Arriving at the end of a book sucks. It's not an accomplishment, it's an immediate addict's need to replenish. It's panic.

My book ended. I sat there with a half glass of wine, Lily finally slept, and I turned the page where the last paragraph waited.

I see the exact spot on the page where the spell breaks and I am left to find something else quick quick quick before my mind wanders stupidly down a familiar path home where my life waits behind a boring set of curtains.

When is the last time I was in a good mood? Do you remember, I ask Jerry.

Ummmm. I wait. My mind searches around the bars hotel rooms camping trips little detours to a tag sale coffee a bar somewhere in Maine. I can't find a good mood along this string of memories and just about drop from sight as I veer away from huge craters. The gaping holes are left by my anxiety, stress and plain rotten moods.

I look at Jerry and his eyes are closed. He opens them after a second, then laughs. Well, were you asleep? When was I in a good mood.

I'm THINKING, he tells me.

Sometimes you're in a good mood.

They only last a couple of hours, and I usually notice them seconds after they're gone, I tell him.

Hey, there goes a pretty good mood, I think. I wonder what scared it off.

I remember, I say. The time we were on the motorcycle and found that roaming dog. Remember? I had used Jerry's belt as a leash and ran door to door in boots with high heels while I looked for the owner or someone to hold this dog until an animal control officer could come.

You can tell tons about a person based on how close they come to the front door screen when a stranger knocks. You aren't getting help from the person you can't quite discern through the dusty, finely woven grid.

Why don't they come close enough to see? Is it instinctive to seek concealment if you know you're refusing to help someone who needs it?

Is this the person that would walk blocks out of his way to avoid the begging man on the bench? Would this person pretend not to see the man who tripped as he stepped through the coffee shop door?

Shitheads.

I was in a good mood that day once we found a woman who of course had a friend with a sister who lived next door to the weekend animal control officer of this really itty bitty town. I am not joking. This was not a straight line, but zig zagged a little before a few phone calls got us a promise that help was coming.

I gave the woman my phone number and Jerry put his belt back on as we headed home. I felt better -- about everything -- because I did something that mattered, I persevered, I didn't just look away from a wet lab contemplating the best way through a busy intersection as cars swarmed. The owner called to thank us. His father forgot to swing the gate shut and dogs scattered. The others were back home already.

I was also in a good mood after I attended a wake. A coworker's brother had died on his motorcycle. I immediately thought of my brother, then my boyfriend on his motorcycle. These things swirled in my head and I think the feelings I have for my brother and my boyfriend threw me into my coworker's shoes and I was at once a wreck. I knew his misery and I had to go. I cried for a person I did not know, arrived at the wake and threw my arms around the neck of a man only a little familiar to me, and really got clogged up. I ran out and the sky was brighter and the world was a much lighter place. Once again, the usual pointless junk that drags like lead on all my attention and energy was suddenly very evidently JUST JUNK.

As Jerry and I spoke we realized that sometimes on a weekend over a drink, my mood is fun, happy, and sometimes I even laugh. About half way home snakes sprout from y hair and the high crashes. By the time we're in the door the black-out curtains are blocking out all the pretty stuff in exchange for morose old furniture where I bump around the dusty, grim thoughts.

I can viciously stomp and kill any good mood in a bloody and relentless attack until what was once smiling becomes pulp.

Jerry agrees.

All this because of vacation. Do I stay or go this year?

Are you worried about being away from Lily, he asks me.

No. I am worried about her being around someone else for too long.

Huh?

I tell him that my mother can't walk her because she's so unruly, and she needs a ton of exercise or I know she'll unzip her restraints and shoot like a rocket that will hardly fall back to Earth. We can't stuff her into a little kennel where the attendants take her out for 30 minutes of exercise a day.

As for my moods, Jerry has been waiting years to tell me how quickly and with glee I shred their happy little faces, crack their bones, and twist crunching joints in my hands.

As Jerry says, it's like shaking hands with a bag of pretzels.

I have learned that if I fail to find a place for the anxiety, an outlet, a receptacle, or someplace to put it, it turns on me and I am the cracking bones.