House at Pooh Corner

Give it a rest

2009-11-26T21:52:00.001-05:00

We'd been best friends since college; she was a magical, sweet, strange pixie of a girl, and I adored her. Reconnected and in the same area after years of hit or miss connections, something was going awry. We didn't fit as well, I felt choked and silent in her presence.

I'd been trying to get in touch with her for weeks -emails, voice messages - with no response. We'd last spoken on the phone when I'd asked if she could stop by my house on her way home from work, rather than our original plan for me to drive a county over to hers. She'd declined; "I just want to be home."

"Me, too," I thought. I didn't give in to the insistant nag of people pleasing. I was working on being more assertive, this was a reasonable request, we'd just get together later.

But for weeks: nothing.

The day my father is due for major surgery, I check my email to distract myself from the nauseating mantra "He could die, he could die, he could die."

She's written me a message. What serendipity, I stupidly think. A nudge of support from the magical universe delivered through her just when I most need it!

I have to reread the email a few times to get the point: she's ending our friendship. In an email. Said I wasn't there for her during a depression she'd experienced a few years back; she's not sure what she wanted from me but she didn't get what she needed; she'd tried to let it go but couldn't; she knew I was dealing with my own depression but...

I shouldn't have written back right then. Shouldn't have apologized. Shouldn't have groveled. Shouldn't have said I'd be there if she changed her mind.

We'd been growing apart; we'd grown apart. The friendship was already comatose when she mercilessly killed it.

I should have said:

"I feel there is no room for me to be myself within the rigid guidelines we developed for our roles in this friendship when it started. I see now that you're not able to allow this to grow and change. I wish you the best. Goodbye."

Better than saying what I truly felt, on that emotional day: "You BITCH. You dump because I didn't provide some service you decided is required of me to deserve your friendship? And that I should have done so without your having to ask for what you needed of me? You dump me because I dare asked you to drive 10 minutes out of your way rather than have me drive an hour out of mine? (that interaction seemed emblematic of our entire friendship) You dump me, on a day my father could die? You selfish BITCH!"

I cried, my mom offered some sage words of advice before we head to the hospital to watch and worry and wait. I cried for what? For the people we think we'll never lose but we lose anyway, for the person I'd been for so many years, for the person I was fighting to become.

And now, at least five years later, I'm seething. I haven't let it go, haven't grown up, can't give it a rest. I bitterly hope I somehow hurt her as badly, disappointed her as deeply as she did me. I'm electrified by the memory of it, I craft scathing speeches meant to flay skin from bone, I think of finding her address to send a last note of bile and rage.

Crying yet for the person I still am, for the person I fight to become.

Glass

2009-08-31T11:17:00.001-04:00

There is some invisible barrier keeping me disconnected from my deepest feelings, myself. I remember magic, mysticism, poetry, playfulness; I KNOW I was once that person.

Is she merely dehydrated and shriveled? Could I awaken her with a secret password or the right fun?

I don't sense goneness, so she must still be there. How to break through?

Blast!

2009-07-22T14:10:00.002-04:00

It often comes to pass that I cause a hullabaloo, move & shake, plot & scheme to make something happen faster, only to be thwarted at every turn.

And then, at the stroke of midnight (metaphorically), everything falls into place without any effort on my part.

Someday I will learn my lesson to take a deep breath, wait patiently, and let the universe whirl on without trying to steer it.

No lodestar

2009-07-06T17:01:00.001-04:00

In general, I'm feeling better than I ever have.

In the past week, panic is winning. I've let slide the day to day habits I've fought to practice; the ones that steadied me, gave me control over my life.

Today, I was incredibly moody all through the day. Angry, irritable, giggly, serious in quick succession. And I can't figure out what I can do tonight to get my balance - journal, rest, push myself to do errands, eat a salad, take a long bath...

What feels yucky? Messy house, unbalanced account, items undone on the to-do list, lack of sleep, bad diet...

So I'll pick one of these to correct a bit with whatever effort I can think of tonight. And then, if I have the time & energy, I'll pick another one to chisel away at.

I'll feel better with small deeds done.

Equilibrium

2009-06-20T21:53:00.001-04:00

I've only told 1 friend that I'm not taking anti-depressants right now. It's been about a month or so since my last dose - I ran out in the middle of my latest financial crisis.

I'm wary. I believe in the simple facts of a brain misfiring various neurotransmitters, and the ability of meds to right the scale. At the same time, I recognize my gift for spinning a web of anxiety & depression from nothingness - the impact of thoughts & "self-talk" on the brain.

Practicing thought stopping, taking small walks here & there, eating a bit healthier, forcing myself not to act on panicked impulse, talking myself through the worst of times ("wait 15 minutes, calm down, distract yourself, you are not in imminent physical danger, this will pass")...all of these have added up to an uncertain balance that I did not think possible. These practices are clearing out the dangerous expanse of my mental haunted forest that medication never touched anyway, that always lurked in the background full of specters ready to pull me into the darkest places with no warning.

I'm starting to understand about demons, about not only facing them but making pacts of peace (if not yet firm friendship) with them. These days, when a ghoul rears up from the abyss, I stare it square in the face without flinching. Growl all you want, I say; gnash teeth, try to spook me. It's all just myriads of myself, reflections upon reflections distorted through years of bad thinking.

I pull the thorn right from the beast's paw and get on with my day.

tornado up

2009-06-11T12:02:00.002-04:00

I once saw a diagram of recovery - a tornado oscillating its way up the page, meaning that even as we improve, we'll dip back into old behaviors and feelings and crawl our way back out again and again.

I try to remember that on mornings like today, when I wake up feeling worse after a few days of feeling better. I wish there were some stasis; I wish I could have a lengthy stretch of feeling alright without panic ripping through my guts, without a deep sense of grief and depression weighing me down, without rage & knee-jerk reaction making regrettable decisions for me.

Just a respite.

Gah!

2009-06-08T17:42:00.003-04:00

How awesome it would be to function like a multinational corporation: make all the rules stack in your favor, offer "customer service" that ultimately services you, to engage in crack pot schemes and, when they fail, ask the Big Bad Government (who you demand keep their filthy regulations to themselves) for billions in bail out. To say, "I'm screwing you over because I CAN, because I offered a service and you wanted it and now you will be subjected to my whim which was clearly outlined in the size .2 font on your introductory packet and it's YOUR responsibility to be educated about the consequences of crossing me, now pay up!" Well, actually, what would be said it, "I'm pretty terrific for offering you these services (although it would take a herculean effort on your part to function without services of this sort from someone) and you're rather stupid for not having more control over your own life so that you don't violate our contract, toots."

I'm becoming an angry left-wing nut in my ripening age.

I suppose I could divorce myself from it all. Never have another bank account, never purchase major electronics, make my own clothes, become one of those people that only take from refuse to survive - what is the term for them? there is one, and I can't even think how to google it..ooooops, no googling allowed in my new life...

How does one get divorced from consumerist capitalist culture? I write this on a name brand computer in an apartment surrounded by mass-produced amenities. Even the food I eat has caused untold misery and hardship on its journey to my table.

Christiana in Demark sounds so appealing - as Diana described it, I felt like a child, wide-eyed, head in my hands, listening to tales of Shangri-la..."really? they grown their own food? they make community decisions based on a direct democratic vote? there's a playground made of found-object sculptures?"

As I am arguing with myself about my personal responsibility versus the bank's ability to continuing charging me fees for no service whatsoever other than having my name in a computer somewhere next to a big negative number, communal living on a farm somewhere far off the grid is sounding pretty damn attractive.

2009-05-10T08:16:00.001-04:00

You are a supervisor, not my life coach. Tell me what needs to be done, not how to do it - if I need a worksheet to help me organize my day, what difference to you?

No absolutes

2009-04-25T14:39:00.001-04:00

I hate the moment -maybe only hours, maybe weeks after I've thought, "well, at least this is rock bottom, can't get worse" - when I realize, "well shit, this abyss just keeps going down down down".

Coworker vs Friend

2009-04-15T07:41:00.001-04:00

I am practicing not being friends at work.

While I still like my coworkers, and am willing to help out, I am turning my empathy toward them down to level 2 - casual acquaintanceship.

I will offer little of my personal self and focus on professional attitude and speech. I will limit conversation to 95% work related topics.

I will do this because someone complained about my tardiness and computer usage to my supervisor.

I will do this because someone treated me as a coworker, not a friend. I will probably be a better employee for it.

It feels like a loss.

Lies lies lies lies

2009-04-04T12:59:00.001-04:00

I don't mean to lie about quitting smoking. I've been serious each of the approximately 6 times I've vowed to stop. I make public declarations to give me more motivation to follow through, which seems to have no effect whatsoever on the outcome.

