I bought a light bulb for the hall. A very specific light bulb. It cost me $16 from the neighboring grocery store. I thought, well maybe the hall can stay dark like Barbara who tans in the tanning booth. But then the booth has multiple lights that make Barbara dark.

Is that how it works? Multiple lights farm darkness? Blink and the light is gone. I’m left to find the kitty litter scoop in the dark, the light quiet.

The whole grocery trip was $88. Paper products, paper towels and toilet paper, are expensive  as they should be. The trees in the forest have value. Their value is changed once the lumber jack takes his saw and gives the tree a short hair cut which will remain until death. Never again will the tree provide shade for the hiker or a home for the squirrel. Back to the value of the dollar; $15 bucks will buy you paper towels and toilet paper.

The additional $58 bought yogurt and almond butter. Almond butter is a luxury; it is double the price of peanut butter. The money also covered lettuce, ham off the bone, sponges, and hand soap. I successfully followed my list.

Without a list I get lost in the granola aisle; I get lost in the cereal aisle. The boxes call to me. It is loud chatter as there are many different boxes. The last time I bought cereal was at age ten. I remember Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist in the triathlon, on the Wheaties box. Now, forty years later, Bruce Jenner is fading into womanhood. Who would have  thought a gold medalist would change genders? Not many. I think it caught plenty of people by surprise. To Bruce I say, “be who you know you should be.”

Be who you know you should be, I tell myself. I am a writer with a boyfriend and the boyfriend has been coming first, that’s why it has been so long since I blogged. So today, I am first a writer so happy to be back on track, the dusty track there to decipher.