Rummaging through my imagination like I can't find the lip gloss, I search for a memory. Between my fingers stuck deep inside a dark place I feel pockets of warmth, sharp hooks, stains, blunt and shapeless things, specks of ice, but nothing that I want.

I am looking for myself. I was little and our dog Gypsy stood taller than me. I wrapped my arms around her neck and smiled. We were in the back yard. We were not allowed in front where the traffic could leap off the street and kill us. My hair was bouncy after the curlers came out. Straight, flat bangs like a pasty sheet stuck to my forehead. A little girl in her bathrobe with her dog and fake curls. Except, like other little girls that can wash off the eyeshadow and comb out their hair, I really wished I was someone else, or at least not me.

Pulling up my socks one day and tying my bright yellow Keds, I saw my knobby knees. I saw my stupid bangs and grabbed my lunch as I ran outside. I was late for the bus. There were a bunch of other kids standing around in clothes I envied. If I had nicer clothes, I would feel better. If I had long, heavy curls like my neighbor, I would be happy. If I could just stay home and sleep in the sun with the dog, I would be so happy.

Running through the woods with Lily and Hershey I stagger along uneven paths through the snow that has in some places softened, and in other places remained firm where my repeated footsteps have packed it down.

I am a big girl now and the fury tingles in my fingers and shoots a hot spark of anxiety across my chest. I want to break things, just for relief.

I remember sitting in the cafeteria as a kid. Big trouble. We were not allowed to talk, even with our eyes, the teacher warned. The lunch ladies with pointed boobs and big bellies waddled around the room on stick legs. Their shirts were stained and they held plastic knives to help us cut our warmed up patties and burger buns that landed on our trays as we went through a fluorescent line and ladies with plastic bubble hair and sanitary gloves dished up food. We were not allowed to talk with our eyes or handle plastic knives.

A few years later lunch lady So N So had won the lottery, according to rumor. I remember thinking that it must be reassuring to have lots of money. Cash. I could stop dragging myself from bed to get to school where I wished everyone would stop looking at me, stop trying to talk to me, and just leave me alone.

Walking into work this week someone asked, how are the dogs? I just wanted to hide and close a door where I would no longer hear women in the next room complaining: there is dried mustard on the counter in the kitchen. Can you believe that? And there are paper towels right there…

A few days later the pasty white Formica was perfectly clean. Above it was a note. See the nice clean counters! Let's try to keep them this way. No mustard!

Well, something like that.

It's the cabinet graffiti that pops up every time someone is distracted enough from their life to rant about mustard. Jesus. Shut up. And please, do not talk to me.

I really think that I have once again become cranky enough that if people are decent, I believe it's a mask. Thank God for Lily.

My friend Ed H. died this morning, around the time I woke up with a head full of pressure and mucus. He does not know he has died. He fell in December and the injuries and coma finally took him away.