The tax increase might. I am finishing off the last carton I can afford to buy. So what happens next? How long will these packs last. Will I become desperate enough to sell plasma, or my body, or my very soul to purchase "one more fucking hit"?

What a stupid habit to start so late in life.

Stpider not to quit NOW.

Dog sitting

2009-03-21T17:46:00.001-04:00

My blood pressure is through the roof. I opened the door to go outside and the dog I'm dogsitting ran right past me. That little bitch can RUN. I've spent a while trying to coax her in, am now sitting still and ignoring her. Probably not helping.

I was warned that she is an escape artist, will make haste to the next yard. I have the feeling I'm going to spend the whole evening fight to get her inside, and that is pissing me off.

Not aided by the insanely loud screeching of the two tropical birds I'm watching too.

This is why I don't have pets. Or children. I am so fucking impatient.

It'll be better tomorrow. 1st night of housesitting is always a headache.

Don't plan = plan to fail

2009-03-20T09:12:00.001-04:00

I was happy for a two week stretch. Then I hit a depressive slump this week.

"WTF happened?" theories:

1. I overdid it & exhausted myself.
2. I finally caught the crud that's been making the rounds at work and it dampened my spirits.
3. I stopped making daily plans, thus resuming my previous lifestyle of bored & boring.
4. Life is hopeless & I can't change for the better.

#4 actually entered my depressed mind. One minor setback, a single mini-relapse, and I go tumbling with a dark joy back into the crevasse. It's comfortably familiar there. It's far less work to twirl sadly in the dark singing, "I don't know what to do".

Familiar, easy, and unacceptable. That period of my life is over. The time has come to fight for my life - a vibrant, active, joyous life with me (not fear or laziness or craving comfort) steering the ship to Neverland.

Chart the course, or the ship is directionless. Must get out the map and pick which journey to adventure on.

Office politics

2009-03-18T18:52:00.001-04:00

In our first shift meeting today, we talked about how the program is evolving as we move residents from the institutional personal care home into apartments. The supervisor in charge of "the flow of the shift" asked us to give her input on how to change the shift sheet (where the shift leader assigns counselors and nurses their tasks for the shift).

Then she very politely, nicely told me not to make any forms myself. Since I've worked at CRR, and different ideas have come up for improving communication and tracking information, I play on Excel and make forms. Since most of my coworkers aren't computer savvy, this activity is usually met with gratitude and awe.

I enjoy making forms. It's disturbing and strange, but true. I've always loved worksheets.

This supervisor is a bit controlling, has a tendency to decline help. Since taking her current position, I've given her several ideas for forms. Some have been edited and adopted, some never used. I can't help doing it; it's compulsive. Also, these are forms we have to use; I'd rather they be as user friendly as possible. Some forms generated by non-computer fans (this supervisor is most definitely not a computer lover) are horrible to use because people don't know how to resize fonts and blank spaces, how to widen margins, how to format to divide different sections.

She made a point of saying we all needed to work on forms together. Maybe my forms are designed according to my taste, but I've never submitted any without showing as many coworkers as possible to see what they think, get ideas for tweaking.

It hurt my feelings a bit. It's one of the few areas that I feel I've made any sort of meaningful contribution at work, trying to make things consistent, easier; get information out.

I know lots of people think it's pointless, a nuisance; the paperwork is annoying. Done properly, though, it helps us do a better job by giving us information about who is responsible for which task, the history of a resident, assessments of a resident's skill level, what's happened to the resident in recent days.

And I've gotten the feeling before that some people think I am dicking around on the computer when I should be working with residents. Sometimes that's true -when I get overwhelmed or upset, organizing information calms me down, and maybe that does take too much of my time. I've gotten better about stopping myself and getting redirected.

But why not use my skill? Give me all the ideas and have me organize it, since lots of folks can't do that part. And I can't really provide ideas without playing around on a rough draft - that's how I think, brainstorm, process.

So here's what's likely going to happen: I'll have a secret, superior form saved on my shared drive that no one will ever see. It seems stupid.

This is a petty thing to waste so much mental energy. It's symptomatic of how, in the last year, I've started to feel more and more I don't and can't do a good job at the facility.

2009-03-18T18:13:00.001-04:00

I don't feel good.

Quarterly Resolution Update

2009-03-10T12:57:00.001-04:00

Weekly updates never occurred, obviously. I'm revisiting for refocus.

1.quit smoking 12/31/08
Status: rescheduled
I didn't. Thanks to increase in cigarette taxes, though, my last day to smoke will be this Thursday. Friday's a day off, which should help kick start things. I'm starting to get angry & irritated at "needing" cigarettes; I'm optimistic about my chances.

2. Exercise
In progress
Nothing changed here until the last few weeks, when nice weather seduced me to the river front on a few days.

3. Journal daily
Status: sporadic
I have journaled more frequently, and I also count some of my calendar work (I made space to quasi-scrapbook about each month, and note events more consistently).

4. Start selling jewelry
Status: no progress
This winter, I experienced increased depressive symptoms. Translation: long bouts of utter inactivity and lack of interest. I haven't made much jewelry this year. I still want to get a few pieces on Etsy by my birthday in June.

All in all, not so great. I'm only writing this entry, though, because I am doing (& thus feeling) much better. Hopefully next report will have more movement-2009 is becoming my year of "do it anyway, no matter how you feel."

Ice storm

2009-01-28T14:27:00.001-05:00

The snow started Monday night. The Tuesday morning commute was slow and treacherous; I saw two cars donut in front of me on the I-64, and wind up facing the wrong way. There were at least 5 others in the same predicament, or simply stuck in the snow on the side of the road with the slow sad flasher SOS.

Any sort of crisis makes for a good vibe at work. We're helpers by nature and by trade, so the worst brings out our best. Whitney (nursing coordinator, on-call supervisor, and AWESOME) ordered pizza for us simply because we showed up. Debbie and Ginny, young active BFFs, got some residents to join them in sledding. Paula (rec therapist) cleared the living room furniture for a game of beach volleyball (breezy music included) with a beach ball about 4 feet in diameter. Kenney, Vanessa (therapists) & Carey (admin assistant) braved the afternoon elements to de-ice everyone's car for the ride home.

This morning, though, the ice and sleet that started yesterday defeated my car. An hours' effort, including hacking the ice with my window scraper to clear pavement, was futile, and when tree limbs began crashing to earth in quick succession with pops and creaks, I called uncle and called in.

I feel like I'm missing out. Free day at home is nice, to be sure. But morale at work is so poor lately that a day of festive "we're all in this together" sounds pretty good.

Friendship

2009-01-09T14:28:00.001-05:00

Let's say a friend advises you to make a particular choice; for example, that you should apply for your old job. Maybe she provides numerous flattering reasons why you'd be great at it, why you're so needed in the position, how happy you'll be with the change.

After your interview, your friend reveals that she has a new job that she'll be taking in a few months, and she wants you to take over her caseload (once you're in the position).

This friend is pathologically honest. You have no reason to doubt her opinion that you'll be successful & happy in this new/old job; after all, she entrusts her caseload to you.

Does her self-serving scheme negate her ability to give sound advice based on your best interest? Can you believe she wouldn't manipulate you into doing something not in your best interest (although not actively harmful) in order to play out her plan?

Maybe most importantly, how did I fail to see this coming? And do I care why she did it if I think I want to make the move?

I loathe feeling like a fly caught so easily in a web. Thought I was making progress on thinking for myself; now I can't tell if this is my idea or hers.

2009

2008-12-26T18:47:00.002-05:00

For the first time in my life, I am making new year's resolutions.

1. quit smoking December 31, 2008
using willpower, hard candy, and am considering the Patch as well. have plan to take short walks to replace smoke breaks when work gets too stressful

2. exercise
I have short daily walks penned in on my calendar. Also have Tai Chi tapes, options for free exercise classes or to be guest at the YMCA with 1 of my member friends.

3. journal
regularly. as in daily. including weekly blogging. I am very much out of the habit and know it would do my emotional health wonders.

4. start selling jewelry
by the end of 2009, I want to have my own business, however small and humble an operation it may be.

There are lots of other things I'm working on - eating healthier, getting more mental stimulation, etc - but those are the Big Four. Weekly Resolution Updates on this blog are planned.

I heart Olbermann

2008-11-10T14:57:00.004-05:00

I'm kind of satisfied to find some vitriolic left-wing ranting. So accustomed to the shrieking hysterical ridiculous screaming from the right...

