Comes a Time

Hello to the little baby handful of regular readers of this blog. As you all have noticed, I don't stop by here too often lately. There's a bunch of reasons for that. I realized recently that one of the reasons is that there are a few people that I gave this blog address to in the past year or so that I no longer wish to share information about my life with. It happens. This blog was created for the very same reason, and I abandoned the previous blog.

Perhaps more importantly, I feel like this blog simply has too much baggage. There are people I have met in the past year that I would feel uncomfortable sharing it with, because despite the fact that I rarely if ever mention specific events or details, there is enough evocative, referential crap that I feel really done with, and wouldn't want to share. I tended to write more when I was... less happy. And more self-isolating. I enjoyed chronicling all of it, the good and the bad, and it was helpful for me to hash it all out in this forum, even more helpful were the wonderful comments and loyalty of you-know-who-you-are.

My focus, my hopes, and my desires have shifted so decidedly that I no longer feel inclined to roost here. This particular journal is full, so to speak - and really, that's all it is - a journal, and journals fill up, and it feels good to start a new one. And so, this is my last post... at this address. To my loyal few, I will send you my new address once I set it up, which will be soon. My user name will change as well. Until then, thanks for stopping by the mill house.

Purge-tastic

I started a post yesterday, being home sick and all with a stomach bug and not much to do but lay around and get up to frequently - evacuate - in the uh, conventional manner. About a paragraph into the post, where I was expressing relief about the fact that at least I wasn't puking, I began to feel, well, like puking. And so I did. About a half dozen times. A low number for me, since typically when I am plagued with a puking virus it's more like 25 times, no fucking joke. In fact the last time I had a puking virus I ended up in the hospital, no fucking joke. The time before that was just as bad, though I avoided the ER. This is why I really, really, REALLY hate it when I realize I'm going to puke, because there's no telling when it's going to end. But it did end. I literally lost 4 lbs in one day, all water of course, but still. Nothing like an involuntary detox to get the week rolling!

Some good things about the day - well, puking 6 times was actually a good thing. I've now learned that's it's possible for me to do that and not always end up at 20+ times and delirious, and maybe next time I won't feel so instantaneously vulnerable and start crying when I have to puke. Once again, I'm fucking serious. Another good thing - my sweetheart took great care of me, brought me Ginger Beer and Gatorade and freezer pops and movies to watch. He joked around and made me smile when I could barely even talk or move. Tomorrow night we're going bowling. Yippee!

Bowling? Oh, yes. Bowling! I went for the first time about a week and a half ago, and I loved it. I had huge anxiety about trying it. Honestly, I need to devote an entire post to the whole bowling thing, because it took a LOT for me to finally get up there and do it, seriously. But once I got the hang of it, I really got into it. My sweetie has been bowling for a long time, and he loves it, so I'm kinda psyched that I can do this with him. We had such a blast last time, and I can't wait to go again.

I could prattle on about taxes (I appear to owe money this year. WTF?) or the primaries (all the prime contenders are already bought out and owned, so who cares) or the weather (tomorrow's gonna be shitty for driving) or the fact that my appetite is returning rapidly (but I have little to eat that appeals to me.)

But instead I'm going to say good night, get my sore body into a hot shower, spend a blissful evening in bed with absolutely no digestive issues...and dream of bowling!

SOTU - It's Vodka Time!

It's not that I have nothing to say. As I've mentioned recently, I've just become even more private than I usually am when it comes to... most matters. It's cold tonight, and even though I should totally be doing some yoga to work on my totally effed up back, instead I am snuggled up on the couch with a nice toasty heating pad on my back, and well, it's cold down on the floor, and if I could live my life like a lizard or a cat in the sun I would, and so I am firmly entrenched here on the couch.

The State of the Union address is tonight. An opportunity to listen to Mr. 28% spin and back peddle and showboat and stammer and pathetically try to convince the other 72% that he's actually done an OK job over the last... gasp! seven years. As much as it pains me to even look at his face never mind listen to his fake-ass twang - I will listen, if only with one ear. Wait - I'm actually nearly deaf in one ear. I'll use that one.

About the yoga - and the back pain - well, today I was talking to my chiropractor over the phone, and as often happens when I talk to him about the struggles I've been having over the past year and a half with back pain - I felt myself choking up. He started talking about the way chronic pain can start to fuck with the pain and emotion centers in the brain - in other words, about the fact that chronic pain can wreak havoc with your emotions. Hmm... yup. So I'm getting a referral to an orthopedic, in the hopes that I'll finally get around to an MRI. I feel like it's the only way I'm going to feel confident about proceeding with a course of treatment. All I really want to do is yoga and the like to treat it, to be honest, but I've been afraid to fully engage in such activities out of fear that I'll make the problem worse. Last night the only relief I got was from falling asleep on a tennis ball wedged along the edge of my sacrum, seriously.

Why the hell am I watching the SOTU? I don't really have the energy to read in between the lines. He was just blathering about the importance of free trade agreements while trumpeting the value of products that are Made in the USA. Now he's talking about clean energy. God this speech must be exhausting for this guy. He probably has a VIP suite waiting for him post-speech, replete with hookers and his name spelled out in coke on their asses. Oh, he doesn't?

On a certain level, I really and truly pity him. I'm waiting for him to use the word "frenemies".

On that note, I need a drink. The pic is of me, with a pretty martini last summer. My friend from the west coast, who snapped it, sent it to me today. Now you know what I look like. Sorta.

I'm Trying

Well, it's a bit late in the day for me to start a post, but I'm feeling slightly guilty for not posting on here as regularly as I'd like. I have a lot of good things going on, and because I'm slightly superstitious, I tend to not want to write about them. Suffice to say I'm in a good place right now, and feeling open and more relaxed about a bunch of stuff that had been getting to me. I feel like new pathways have presented themselves to me that are subtle and special and it feels pretty weird sometimes but at the same time extraordinarily real, grounded. It's nice.

Speaking of being guilty, two words: American Idol. Ok, here's the deal: much like any version of "A Christmas Carol" (I believe I may be qualified to trademark "Christmas Carol Therapy" for coping with a bad break-up), American Idol is weirdly calming. It started 2 nights ago, and though I admit I was watching it only peripherally, it was on my boob-tube for 2 hours each night. (Trust me, it was VERY peripheral at times!) It's quite predictable in its unpredictability, and that may have something to do with the calming effect. You may now feel free to mock me at your leisure, that would be payback for when I used to disparage my own friends for investing their time and interest in such a ridiculous thing.

Holy shit I'm fading fast here... slumping like a Hobbit after a good meal. No plans as yet for tomorrow night, so maybe I'll manage another post...

Searching

So there was nothing earth-shattering revealed during my hypnosis session, however there were at least a few things that were pretty interesting. It wasn't so much the specifics of any particular memories I ended up going towards - all of which were previously known, conscious memories - but the tone, the feeling behind them. The overwhelming sense was that of being unprotected.

The inhabited space of home and backyard felt big, and unpredictable. Too many boys. There were too many boys around. I felt small. I spent a lot of time simply watching the world of adults and older siblings spin around me. My mother is a kind and good woman, but her arms were not my automatic refuge. Neither were my father's, but the memories I have of feeling refuge with him are clearer, and more specific.

Sitting with him at church, his arm around me so I could rest my head there. Warmth and security, smelling of Bay Rum after-shave and Tiger Balm. Naps on the living room floor, his arm my pillow. As a very young girl, in my favorite pajamas, sitting on his knee in the summertime darkness, he still smoked cigars then. Neighbors that I don't remember were there, but it was me in my favorite pajamas, savoring the summertime night air, cigar smells and beer smells and distant thunder, and the attention of my father.

I realize now that I responded more to my father as a nurturing presence because his affection was expressed in concrete, tangible ways, ways that I could feel and touch. I needed this. My mother, an anorexic in college, remained uncomfortable in her body, even after birthing nine children and losing one. The physical was not her realm, though I believe she made her connection to it through childbirth, through the uncontrollable surging of her belly and all of the pain that came at the end. God's Will.

It's quite obvious why my parents worked, and continue to work still, 52 years into it. They balance each other. My father with his deep, physical connection to food, a star athlete as a youth, a Marine who was also a baker while in service; later while raising a family, dabbling in Tai Chi and woodcarving and birdkeeping among so many other hobbies. He possesses a temper that is utterly frightening - to a child, petrifying - in large part because of its rarity. His voice booming, penetrating, "I'm going to take off my strap!" But rarely following through with the threat.

My mother, rising before dawn to pray for at least half an hour before making the trek up the hill to open the church, acting as a quasi-nun now that the convent is out of commission. She unlocks the back door and turns on the lights switch by switch, before welcoming the tiny handful of churchgoers who arrive daily by 6:00 a.m. My mother's true desire is to do God's Will, with consciousness. She is adored by the patients at the convalescent home where she brings Holy Communion, and has been referred to by neighbors, in all earnestness, as an angel.

Earth and Heaven. Body and Spirit. Physical and Mental.

Their influence has made me who I am. Easily the most hedonistic of their entire brood, influenced and enthralled by the sensual and even the sullied and yet... well, I remember once my mother issuing one of her bi-annual pleas to me, that she hopes one day I return to the church, along with my younger brother. She admitted then that she felt he and I were both "very spiritual", to which I responded something to the effect that "You know we're both good people. And that's all that matters." She had to assent.

