My Top 10 Journey Songs.

1. "Send Her My Love"
2. "When I Think of You"
3. "Trial by Fire"
4. "Open Arms"
5. "When You Love a Woman"
6. "Ask the Lonely"
7. "If He Should Break Your Heart"
8. "Mother, Father"
9. "Separate Ways"
10. "All That Really Matters"

My Top 10 Showtunes.

This was not easy.

1. "The Phantom of the Opera" from The Phantom of the Opera
2. "If I Can't Love Her" from Beauty and the Beast
3. "With One Look" from Sunset Boulevard
4. "For Forever" from Dear Evan Hansen
5. "Prima Donna" from The Phantom of the Opera
6. "Helpless" from Hamilton
7. "Light" from Next to Normal
8. "I'll Cover You (Reprise)" from Rent
9. "'Til I Hear You Sing" from Love Never Dies
10. "Ring of Keys" from Fun Home

50 Favorite Books.

1. Jane Eyre
2. Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block
3. Sense and Sensibility
4. The Phantom of the Opera
5. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
6. The Complete Book of Flower Fairies
7. Living a Beautiful Life by Alexandra Stoddard
8. Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards
9. A Little Princess
10. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
11. Little Women
12. Necklace of Kisses by Francesca Lia Block
13. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
14. Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle 
15. Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
16. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
17. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
18. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
19. Snow & Rose by Emily Winfield Martin
20. Choosing Happiness by Alexandra Stoddard
21. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
22. From the Bones Out by Marisa de los Santos
23. Ghost Girl by Amy Gerstler
24. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
25. Blue Beyond Blue by Lauren Slater
26. The Best Small Fictions 2017
27. Life is Meals by James and Kay Salter
28. It by Stephen King
29. Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See
30. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
31. Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff
32. Eight Cousins
33. Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
34. Ruby by Francesca Lia Block
35. The Good Earth
36. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
37. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer 
38. Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chboksy
39. A Fine Romance by Susan Branch
40. Breakfast at Tiffany's
41. Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
42. The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic
43. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
44. An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
45. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
46. How to be Parisian Wherever You Are by Audrey Berest, et al.
47. The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon
48. Fahrenheit 451
49. The Catcher in the Rye
50. Contagion by Erin Bowman

30 Selfish Wishes.

1. The perfect free house with space for a guest room, a study, and a playroom. 
2. The perfectly equipped backyard with a swing set and slide and a trampoline.
3. Help from the Innovations Waiver, now (no ten-year wait!).
4. A cure for me.
5. A gradual cure for Oliver.
6. A cure for Josh.
7. Perfect skin.
8. A steady weight of 125 pounds.
9. Naturally black, curly hair.
10. Perfect teeth.
11. Perfect eyesight. 
12. Cooking ability and joy.
13. Better reading focus.
14. Icy cold drinking water any time, anywhere. 
15. Three hours a day for reading.
16. Three hours a day for writing.
17. Oliver's sleeping through the night in his own room.
18. A part-time secretary for paperwork and submissions. 
19. Unlimited supply of the retired Dark Stardust Sakura Gelly Roll pens.
20. Unlimited supply of returning and new prestige Hard Candy cosmetics (currently converted to a Wal-Mart brand).
21. Unlimited PB Teen furniture, bedding, and decor. 
22. A Madame Alexander 10-inch Cisette Jo Goes to New York Trunk set.
23. A Madame Alexander 10-inch Cisette Jane Eyre doll.
24. Unlimited money to buy gifts for people I love (or just like). 
25. Unlimited online classes with Francesca Lia Block.
26. Miss Katie (our OT) as a part-time nanny.
27. Money to get us through a Ph.D program for Josh.
28. Unlimited Loft clothes.
29. A free new Honda for Josh.
30. Annual shows on Broadway. 

Last Day of 34.

Every year on the day before my birthday, I think about what I've accomplished or experienced over the past year. Have I earned another year? At 34, I 

• read 43 books
• read 6 books to which I gave 5 stars on GoodReads
• homeschooled a child with special needs for weeks despite the fact that it literally almost killed me
• participated in remote learning including sticker math, pirate art, and superhero workouts
• conducted occupational therapy sessions with telehealth
• spoke up about my need to go to the hospital despite many good reasons to lie about it
• wrote about hospital stay and shared experience
• tolerated medication increase with side effects
• went out alone after hospital release
• saw 4 musicals, all new to me
• celebrated 7 years of buddyship
• paid off a large lingering cost of Oliver's therapy
• paid off all but one credit card
• wrote 62 blog posts
• wrote my first short story in forever
• lost 30 pounds
• said, "I love you," to someone new

Comfort Kits.

I have a list in my Decomposition spiral notebook called "Care Bags for Women in Distress." I started the bags when Josh was doing a local outreach for migrants. I subscribe to ipsy, so I end up with a lot of cute little bags. I use many of them to hold pens and sticky notes, but I don't love and can't use them all. So I got the idea from Josh's project to make little bags for women who want to live here. When the project ended, we started sending the bags to the border. 

I hope to send out care bags again next month. I should have enough bags, and I'll add all the stuffing to my Amazon subscriptions. I need to check the guest room to see if I have any leftovers from last time, but I don't think I do. I want to mail at least 10 bags, hopefully 12. Josh handles the mailing. 