But Mr. Olbermann actually starts with the facts and then says all the things I've been thinking, only smarter, more experienced, with historical perspective....

from inside the fog

2008-10-30T11:17:00.004-04:00

there are times my brain seems to have floated away on some sort of cerebral vacation.

i move moment to moment with no real goal, no idea of what to do with myself, not sure what the point of the day is.

i don't know if this is symptom of my mental/emotional illness or a shut-down response to avoid responsibility for myself.

***

i'm bored. i need to be in school. i'm understimulated. no wonder my brain vacated the premises.

***

youtube doesn't count as mental stimulation.

***

the weather is gorgeously autumnal. crisp air, crisp leaves, sharp sunlight. good day to walk along the river, if i can dig up a sweater.

History of Halloween

2008-10-30T11:17:00.001-04:00

In the past 5 days

2008-09-28T14:47:00.007-04:00

I have
   -realized i didn't ask off for loren's wedding, and scurried to get my weekend at work covered; insert angry diatribe at myself here
   -messed up checking account AGAIN and stressed out daily
   -sat with poor diana who had dental surgery (and fell asleep on her couch rather than being good company)
   -given an inarticulate, bumbling job interview, and made calls to friends to weep & express my disgust with my idiot self
   -scurried for financial papers for apartment application, and taken them to apartment complex; felt wretched about irresponsible money management
   -not been hired for job "We hired someone very qualified"), and had no time to cry/process; made calls to friends and played it off like everything's fine
   -signed apartment lease with jay
   -went couch shopping with jay
   -rushed home for lunch
   -attended wedding rehearsal; guiltily felt all unloveable, old maid feelings surge up and angrily redirected self to my happiness for loren who i love immensely and am very happy for
   -hurried home to fix supper and help get kids settled to bed at decent hour
   -had nightmares and been awake for hours in middle of night
   -woke up late and hurried to jay's son's flag football practice
   -sat on bleachers behind jay's ex-wife & her boyfriend, feeling painfully awkward
   -hurried from football to complete walk-through inspection on new apartment within required time frame
   -rushed home to prep for wedding and, rather than getting there early to help decorate etc as I'd wanted to, got there 15 minutes before wedding started
   -gave reading at wedding of friend loren (to brian), who has been a steadfast and truest friend to me for years, while praying i'm not the asshole who ruins her wedding
   -caught up with college friends through cocktails and part of dinner
   -guiltily went home before cake was even cut due to exhaustion (mental & physical) and impending panic attack
   -rushed to nalley breakfast after woken by niece's pitiful phone call ("You're still coming, aren't you?") with chorus of relations in background irritated by my habitual tardiness
   -made jewelry with my nieces, and felt sorry for myself as they all made pieces for my brother's fiance, who has deservedly garnered my former title of favorite aunt
   -tried to keep eyes open on drive home to louisville
   -disappointed diana with a phone call to cancel plans to watch season 3 premiere of dexter
   -cried a bit, feeling like i fail everyone i love and wondering when i became such a lousy friend/aunt

i'm sick of myself. i'm sick of being sick of myself. i'm sick of constantly feeling inadequate, disappointing, more trouble than i'm worth. so many of these activities were NOT ABOUT me, and yet i'm in the starring role of my life, how can i help but be aware of my own feelings?

why are so many of my feelings petty and mean and selfish/self-centered?

over the last week, i told my friend amy, "i used to be a good person. i used to be nice, not just out loud but in my head."

so what steps can i take today not to suck? not to be this person i don't like?

and tomorrow, what steps?

i feel taunt, tense, exhausted, angry, depressed. lost cause. 31 years of me, how can it become any different now?

how tedious and boring this low-self-esteem bullshit is. i'm unreliable. i'm moody. i make promises i can't keep. i don't think before making plans.

or is it too many people, places, things? how can i spend time with my family, my friends, start my own business, be with jay & his kids, keep house clean, do super job at work, when it seems like i need massive amounts of time by myself processing?

but the time by myself has to be good time, not wasted brainless time. i've been on autopilot a la depression for months again.

get therapy, elizabeth. get some fucking therapy and get the hell over yourself.

money

2008-08-22T13:05:00.002-04:00

i could balance my checkbook. i could stop smoking & drink water-not-diet-coke to save money. i could walk or take the bus to save money on gas. i could take my lunch, not eat out, make more meals from scratch at home rather than expensive processed food. i could cancel cable services & find other, more engaging activities to entertain myself.

it would be better for me all around any way. money has basically allowed me to eat crap, sit on my ass & fill my lungs with poison. being without money might actually force me into doing a few things that would be good for me.

that's my silver lining reframing of being broke, anyway. number one objective at the moment is readjusting my negative whining angry bitter attitude.

being snarky is so FUN though. i miss being snarky when i get all new-agey happy-place find-your-zen chackras-aligned.

Creepiest.....Clip art.......EVER

2008-08-17T13:38:00.001-04:00

acid

2008-07-12T06:19:00.002-04:00

i know it's my choices that have led me here.

no one to blame but myself.

and i hate the acid that rises in my throat when i see information about my peers - masters degrees, marriages, babies and fantastic glamorous whatevers...

if this train is derailed, i need to get off my ass and re-rail it, not resent the more "accomplished".

i am having a day of feeling incapable. maybe all along i should have been shoeless, sweeping the convent, praying ceaselessly, isolated and ignorantly blissful.

dating

2008-06-29T05:59:00.002-04:00

A "date" is a scheduled meeting of specific duration with a specific agenda.

"it's a date" means we've agreed on a place, time, plan.

Yes?

"Dating" then means a serious of these scheduled meetings of specific duration with a specific agenda.

When I think of "dating", I think of two people adventuring around - small adventures, granted, but adventures nonetheless. Watching movies together, going exploring local sites together, walking through the museum together.

One can "date" even when impoverished - one can invite a person of interest over for supper, talking, music, making out. Or walk down Frankfort Avenue, studying treasures in the various shops, purchasing a coffee or a gelato or hell, even a soda from the Walgreens if funds are really low.

Small treats. Small adventures.

I would like to be invited on a small adventure. I would like to be surprised and delighted and excited. I would like to sit on the sofa, talking and twining fingers until the pitch rises and lips go seeking, full of demands for satisfaction.

***

I am feeling old, and bored, and boring this week.

Green Porno

2008-06-14T05:55:00.006-04:00

Isabella Rossellini did these fascinating hilarious strange short films for Sundance - about the sex lives of insects.

They are my favorite thing in the world right now. She's amazing.

Edit

2008-06-13T07:13:00.002-04:00

To be fair, my nephew said he'd be glad I was leaving after I was screaming bloody murder at 2 am. He and Isaiah had been up all night, and I was exhausted from cleaning out the kids' room, trying to get everything organized. I had to be up at 6 to go babysit the nieces, and had been asking, telling, begging the boys to go to bed for about 2 hours.

That's when they found the runaway "ninja" hamster (how else do you explain the escape? must be ninja, Isaiah reasoned), hiding in the hall closet. Little fuzzball had been MIA for a week.

"HAMSTER EMERGENCY!" Zach started yelling. "We have to clean out the cage..."

"No," I snarled from the couch. "I asked you to do that yesterday and you didn't, so the hamster will have to have dirty cage until tomorrow, now put him home and GO TO SLEEP."

The next half hour was me escalating to the point of yelling, "I'm going to break my rule about never spanking" and then ultimately going to my car, pledging to sleep there.

It takes little stress to get me to Full On Crisis. I can't believe I said I would spank them. As Vince Vaughn says in Swingersr, I'm the asshole.

For the record, I fed and watered the hamster before bed, and cleaned out the cage myself before leaving in the morning. I felt bad for the poor little furball, and for Zach who didn't believe I would feed and water hamster as I said i would, the final time I sent him to his room.

His parting words were, "You're going to kill my hamster! The funk in the cage will kill him! I'll be glad you're leaving!"

Family Affair

2008-06-07T09:45:00.003-04:00

I spent Wednesday evening through Friday evening with my family - days babysitting my nieces and evenings with my nephews at my parents' house. I took the nephews wading in the creek by Makers Mark, and made jewelry with the nieces. We all played with clay at one point or another.

I'm worried about them. Except for my older sister, my siblings have had extremely chaotic relationships & living arrangements. It's hard on the children, who to me seem angry underneath. There are few rules (which are rarely enforced), few routines, parents MIA for stretches of time.

I don't know how to handle the questions they have, or talk to them about such matters as "Why Daddy's In Jail". They're older now, old enough to act one way on the surface and have all sorts of seething emotions and confusion underneath.

And I feel guilty for not being around more often. I want to be the aunt they can talk to, they can ask questions, that won't shush them.

It was a hard few days. Fun to see them, but maddeningly frustrating trying to have structure (which I need as much as them) when they're so apparently unaccustomed to it.