And so... where am I going with all of this? A place I never expected to go. I feel like I'm finally, slowly, beginning to understand what I need and why. That attempts were made to meet my needs but the attempts were made by humans, not gods. That my frailty, and their frailty are not necessarily faults, but crooked paths to salvation, to true humanity, and true humility.

Are we really in the end motherless children? I know I must find my own safety, wrap my own arms about myself, find my own beauty and innocence. My own freedom and joy.

I want to pass the past on the left right or center, and yield to the present, allow my heart to be touched, entered, inhabited, but still remain undiminished and whole. I can envision it. And that makes it possible.

Damages

In about 36 hours I'll be put under hypnosis. My hope and desire is to do some time traveling, some deep diving. Got some shit to figure out.

About a week ago I had a nightmare. Exactly a week ago, actually. The same person, pulling the same shit. The same anger. Vitriolic. The same feeling. Completely helpless and alone. I woke up and immediately burst into tears. I met with my counselor 2 days later and burst into tears as I told it. I related the dream to my wonderful, amazing, rock-solid man, and completely and utterly lost it as I re-entered the dream and its full force hit me. He moved towards me instead of away, intensely towards me. This touched my core, and stilled me.

I feel afraid but also anticipatory. I need to know.

Yup, I've read plenty about false "recovered memories" and I have no illusions or disillusions about what may or may not occur under hypnosis. I do know the practitioner comes highly recommended by someone whose judgment I trust implicitly. I have no idea what to expect. But I can say with certainty that trauma exists somewhere in my body and/or psyche, how and by whose hand or actions or words it occurred I cannot be certain. I am, however, certain that it left a wound that needs healing, and closure. Badly.

It's the dreams more than anything that point me towards this certain feeling, the persistent theme, character - yes, one character, the emotions. The rage. It rises up easily and automatically in dreams.

Oh yes, heavy shit!

In other news...

My New Year's Eve was sweet. Had a party for the first time since 2001! Great food, drinks, and people. It was a cool mix of family and friends. Small gathering (small place.) New Years Day was spent hanging out with my man and his daughter before he went to work. He gave me a bottle of Frostbite white hot sauce (that sounds a bit dirty) which I proceeded to drop and smash open in the driveway while we took too long smooching goodbye.

Um. If you ever drop a bottle of this product. Well, first, SHIT. Fuck, Damn, Hell. Goddammit. What a waste. Second - don a pair of rubber gloves. Do not, repeat DO NOT cavalierly pick up the shards of glass and casually carry them to the trash without protection. Because hours later, despite scrubbing your hands with everything from olive oil and salt to puregrain to WD-40 - you might, um, make your girlfriend slightly uncomfortable in a place she should never be uncomfortable.

It passed relatively quickly, the discomfort, but the slow realization that THAT was what I was feeling was a little frightening. But I plan to replace the bottle! Because some of the mixed drinks made with that shit sound awesome! Just, for the love of all that's good and holy, keep it contained in glass!

Today I worked overtime and still didn't meet my deadlines for certain paperwork. Oh well! I know that I bust my ass, so my feeling is that if I didn't finish, it's because I'm doing too much. I'm serious. I do not have downtime at my job, ever. I'll finish up Sunday. Besides, I learned a computer trick to make it look like I finished on time, were anyone to bother checking.

The day - the week - the 3 glasses of hard cider - are catching up to me. Happy Friday to anyone reading!

Briefly

I just thought the cartoon was funny, no, I'm not trying to say anything about my state of mind. I'm actually doing quite well, despite attending two funerals in the past week (one was for a client's son who was about my age; the other was my friend's mom, and former landlady.) Also am nowhere near being done with Xmas preparation/shopping/wrapping. House needs cleaning. Lots of cooking to do. I'll be slammed with mondo paperwork when I return to work. But I'm happy this morning.

Need to finish my coffee and this scrappy little post. Take a shower? Nah. Should start to tackle the household but will probably head out the door instead, connect with one or two of my siblings and make a shopping trip or four, spend a few hours helping my mother who is the definition of overwhelmed right now, come back here and do some more household-y stuff, wrap presents, drink wine or beer or rum drinx or hard cider to help that along, visit with a few friends, prolly here at my place. Try not stay up too late, go to work for 8:00, get out at 1:00, hope that my shopping is done by then? If not, head north to my old workplace. Later meet up with my man's family for a bit, he'll meet up with mine for a bit, not sure what'll happen after that. A lot of making out? Etc...

Xmas Day will be a morning til night epic, but it should be ok.

And btw, yes, I know I've been bad with the blogging lately - part of it is just the business of life, part of it is being conflicted about what I want to blog about, what I feel comfortable putting out there in the world. 'Cause most of the significant stuff going on with me has to do with relationships, and I'm feeling pretty private about it. It's much easier to write about sorrow and distress and bad relationships - I could have plenty of great things to say about what's up with me lately, but I don't want to jinx myself... yes I am superstitious!

Merry Christmas, and I won't say Happy New Year yet, because I promise to post before then!

Talking

I'm getting better at it. I've tried to make a deal with my... boyfriend? Can I call him that at 6 months? I think so! But anyway, I've tried to make a deal with him that I will tell him what's going on with me as soon and as well as I'm able to when something is "up" with me. I have a pretty bad inherited/learned/habitual practice of internalizing the shit out of most things that bother me, to the point where I am virtually torturing myself with the crazy-making internal dialogue.

I'm finding that talking is better. I'm finding it helps to be with someone who encourages it, welcomes it, has the inner strength and sensitivity to deal with hearing what comes out without immediately barricading himself with an arsenal of defenses. It's pretty fucking cool.

It's also incredibly difficult for me at times. I really struggle, stumble, hesitate. Tonight I really needed to talk, I really really needed to talk and what did I do instead? Withheld, withdrew, closed off, became quieter and quieter. We got off the phone and I was still a churning mess. I sent a text: "I need to talk to you before I go to bed."

And so I did. And so we did. And it was peppered with the requisite and automatic "I'm sorrys" and "Don't be sorrys" etc. but I felt so good for keeping up my end of the deal, and talking. And the talking itself made us both feel better. I know this seems like sort of minor shit to write about, but trust me it's not. In particular after my last relationship, this is like learning a whole new language for me, and some of the conditioned fear and anxiety I used to have is chipping away.

The lesson that has been presenting itself to me over and over again lately is this: The quality and course of your life is determined by the small decisions you make every minute. Now I'm sure that is a paraphrased version of some quote or another from some other source, but it doesn't matter, that is the lesson I have been taking to heart on my own, it keeps throwing itself in my path. I have a choice, always, in how I address any situation - I can constrict my awareness and suffer; or I can expand it and either accept or work to change the situation.

It may sound kind of duh on paper, but in practice - how many people do you see or know that really stand back and examine their actions or take responsibility for them? Not so obvious, and not easy, either.

I like the idea of building a cooperative relationship with my life. I know I'm not alone when I say I sometimes have a tendency to throw roadblocks up ahead in advance of my travels. Think you can do (fill in the blank)? WRONG! WRONG! Look at the treacherous obstacles! Stop now! You'll never make it!

I'm sick of that shit. Beating up on myself, doubting my feelings, naysaying before anything's even been said. Learning to be your own best friend and ally shouldn't be so hard. I feel like I'm beginning to accept that it isn't so hard. And that's pretty cool.

Christmastime is Here

I had to bite the bullet and do it. With tomorrow being our "Staff Christmas Lunch" replete with Secret Santa gifts, and a baby shower the day after that, and well, you know, Christmas - I had to set foot in a retail establishment. No, not the mall. No way in holy hell. But a close second, in terms of crowds and annoyance, at this time of year - I will not mention the name, but suffice to say it's one of those places that gets overstock from fancier stores etc. and usually has pretty good prices on most of it.

Surprisingly, and pleasantly, it was not crowded, I mean at all. I was there a few weeks ago and it was madness, so I figured it would be that much worse as Xmas drew near. I started picking out some candles, them realized I was going to end up dropping them if I carried them over to the baby section. I grabbed a carriage. They're funny little carriages, geared towards navigating cramped clusters of clothing racks and glass-shelved displays.

As any retail store with an abundance of (largely imported) goods will do to me, I began to get depressed. I start thinking of the journey of the products, the source and site of production, the channels of commerce and demand and conjecture about what people want and where and why. The emptiness, the disconnect.

I look around at the products that seem to promise comfort and luxury to "everyman" - faux fur blankets (they are really damned soft), outsized pillar candles, pillows suitable to outfit a harem room or brothel, leather covered boxes, cashmere stockings.

Music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" plays in the background. It is the music from when Charlie Brown is out looking for a tree. Slowed down, plodding, thoughtful. A search for meaning. As I strolled and criss-crossed the aisles of the sparsely peopled store the irony wasn't lost on me.

I purchased 3 candles (one for me), socks, a baby-bunting type thing, microwavable booties for my mom and aunt (yeah, I know, weird - they're filled with little beads that retain heat), and a sexy pair of undies. For me. Or him, however you want to look at it.

And then I drove home. And grabbed my empties, and headed back out to the packy, beer tonight, no more of this whiskey and water business that I've been pulling for a few nights. Oh! And last night I cleaned the living hell out of my junkroom, the best part being that I've finally gotten rid of a few items associated with an ex that for some reason I'd been hanging onto. The lingering attachment to having them around just dropped dead as a fly in a January window.

