sadness can feel like chapstick-tubes going through your veins. sideways. tears hurt with a sting on dry lips. pools of dried salt cause pimples on your neck, when you cry in your sleep or when driving along with burning eyes that just let it all go unexpectedly. Usually on highways.

sadness can feel like a glass of seltzer water, bubbles clinging to the sides, some deep at the bottom that are prone to rising up, popping, sometimes causing a bunch of other bubbles to pop all at once. You throw in some icecubes, hoping to water things down as they melt.

sadness can feel like a shiver of cold that freezes you to the bones, or hot like walking into a small kitchen with no airconditioning after a dishwasher has gone through a drying cycle in the burning heat of August.

sadness isn't a constant. we're just not built that way, none of us. everybody seeks ways outta being sad. we stop reading newspapers, we shut off tvs. or we read the newspaper and watch tv... depends what you let your mind take in and what you skip past by flipping to the next page or channel.

we look out windows or take dogs for walks. we sit and listen to music that makes us happy. or music that makes us sad, to just let a few bubbles rise and disappear in a pop. we play a game. we listen to somebody talk who has a way of cheering us up. we read. I read Douglas Adam's Resataurant at the End of the Universe in one day, which is unusual for me to read any book, no matter how short, in a twenty-four hour period. But I did, because I needed a smile and once I got it in just one paragraph, I didn't want it to stop. So I just kept reading. What a great book to read when you're looking for a reason to laugh about life and how goofy it can get.

Thanks, Mark/Marvin/bl, again.

we sit in the sunshine and watch trains go by on a track that goes on to places with a mile of train cars and cargo, probably peanuts and oranges. we listen and watch children play and hair on bouncing heads over mole holes, golf carts can go pretty fast. we eat icecream.

we smoke cigarettes and look forward to a time in life when we can quit smoking.

I think of the home-made movies I have in this house and wonder when I'll be able to watch them without going back to chapstick-tubed veins full of sadness. I've so much footage of my dad, and I want to hear his voice again, like in the clip Tim made, if only through speakers on a television set. But I've gotta wait a tiny bit more, because although I'm getting stronger, I need a little bit more time. The fog lifted in Florida. I'm breathing in without my heart aching, and my mind has accepted things, but the bubbles still float to the top now and then in the seltzer water glass stage.

March is right around the corner. February hasn't much been a good month in my life. A lot of crappy things have happened in February throughout my life. It's not February's fault or anything, and some great things have happened in Februaries, too. I like when it snows in February and the day after we got home it snowed heavily. It was a very good snowfall, gigantic snowflakes. A great snow-show.

Sadness can change from snow to sleet to rain. Or from rain to sleet to snow.

Thank gosh for the change of seasons in New England. I'm looking forward to the spring.