When apologizing for reviewing pain management options during labour and childbirth a midwife at Edinburgh's Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion said we don't normally cook the cabbage twice the midwife recommended gas and air of all the options remarking that TENS was unreliable the epidural carried the risk of crippling the woman and synthetic heroin was probably not a good thing for the baby as it was unclear what made it through the placenta of course there was also the possibility of doing the whole thing in a hot bath but gas and air was best to prepare for having the advantage of acting quickly and without detriment to the baby I never thought of the ins and outs of not cooking the cabbage twice although I did have pause when I heard someone say years later she thought her mother found her under a cabbage leaf but then I got involved with the local Ukrainians who were talking about cabbage rolls and the advantages

Sometimes we hide our hurt to keep things simple our pain unmistakably ours salted away even caressed to keep it quiet invariably these little bundles of hurt are weightless never going into the balance pan or tipping the scales of judgement but the point of zero G is not that our pains are so incredibly light but that they are not integrated like atoms in molecules held together by valences charges of affinity that make compounds dance and all the stress and excess baggage fall away while they themselves precipitate and stabilize so chlorine gas and sodium that ignites and burns at the least exposure to oxygen come together to make table salt but when such chemistry is not in play the heaviness of all things solitary press our pains into capsules perhaps that we might stop them from contaminating each other intensifying their effect but most likely to let us self-medicate apparently men do this compartmentalize I mean so

I don't know at what point the intercourse and whispers of confession talked the pillow down and turned it easily and conveniently into the sacrament of reconciliation with its push and pull higher than the tides of Fundy but there it is and so I am like the guest at Joyce's dinner party in The Dead who reports the regret of a woman in "Broken Vows" whose man promised her and said a lie to her and who had taken east and west from her and taken what is before her and behind her when her mother told her not to be talking with him too late and though late like all regrets this lament was fresh in spite of being added by Huston to Joyce who never had it in Dubliners and even when Huston added it it was hardly new having been Englished from then hundred year old Irish by Lady Augusta Gregory who counted Yeats her man and bore him in mind when she rendered "Donal Og" to protest his love the way a

We're past the dog days of Summer now Nature while still bountiful is not as profligate or flagrantly female as it was a week ago warming those who rub their magic lamps in the hope of raising a genie but don't necessarily knock at her Durin's Door but speak friend and enter nevertheless pushing the limits of barely passable propriety Sirius's return to the night sky signaled the annual flooding of the Nile and this dog star tucked in Orion's belt figured forth for the Greeks heat and fevers enough to make even Achilles pause in his assault on Troy and enfeebled others not so admixed with bronze as he parching their heads and knees and feet in a way that even the following rains failed to salve and balm in these days of sun burned lawns and shriveled flowers some beauties yet grow and raise their heads the sunflower for instance holding high its many pocketed hive of a head to bees and heat and other tawdr

Last night I saw on the back of Randall's a sign indicating they do cabinetry and paint wallpaper furniture and window coverings and other things I noted window coverings guessing after a while that this must refer to curtains or drapes soft furnishings all in good taste settled though this point was in my mind I thought for a moment how like clothing wallpaper and curtains are showing walls and windows to best effect giving privacy and yet projecting style eliciting respect even admiration on the choice or the co-ordination or the accents or basic tiebacks and pleats so like personality the coverings for windows and walls or the clothes we pick out and eventually wear for modesty covering cleavage or camouflage dressing like everybody else to blend in for show leaving no curve or crevice to the imagination to make a statement emo or goth white and red and black or quietly evoke signalling silence or truce

I overheard a worker at McDonald's explaining to a friend that she had no problem getting ready for work or knowing when she had done enough fussing I wash my hair make myself presentable she said short sleeves are OK or sometimes I wear long not out of modesty but to cover the obligatory fry burns that are the mark of lax workplace health and safety and a badge of honour for trusting teens eager to shake the fat from the sugar crisped chips and salt away to make the magic of salt and sweet and fat that makes children pliant and widows fat and there is the baseball cap we wear backwards pony tail a perfect clasp and any sort of black will do for slacks as long as they are not stretch pants or give too much prominence to lululemon cross promotion is OK but not without an agreement and a deal on the residuals and about shaving there really is no need I'm blonde you see she said it's not that we don't