Phase two with that room will begin soon, but for now I can see where everything is and it's ordered. Next will be a hopefully major deaccessioning of goods, mostly clothes. And a major culling of paper stuff. I also need to consider selling some of my books and records online. I do have some that are worth the hassle of doing so.

Ok, I'm just really tired now and I need to get away from the computer. Good night/good day/good week!

p.s.

I kinda thought I should say I'm feeling somewhat better. I realize that last post sounded pretty fricking dire. It's more that I was trying to illustrate part of what's kept me from posting much, I mean by just letting that shit hang out. Earlier tonight I decided to start a Live Journal, but it's completely private, just for me to babble away to myself and say really messed up crap. I've felt the need to start keeping a journal more regularly, esp. now that I am linking with my counselor again. I've gotten so used to writing on the computer, and I like the idea of being able to access my journal from anywhere. If I write anything that's better than just me hacking away messily at my feelings, desires, and motivations, I'll re-post it here. Hope everyone's week is off to a good start.

The Reservoir Dam is Weak

Have been feeling incredibly closed off and I don't know why. Have also been having gigantic self-esteem problems. I feel like an angry teenager. Misunderstood and wanting people to stay away from me. Feeling safety in aloneness. Sort of. Warding away the world. A tempest of swirling feelings pummeling me from my throat to my belly. Feeling almost helpless to stop it, watching myself slip into a cave, and rolling a stone across the entrance.

I'm beginning to think my childhood probably really fucked me up. How else to explain, even from my first boyfriend, at age 17... memories of sitting in the upstairs hallway at his house, banging my head against the wall... another time in bed, scrawling all over my naked body with a black permanent marker - "Hate me. Hate me. Hate me." His reaction. Grabbing me, "What are you doing?!? Don't do this! Don't you ever do this!!!" And of course the cutting. The drugs.

Umm. I've got some very, very serious self-esteem issues. I get self-protective. And that means I get cold. And that means that even if I care about you, you might not know it. And as I think about this shit... I feel fucking trapped. It's been clear for awhile that pain has been a keynote of so many of my relationships. I get feeling suspicious, doom-filled, inadequate, among many other things.

I wish I could say I was joking, or just trying to be dramatic. I just don't feel like I am enough sometimes. I don't think I am. I watch myself getting gripped by fear, paranoia, a feeling of being outside of everything, peripheral, interesting but basically a freak.

I do not feel like I am enough, tonight. I want to cry but I can't. Feeling this way and not crying is not a good thing. The feelings are so fucking stuck. It feels dangerous. Punishing myself and unable to accept even the most well intentioned kindness.

If the true source of pain were touched, discovered... I'm just fucking scared, and I don't know if I should move into, towards that fear and pain. I mean I know I should. But I feel like a child. And I don't feel like I know how.

In the Night

Had a nightmare last night. One of those set-in-the-present moment type nightmares, i.e. in the dream I'm doing exactly what I'm doing in real life, lying in bed, here in my apartment.

I hear the door to my apartment open. It's 4 a.m. Door closes, and I hear someone walking around. I realize it's one of my brothers, because I hear him talking to one of the cats in a goofy voice. It sounds exactly like him, and he refers to my cat by name. The talking stops, but movement continues. For the life of me I cannot figure out what my brother would be doing here at 4 a.m., or where he got a key.

I get up nervously and go out into the hallway. I flip the light switch, but the light won't go on. "Paul is that you?" The voices changes, becoming flat and hollow. "No." I stand at the top of the stairs, continuing to flip the light switch to no avail. I see a shadowed figure at the bottom of the stairs, traced very slightly at the head and shoulder in bluish light.

I try to elevate and project my voice, saying "Leave!" but nothing more than a swallowed whisper comes out. I keep trying, "Leave now!" Totally ineffectual. The figure begins to ascend the staircase, and disappears from view in the darkness of the stairwell. I somehow manage to grab a coffee table book and raise it above my head, but have no confidence in my ability to effectively strike this being that seems to be coming towards me.

I wake up. Totally fucking panicked. I needed the cats near me, and thankfully they were, purring now that I was awake, and completely nonplussed. I needed to pee but could not bring myself to go downstairs. I considered texting a couple of friends but felt too ridiculous. I was fucking scared and feeling like I needed protection.

Instead of contacting anyone, I started writing, scribbling down stuff unrelated to the dream. Relationship stuff, the kind of stuff I think about in the middle of the night and it makes a lot of sense and seems very logical and obvious at the time, and I tell myself I'll remember, of course I will, and of course I rarely do.

Eventually I fell asleep again, but not very well. I know the dream is not terribly interesting, but it was terribly vivid, and I need to throw it out and get rid of it. The vulnerability and aloneness I felt was intense and I hated it.

I feel like I've been warding off darkness a lot lately, getting tangled in my thoughts and feelings, worrying a lot and just generally being prone to depression and even despair. On Tuesday I go to see my counselor, the one I usually only contact when I'm in deep crisis. I'm not there yet, in crisis, I'm just trying to head it off, and I guess that means something. Actually, I think it means a lot. Having spent way more money than I ever would have imagined I'd be willing to on a 10 part Rolfing series that is almost done, I am now thinking I need to start seeing this counselor at least once a month, money be damned.

I feel like I have a lot at stake, and I need to respect it and give it full attention. Even saying that feels good and empowering. My challenge has been to stay open and trusting instead of closing off and alienating myself from people and the world around me.

One of the things I've learned in observing and experiencing others in the context of family, friends, intimate relationships, is not just learning how to be, but also how not to be. I think the latter is almost more instructive and important. I know a fair number of people who feel they are running out of chances, time, trust, energy, possibilities, with hearts and egos that have been scarred, abused, and horribly misunderstood.

I don't want to be a closed, brittle statement, I want to believe in the comma, I want to make enough room in my heart for joy and pain to live together, and have more room yet for the joy and pain of others.

And tonight, I want sweet dreams.

Ghosts

Beep.


Beep.


Beep.





"Sounds like that other guy you're fucking left you a message."

"Mm."

A green flash through the white fabric of my white ("Look at the snow bunny") jacket.

"You had to get the most expensive phone."
"They gave me a deal. It was cheap, actually."

You were #1 on my list. You were the first person I called. And when I came across my first cell phone tonight, the one that so vexed you, the one that died after it got shipped in the mail, after I forgot it at the hotel that you were supposed to stay at with me in Newport- (the one I planned for, and paid for, and confirmed with you, the one you left after taking me out to dinner, "I have to go to work tomorrow. I can't stay. You should relax and enjoy yourself," the one from whose window I watched you walk down the street, imperious, closed, self-absorbed) - I decided to plug it in.

Beep.
Searching...
my name.

My name. Address book. Alec. Andy. Andrea.

I have a message?

I was talking to a friend the other day about missing this phone, about how I never would have replaced it if it weren't for its untimely death.

I don't know if I can properly convey how weird it is for this phone to be "working" (it's not really connected to my account now, even though it sort of thinks it is - I tried dialing out on it and it wouldn't let me.) As I mentioned, it was my first cell phone. And as I intimated, it was perceived as a bit of a threat to my boyfriend at the time. He had a "mobile phone" starting when they were first available sometime in the 80's - as well as being huge, and attached to your car, and fucking expensive, relatively speaking. He even has an "old school" number, i.e. a phone number that has an actual "normal" prefix, one that looks like a regular old landline for this area.

Whenever my cell phone would ring, or beep because it had a message waiting, as it was doing tonight, he would make a comment similar to the one at the beginning of this post. As I sorted through other stuff in the spare room tonight, hearing the Beep of the phone was fucking with my head. The sheer volume and intensity of associations was astounding. His number, of course, was among the "last 10 dialed." Fucking weird.

In other news, I am fine. Just away from the computer a lot. Participated in the Iraq War Moratorium again tonight, that was good but a little... FUCKING COLD! I know, wimpy! Well, to be fair, it was wicked windy... I could hardly chew my pizza later on at my mom's. My muscular disorder doesn't agree with the cold, is all.

However, every part of me agreed with the several appropriately named "Dark & Stormy" drinks I consumed tonight (that's Gosling's Black Rum and Ginger Beer - effing yummy, try it!) But I'm done with all that and trying to do a tiny bit of catching up here. As usual, sorry for the lack of regular posts. I've really been playing catch up in lots of areas, and I feel like I could use, oh, about a month to myself.

*pause*

At this point last night my computer started fucking with me, so I abandoned this post temporarily. Not much to add tonight. Earlier I was fucking around with these:

I was making baby food. Tomorrow night I will make some pearsauce, for babies and adults, now that I finally have the vanilla bean (All $5.50 of it - one bean.) I'll also be making an upside down carmelized pear tart. Sounds yummy, huh? The pears were "drops" from my friend's neighbor. Some are a bit funky looking on the outside, but they are gorgeous, sweet, and perfect under the peel.

Kinda like a lot of people I know. Hope everyone is having a great weekend...

Blah blah blah

A bunch of these darling little Asian Ladybugs have established residency in my apartment. As I sat on my couch the other day I looked up to observe one... two... three, four... twenty? of the little lost souls dotting the perimeter of the room where the ceiling met the wall. Since then I have unfurled the shades only to find them nestled innocently within them, or clustered in tiny groups of three or four in odd corners, congregating briefly before their certain fate.

I've been moving them around tonight as I clean, from the dusty tabletop to the slick surface of a CD, plucking cat hairs off of them as I go. Some have buzzed busily around lightbulbs, others have become temporary objects of interest to the cats.

