I seriously have nothing to say.

Too much stress has literately left with me nothing to say. Between being totally slammed at work, the news about the Gulf area and the total ineptitude of our administration, and just life in general, I'm just whuped. After next week, work will calm down a little bit, but we have so much going on right now that it's a constant struggle just to drag my sorry ass into the office every day.

Knitting slowly progresses on both the shawl and the socks. I'd post pictures, but neither one's very exciting. I now realize that the yarn I'm using for the shawl is pooling in places and doing other strange things, but I don't care--I have worked my ass off on this thing and I'm not about to rip it out and start over. It will just have to be the way it is--kinda like me.

My only saving grace right now is coming home to my Maggie girl. Every day I look at her and realize how lucky I am to have her. We were both strays, throwaways in life, and the day I brought her home I became truly blessed. I think of all the people on the Gulf coast who had to leave their pets behind, and it makes me literally sick to my stomach. The lucky ones will find their owners again, but there are many, many who won't, and it breaks my heart.

Ever since the hurricane, I've had trouble sleeping. Songs go through my head that keep me awake, or I lie there thinking how lucky I am to have a place to live and food and water and a car and a warm doggie sleeping next to me, and it makes me feel so guilty to have those few simple things. I honestly look at things so very differently now than I did three weeks ago.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to get certain things out of my mind, like the photo of an elderly woman lying alone by the side of the highway, unprotected from the 90-plus degree heat, with no food and very little water. She had been lying there for two days and no one had helped her. That photo made me cry harder than I have in years, and I still cry about it, wondering if anyone helped her or if she died. That woman was someone's mother, sister, grandmother, and no one was there to help her. When I saw that picture, I saw my own grandmother, and it made me sick to think that in another time, another place, it could have been her lying there, left alone to die. Or that one day it could be me.

I'm very, very scared for the future of this country. There's so many good people, so many generous hearts, but our leaders have somehow sold our souls to the highest bidder. I only hope that change for the better will come from these horrible times.

So I guess I had something to say after all.