It was the first time one of my nephew's said, "I'll be glad you're leaving".

That made me cry.

magic beans

2008-06-01T05:55:00.002-04:00

i wish i had a handful of magic beans to grow a mysterious vine. i could climb for hours, the air thinning and getting cooler as i clutched, hand over feet, to reach the top.

i could walk on clouds like a disney character. build cloud castles to live in. clouds would taste like marshmellow fluff or merengue or whipped cream. storm clouds would be grape flavored.

i feel silly this morning. it's a lovely light feeling.

merry merry month of may

2008-05-22T17:24:00.004-04:00

what a beautiful stretch of weather we've had. the kind that makes my skin ache with relief - the air caressing, birds singing, the fat white clouds playing shadow sun shadow sun on the green grass.

today i sat out on the deck (staying with jay at his dad's house) for hours and read a stephen king novel in its entirety. i have these new sunglasses that fit over my "prescription lenses" (who calls them that?) but aren't super chunky dorky - i think they're rather cute and feel pretty sassy when i wear them...so: barefoot, in slouchy day-off clothes, laid back in the lounge chair, wearing my sunglasses, sipping a diet pepsi, smoking too many cigarettes, occasionally distracted by some birds doing aerial tricks between tree limbs.

my god, what a lady of luxury. is there anything better than lounging outside with a book and a cold beverage on a sweet late spring day?

the other day, i just remembered, i saw a lady walking laps in the small gorgeous park near work and she was reading a book while she was walking. i loved her. i remembered roller skating and reading back and forth back and forth on the sidewalk in front of our house (not a city sidewalk, but a boonies sidewalk - length of concrete between the front door and the driveway). one of my favorite memories.

i loved her for not shutting out the world by rocking the iPod, for being willing to look a bit dorky (because she did - the way i used to), for putting such faith in peripheral vision.

it had honestly never occurred to me that i could take a walk and read if i wanted to. when did i become such a Normal? such a follower of socially expected rules of behavior? i used to wear thrifted prom dress to wal-mart, i used to have purple hair and a nose ring, i used to clean house wearing a crown. i miss being a quiet punk kid who did not give a DAMN, rather hoped other people thought i was a freak.

freakdom was my goal since johanna steele told me as we rinsed out paintbrushes in the old portable where mrs. lanham taught us "gifted" (like prince, that program had a one word name), "you're weird". then, "but in a good way. i like it."

when my brothers came up for the eddie izzard concert, i told daniel's fiance ellen, "you're like a space alien". i added the "but in a good way" but i think she was already taking it as a compliment just as i did way back when.

weirdness and difference for the sheer sake of difference - that's the first, what, 20 years of my life? anything to reassure myself i was singular. even when - as with getting a tattoo - i was part of a trend, certainly not 1-and-only.

but i grew up in the boonies, so straying even a little from the "high school-baby-marriage-live close to parents" program was enough. reading while waiting for class to start was enough to get me some weird looks in eighth grade, i recall. READING.

not sure where i'm going with this. i realize now that i wasn't very singular for the things i imagined made me so. it was the other stuff, the mundane me-ness that i sort of scoffed at or took for granted that was/is special. that i give good massages. that i love children's literature. that i'm creative. millions of other people share these traits, but the cumulative sum of all my very common traits could be considered something special.

that's what so interesting with humans, isn't it? not so much that particular aspects are wholly unusual (because is any 1 trait really?) but that mix, how the parts gestalt.

rambling....

desperation

2008-05-16T11:10:00.002-04:00

having exhibited consistent fiscal irresponsibility, i have decided to put a "tip jar" on this page, on the off chance that those who know & love me might have a spare buck or two lying around that they'd be comfortable parting with.

i am now starting the cash-in-envelopes budgeting plan. i have a collection of small envelopes in my purse - gas, groceries, pocket $, laundry....every pay day i'm going to the atm, withdraw money, divvy it up. i'm leaving my debit card at home in a secure location so that i will not continue just whipping out the plastic without any inkling of what's actually in my bank account. i also think actually seeing the money will increase my understanding/belief/awareness that it's a finite resource and i have to be choosey what i spend it on.

i have started decreasing impulse buying - making myself wait a day or a week before actually purchasing something i just "have to have." it's amazing how few items are remembered even a few hours later, much less a day. a while back, i purchased some absolutely adorable key charms to make myself a bracelet after i waited a week to be sure i really wanted them. most things though, i don't even recall once they're out of sight.

the government stimulus check i've received no doubt has made u.s. bank very happy, considering it went straight to them to cover overdraft fees. another item on to do list: find a bank that doesn't charge so much for overdrawing/negative balances. or maybe one that won't let me use my card if there's no money on it.

in addition, obviously, to simply increasing my awareness of my account balance. that nasty old personal responsibility.

loren and i were discussing retirement saving the other day. i am in deep trouble. no way will i ever be able to retire at this point. where did i hear the scenario of being a 60 year old woman eating cat food?? that'll be me.

i checked out a book on starting your own business from the library. i just might be serious about starting a crafty business, which is exciting to think about.

in the meantime, i'll do the best job i can at the center (sounds like something from a horror or action movie), and keep fighting daily to be more responsible with the money i earn.

i loathe being an "average" american. i know better than to eat fast food for most of meals, to not exercise, to not recycle, to be whipped about by the vicious debt cycle. i want to be an extraordinary american, one whose full of vitality and health and community activism. i want to be, however lame and Hallmark it might sound, to be a positive force in the world.

rather than the narcissistic, self-obsessed, navel-gazing whiner i am at the moment.

have a week of being sick of myself. but think i've reached the point i'm ready to actually do some things different so i don't feel like such a worthless schlub. exciting times (at least for me - probably pretty tedious from the outside).

come on get higher - matt nathanson

2008-05-08T06:53:00.002-04:00

I miss the sound of your voice
I miss the rush of your skin
I miss the still of the silence
as you breathe out and I breathe in

if I could walk on water
if i could tell you what's next
make you believe
make you forget

come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me in love

I miss the sound of your voice
the loudest thing in my head
and I ache to remember
all the violent, sweet, perfect words that you said

if I could walk on water
if I could tell you what's next
make you believe
make you forget

come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me in love

I feel the pull of your heart
I taste the sparks on your tongue
I see angels and devils and god when you come
on
so hold on
hold on hold on hold on

come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me in love

come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me
drown me in love

it's all wrong
it's all wrong
it's all wrong, its so right

come on get higher
come on and get higher
because everything works love
because everything works in your
arms

Oh, and other updates

2008-05-02T11:24:00.002-04:00

Bob Saget moved to a different shift.

In his place, the hardest working man in showbiz, Mr. Fabulous. Who is sassy, and passionate, and sometimes on the wrong track but that's okay.

The relief in my life is palpable. It's made a dramatic difference at work.

***

Jay isn't living with me anymore. We've some things to work out, and I'm extremely hopeful and scared.

That is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I hate that he's hurting because of me. I hate that I can't make everything all right. I hate that I need so much from people.

But I do need so much. I can't change that about myself. I wouldn't if I could, because needing so much is accompanied by giving so much; and while there's some new boundaries to learn, I don't think that manifestation of my personality is going anywhere. I never feel more myself than when emotionally intimate, analyzing and what-if-ing and sharing.

"Sharing". Sounds so lame.

***

I told Jay I think our generation has an issue with earnestness. "We're going to be a bunch of 60 year old smartasses who never discuss anything serious," I said.

There's something about being vulnerable that we just don't risk. Maybe it's more than our generation, maybe it's a culture.

I'm all for snarky smartass wit; it's FUN. But there are times where we start using it not as diversion, playtime, humor but as a shield. Humor used not for coping or getting perspective, but humor used strictly for avoiding ourselves and other people.

In grade school...that's where my feeling of otherness started. When I became aware that no one else seemed to be in the mystical poet heading-for-the-convent zone that I inhabited, that I LOVED. Slowly, over the years, I've moved farther and farther away from that zone.

So I'll say "sharing". I'll say "inner child". I'll say all those hokey self-help pop psychology terms. And mean them. Mock if you want. All I can say in defense is that since I've embraced some of these ideas, I have been more comfortable in my own skin than ever before.

That's no small matter.

New Year, New Me, New Blog

2008-05-02T11:23:00.002-04:00

I am working on journaling more frequently.

Blogs might/might not be part of that.

I am writing a blog focused on my recovery process.

For interested parties: www.profounduncertainty.blogspot.com

Love to all.

Reorientation: venting about the lazy bastard coworker

2008-02-14T04:12:00.003-05:00

Over this past weekend, I realized I was making myself miserable. This is not news to anyone who knows me; I'm rather talented at the task. However, it's the first time I think that I've not just known that fact but actually believed it, seen the mechanics of it, and made a conscious and firm decision to STOP IT.