In other news I'm drinking more of that ass-kicking cider. It's sorta the bomb. May have to take another jaunt south to pick up some more over the weekend.

Also, I've been rearranging furniture. The goal is to establish some kind of workable space for a studio. Ish. Have decided I do not want to work upstairs in what has become a giant walk-in closet/junkroom. It's just not going to work. Something about the temperature (cold) and the crooked floor (haven't measured the degree to which it's off, but I know it's significant) make it... well, uncomfortable. Also there's only one window that faces out to the trashy neighbor's house and driveway.

My bedroom floor is also crooked. The other day I decided to switch the position of my bed due to the fact that I continued to be plagued by this feeling that I was slightly - rolling to one side? So now my feet are ever so slightly elevated above my head - I thought that made more sense than the other way around. If I'm being honest I have to say I've been sleeping better since.

Other news? I'm entering a deaccessioning stage. I have a lot of stuff I need to get rid of, some of which may not be be easy to part with, but is nonetheless necessary to part with. It feels good. I just feel like I'm prioritizing, and that's a good thing.

Can I mention one more thing? My boyfriend's 10 month old daughter was playing with his cellphone yesterday and somehow managed to hit the just the right combination of buttons to call me at home while I was at work. No, I was not the last person he had called. It had to be a sequence of at least 4 or 5 buttons before managing to call me. She somehow did this. Then dialed my number again.

I'm sorry. But I'm kind of fucked.

Confessions

I didn't really notice how long it had been since I last posted. Busy, I guess.

A lot on my mind. I want opinions. Please bear in mind I'm in the midst of drinking some ass-kicking hard cider from Clyde's Cider Mill. I'll be talking in simple terms and simple language.

I'm 38 years old. I think of that number, that age - I have certain associations. Expectations, maybe. Nobody ever, ever guesses or believes that's my age. Most people guess 25 max, that's the God's honest truth. I am routinely carded for alcohol wherever I go. It's fine, it's all good. Can be strange and funny at times. I enjoy freaking people out with that fact, my age.

In the middle of June - my birthday, to be exact - I officially became romantic with the lovely, wonderful, kick-ass guy I am still dating. He's 25 years old, turning 26 this month, with a young daughter. Nope, didn't cheat on the mom or anything like that - has been well over a year since they've been romantic in any way.

He and I click and relate on about a million levels. His face is a face I feel like I could look at and love forever. He has been amazingly supportive, mature, real, communicative, patient, accomodating, loving. The sex is passionate and pure. His daughter has taken to me quite easily and naturally, to the point where, when I was in the presence of her and her mom the other day, she reached her little arms out and flung her body towards me to be held. I mumbled some kind of excuse to her mom as to why she had done this, realizing it potentially might've been hurtful to her.

And there's the moving away thing, happening at some point in the spring. I told him a few months ago - "I would never move there." I sounded pretty definite, and I felt that way. But it's a few months later, and some things have shifted in my heart and brain.

He's a heckuvaguy, and has done nothing other than continuing to plan for the necessary move to cause me anxiety and/or distrust. (Yes, the move is necessary and unavoidable, really. Long story for another day.) So why am I so scared? Why do I feel the nagging potential of self-sabotage coming on, sometimes quite forcefully? I literally sit there thinking - "He'll find someone else younger, prettier, better. I'm just something to do until he moves away. A novelty. A great story for later. I might as well end it now, before I get hurt." Yup. Pathetic. I swallow and swallow and swallow painful fears and anxiety. He sees the inner turmoil, he tries to draw me out, but I brush it off, not knowing exactly what to say or how to say it. Not wanting to show my fear and weakness.

"Protecting" myself before I get duped. Brilliant. It's lose-lose, this way of thinking, I'm painfully aware of it, but tormented about how to address it pro-actively. I'm afraid of losing him, but watching myself do everything I shouldn't be doing if that's what I'm really afraid of.

I'm giving just the partial sketch here of a deeply conflicted situation. There's much more to it. I'm trying to stop myself from deeply screwing myself.

As I sit here drinking this hard cider I'm thinking he and I need to get sloppy on it and wrestle (did I mention we like to wrestle each other? No, I mean really wrestle.) some of this shit out. I apologize to anyone that bothers checking in here for the dearth of posts.

Shit on my mind. I'm trying. All advice gratefully accepted.

the crazies

So there was that article all over the internets the other day that more or less said "Lack of sleep will make you nuts." That must make me certifiably insane. I kind of think I may have dozed off between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m this morning, then lay there til my alarm went off at 7:30. So an hour is a generous estimate for last night. The night before that, I'm hazarding a guess and calling it about 3 hours. Night before that not much more. The night before that I actually slept heavily and hard, because the night before that I slept about 2 hours then spent the day at a wedding outside of Boston.

Things like the first game of the World Series feel weirdly distant from me tonight. Was watching and not caring. No emotion. More critical than my disinterest in the Red Sox is... my disinterest and distancing in general. I'm not feeling good about myself or my life. Trapped, depressed, and worried about self-sabotaging behavior. Mildly engaging in self-sabotaging behavior. Concocting half-assed and hare-brained schemes to get myself out of... this life.

I'm actually afraid of the potential damage I am capable of, not in the sense of anything violent or injurious to myself (though for the first time in a long time I had a strong urge to cut the other night.) Just - I'm having a really hard time feeling and staying positive or hopeful about many things, and it's chipping away at me, and it's not very good. It's pretty bad. And I'm fucking scared. And I don't know why I'm posting this, but I can't write anymore.

Really, really, I'm going to try and sleep now.

Go... uh, Sox

Does anyone else see a solid gray box sitting on top of the bottom of my last post, so you can't actually read the end of the post? It was there last week, and is still there. The only way for me, at least, to view the whole post is to click on the title and view it on its own page. So anyone, please tell me if you see it.

Sorry to bore you, but, um... the Red Sox are ahead in game 7 of the ALCS. A whole new level of anxiety and obsession will be part of my world if they win this and go onto the World Series. Of course I would love to see them wrap this up, and they're close to doing it. Having said that, I find myself already empathizing with Cleveland, who deserve to go to the World Series every bit as much as the Red Sox.

If they lose, they will have to endure the almost certain madness that will erupt in Boston, both in and out of Fenway Park, drunk and obnoxious fans, just fucking noise and mayhem. Yeah, I know they're making plenty of money and all that. But honestly, I look at these guys and can see my nephews in them, and yeah, missing out on a chance to go to Series is just going to SUCK SHIT, I don't care how much money you make.

Today I've been sad, so I'm thankful for this game. Yesterday I went to a wedding, actually, it was up near Boston. I drove up with Yankees fans, so we didn't listen to the game on the way home. I did watch the end of it at home with my favorite company. I had barely slept the night before the wedding, and started drinking at around 3:00 pm, and had my last drink around 8:00. Didn't get drunk, but between the steady drinks and lack of sleep, my energy level and focus was - weird - by the time I got home.

Long story short - two very tired people, nonetheless insisting on having an all-night marathon with naps in between... and when he had to leave in the late morning, I just wanted... more. I mean I wanted coffee and to take a shower and go to the flea market and make dinner together. But instead I had to say goodbye, feeling like we had a lot of physical contact, but needing more "normal" contact - cooking, eating, talking.

There was no way around it. And I just felt sad. Weird, nagging, worrisome thoughts have been creeping in and out throughout the day. I feel clingy and at the same time like curling into a little shell. Thinking about returning to work tomorrow is causing me anxiety, too, which is a little strange. I think I'm back on the "thinking about quitting" tack.

The Red Sox are murdering Cleveland right now, and it's not making me happy. I want them to win, but I honestly kind of hate it when a team gets destroyed. For Cleveland's sake, I hope they score a bunch - well, at least a few - when it's their turn. Christ, it's now 11-2, bottom of the eighth. No more quasi-blogging about the Red Sox, I promise.

It's over, obvs they won. I'm crying and I don't know why, not happy tears. I'm sad today, like I said.

Distraction

Though it's causing me significant anxiety, the Cleveland-Red Sox game is again on in my living room. It's the bottom of the fifth, and Cleveland just scored the first run in a runless game, has two men on base and no outs. Two runs in, one out, still two men on base. I don't like this. At my parent's house, my mother has at this point surely left the room. She might possibly be saying the rosary. It's true, my mother prays for the Red Sox.

What can be said? Cleveland is fired up and solid. I drank a Guinness and have switched to scotch. Unfuckingbelievable. 3-0. This is why I don't like getting involved in these things. I start getting too invested, and of course it doesn't help that my family happen to be die-hard fans. They watch Yankees games just to see them lose. I don't take it that far. I simply want the Red Sox to win. It makes my parents really fucking happy, and that makes me happy. 6-0. This is not happening.

Time to change the subject. I'll be participating in this on Friday. My brother and his wife arranged to start this up in our town, so we can just zip over there after work and try to make a statement. I'm looking forward to it. (7-0. Just let it go.)

I still don't know the word, despite some helpful suggestions. (Youklis scores! 7-1.) (Ortiz scores! 7-2. How ridorkulous can I be? Sorry.) The word. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal. But I know it wasn't. I remember telling myself - yeah, just remember that word and you'll remember everything you're thinking about right now. Thoughts in the sleepy darkness are as fleeting as dreams, it seems.

