The Interior Passage

In the orchid pavilion at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, Belmont, N.C. We took Mom there on Mother’s Day.

The air conditioning in our apartment broke down about 3 a.m. I spent over four hours in my studio at the Art League this morning, and when I got home it still didn’t work. Aaaahhh.

I am, like the orchid in the photo, happiest when it’s warm and humid (great juxtaposition, right?). About 80 degrees. Anything under 74 is freezing to me, and the 68 or 70 that Mom likes to keep it in here is almost intolerable. Usually I have to wear socks, long pants, a hat, a coat.

A doctor in Kansas City once told me I had Raynaud’s disease. Sounded pretty awful. I said, “What’s that?”

He said, “It means you have poor circulation.”

I know I have poor circulation; I don’t need a doctor to tell me. So I said, “What causes Raynaud’s disease?”

“It’s caused by poor circulation,” he told me.

A zombie emerges from the "contaminated" cloud

On May 19, I went with my brother-in-law to a zombie run. You could sign up to be a zombie – makeup artists would do you up to look like the undead. Or you could register as a human: as you ran through the track, you tried to avoid the zombies who were lying in wait to consume your vital organs. (“Vital organs” were represented by three red “life balloons” that each human wore on a belt. The zombies would jump out and try to pop your balloons, and if they got all three, it meant you were (more…)