Okay, so I don't want to be a crazed bitch at work. I am no longer going to let Bob Saget get me riled up. Everything I've ever studied says I get to choose my feelings. I'm going to believe that and alter my perspective. I couldn't come up with a visualization to use--Bob Saget as a cartoon? Imagine what comes out of his mouth as a cartoon speech bubble 'swooshing' past my head? But I started yesteday--anytime I got that "Oh my god, I want to kick you in the shins you stupid bastard" feeling, I made myself stop and say (at times out loud to my friend and role model Lizzie), "I am not going to be angry. I am not going to be upset about his actions and words. I am going to remain calm and professional." And for the most part, it was a raging success.

The true test is this weekend--it's the weekend he works with me (most folks take every other weekend but I work every weekend so I can have every Thursday and Friday off). Working the weekend means no management, which means he'll be extra lazy.

It's hard to explain to myself why I am nearly blinded with rage when I see Bob Saget working sudoku puzzles when he should be doing....um, his job. I goof off quite a bit at work myself--I'm hardly the pinnacle of focus and determination. And that, I think, is what grates me. He's all my bad habits taken to an extreme. Hmm, maybe not all. I can't think of any but the laziness right now.

Earlier in the week, I started giving minimal responses with no affect--"wearing the mask", they called it when I worked for the children's agency in Lexington & Berea. You keep your face & voice expressionless, you make statements of fact, you redirect the person to do what they're supposed to be doing or you set a limit, you let it go. I also stopped making eye contact unless it was absolutely necessary/felt too weird not to, and I never, ever initiated conversation except to ask simple yes/no questions: "Will you...?" "Is this...?", and once he answered, I said, "Thanks" and walked away. Anytime he started with personal conversation of any sort--anything not work related--he got an "Um-hm" and absolutely no encouragement to continue whatsoever. It takes 5 or 6 attempts before he gives up and stops trying--maybe eventually we'll get that even lower.

When you ignore a behavior, the first thing that happens is escalation. The person unconsciously thinks if they just try harder, more frequently, it'll start working. Think of a kid having a temper tantrum--at first, they get louder, more insistent, maybe escalate to throwing things or what have you. You have to make it through that period until the behavior is extinguished.

He's been trying to be "nicer" to me. To say what a good job I'm doing, to apologize for asking me to do things when he's shift leader (we all take turns running the shift). Whenever we have to have conversation about work, he's extra effusive; as much as I'm "flat", he's exaggerated and emotional and expressive.

Maybe that won't stop. I'm working on not being grated by that; whenever he starts kissing ass, I want to say, "Oh, you think I do a good job? Well, um, how about you start trying to do at least a mediocre one? Then I wouldn't have to shoulder all the good work. Dumb ass."

"Great curriculum on your group," he says. "Yeah, um maybe you should do one for yours, hot shot," I think.

Starting now, when he's overly-solicitous, I will say a blank "Thanks" and think only, "I will not get angry. It is not my job to make sure he does his job. It is unfortunate for the clients he works with that he is not doing a good job. I have no control over this."

And I will try to calmly ask him to do his share of the duties, only as it directly impacts me. I've started doing that, but it's charged with overt irritation and anger: "Is there a reason you couldn't walk the residents over for lunch?" I spat, with a hum of "Fuck you" as the unspoken message.

Starting now, I will calmly say, "I have taken care of..... I'd prefer that you take care of...." Just because he doesn't chose to do the tasks does not immediately make them my responsibility.

This is excellent training for my co-dependence recovery work: I get to not like someone, not feel guilty about not liking them, not try to make myself like them, still act as a calm sane human being despite my dislike, and keep my focus on my own behavior and responsibilities. I can think of it as a class project of sorts--I am learning and practicing new skills by dealing with him appropriately.

This might all sound like a boring tedious job-related blog post. But it is the story of my inner revolution. I don't have to like everyone, I don't have to act out my feelings, I don't have to take care of every need I see or sense--for me, this is exciting breaking news, information I've never known bone-deep.

Personality Test

2008-01-04T10:22:00.002-05:00

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Stability	\|\|\|\|	13%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Self absorbed	\|\|	10%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Need to dominate	\|\|	10%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Wealth	\|\|	10%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Physical Fitness	\|\|	10%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Vanity	\|\|	10%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Indie	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	68%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

Stability results were very low which suggests you are extremely worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were moderately low which suggests you are reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

trait snapshot:
depressed, introverted, neat, needs things to be extremely clean, observer, perfectionist, not self revealing, does not make friends easily, suspicious, irritable, hates large parties, follows the rules, worrying, does not like to stand out, fragile, phobic, submissive, dislikes leadership, cautious, takes precautions, focuses on hidden motives, good at saving money, solitary, familiar with the dark side of life, hard working, emotionally sensitive, prudent, altruistic, heart over mind, unadventurous

Personality Test

2008-01-04T10:22:00.001-05:00

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Stability	\|\|\|\|	13%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Self absorbed	\|\|	10%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Need to dominate	\|\|	10%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Wealth	\|\|	10%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Physical Fitness	\|\|	10%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Vanity	\|\|	10%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Indie	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	68%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

2007-11-05T17:15:00.000-05:00

today was a bit maddening at work. that lunch at golden corral with the floridly psychotic dude? a two hour block of relentless, misplaced pop culture references..."i went to the moon 30 times. you know robert kennedy? they shot him. i have it on hidden video. i caught all the suicide bombers."

i say "okay". i know it comes out as "schyeah, right". i can't keep the incredulous inflection from the syllable. i can't play along with psychosis, and i doubt anyone would recommend it's clinically appropriate to do so. but what do i say then, for two hours? what do i say to this flood of delusions? what conversation?

"tell me what it was like growing up in your family," i say. dangerous question in general; childhoods can be such hells, but i'm desperate.

"i left kentucky when i was 9 years old to work on the oil rigs in Texas."

"okay"

in my stomach, there is a spring that gets tighter and tighter as he's talking. each new insistence--"i'm a creator, i went to find john mellencamp to get a little money, i wrote all his songs"---twists the coil of it. i excuse myself to the bathroom for deep breathing, i coach myself that this is schizophrenia, this is the illness. but i don't know what i'm supposed to DO. what am i doing for this man? how am i supposed to help him? what can i do except buy him a meal?

the ride back the center is more of the same until i play the "shh, i'm driving" card. i have to play that card, that spring is getting so tight that i'm distracted by the pressure, i have to slam my brakes a few times in the traffic to avoid collisions.

and the tide keeps coming. "fuck that white house job. the police are looking after me. i starred in all of elvis's movies."

"okay"

i let him out of the car at the door. as i drive off for a brief break, i roll up the windows of my car and scream my way around the block until the spring loosens.

when i get back to work, i am teaching "life skills" in a group. today, i'm talking about taking care of your face, which has somehow become "Let Elizabeth Give You a Facial". i'm not sure how my giving someone a facial teaches them to wash their face every day.

i don't like touching people. i'm extremely touchy with my friends, family, close ones. i don't touch people outside that circle. if i wanted to touch people, i'd get a massage therapist license and rake in cash.

still, for 30 minutes, i find myself rubbing my fingers against people's faces. wiping off face mask goo. one person has scars tracing the neck all around. i can't let myself think about what could have made those scars, i just hold my breath and rub lotion onto faces.

i think, how did i get here?
i think, what am i doing?
i think, how long until i'm worn down, can't control the spring and something is Broken capital B? it doesn't feel terribly elastic, it doesn't seem like something that will resume normal shape 1000 times more.
i think, what fork in the path was it that led me so astray?

"When Will I Die?"

2007-10-25T17:17:00.001-04:00

I'm watching the Tyra Show (don't judge me). The guest is some dude who wrote a "live forever" sort of book, with a quiz that allegedly estimates how old you'll be when you die.

People are getting estimates of 65, 77, 72.....65 seems too young to go, but I'd be pleased to reach 77 myself. He keeps saying, "You could live to 100". Does everyone want to live to be 100???

I'm sure when (if) I reach 77 years old, I won't be eager to bite the dust, but that doesn't seem an unreasonable age to bite it, to me.

Considering my lifestyle, I'll be riddled with cancer, diabetic, and destined for heart surgery. I should change some habits to avoid serious health problems, but I don't really feel excited at the prospect of being around for 70 more years. 50 more is plenty.

5 Free Weekdays: Day 1

2007-09-10T11:03:00.000-04:00

It's 11:15 on Monday of my Mon-Fri "week" off. My supervisor mentioned a while ago I had stockpiled some Holidays (working on Christmas, Labor Day, etc), and when I found myself snarling at residents and coworkers alike, I decided to take the mention as a hint.