It had something to do with forgiveness. It had something to do with sanctuary. (OMG Manny scores! 7-3! Zero outs!) It had something to do with nakedness. Exposure. Safety. Innocence. Truth. Expansion. It will come to me, again, in the dark, and I will turn on the light and remember it.

That's it. Time to pray for the Red Sox.

Lost Words

I hung up the phone and lay in the dark nest of my bed last night, thinking of this. There was a word, circling through my head, that I told myself I would remember, and by so doing would remember the path of thought I was traveling in the darkness, that I knew at the time was important.

Tonight I sit sipping a Guinness, Red Sox on in the background, losing 4-0 in the top of the sixth, Manny's up with men on 1st and 2nd. One pitch away from a walk or a strike-out. Motherfucking double play. Also: if I have to see that motherfucking commercial for the vampire flick 30 Days of Night one more time, where the chick says "Please God!" and the vampire dude mumbles "No God" I'm going to shoot the fucking TV. Come ON, Red Sox!

What was the word? As I lay there I knew I needed to write about it. I also knew I couldn't possibly write about all that was twisting down the corridors of my mind at this hour in only one sitting. And so I continued to lay in the dark, and committed myself to sleep, having not slept at all the night before. I slept hard and heavily, despite the tangled thoughts.

In general terms: I was thinking about relationships. I was thinking about the structure of my family, the sheer numbers (9 of us), the birth order (I'm number 8). The strong need and desire I had for protection. The sense that I didn't really have it. A feeling of being lost on the sidelines and in the fray of activity. Of wanting recognition, specialness. Cherishing the small ways I received it, in particular from my father.

He used to take naps on the living room floor. For many years I would sometimes join him, laying side by side on the hard floor, he would put his arm out for me to use as a pillow. Silent, resting side by side. Everyone else was too old for this. For these fifteen minutes, he was mine, it didn't matter that other people were passing through or milling around. Sometimes my younger brother would lay on the other side, but this was ok. He and I were a team of sorts, bonded by our position on the totem pole.

In a basic way, we grew up not expecting much. We did not receive a lot of attention, and in some ways, this suited us. Secret forts could sometimes thrive for weeks unnoticed, with stores of stolen cookies or soda, hidden plans and agendas. Adult attention was not necessarily considered a good thing. It was often an expressly bad thing.

I did not expect, desire, or have heart-to-heart talks with my parents, this feeling only solidified as I grew older. I did not expect or desire advocacy, guidance, or coaching from my parents, and generally did not receive it. There were rules. We were expected to follow them. We were not to take seconds at dinner, and were to drink orange juice and milk from cups that probably held about 6 ounces of liquid, tops. If we had an overnight guest, they received the better or bigger of whatever we had. We were to attend mass as instructed. Respect elders. Not complain about what you have or don't have. Remember that this was a family - what makes you think you're so special?

I don't fault my parents for anything. They did what they had to do, what they knew how to do. They accomplished a lot with relatively little. A vague feeling of having raised myself only places me in a lot of good company. And so why am I writing about all this, as if I have missed out on something? I'm thinking now about the word expectations, though that isn't THE WORD I have yet to recall.

You get what you expect. And it's a sorry thing to not expect much. That's a little bit of the problem I'm having, the problem I've had. I've written about this before, and I'm still trying to navigate my way to the bottom of it. I think I deeply want and need full attention. But I don't know how to receive it, how to receive it without pushing it back, running away from it at the same time my heart is burning with a need for it, with a need for recognition and acceptance and - yes - love.

Being recognized means being known. And being known, when you've felt unknown, is a scary thing. I'm an excellent hider. Hiding is easier than explaining. How do you explain when you don't know how? To whom do you explain when there is little or no trust? How does one believe in the idea of safety without knowing how that really feels? The world shrinks around me til it's closet-sized and dark, that's the place I end up when I'm afraid to explain, afraid to say what my heart is feeling, afraid to say what I really want. I'm not done writing about this, not even close. But I'll lose you if I say much more.

Final score 4-2 Cleveland.

Single Malt

A sip of scotch, and suddenly every texture, smell and sight at my grandmother's house comes into focus. The hard, waxy, gray and yellow squares of linoleum and speckled counter top, pine cabinets filled with cream of tartar and mace and food coloring and coffee syrup and condensed milk and canned mince meat. Dusty things. Yellowing things. Things I hope never end up in a recipe I have to pretend to enjoy. Actually, that was never a problem when Gram was around, just now, when Aunt Bea routs something out of there. No, Gram was a kick-ass cook. Fuck. She kicked so much ass.

But that was awhile ago. And a sip of scotch brings me there. They all drank it. Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Bea. My mind travels inexplicably to days filled with baskets and baskets of blueberries, a serious business, this was, blueberry picking. Pint after pint, they would spend half a day, Aunt Bea, Gram, and mom. Sometimes we went, too, but children are unreliable for such tasks, eating half of what they pick and inevitably distracted. No, blueberry picking was serious business, because of course you want your jam and your pies all winter, don't you? Nothing else can compare.

Sips of scotch remind me of ill-advised and uneducated experiments with fine whiskey as a teenager, utterly ignorant and innocent, always wretching and completely gone at the end of it all, and swearing off the stuff until some other fool convinced me otherwise. Fools. Fools and their whiskey. Whiskay druuunk... like a whiskay skuuunk, the refrain to an inspired free-verse song coined by a pair of drunkard male friends way back in the day. It inspired the most crazed behavior of all, whiskey. The same two friends throwing giant potted plants down the stairs at poor TF's house, then diving down the stairs after them, dragging the beaten bodies of the plants out into the street, leaving them for dead.

But back to the sips of scotch. I think I understand why a drunk might adore it. It seems to store memories, almost holographic in detail and scope. Full, round, textured memories live in the full, round, textured taste. It feels almost like a collective memory, where you feel and taste the drunkard's walk home from the bar, the night after night in a stone house or cramped apartment, the dull pulse of a city, the darkest of rural roads, fevered love-making and other acts of creation, earnest confessions and sloppy messes of lies.

Rain falling in tap-tap______tink__tap_tink-tap__tap_tinks on the metal awning, trickling slowly into the soft earth, feet sinking in, lungs drinking in every vapor, every sweet and sour scent.

The clothesline traces graceful gray arcs adorned with tiny wet orbs of light, hung out to dry.
The parentheses of steel posts and wooden T-bars shrug, blameless.

Why

...did I decide to listen to the Dirty Three Ocean Songs tonight and take pictures of my crying self? No answer to that, but while I'm on the topic of documenting the sadness and reality of the human condition I'll mention a wonderful book called "Putting Myself in the Picture" by Jo Spence, which I always think of when taking or making brutal self-portraits, not that I consider the above brutal, no, they're rather kind. Hardly brutal. I need my sadness, and I love my sadness, and one day I'll find someone who understands that.

Fuel

Not entirely sure why I am starting a post, because I think I must be tired. I mean, I didn't sleep last night, at all - it's kinda been that way lately, bad sleep, tossing and turning because of my totally fucked back, coupled with an overactive imagination. Have been having these "dreams" which are not really dreams, because I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm lying in bed not sleeping; they're weird enough trains of thought that you might mistake them for dreams, but dreams they are not. More like a mental television set, running all night. Fucking annoying.

I'm craving dead sleep, sleep where I'm in another world, where everything's on autopilot, the body decides it's comfortable enough, and even if it moves, it doesn't register with the brain, with consciousness. I want to forget my body. That's the kind of sleep I need. It's so fucking rare.

After not sleeping, I went to work and literally did not eat or drink a single thing all day other than my black morning coffee. We have a community meal where I work every week, and staff rotates to do the honors. This was my week. Something about cooking for a crowd causes me to utterly lose my appetite. I made a white chili, which by all accounts was very good, also cornbread. We had vanilla ice cream with fresh raspberry compote. I just couldn't eat any of it. I had the teeniest taste(s) of the chili, just to adjust the seasoning.

I was such a spaced-out, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, pms-ing wreck by the time I left there that as soon as I stepped out the door I started crying, and didn't stop til I got home. At home I drank three large glasses of water, and started feeling better incrementally. I realized I needed calories, but the thought of chewing and swallowing anything was turning my stomach.

It occurred to me that a Guinness might help. Made my way down to the packy, the owner as usual was sitting in the back of the store. I head back to drop off my empties. "How's it going?" he asks helpfully. I scrunch up my face. "Honestly? Not that great." I shrug dismissively. He seems slightly amused by this response. "Well, it's my Friday at least," I continue "can't be that bad." I snatch up a 4-pack of Guinness Draught. Giving me my change, again with a funny smile, the owner says "I hope your night gets better." I nod, "Me too."

The night, to be honest, got a lot better. The Guinness was exactly what I needed. Restored my appetite enough to make some french toast with dark rye, frickin' yum, seriously. Then I found out that tomorrow will be a sleepover, which kind of put a red wax seal embossed with a big "IT"S OK" on the day/night. Sleeping like the dead would change that to "IT"S FUCKING GREAT" but I'll take OK for now...

Wagoneer

Work has been a big ball of stress for the past few days, and I'm suffering from a bit of "caregiver burnout." My attitude has gotten a bit flip and cavalier, and even though I know the people I'm working with have varying degrees of mental illness, I've been pushing back when they push too hard. I haven't been mean, mind you. Just very blunt with the reality checks.

The other day I was trying to talk through an issue with a client, and she was being very, very stubborn, and yes, you could say manipulative. Which is a survival mechanism for her, understood. As she belligerently and strenuously tried to convince me to give her extra cigarettes "just once", a call came in from another client who had accidentally cut his hand and was "bleeding all over the place."

