Like most upright sentient beings, I prefer a routine and when that routine is disrupted I strive to reassert the routine.

The past eight years have been deeply, profoundly difficult. My routine has been deliberately disrupted-that I think, is the single most painful aspect of the past eight years after the realization of just how horribly wrong my son's life was going.

One of the most important items on my daily do list list that comprised my routine was the Daily Office. I would reach for the Book of Common Prayer, and my indexed copy of the New Standard Revised Edition of the Bible, and I could count on the Daily Office to make the start of my day good and worthy. Reading the Daily Office, after reciting aloud the Ten Commandments gave my day a strong start. It was a re-affirmation of my complete dedication to not wasting the day, but rather making each day worthy of the great gift of God's love and promise to me personally, and to the entire world.

Slowly over the past eight years, and especially after taking the job with the storage facility, the morning habit slipped away, and as it did, so did my personal strength.

First, the habit was assaulted by the incredible gall of my neighbour and her two children-she would send her brats across the street to listen under the window, and then would go about Dothan telling people that I talked to myself. They mocked me to anyone who would listen-especially my son, who made friends with both of them and the mother too. I did not understand they were doing this, and really thought the mother was someone I was going to be great friends with. I accepted her coffee invitations, extended ones of my own to her, and generally opened myself up to the terrible shock that some people enjoy hurting others and justify it by saying the strong survive-it is their duty, apparently to pull the wings off butterflies in an effort to rid the world of the weak.

I found out about it when the girl was in a school play, and one of the skits was about me and my morning habit. The family invited me, I accepted thinking how nice it was of them to do so, and then sat there in horrified hurt as I realized they'd done so to embarrass me. All around me people roared with laughter at the thought that a person still breathed who really believed in God, beauty, grace...My only comfort was that Fox, apparently in the know, had declined to come. Nice to know that at that time my son still had some limits...Which wore out quickly, as a few months later my son told me to stop praying for him, and that he was thinking about becoming the Anti-Christ.

After moving into the storage facility I quickly came to understand a few more terrible things. One that my job was not a real job after all, it was a 24/7 exercize in futility-truly it did not matter what time of the day or night, my employers and my tenants thought I was a machine and could function professionally (in the case of Mr. And Mrs. Boss read serviley) without eating, sleeping, thinking, or any of the other things normal people do after putting in what ended up amounting to a 12 hour business day. I would no sooner begin a personal project-after business hours-when either my employers or one of my tenants would simultaneously ring the bell, pound on the doors/walls/windows, and hit redial on their cell phones. The dog and I became quivering messes over the next three years and ten months.

And once again, people thought it delicious gossip that I read from the Bible aloud to start my day. My employers were especially savage-they accused me of putting on airs, especially when I played Bach while reading. (That one sort of amused me, because of course by playing Bach, I was putting on airs-get it?) Mr. Boss actually snorted and made comments about God only helping people like him and his family, not 'white ni__er trash' like me. HUH??

Since getting a computer in 2004 I have been going to the online Lectionary. I've tried to make it the first thing I do after booting up, but am often distracted by the items on my homepage.

But this morning I managed to make it there first. Hopefully I will regain the habit.

I've been quite sick the past couple of days. So unwell that I am actually on antibiotics. Sinus infection, and man, did it hurt Thursday night! My roommate was incredible, Johnny on the spot for me and I've no real idea how to thank him. He has very generously forgot some of the things I said while delirious-including the grief about Fox, which I go out of my way to inflict on no-one but God, and the rare reader who stumbles across this blog-hey, I started this blog to find my way out of the mess without burdening anyone else.

The pain was so bad Thursday night I actually went into shock-now that really scared my roommate! Finally, last night about 2200 or so, I woke from a doze-off to find the pain so receded I had to think about it for a moment to find it's ghost. Then, about 0230 this morning, the fever broke.

Doesn't it figure-I take my first ever vacation from a job, and get sick:-)

Still, although I pushed aside the awareness that a majour breakdown loomed, I got a whopping lot of things ticked off my 'DO' list. I actually have a clear path to the sewing machine!

I should have known I was getting sick, but no-where, not even in the back of my mind did I get how bad off I was until Thursday afternoon. This morning, after reading the Daily Office, I thought back, and now realize my body was trying to tell me something.