I went to bed early last night. Old woman early. At least 7 pm, maybe earlier. I took to bed in a huff when the armchair broke again--I stormed from the living room, shouting, "I'll have to lose 100 pounds just to sit in a fucking chair!" (slight overreaction considering the arm chair has been in obvious need of repair for weeks and my fat ass isn't the only one to cause the slip). The mysterious pain in my foot has caused a limp that's caused additional pain in my shin; I'm blaming that for my histrionic shenanigans in Moody Bitchiness.

I propped my leg up and read more in Spook by Mary Roach. Mary Roach wrote Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, which if you haven't read, you should rectify immediately because it is fascinating, well-researched, and super fun to read. In Stiff, she explored various paths for cadavers---body farm for forensic experiments, ye old decomposition, cut up in bio lab, etc.

Spook is about what science has to say about the existence of a soul and it's postmortem destination. It too is well-researched, and super fun. I feel like Mary Roach would be a good person to have in one's immediate circle of friends. She's very likeable.

Any rate, old woman like, I dozed off over my book and slept until Jay kissed me goodbye this morning on his way to ceramics class. He's learning about porcelein, and texted me that it's hard and so far he's only making a mess; that's how it always starts with a new medium, though. I can't wait until he brings home some of what he's made, which he's promised will include teapots. I'm going to school with him later in the week to watch the magic happen right before my very eyes--I'm cliche-hyperbolic in my excitement.

After he woke me, I stumbled up for a cigarette. I then put on the Be Good Tanyas (god they can work a mood, they're fan-fraking-tastic) and tackled the dishes. Mashed potatoes, a word to the wise, SHOULD NEVER be left sitting. My apartment is embarassingly disgusting--broken armchairs aside, I've dusting and sweeping and mopping and Goodwill-donating to do. Not to mention crafting of various types (T-shirt quilt, clay pendants with small circus poster reproductions incorporated in them somehow, maybe start work on the triptych I've had since last summer?). 5 days isn't long enough.

Tonight I'm going to stay with my niece Alexis--we're going to make jewelry. Then tomorrow I'm going to help my mom prepare her home for my sister Diane's wedding reception. Diane and Tim had a wedding with the Nalley immdiate family earlier in the summer, but now they're having the big family & friends reception.

I'll come home tomorrow night and try to keep myself reasonable. Housecleaning isn't a one-shot deal--it's little habits built up. And time off from work should be RELAXING, yes? Crafting and reading and movie watching and resting.

My leg hurts. Bah.

Snickerdoodle

2007-09-06T06:31:00.000-04:00

I like reading about quests. I recently reread The Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman, a book I apparently stole from my sister Diane's collection at some point (her name's scrawled in the back). I have no idea where this book would've come from, I've never known anyone else who read it, but it's one of my favorites and I reread it frequently.

In the book, a young woman finds a "They're about to kill me" sort of note and goes searching for the woman who wrote it, and her killers. I love the heroine, Amelia. I love how aware of herself she is, and yet underestimates herself.

****

I baked snickerdoodles lately. I have an urge to stockpile chocolate chips and spices, and bake sugar cookie after choolate chip peanut butter cookie, maybe some brownies, maybe some cakes and pies. I think to myself, okay, I don't want to be a chef, but maybe baking could be a hobby. Not the best hobby for my weight loss goal, but I really enjoy mixing and rolling and sprinkling, and I can always give away my wares (at least most of them). The perfect snickerdoodle can be my quest. I can think of worse ways to spend September.

****

Jay and I have been sick for weeks, it seems like. He's got a very worrisome cough and he isn't one to go to the doctor (I'm on a campaign at the moment to get him there). I feel like I've never breathed through my nose in my entire life. I've an urge to turn the apartment into a new age hippie commune, and ply us with herbal suppliments and wheatgrass...although I've not been successful in getting Jay to drink even 1 cup a day of his Sunny Delight ("that's my orange juice," he said to my horror, "See, 100% daily dose of Vitamin C"), much less get us both eating fresh vegetables and taking better care of our bodies.

Oy. We're a pair of overgrown toddlers, I swear. We need parenting.

breaking an extended silence

2007-07-28T06:21:00.000-04:00

"the malady of the quotidian"....it's a quote from a wallace stevens poem. thoreau spoke of a "quiet desperation" but now that i think of it, he'd consider the quotidian an antidote rather than a cause.

if i had followed my middle school plans, i'd be preoccupied with meter and sound every day. i'd be reading the clouds for omens, learning the names of birds and trees (and their associations), trying to groove on the collective unconscious. not a bad life, eh?

making rings of wire and buttons isn't too bad a gig, either.

mismanaging my money so that i'm worse than broke? ah, the nausea of money anxiety. how will i pay the rent? how will i feed myself? when will i learn? why do i do this?

i'm not suicidal, but the vision comes regardless, the trusty default solution. for some reason, the theme this year has been hanging, which i can't imagine doing.

i hate my brain's spasms, the awful visions it provides, scenerios of grief and betrayal. at least now i know only to be horrified and live on. there's no rational recommendation in the nightmares.

in short, my life has been a tedious litany, the same old song. with some nice jewelry made on the side.

What the hell am I doing with my time?

2007-06-21T18:25:00.000-04:00

I haven't journaled, or done my birthday tarot reading, or figured out what to do with the next 30 years of my life.

I'm mostly wordlessly feeling myself out--like you search your mouth with your tongue for the sore spot (oh, I half stole that from Fight Club). Why won't I let myself be super happy? Why won't I let myself be as audacious and hell-raising as I want to be?

I told Diana, "I've spent my life trying to make room for everyone else, but the girl inside me wants room for herself and could be rather vocal about anyone getting in her space. It's terrifying."

Nonetheless, off I go on the path to find my badass self.

Oo oo I want this!

2007-06-21T09:58:00.000-04:00

Moon In My Room is more than a moon-shaped light. It cycles new to full moon phases! How freaking cool is that?

Giant Microbes are pretty cool too.

Alpha T-shirts seem fun too, though tempting to make a the t-shirt say "I put babies on spikes" or something.

Also: Who Tall Are You is a wall height chart that has famous and infamous folks for you to compare heights with.

God, I love crap!!!!!!!!!

My 30th Birthday

2007-06-20T07:27:00.000-04:00

Jay and I are dogsitting for his father. On Monday, my birthday, Jay is at work so I am hanging out with Buffy by myself. Around 6:00, I'm outside smoking when I hear a loud pop followed by a quieter pop and a woman's scream. I peek around the side of the house and see a police cruiser pulling into the cul de sac nearby.

Did someone just get shot? I've never heard a gun go off, but I felt uneasy. I start descending into my fearful what-ifs and become convinced that my 30th would be my last birthday, I was going to be raped and killed. Shit.

I hide in the bathroom. Seriously.

After a little while of sitting in the dark, feeling idiotic, I call Jay at work. Having experienced my fearful what-ifing, he is understandably dubious and amused by my paranoia. While he's on the phone with me, I walk out into the house, slowly approaching the glass doors to the deck. The curtain is open.

Standing with his back to the garage...."Man with a gun!" I say, "Man with a big gun." All the blood ruses from my head. I see that his flack jacket read "Police" which makes me feel only slightly less frightened.

Back to the bathroom with me.

Later I hear a helicopter.

Jay reports the computer says someone has shot two sheriff's deputies, and they're conducting a search. He informs me there are guns all over his father's house. He tells me this as though I will actually get one of them and use it to defend myself. "Me with a gun is a recipe for disaster," I inform him.

There's a loud knock on the door. The policeman standing there asks me to evacuate, only I can't take my car because the road is clogged with cop cars. So along with others in the area, I walk about 1/4 mile down the road--wearing my Winnie the Pooh slippers--to wait beside a school bus to be taken somewhere. The guys there ask if we know where they're supposed to take us. I'm thinking, "How about as far away from all the big guns as possible?"

There's a family of four with me; several other people from the neighborhood walk past us--do they have rides waiting on the other side of the police car tide? The father of the family explains to the young daughter that no one is bad in this situation, there are just bad choices, drugs make people do things...meanwhile she's saying, "I see two helicopters, Daddy" and the son is answering quiz questions--Who sang Stairway to Heavan?

The little girl wants to play. The father asks her who sings I Write the Songs?

She jumps up and down, excited..."BARRY MANILOW!!!!!"