I calmly instructed him to call 911 immediately after getting off the phone with me, and told him I would drive over immediately as well. I hang up and tell this woman I have been arguing with that I have to go. She heard the whole conversation I had with the other client, including the part about bleeding and calling 911. "But what about my cigarettes?" I just stare at her. "Did you hear me tell that person to call 911?" "Yeah, but..." "Yeah, but I have to go NOW! We'll talk about your cigarettes later!" Fuck. Anyway.

I'm still on this weird body-hyper-awareness thing. I've basically been doing some arguably good things for my body, but it's happening very organically and intuitively and even though it feels a little unfamiliar I like it. It's not that I ate poorly before, and I still don't think I was drinking excessively (it's arguable that I might've been drinking more than is really healthy - arguable) but I'm in a different, very subtle place. Much more focused on food. The quality of it, and the effort put in to prepare it, even when it's just for me.

My mind feels still and searching, that's the most I can say about it right now. Things are quiet. I feel like I've entered a labyrinth, but the center is still far away. If I sound kooky I don't mind, because I also feel real.

One For the Road

Something odd has been going on with my body. Or rather, the habits that effect it. As anyone who reads this blog even a little regularly knows, I like to drink. To the point where I would say it usually feels like a necessity to have some sort of booze - beer, wine, vodka, whiskey - in that order - in my home at all times. I drink every night. Not necessarily a lot - though I realize that's a relative amount, a lot. I have some friends who are practically tee-totalers who probably secretly think I have a drinking problem. I have other friends who are definitely drunks who probably think I am the image of moderation. I took some online quizzes a few weeks ago to satisfy my curiosity about how closely I resembled an alcoholic. Surprisingly, not that closely. And yes, I was very honest with my answers. The jist of the results was something like, "You're not a drunk, but you need to watch it."

How much do I drink? Well, it depends. On a work night, I try to drink only beer, because I can easily put away a bottle of wine in one evening, and if I'm mixing vodka with something it's usually something really fucking good, and before I know it I've had 4 vodka drinks, and trust me, that's enough to start making me really stupid. But anyway, work nights - 3 drinks. Weekends - 3 to 7 drinks. Second shift nights, when I get home at 12:30 a.m., usually a beer and a little whiskey or Baileys, 'cause 2 beers will make me need to get up and pee.

As I said, I drink every single night, the amounts described above, and have for awhile. That changed this week. And I don't know why. But I know there's some intuitive reason. I haven't tee-totaled, just rather than drinking close to a botttle of wine I've had a scant, nearly half glass. The other night I split a beer with someone. Or I've had nothing.

I think I feel better. And I'm gonna see how long this lasts. What's weird is that I'm not making a conscious effort to not drink. My body just doesn't seem to want it. It's like it just decided, "We're going to do something else for awhile." The whole experience has been bending my thinking in weird ways. Not bad ways, just - strange. I also have more money in my wallet. Not spending $30 or so a week will do that.

Thinking. And thinking. And curiously, not drinking.

Drama

About an hour ago there was some arguing going on outside the house - fighting - a lot of fucking swearing and a lot of use of the words "fucking" and "cheated" and "lied" and "bitch". This went on for about five or ten minutes before being punctuated by a *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*. It took me all of five seconds to dial 911 and report in a quavering voice,
"I just heard gunshots fired outside my house."
"How many?"
"Four."
"Are you sure it wasn't fireworks?"
"I don't know. There was a lot of swearing and yelling."
"Thank you for the information."

OK. I still have no idea what happened, the cops did come within a few minutes, but the melee had dispersed, at least audibly. I can't see the front of the house from my apartment, and initially I was too shaky and scared to go outside. About 1/2 hour into it I decided to go out and poke my head around the side of the house. Cops were talking to several people, I heard someone talk about hearing 4 shots, which made me feel at least a little less reactionary and slightly more sane. Ah, the genteel life of Connecticut.

So now I'm totally wired. Not crying anymore, as I did for just a few minutes in the thick of all that, just letting off some nervous energy as well as some sadness that had been hanging over me all night, anyway. I'm slowly sipping at some coconut flavored rum and it's pretty good.

My mind has been in a brooding way all day and night. Had plans to go to the casino again to meet up with my lovely bartender friend, but my girlfriend cancelled, and I don't do bars, especially dance clubs, alone. I've been thinking a lot about my family today. That I love them, but don't love my relationship with them. That I have deep, unresolved wounds that I worry about getting around. That those wounds are working against me, keeping me in a place I don't want or need to be in - one where a facade of closeness, maintained by regular, almost daily contact with them, is substituted for a deeper understanding and acceptance and communication. One where I find myself looking to others to create the sense of safety, freedom, love and acceptance I seem to be craving. One where moving on becomes difficult, and at its worst can feel like a betrayal.

Everyone's family is dysfunctional on a certain level, of course. My own feels so mired in past patterns, expectations, and roles that at times it feels utterly suffocating. I have tremendous compassion and empathy for the dysfunction - nobody means to harm anyone else - but it doesn't mean they don't. And the overall empathy - enabling - becomes a quicksand-like trap. My mother is the closest thing to a fucking saint I will ever know in this lifetime, I mean it, and this has served many well, but in some ways this has backfired when it comes to family.

You see? You see how difficult it becomes to criticize, not empathize? The thought of harming others in any way destroys her, torments her, and I have heard her wonder aloud what she did wrong when there happens to be a crisis at the house. She raised nine children, worked full-time for years, served and continues to serve her community and church with vigor.

The truth is, at times I find myself impatient, even angry with her. She had me at age 40, I was number eight. My relationship with her has always had some distance and some strain. Perhaps I was given less attention - I'm fairly certain I was - which in turn made any attention I did receive, especially negative or "intervention-ary" sort of attention - extremely unwelcome and uncomfortable. I do not now, and never did, have "heart-to-heart" talks with my mother. My eldest sister took on that mantle. I know the distance that still exists burdens my mother. I see it almost every day in the way she looks at me.

This is the shit I'm talking about. I don't know how to heal this breach, and a big part of me will never be open to her. As a child I would always cry behind the locked bathroom door, trying to hide my vulnerability, pressing cold cloths over my eyes when I was done so no-one would see the redness and the swelling. Some critical part of me never felt safe.

Lately I keep talking about what I think I need in a relationship. And safety feels like a big word, and maybe a heavy word, too. But I don't want a blanket or even a fortress. I want someone who is strong enough to bear witness to my pain, my aloneness, and not carry me, or cover me, or fix me - I just want them to look at me plainly, with neutrality, and let this darkness be, and still walk with me, trusting me to walk through it, and meeting my smile and desire on the other side of it with the same smile and desire. I don't just want safety. I want transcendance.

And I'm still totally wired off rum and gunshots.

Awake

when I asked you to meet me
down here in the clear brine
did you wonder about the coordinates
of this shipwreck?
descending with purpose,
sure and determined as sea mammals,
the hulking ghost
came into view
sails miraculously billowing,
gesturing,
inviting,
smiling,
we slipped through a porthole
blue light piercing our eyes,
bright enough to illuminate
every past sin and dream,
mapping them through the tangle
of our hands and limbs
our every utterance
be it sigh
or word
or name
yours or mine,
or even the unstoppable, mysterious
cry out to a divinity.
we recognized each other in this tangle,
we searched and groped some more,
kicking up seaweed and rotten wood.
stumbling, a game,
upon the treasure resting palpably
at the base of all this,
and as we do,
linking arms and eyes across
the unassuming vault
agreeing it has value
before swimming towards the sun.

Work & Sex

Those are probably the two main things keeping me from writing productive posts lately. To be fair, work has been better than usual, I guess. I can say the same regarding the second topic, though of course, I'm describing nothing but the fact and the act of it, when the soul and implications are far more complex. The problem with both is perhaps my failure to simply take both as they come. The problem is the future.

He's still leaving. And now it looks like it will be soon after the new year. I don't know what I'm doing. Why am I actively setting myself up for near certain heartbreak and disappointment? Does being conscious about it make it any less dangerous? I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to move through it like a damned bird, existing magically on drops of dew and mysterious nourishment from dusty soil. I feel a bit more like a horse, needing a stable water and food source, solid ground. Responding to touch, developing trust.

What are the other analagous things I want to be or become? A carpenter. A cat. A garden. A temple. A beekeeper. A library. A stonemason. An ocean. A sip of 6o year-old scotch, with memories that burn and breathe. A crazy quilt. A pure and fluid note, its vibration rippling out despite all interference, never stopping, keeping pace with time itself.

I want too much.

I'm sliding and slouching down the pillows, the bed pulls me in, accomodating me when I don't quite want its accomodation, but can't quite refuse it.

Another Meme...

I tried posting this yesterday, but when I copied my results they automatically turned into hyperlinks (annoying) and when they posted, they were spaced out really funky (also annoying.) I was too tired to mess with it, but anyway, here it is now, my list of careers that are supposed to suit me. Most interesting to me was the dramatic change that occurred to the list when I added the extra "filter" I guess, of level of schooling, in my case university. Pipefitter fell off the list. Artist was added. Artist? I just thought it was interesting that they felt more schooling somehow makes you more qualified as an artist. I mean, I sorta get it, but mostly not. I should've saved the first list, because in many ways, it was more interesting. Anyway...

