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You guys have been so sweet about my insurance woes…THANK YOU! I have a number of leads which I will be following up today…couldn't be more grateful. What a beautiful compilation of people you are.

In return for your kindness, I offer you this: A swimming pig, in the Bahamas.

Hey, it made me happy…hope it makes you happy, too!

Liz

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The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr. There are memoirists. And then there is Mary Karr.

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The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. Best dog saga ever.

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SOBBING, when I finished this one.

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God, this is GOOD WRITING!

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Dear friends–

Do any of you live in New Jersey? Do you own a small business? Do you have any recommendations for a good health insurance provider for a small business? Are you satisfied with your health insurance provider? My business (Two Buttons!), which employs five people is looking for a new health care provider. We are in Hunterdon County.

Up until this week, we have been insured by Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey, but they have finally completely and utterly broken our spirits and destroyed our will to live. Not by refusing any of claims (WE HAVE NEVER MADE ANY CLAIMS!) but because of the brand new and ever-creative bureaucratic impossibilities and stumbling blocks that they invent once a year when it comes time to renew our contract with them. (This from the department sinisterly called "Compliance.")

This year, I could go no further. They have defeated us. You know that moment with customer service when, after a week of phone calls and faxes and pleading and Kafka-esque mazes of bewildering bullshit, you finally just want to lay down on your face in the dirt and weep? I hit that point yesterday. (And I'm REALLY GOOD at bureaucracy and paperwork, folks, and usually good at talking to Customer Service. I am somebody who made it through THE IMMIGRATION PROCESS with my foriegn-born husband. I faced down the Homeland Security department's worst paperwork, people! But Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey has officially broken me. I congratulate them.)

It is time to move on.

SO…we are looking for suggestions, and kind of speedily.

I thought some of you local folks might be able to help.

Here are my questions: Do you have a good small business health care provider? Maybe a good local insurance agent who can help set us up? Maybe a phone number of a human being who answers phone calls? Maybe knowledge of some health care providing company who would like to take our faithfully-paid money in exchange for services, instead of taking our faithfully-paid money in exchange for zero services?

Do I sound weary?

I AM SHREDDED.

Thanks, everybody!

Love,
Liz

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I have mentioned Jack Gilbert (no relation, sadly!) on this page before. He is my personal poet laureate, and his words have guided me greatly in the last decade.

Given yesterday's really searching and interesting conversation about divorce and regret, I wanted to post this poem today. It's a piece of perfection and humanity. Here goes:

FAILING AND FLYING

People forget that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work, that she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

—Jack Gilbert

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Thanks, Liz! Best gelato ever!

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I found her and she did a healing on me. Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert, for finding your way and sharing your inspiring story.

Namaste

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