Oh darling, here I am, past five, pitch dark out, which is disheartening since it was dank dark gray all day, the sun never came out. I've been feeling a little under the weather today - and that may be quite literal. The sun hasn't been out in two days. I miss the golden rays lifting my spirits in late afternoon. As a human being, in my corporeal body, I'm sure I need that lift of sunshine. And what of all the other creatures around? Do deer and coyotes get depressed in darkened days?

I'm thinking about all sorts of things. Looking at headlines regarding the Occupy Wall Street raid. My heart goes out to the protesters in solidarity. I feel annoyed because I sense that in certain quarters of my family, were these protesters Polish in Poland in the early eighties, or Czech students in Prague in '68, or Hungarians in Budapest in '56 - they'd be regarded as heroes. Instead, here, I think of certain family members and can imagine their faces sneeringly deriding these youth - because the rhetoric and imagery for 'the Greatest Generation' - here that is - was forever co-opted by, to them, distasteful images of protests of the American 1960s.

I just need to note that. I feel frustrated by it. Could I be wrong, about certain family members not quite being able to draw the analogy to European examples? Or to Middle-Eastern ones, as well - what was the Arab Spring? A human exhortation and uprising towards democratic ideals, a fair shot. All the Occupy Wall Street people want in our society is - a fair shot. It is really hard these days to make it work - for the 99.99 percent.

I have such a crazy skewed life. I am very grateful that I sit up here in the aerie in warmth & comfort in a house that's paid for. It's paid for because we cashed out of a previous dwelling, in which we'd lived & paid a mortgage on, for 15 years. The real estate bubble was happening all around us, and we were able to transform our lives - cash out essentially, move up here, buy this house outright.

I always wanted to be able to have the financial freedom to simply be able to have the time to leisurely go about my days, devote my days to thinking, reading, writing.

I have it now. And it's due to a windfall, and it's very insecure, very tenuous in many ways indeed. We don't have health insurance. (Whatever the Health Care Act that's to be heard next spring by the Supreme Court - oh wow - buying health insurance is mandatory? If it's mandatory, I still don't have it. News to me. For me personally, absolutely nothing changed with the passage of that Act.)

I worked very hard, D did too, for many years. Didn't have children - probably for a number of reasons, but a chief one was the feeling that we simply couldn't afford it. And so I feel that I put aside quite a lot in my life, and worked very hard (even if there was a windfall in later years) to be in the absolutely luxurious spot I'm in at this moment - to simply sit here in a warm, peaceful home, typing to you.

I feel for the younger generation. The older one too. Or frankly --- all women, men too, who aren't quite as fortunate as I happen to be at this moment - because you know A Moment Could Change Everything - especially without (supposedly mandatory) health insurance.

I cannot at this point, as I marshal my energies, imagine holding down a full-time job anymore, let alone trying to sustain things with two or three part time ones cobbled together.

That may change. I might be forced to don an apron at Lowes' one day yet. Things are precarious.

But they're not precarious just for me. They are for everyone. That is - the 99.99 percent. Everyone has their story.

And that's it darling.

As with an image of Courbet's painting, Origin of the World, you won't find a post, or comment in response, as open as this on FB.

Many kisses, my dearest dearest love.

Love, Belle

P.S. hugs to Salman R.