m sure that’s the most reasonable explanation.)

I saw a shooting star last night. Well, it didn’t appear to be shooting as much as it seemed to be falling. It seemed so close. Ridiculously fast. There in one part of the second, and gone in the next. Maybe it wasn’t a shooting star after all, though I’m not sure what else would make light do that. So, that is what I’ll land on today, my day of many thoughts to think, and while I do laundry I’ll try to get reoriented, to remember to have perspective. And, because I have too much to do, I will try very very hard not to take a nap.

I saw a picture of my brother when I was in West Virginia a few weeks ago, a recent picture of him, and when I saw his face I felt almost like I’d been punched. Like, for a moment or two I couldn’t breathe. I haven’t seen his face for probably ten years. His hair has gone almost completely white. But there, his eyes, there that little smirk. He is hugging his little boy and a boxer puppy, his broad shoulders behind them, protective.

Even I don’t really understand my relationship with my brother and sister. They are my father’s kids from his first marriage. They were in their teens when I was born, and when I was far too young to remember, they moved to Colorado to live with their mother. I was raised an only child, but I worshipped “Bubby” and “Sissy” throughout my whole childhood. During the Gulf War, my sister was in the Navy and my brother in the Army, and they sent me postcards, spoons from Singapore, Israeli army knives. My mom and I made care packages and sent cookies and watches and pictures. We bought yellow-ribbon memorabilia from Wal-Mart.

So, there is the part that’s easy to understand, to communicate. The rest, I don’t know. My sister is in my life now, and that there’s been no ending makes the middle easier to pack away. But, my brother, an unanswered question. He visited us a few times. He talked to Dad on the phone. When my sister moved to West Virginia, he came to visit her, and we sat at the little Charleston airport before he left, and I was sixteen and had just gone to California for the first time, had dreams of attending Berkeley, wore red Florida State University sunglasses and baggy jeans and black VANS, and I had absolutely no clue how long it would be before I’d even see a picture of my brother.

I don’t know when the last time Dad heard from him was. I know he called Dad’s twin brother when my grandmother passed away in January. I know he’s got a little boy now, that he’s still out in California somewhere.

And that’s that. I don’t really know what it’s like to have a brother; I don’t really know what it’s like to not have a brother. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, or if he would recognize me.

Just that picture, something someone printed from an email perhaps, and the face I’d know anywhere, the eyes I will never forget.