The bus guys are talking and laughing, some fatigued officer with an enormous black gun walks down the road talking animated into his cell phone, I notice more civilians driving out of the area (they must have been lucky enough to be on the right side of the cop car clot). At this point, I decide not to wait on the bus. We've been sitting by the road for 30 minutes. How is this safer than waiting in the house? I start walking; when I come across a civilian waiting to get through the road block, I ask for a ride. It's a nice older couple in a giant SUV. As we roll through the roadblock, signalled by a cop, the lady comments sardonically, "That's his fifteen minutes of fame."

They drop me down the road at the Gas n Stuff. Right beside Jay's mustang. Is that Jay's mustang? I approach it slowly, confused, I am turning to go inside the store and Jay walks out. "What the fuck are the chances?" I say, and start crying.

As usual, once I'm out of the stressful situation, I'm hysterical.

We spend the night at our house, watching the news with disbelief. It was a 15 year old child fighting with his mother; he shot the 2 cops. We go to sleep around 2:00; they still haven't reported finding the boy.

When I wake up, I turn on the news and learn one of the cops has died in surgery, and they found the boy dead in his house.

*****

His photo on the news is of a smiling elfin boy. He's younger than my brothers. He reminds me of them with his moppish hair and his glasses. What on earth led to this sort of death for him?

I feel incredibly sad.

Impending Birthday

2007-06-16T08:17:00.000-04:00

On June 18, I'll be 30 years old.

I've taken the week off from work. Not to lie in bed crying, although Loren's idea was sounding promising.

I'm going to do some crafting. Watch lots of movies. Try some new recipes. Commit to taking responsibility for my life and myself.

I could make an amazing life for myself. Why not do it? What else am I doing?

I'm uncomfortable and miserable. Why not be uncomfortable and miserable doing good things for myself?

That sounds more negative than it feels. What I mean is, if I'm going to be anxious and depressed no matter what I do--and I'm afraid that's my reality for the moment--I might as well be anxious and depressed while walking, eating veggies, going to therapy, visiting art galleries, watching movies with friends....

And then someday
I'll wake up
happy
saner
peaceful hearted

insecurity

2007-05-24T06:54:00.001-04:00

he says, "you look fine"

i hear, "well, you're not horribly disfigured or anything"

***

i need specifics. i need concrete, repeated statements about my acceptable appearance. i realize i'm not angelina jolie or even the regular hot girls i see out in the world. i get that. it's okay.

i want to know that my hair, my skin, my curves, my warmth, my lips are pleasing.

****

the fact that he doesn't say so

makes me feel like the safe bet no one else would want

Life Lesson #756

2007-05-23T04:41:00.000-04:00

So you watch Amelie, and you think to yourself, "Short hair is so CUTE!"

And it is.......when you're Audrey Tatou and you have an impossibly long French neck and positively enormous eyes and a pert little faerie face.

And if you do decide that--even on your big American head with your big short American neck--short hair is the answer, don't...for God's sake DON'T....get irritated with your longer hair on a hot day and go to your bathroom with dull craft scissors and hack away at your hair.

I'm surprised I got it so even. I thought about saving the curls of hair to make curtains or something for my faerie dollhouse, but accepted that I haven't the patience and would procrastinate forever anyway, so into the trash they go.

Car Talk

2007-05-22T16:37:00.000-04:00

Ms Nalley, that grinding sound you heard was metal on metal, it got to your rotors-you're going to need new front brakes.

(gulp. thought so) Okay.

(but he's not finished). We found a few other things as well. (starts sounding like the grown-ups in Charlie Brown cartoons) Wah wah wah tie rods wah wah wah struts wah wah wah broken so all the fluid leaked out.

(any second now he's going to stop, any second now, oh my god, add $500 for everything he's saying, shit)

Wah wah wah belt dry rotted wah wah wah 3 tires are marginal wah wah wah.

(his laundry list ends) Well, um, what would you say are the priorities?

Wah wah wah brakes and brake flush wah wah wah wah wah wah

And that would be how much?

$750

(gulp) I know you can't guarantee something won't go out tomorrow but if I had to choose 1 thing....

Brakes.

Price?

$385.

Done.

******

I think I'm going to pay $20 annually to have them inspect my car. That grinding noise is unspeakably nerve-wracking. Why didn't the brakes give me some hint they needed new brake pads? I would've gotten them.

No I wouldn't have. I'd have cranked up the radio and prayed for car gnomes to intervene.

Sigh.

untitled

2007-05-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

i am roller coastering through every shade of mood. i am taking a few days off. this week includes a funeral and a wedding. i am trying not to kill the plant patsy gave me before she moved to chicago.

i am extremely lonely. no matter that i live with someone whose company i enjoy, i have friends i see regularly at work, i've spent time with family. i am all alone, insulated, isolated, unreachable.

my phone is broken. my cell phone's depleted of minutes. no mail arrives--electronic or paper. i am on a deserted island.

i would like the energy and initiative to clean my apartment, which is in incredible disarray following my last rearrangement of furniture, etc. "Got to get organized, feel the need to move stuff," i said. amy reminds me, "last time you did that, didn't you say...???" "yes," i reply, "it's not the furniture that's wrong, it's me, i'm trying to fix myself by moving the couch." it's an extremely effective distraction. whenever i start thinking about my dismal finances, my lack of self-care, my work stress---i just look about me and think shit i should do the dishes or organize my closet, or take out the trash, and stew about the mess of my home rather than the mess of me.

****

i thought of one more grammar peeve: may/might. MAY means you've permission to, MIGHT means something's in the realm of possiblity. people just use them interchangeably. why do i care?

Lilly Allen's "LDN"

2007-04-28T19:19:00.001-04:00

The Pains of Literacy

2007-04-13T13:17:00.000-04:00

Top Pet Peeves of This Language Snob

10. Common words misspelled, when spell check is readily available

9. Thanks to Mrs. Smith, my AP English teacher, I mentally correct misuse of infer and imply.

8. Lack of parallel sentence structure--except when inadvertently hilarious

7. Confusion re: I versus me, especially when speaker is being a pretentious ass

6. Misplaced modifiers--except when they are inadvertently hilarious

5. The rhyming exhortations on fast food restaurant signs to sample their wares

4. Insert your own here (couldn't think of one):

3. The use of quotations marks to indicate emphasis

2. The misuse of apostrophes to pluralize

1. This makes me scream inside my head (especially when I catch myself in transgression): YOUR versus YOU'RE

Technology (And: New Beginnings)

2007-03-21T19:55:00.000-04:00

Technology:

I'm fairly tech savvy. Meaning I can design an Excel spreadsheet so fast the technophobes at work marvel and bow to my prowess.

Apparently, I'm to be brought to my knees by a Compaq IJ1200 printer.

Using Troubleshooter, I discover to my utter horror I have actually forgotten to plug in the printer. No, surely not? The only comfort is that Eddie Izzard has done a comedy bit about this particular frustration...I'm in good company.

Ten minutes later, Troubleshooter informs me there's nothing Troubleshooter can do for me. This is a problem beyond the realm of Troubleshooter.

Is the printer too ghetto, too old?

1st of all, I couldn't attach the printer directly to the laptop, I had to use the "Big Black Thing" the laptop attaches to in order to maintain its power supply. Other purposes of the BBT are mysteries to me. I only know Jay told me to attach laptop to BBT in order to continue enjoying frivolous internet exploration and spreadsheet creation.

The printer cord (cable? what's the difference between a cord and a cable? the cable runs between two devices whereas cord=power???? i have no idea) does attach to the BBT.

Still--no test page will print. The laptop will not RECOGNIZE.

I'm not getting a message I comprehend--it's not out of paper or low ink. It's just ERROR and the baffled shrug of Troubleshooter.

Insert scream here. Or maybe that cartoon of the duck about to smash his computer with a big hammer.

******

Today was the last day of Depression Day Camp. I freely admitted that I was scared to end group because I've been depressed before and as soon as I have a little relief, I stop caring for myself (therapy, medication, outside time, exercise) and fall right back into the pit, scrambling to grab any root that will keep me hovering near sanity.

"I know I'm going to fail myself," I say, "so I'd just really rather go ahead and fail instead of waiting for it."

I hear myself say things that make me so sad. Why do I feel this way about myself? Sometimes I have the id-ego-superego sort of split in my mind---there's this little kid in me who's just trying to be nice and have fun and play with butterflies and make art and giggle with friends, there's this angry scowling being who's all teeth and tears, and then there's the Spectator who is just unable to pony up and parent the other two.

Not unable. "That's abusive, to say you know what to do but you just can't," the counselor says. "That's very harmful. You CAN. You just aren't willing. You aren't to the breaking point yet."

I'm tired of getting to the breaking point.

Tired enough to get off my ass and do some serious work?

Maybe. Just maybe? After two weeks of intensive outpatient treatment and a few decades of varying shades of miserable? How can my answer not be a HELL YEAH?