1. Go Here: http://www.careercruising.com/default.asp

2. Put in username: nycareers password: landmark
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top twenty results.
5. Bold (or italicize if the background is black!) preferences.
6. Cross off non-possibilities. (Or, as in my case, since I can't figure out how to do that on blogger, 'splain why they are impossible in parentheses.)

1.Industrial Designer
2.Psychologist
3.Model Maker
4.Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
5.Desktop Publisher
6.Addictions Counselor (umm...kettle. pot. black.)
7.Zookeeper (I don't like zoos. Actually sort of hate them.)
8.Print Journalist
9.Artist
10.Sport Psychology Consultant (wtf is that?)
11.Humanitarian Aid Worker
12.Medical Illustrator
13.Translator (unless they're talking about decoding euphemisms etc.)
14.Professional Athlete (weird-ass muscular disorder gets in the way.)
15.Writer
16.Home Inspector
17.Marriage and Family Therapist (I'm not really in a position to judge.)
18.Veterinarian
19.Technical Writer
20.Gerontologist

Anchors Aweigh

Spiraling downwards, and I'm trying to deflect it, stop it dead, but it lives. A voice that makes me still and small. Pooling somewhere within my ribcage, leaden. A voice that makes me run from you, and towards darkness. I try to kill it every night. But up and down the stairs it trails me, shapeshifting, and terribly alive.

Who would want this? Who would take this on? This darkness that drives me from you, a wreck of a truck gaining momentum and speed, lights twinkle and blur, branches and skylines twist by, sirens draw me nearer, their voices thin and watery. Trusting nothing but gravity. Gravity.

The humidity is like sorrow, stuck to everything, oblivious.

I can't escape.

A Meme

Copy this list.
Leave in the bands you've seen perform live.
Delete the ones you haven't and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25.
An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list.
Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list.

1. Dirty Three
2. Cat Power
3. Metallica
4. The Cure
5. 10,000 Maniacs
6. The Ramones
7. Ani DiFranco*
8. Danzig
9. Fugazi
10. Sonic Youth
11. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
12. Morphine*
13. Neko Case
14. Busta Rhymes
15. Arlo Guthrie
16. Neil Young & Crazy Horse*
17. Beck*
18. The Cult
19. Tom Jones
20. Eartha Kitt
21. Cheap Trick
22. George Jones
23. Rolling Stones
24. Throwing Muses
25. Iron & Wine

Yeah, there's some more, but these came to mind.

Structural Integrity

Friday I'm going to look at a house. You know, like one to buy. With a mortgage. And taxes. And water and sewer bills. My assumption was that it was at least a two family, if not three, based on the fact that almost every single mill house (yes! it's a mill house! two doors down from me, in fact!) is a multi-family dwelling. But as I walked by the house yesterday in the early evening, examining it even more closely than usual, I spied a single electric meter mounted ominously on the side of the house. There was simply a metallic circle where the other meter used to be. Dangit.

This morning the realtor returned my call of inquiry from yesterday, and confirmed that indeed it had been converted into a one family, "However, it could easily be reconverted into a two family." I don't have a hard time believing this, as I am intimately familiar with the basic layout of these 127 year old houses. And so I now have my brother the carpenter/ independent contractor onboard to go with me and tell me truthfully how easy or difficult it would be.

The property is a decent size - more than enough back yard for my purposes, also a three-bay garage. As I think about my motivations for considering buying... I guess the word stability comes to mind. I think I sometimes pretend I don't need or want it, but I think that's being a bit dishonest on my part. I truly am a lover of home, and I fucking love taking on home projects, even when I don't own the property, this apartment being a case in point. So I'm itching to invest time in something about which I can honestly say, "That's mine."

Also, if I'm being honest... I have no intentions of moving from this area. I don't feel trapped here. I feel rooted here. For me, deepening my roots actually gives me more of a sense of freedom, if that makes any sense. Who knows what will pan out with this particular property. I'll take my brother's advice. If he thinks it looks good, I'll be hiring him to do the work.

Changing the subject, I went to my first Rolfing session on Friday. I loved it. Intuitively, I know this is the level of intensity my body has been craving. Have definitely never had any massage or bodywork that has even come close to addressing what this is addressing. It deals with the body's structure and alignment in a very different way than say, chiropractic, though doing both together is supposed to be good. The effects after that one session were very noticeable, and I still feel the difference as I sit typing this. It's pretty damned expensive, but I feel it will be worth it. It's not pain-free, but the pain was short-lived. I'm excited for my next session!

That's all I've got... oh, wait! This may be the last second shift Sunday I have to work, hopefully ever! I'm switching for a month and a half with the first shift gal, but I suspect she actually wants second shift on a regular basis, as she's a DJ and also in a pool league, so her Saturday nights tend to be late (as do mine, but I have few issues with dragging my ass out of bed early, especially if it means getting out at 4:00.) Yeah, I'm still looking for another job, but for now this is a good thing at the current job!

Gotta run - I hope anyone reading this had a great weekend!

Periphery

Thanks for being around.
Seeing you for three hours
is more than I can say for a lot of people,
still.
I watched you watch yourself,
remarkably un-self-conscious,
for such a self-conscious act.
Referring to yourself in the third person,
yes, I suppose, in you, it can be forgiven,
still.
Is it my mask or yours?
When I look at you,
and you look at me,
when I'm fucking you,
and you're fucking me,
how deep in are you?
Yes, you know how I like it,
there's no question there,
but when you're deep in,
do you stop just shy,
do you glance to the side
when I take you in,
do you take me in?
Tomorrow, I'll see you, again
and again
my soul and body will open,
but tonight
my soul and body recede,
a wraith in the night
a hand raised, ambiguous
as my face traces back
to before we pretended
to know each other.

Hush

"I have a secret."

"What color?"

"Black. Blackish-blue. Gray. Gray as the thickest fog on a salty beach."

"Salt?"

"Salty, I guess it's salty. But it might be in my head."

"Some crazy shit in your head."

"There's a lot in my head. Too much stuff. Seaweed thrown over a retaining wall by a wild storm. Now it's stuck behind the retaining wall. It's a tangle, dry and wet and dark, going nowhere."

"Until it goes somewhere."

"I suppose it has to go somewhere."

"What is the shape of the secret?"

"Heart shaped. Dog shaped. House shaped. Whatever feels safe. Whatever feels inviolable."

"What is the shape?"

"A Rorschach Blot, and that is all."

"Then what do you see?"

"Evil."

"That's too simple."

"Innocence and purity, mangled."

"You're paranoid."

"I'm mangled."

Gimme a Sign

Oh god, this beer is good. It's like a blessing. Just got home from working second shift, I stayed late, talking to one of my favorite co-workers about the fact that I am officially going to start looking for a new job. I've been pushing the thought left, right, up, down, back... but it keeps pushing forward. Today, as I started to talk to my sister about it, it became hard. It became real. It crystallized, like a symmetrical snowflake. "I can't do it anymore."

And so, yup, the search is on, and I have to accept it may be really tangled and weird and may involve keeping a tether tied to this particular program, and will in all probability involve maintaining employment within the same agency, just something with less... accountability? No, that's not really it, because I'm a highly accountable person, and a prideful worker. No. Ok... it could be this simple: paperwork? I have never been a paperwork person. And I have soooooo frickin' much of it here, and every speck of it is intimately tied to a person. And this stresses me out. To hell.

So I may end up trying to find a position as a residential assistant, which is still very hands-on with clients but with about 90% less paperwork. And the same rate of pay. Another brainstorm I had two days ago was to look into starting my own cleaning business. Office and maybe residential. Just work for myself to start, get it all legal and insured etc., set my own hours (!) etc., be my own boss (!!!) etc. It's a definite maybe and something I plan to do a lot of research on in the coming days and weeks.

Last night two of my (male) buddies were over, and as we talked about this proposed plan, of course the talk quickly turned in the direction of offering "special services", and what sort of attire would be appropriate (mini-skirts etc.) At one point my friend suggests that my motto should be "We'll do what your wife won't." We all obviously erupted in loud cackling after that. But seriously, I'm serious. I feel stuck, trapped, and not very much in control of my time, and it's bugging me, to put it mildly. So often I come home from work totally drained, depleted, and feeling guilty that I couldn't /can't:
a. do more at work and/or
b. do more at home.

I just realized the appropriateness of this post, considering the holiday. I really do believe in the value of work, and of a certain amount of structured time. I obviously need money to live, but money does not, and has never, motivated me. I'm finding what I am craving is simplicity in vocation. I want a job that I can complete, in a set time, and see a result. I love physical work, but have felt cursed most of my adult life by having to dance around this muscular disorder that prevents me from pursuing many things I think I would really enjoy and excel at. It's so hard to explain without going into great detail, I mean, the many subtle ways the disorder affects me, but suffice to say I know my limitations, and they're not insignificant. I am willing to push myself, but not in the service of other people, people who are relying on me and paying me to perform.

This conflict is like a centerpiece, a keystone to not just my working life, but my life. It's a psychological and phsyiological puzzle, and not one that can be answered with platitudes or feel-good mantras. There's nothing obvious about it, not to me, and anyone else that thinks they know, well they simply don't. Where am I going with this? Just trying to sort some shit out, that's all.

On a completely unrelated note, I did take some naked upside down pics on the batgirl device. They're, um... interesting. But very naked. But not very, very naked. The device covers the pelvic region. I might post one. If anyone has a problem with boobs let me know. I just read that men who stare at them for 10 minutes a day live an average of 5 years longer than men who... I dunno, navel-gaze?

