Coyotes.

As I sit here, attempting to write (on this warm summer night) I can hear the coyotes howl across the canyon. And I feel like running away with them. Giving way to my animal soul, and running off with them into the night. Hunting, killing, howling, fucking.

My animal soul has needs.
Needs that are not being met. So,as humans do, I try to appease these desires with alcohol,food,literature,HBO - and in my bizarre case - Benadryl. (Benadryl is my drug of choice for sleeping.)

Like most well educated Anglo/European people I have gone through a good part of my life with my brain ruling the day.

Here's an example : "If I can't have love, I'll write about it. That should do nicely." or, "If i can't have sex, I'll write about it WHILE sedating myself with copious amounts of alcohol so I don't actually FEEL anything - it will all just be in my BIG ASS BRAIN."

But sometimes, you know, when the coyotes are out - howling away across the canyon - and it echoes here like a bugle beckoning one to war - and the itch that can't be scratched by HBO (as brilliant as it is!) or even BBC or PBS or any amount of writing starts to crawl under my skin - I swear to God - it's all I can do to keep myself from running right out of this warm room (with all of it's WINDOWS and DOORS!!! sometimes it's like a jail, this beautiful place!) and joining up with the coyotes.I'll be DAMNED if I don't hate all of these stupid routines and rules that we all live by so FUCKING much sometimes! (and if you READ this blog - you WILL note that I hardly EVER say 'fucking') - and there is a part of me that is a well brought up girl who wants to say "I'm sorry" for cursing - even on a page that very few will ever read - but then there is coyote howling in my brain and blood that that doesn't give a FUCK.

Do you know what I mean?

Possibly I am losing my mind.
I have been thinking about this pretty intensely lately.

Because I tried to do the "right thing".
I really did.
I married a man who was "safe" and he turned out to be a drug addict and beat me to a pulp in front of my 2 daughters.
I married him because he WASN'T a crazy artist or musician or actor and everyone around me said "He's a good bet!"
I've tried so hard to do that "right thing". Get married, settle down - and it's really bitten me in the ass.

And I have to admit that mostly - I feel better off than my married friends. (So many of them call me telling me how stuck and miserable they are) - and of COURSE there are examples of GREAT marriages and families that taunt me - make me feel like a LOSER. But it seems to me that that's the exception, not the rule.

I've been watching all of these science shows with my wonderful, brainiac little boy lately. We are animals. And animals are vicious. It's eat or be eaten in their world.The coyote that kills the most gets the most - of everything. Alpha dogs, and the other dogs. And let's face it - I AM NOT AN ALPHA DOG. If I were a fish, I'd already be eaten.

But sometimes - just sometimes - I feel like a strong, caged up coyote that just needs to get back to her pack.

And tonight's one of those nights.