He admires me, but I'm mostly glad to have a good use for the bags. And I like to give a spark of comfort to a woman in distress. A tissue with lotion, good lip balm, a pop-up hair brush (those flimsy hygiene-kit combs certainly can't handle my hair), a face wipe, a breath mint, a hair tie. Things I would want if I were stuck on a bus, on the street, in a shelter. It's not soap and toothpaste, but I figure most people send that. It's the next layer of need--getting your hair out of your face, soothing lips with something that smells good. It's what I didn't have in the hospital, when I was a woman in distress. I guess they're comfort kits. 

So if you have piles of ispy bags, there's an idea for how to use them. Or send them to me, and I'll be excited to use them. I usually only have enough bags to send a batch every few months. 

My Princesses.

Plenty of quizzes will tell you which Disney Princess you are. I can't decide which I am.

Moana: People tell me I'm brave. I don't take a lot of crap, not anymore.  Many of the lyrics from Moana resonate with me.  "They have stolen the heart from inside you/But this does not define you:" I've tried not to let the worst in my life turn me to ash, and if I see a piece of my heart glinting in the distance, I try to move toward it, even if I can only crawl. But I also feel proud of what I've survived and of the small family that I have, in at least one literal way, saved: "I've delivered us to where we are/I have journeyed farther/I am everything I've learned and more."

Merida: Well, I'm not nearly as angsty, rebellious, or reckless as Merida. But if you look at me at seventeen...yeah, all of that. And I even had semi-wild curly hair. I also have a close relationship with my mother that was hard-won.

Rapunzel: I feel more like her right now, having barely left my tower in weeks. I feel terrible for her because she only had a few books--definitely not one of my problems. But she was able to entertain herself, even enrich herself, and I can usually do that too. I have no visually artistic ability. I do have a lot of hair.

Tiana: I love how she went after her dreams and found love along the way. I've usually done the opposite. But Josh and I did meet because we had the same poetry and drama classes. I am no cook. But I do look good in green.

Mulan: I'm not nearly as courageous or self-sacrificing as Mulan. But I definitely remember feeling (and maybe still feel now and then) that I could "never pass for a perfect bride/Or a perfect daughter."

Pocahontas: Oh dear. I don't really feel qualified to comment on this, what with the historical inaccuracies and how long it's been since I saw the movie, but I'll try. I'm not a great peacemaker, activist, or conservationist. I do believe that I tend to make people think differently.

Jasmine: Aladdin was never one of my favorites, but Jasmine's pretty great. She's a firecracker. I have some of her sass. I tend to believe boys I love are capable of great things...and they get there. I can be more forgiving than I expect or even like.

Belle: She is the most obvious choice. She's a brunette, and she loves books! Unlike Belle, I don't really yearn for adventure. Like Jo March, I confine my adventures to the page, reading it or writing it. Belle is also self-sacrificing, and I don't have a ton of that in me. She and I don't have a lot of patience for blustering men. I do not look good in yellow. I have a lot of clothes, and Belle gets the most extensive wardrobe of any Disney princess in my memory. The blue and white outfit, the yellow gown, the green dress, the pink dress, the deep-rose cape... Usually, they just get a "peasant" dress and a princess dress, and maybe a wedding gown.

Ariel: She's pretty selfish (shellfish?), and I am too. I'm definitely a collector like Ariel--books, journals, fairy tales, makeup. I'm determined and single-minded in love, and I pretty much overturned my world to be with Josh. I'm not the best swimmer, and I have no official swimming skills, but I can tread water for a long time.

Aurora: I have been enormously sleepy lately. But people tend to forget who Aurora was before the *prick.* Nature does not adore me, and I don't adore it. I do sing a lot, though again, birds don't envy me. I don't often go barefoot because there's goose poop outside and Oliver's magazine shreds inside.  I fantasize constantly, and then, reality makes me nervous, like that perfect prince in the woods. Aurora grieved the loss of him, but he was her betrothed! I do believe I ended up with the person I was meant to be with all along.

Cinderella: Cinderella has always been my favorite. I'm not even sure why. The soft animation with so much white and blue and pink...the dreamy opening song ("You wear an air of queenly grace...If you give your heart a chance/It will lead you to the kingdom of romance...The sweetest story ever told..."), the illustrated story book ("Peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition..."), the glimpse of her father, the willowy ice blue castle, the white coach.... Anyway, Cinderella and I have little in common. She is kind, patient, and hard-working. I'm not nearly so much. I would have despaired or run away in her situation. And I don't care for parties. But she does embrace her feelings (betrayal, heartbreak, enchantment, love), which I hope I would try to do even if it were more optional for me.

Snow White: I dyed my hair black to be a not-so-Disney version of Snow White. We certainly share a fair complexion. I love a good red lip stain. When I was little, I would ask older boys to "pick me up like Snow White!" Again, I'm not deeply connected with nature and don't know how to get animals to help me clean. I would not volunteer for a situation that required me to handle all the cooking and cleaning (back to that never passing for a perfect bride bit). I can barely handle having seven people in my life; I can't imagine seven small men. But I am a dreamer and a wisher.

So, what do you think?