Happy Labor Day!

Space

The night is blue
a bit like you
I mean your eyes,
blue and distant
I mean literally,
I Google-Earthed you,
and the globe kept spinning,
the seas kept stretching
more miles than I want to know
ok, about 6,000
and I aimlessly wondered when you saw the moon tonight
and if it was as blue through your tent
as it is on my lawn
then I wondered
how your skin would look under this light
if your freckles would be more
or less apparent
as I kissed them
and would your eyes lighten or darken
to aquamarine or sapphire
as my palms searched
the solid home of your chest
through the thin cotton of your shirt
the simple ease
of our hips slipping
into the grip of such a night
I seem to be
caught tight
and mercifully
in your grip,
and it's holding.

RAW is WAR!!!

Turned on the boob tube tonight and for some inexplicable reason have decided to leave Monday Night RAW on in the background. Someone named Carlito just spit a mouthful of masticated apple in the face of someone I think they called Triple H, who proceeded to body slam Carlito after the usual dramatic pause and build-up. Before that they brought out a line-up of supposed past lovers of Vince McMahon, with Vince continuously sporting that look of mock-surprise.

Perhaps more embarassingly, I just spent five minutes watching a shopping network where a woman applied make-up to another woman, with another cooing and oohing over the flawless results. I watch, trying to guess the age of the woman. I wonder how she manages, at (clearly) 40+ to have no puffiness under her eyes. Perhaps it's because she actually sleeps at night. How stressful can it be, modeling make-up?

I switch to public television. An interviewee states: "If Poland were a person they would be in permanent, unresolved psychological trauma." A voiceover announces: "Feeling neglected is a Polish character trait." My father's mother was Polish, his father from Belarus. So I'm thinking about those statements. Actually, I'm quite distracted by this program, it's pretty interesting. There are lots of Polish kids that come here to my neck of the woods to work at the casinos for the summer. They are all adorable/gorgeous and quite easy to spot on the street, as they have no cars and usually carry backpacks. Also very skinny and well put together. Though sometimes the girls get carried away. "We're in America! Freedom! Let's dress like prostitutes!"

OK, it switched over to England. Enough of this show. Actually, zap. TV's now off. Crickets crick-crack and rrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee through the open screens, a moth attracts the attention of my girl cat. I want it to be earlier and there's a lot more that I want, too. I'm missing him and it's still almost 2 weeks 'til I can see him again, and it's driving me just slightly crazy.

Tonight I sent an email to this woman who does Rolfing, a fairly intensive bodywork treatment. I know it's wicked expensive, but I am considering trying it. One thing about it that really interests me is the claim that it can, and intends to, activate and/or help release emotional or psychological trauma. I am always intrigued by that sort of thing, as I'm quite certain I have... well, enough of it.

Last year I did this therapy session called "The Emotional Journey" (yeah, sounds totally queer) but it was very intense in that way, and also quite strange. I entered into "The Journey" almost immediately with no prompting and really wrung myself (and the practitioner) out for about 3 hours. Yeah, 3 hours! He said I was the most intense session he'd ever done. It brought me to a very vulnerable place, which at the time was sort of good, and sort of bad. It left me unprepared to deal with emotional trauma that happened shortly afterwards, but maybe that helped me process it better in some ways, who knows.

Digging through the dirt, digging up the dirt, digging. Looking for the truth that stills you, in a neutral position, just still. I like ending up there, honestly, and am willing to suffer a lot to get there. Off to hang upside down in the dark and listen to crickets... screeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

What the Hell is My Problem?

I have written three - 3 - trois effing posts in the last 24 hours and have decided for one reason or another to not post them. They were all about relationships. Romantic relationships. The one I am in. The one I was in. There's nothing bad in any of the three posts, quite the contrary. So what's my problem?

I guess it probably comes down to privacy. I rarely write in depth about my family. When I write about romantic relationships, also, it is generally in very veiled terms, or as the relationship specifically affects me, not so much clear-cut personal information about them. That has been quite intentional on my part.

I can write about work, or neighbors, or my dog. But I just get squirelly when it comes to writing about romantic happenings. So I'm going to change the subject.

I started working on my own list of 101 true things about myself last week after being inspired by this guy, who was inspired by this other guy. I think I got up to around 25. So far, there's a lot about drugs. It sort of looks worse on paper than it seemed in real life. I don't know if I've gotten to sex yet. I mean, those are the sort of scandalous interesting-ish things people like to read about. I guess. But I will include some strange things that have nothing to with either of those things. I'm not a total degenerate.

Oh yeah, and speaking of true things! Did anyone notice that weird-ass comment on the post before this one? I was tempted to respond with something like, "Yes, I totally did use my inversion machine while naked in stiletto heels!" Sigh. In any case, I found it really interesting, actually - first that anyone other than the half dozen people that regularly read this blog bothered to read this blog, second that they found my story about the dance club too incredible to believe, third that anyone would think that I would waste my energy fabricating details of a non-event - I have a hard enough time lately posting anything at all, never mind making some shit up.

It just struck me really funny is all, and the comment felt very strange. Clearly the notion of such an interaction actually occurring exactly as I described it must feel - I don't know, threatening to this person? Not at all surprising that they posted "anonymously."

I really am frustrated by the fact that I've been having such a hard time posting. I don't want to talk too much about relationship stuff (and that's a big, wonderful part of my life right now) and work stuff is - well, I just get quite depleted at work, and try devilishly hard and not too successfully to not "take it home." Besides it's boring. Ditto with the health stuff. Again, refer to the title of this post. Right? Right.

Thanks for being patient, and bothering to check in. I am trying to get back on track. I'll probably start with some bad poetry. Have a happy Monday all!

Cutting Through the Bullshit

My mind, over the course of recent days, has basically been turning to complete mush. Work is kicking my ass entirely, I come home stressed, in pain, and unable to focus until I've had a half bottle of wine or a few beers, and by that time I'm disinclined to write/make cohesive statements about anything, because I spend a good part of the day trying to do that...

Et. Fucking. Cetera.

I have this wonderful new machine at my house that I have been using to hang upside down on. I demonstrated it tonight to my friend, and just to be silly, donned a pair of stiletto heels that happened to be lying on the floor right next to it, pretending that was part of the proper usage of this cool-ass machine. I think it's helping, a little, so far. My friend suggested that I procure a bat costume to wear while I'm using it, which made me giggle like crazy as I hung upside down. I happened to notice while using it this morning (while naked) that it creates a really interesting view of my torso. I might have to take some pics of that!

In other news, a weird experience: I went to a local dance club this past Saturday. I know one of the bartenders, so we got in for free. Hadn't been there in awhile. Things seemed different. More security guards. Crappier go-go dancers. But still, because of the generous hospitality of my friend, I basically drank about $30 worth of Red Bull & vodka for free.

The weird part: I'm on the dance floor with my girlfriend. Someone comes up behind me and starts dancing with me, touching my hips a bit etc. I go ahead and keep dancing, not checking to see who is starting to push against me. After a minute or so I turn around. I tell him, "I just wanted to see who I was dancing with." He says "I think you're hot." I notice the accent and brown skin, dark eyes. "Where are you from?" At first I think I hear "Belize." Then he follows this, saying, "I'm from Iran." I nod, and regard him.

It came quickly, "I'm sorry about what our country is doing over there. Do you have family there?" He nods. I nod. " I hope we don't end up in your country," I say. "We're very worried," he says. I look into his eyes, which have become deadly serious and still. I could blame it on the drinks. I could blame it on accumulated stress from work. But the truth is, when I think about the situation overseas - when I think about the wretched and immoral direction our country is headed in - I feel emotionally slayed, overcome, horrified. And so, without warning, I begin to cry.

The heavy bass of some Justin Tumberlake dance mix thumps between our bodies. "I'm sorry" I say. "I don't mean to cry." We try to continue dancing, but the rhythm is lost, and we stand there with this heaviness floating in the air. "Do you want to go for a walk?" he asks. "Ok, but let me tell my friend."

Outside the club my ears are ringing, and I feel mixed up. We walk down the concourse with no direction. I apologize again for the tears. "You're the first girl I've met here who has talked to me about this. I want you to know how much I appreciate it." I explain that it's important for me to let him know that I do not approve of what's happened in the Middle East, that I want his family to know there are people here who are not gung-ho about destroying their lives and culture, who understand the evil that has been done in this country's name.

We found a corner and talked, and I cried some more as I thought about what's been lost already in Iraq, the true cradle of civilization, and what's at stake in Iran, with its profound cultural and historical legacy, its people. It was grief, it was pure grief, and if that sounds too dramatic for anyone, that's just how I play it, and that's just how it is. "People have no idea what's going on over there, what's happened" he says. We talked about our participation in protesting the war in DC, before it was declared. I told him about being written about in the local paper for flipping off Dubya when he announced we were at war and openly crying at the bar. The connection with this stranger that I will likely never see again, made my night significant, and real. "Don't cry. It's not your fault."

Evil does exist. Am I being too Catholic? Am I being too dramatic?

We returned to the club, and made a soldier's effort to return to dancing as if the world were a carefree place. We held hands, quite chastely, and seemed to understand why. We exchanged emails at the end of the night. I have no romantic interest in him whatsoever, and made it abundantly clear that I was taken.

These small things. It always comes down to the small things. It's the most I've accomplished all summer.