"I still think your medication isn't doing its job," the counselor says, "because you know the problem, you know solutions, you just lack motivation. And lack of motivation is a symptom of depression."

Do I dare start a new med? Risk feeling manic, or (worse) becoming irritable to the point of cruelty? Risk worsening depression if the med is ineffective? Dear god. The thought of waiting out 6 weeks to see what the pharmaceutical dice say --- it's frightening.

****

My parents met me to help me do my laundry, since I confessed my severe depression (and dwindling supply of clean underwear). It was fun to hang out with them. My mom and I made tentative plans for my next Friday off. I tried to communicate to her that I very much want to talk to her, see her more often. I tried to say, "I matter even when I'm not in a crisis, I need you before I hit rock bottom." I don't know how to explain to her. It's hard to extend invitations and not feel rejected when she's busy.

She said she cried for 3 days in her late 20s because she told her mama "no" for the first time in her life. "Ah," I laugh, "so you're where I get this inability to say no from."

She makes a funny Lenore face, one of her idiosyncratic faces, indescribable & untranslatable, and says, "Well, yeah."

I do so love my parents.

Best Laid Plan

2007-03-19T19:30:00.000-04:00

I woke early with every intent to wash laundry, balance budget, clean house.

Unfortunately, I started the day with a message from my landlord regarding my rent check, for which there were insufficient funds. Frantic budgeting and a money order later, everything's alright. Well, taken care of for now.

The main reason to take better care of myself, my life, is that I don't want to wake from depression another time in this position--I feel better, but it takes months and months to get life even a little back on track. And each time it seems I dig deeper pits for myself.

"Bob Saget" from work tells me, "Focus on the behavior." He was referring to weight loss.

I overthink. Just decide what I'm going to do, then shut my brain up while I do it.

Dog Bites

2007-03-18T13:29:00.000-04:00

My neighbors have a dog that is the size of a small pony--standing on his four legs, he reaches at least to my waist. He's got a huge bark and a habit of body slamming the the apartment door whenever someone walks up the stairs---scares the shit out of the pizza man.

He's actually been friendly to me on previous occasions, when I've stopped to greet his owner and him. But last night, as I neared the top of the stairs (claustrophobic stairway, narrow, walled in both sides from midway to the top), I look up at the usual loud barks to see the neighbors' door open a little bit into their dark apartment and Balu is coming right at me.

I've made a habit of greeting him whenever I come home. I like this dog. He's big and scary, but he's just doing his dog thing. I stupidly think we've made some sort of connection through the door. "Hi Balu," I say as usual in the split second before he's crossed the landing, his wide barking mouth in my face, and then I instinctively throw up my arm in front of my face, squealing.

And. He. Bit. Me.

Nothing serious but scared the shit out of me.

"Help!!!" I yell. He grabs my elbow with his teeth again--he's not clamping down, thank god. Maybe they're home, and sleeping, just forgot to lock the door. I've never seen him running loose before. "Help!!!" No answer from any corner of the building.

"Balu, I live here," I say, just confused, and he mouths my elbow again. I lower my head, eyes on the floor, I'm submissive, he's going back into his apartment and when I move toward my door, he's out again in a flash, barking and I squeal and run, shaking, to my car where I proceed to hyperventilate and start crying hysterically.

All the way down the stairway, I could just picture this massive dog hefting all his weight at my head, his teeth sinking in wherever they latch. I am toast, I am done for, I am a cautionary tale on the evening news about the city's pet ordinance.

As I'm on the phone with the police, the neighbors arrive home and I unlock my car to tell them their dog has bitten me.

"WHAT?! Oh I'm so sorry, sweetie, let me see." She runs up to make sure the dogs locked into the apartment, then she and the boyfriend come to me. They were super nice, but what choice do they have? I'm sobbing and their dog bit me. "He's had his shots, we're going to get him fixed, we've already been to court about it."

Already been to court about it????

Then the downstairs neighbor comes out to see what the ruckus is. The dog-owning neighbors have had several verbal altercations with the downstairs neighbors.

"What?!?! This doesn't concern you!!!" the dog owner yells.

Downstairs neighbor says, "She should never have been in danger, I have photos of a dog bite, your dog ran into the street and bit my brother."

The brother who stumbles around drunkenly, politely greeting me when our paths cross in the afternoon, fighting with his sister at top volume all hours of the night.

"She wasn't in danger," the dog owner yells, then murmurs to her boyfriend, "She's drunk, she's slurring her words."

I do not want to be in the middle of Drama, I want to hide in my car and be left alone. Luckily downstairs neighbor goes in. Animal control calls. "Did it break the skin?"

I look at the marks, "Not that I can see." Dog owner is saying repeatedly, "It didn't break the skin" and apologizing. Animal control says there's nothing for them to do if the skin isn't broken, does she need to send an officer?

The police arrive.

"I don't think so, " I say. What the hell do I know? I hate the idea of Balu being carted off to jail because his owners were careless. I'm freaking out and exhausted (it's late); all I wanted was to come home and go to bed.

The policeman shines his flashlight on my arm, it doesn't look mauled, I feel a little calmer. The dog owner is talking superfast about how thedoghashisshotshe'sgoingtobefixeddoyouwanttoseehispapers?

The police leave. I ask her for a copy of his papers. The boyfriend asks several times if I'm sure I don't want to go to the hospital. Jesus Christ, it's a wee bite, it's fine. It's not FINE but it's not an ER trip worthy thing. I know I'm sobbing and shaking and being a complete and utter freak about the whole thing, but I'll be okay if they'll just give me the paper and leave me be.

"Come on up and get the papers," she says. I look through the door at the stairs and decline. She runs up to get them.

"I got you, believe me," the boyfriend says. I decline. He insists he'll protect me. I decline. I am not going back up the stairs tonight. I do not have to go just to make him feel better. I don't want to go, I'm not going to go.

She brings the paper back to me and I get in my car, call Jay to ask if I can come stay with him, of course that's fine, and I'm off.

The entire ride, my arm increasingly aching, I'm convinced my arm will rot off, I will get PTSD and never be able to go home, poor Balu's going to get put down because his owners forgot to lock a door (or god forbid, did he somehow BREAK the lock?).

As soon as I walk into the house, I tell him, "I've officially watched Judge Judy too much because we're going to photograph my arm just in case." Then I finish hyperventilating, wash up and disinfect, look again at the papers to assure myself these do in fact prove Balu is fully vaccinated. I call into work--I was already feeling puny physically (and emotionally), now it's over 2 hours past my bedtime and I'm exhausted and still shaking and no way will I sleep and no way will I go into my dark apartment at 5 in the morning to get clothes, get ready for work. No way.

****
Seriously, you guys: that dog is HUGE. It was a total Cujo moment.

Photographic Evidence

2007-03-16T17:03:00.001-04:00

Beautiful Morning (but no photographic evidence)

2007-03-16T11:45:00.000-04:00

I can't locate my camera cord, so I can't post the lovely moon, sun, stars, clouds I painted on my living room windows this morning (with glass paint). I didn't cover the entire window, just splashes of color, making me happy. Glass paint dries at the speed of light so wham bam moon stars sun clouds in 20 minutes or less.

I also decoupaged some more movie tickets and fortune cookie fortunes to the wall calendar Diana said I would never find a new use for. HA HA. Flipped it over, finger painted various colors and voila: instant wall scrapbook for all those little pieces of ephemera I mysteriously need to keep in order to feel happy. I also have Josh's diagram of the important-est people in his life and an Irish blessing from Creighton and the Birthday Princess crown Diana gave to me last year.

I also had some English breakfast tea, yum even without the cream. And painted two dowels so I can make a necklace holder for myself by criss-crossing them then anchoring them with clay stopper/wire/glue to a lovely glass bottle--no photos, does this description make sense??? The dowels will hover atop the bottle like a marionette's holder (surely there's a term for that??). I made one for Jay---got all the kinks worked out with his finally, so now I get one for myself. Would like to fill the bottle with marbles...which means I get to go bottle and marble shopping...I have some marbles left (bwa ha ha) but not enough to fill my bottle (ha ha).

All this productivity's nice but I'm still suspicious it's just a way for me to avoid doing something. I'm playing hide and seek a lot with myself these days. At least today I feel like I'm playing with an impish faerie rather than a demon. Plus I have pretty windows.

Off to get ready for Depression Day Camp, which has turned out quite good for me. I didn't get to change groups, which was okay because it was so much better the next day, and the next, etc. So much for being sure it wasn't the right place for me; guess my advice to clients to "give it a chance" isn't so bad.

It's been difficult, but I knew it would be, and I have a lot of work ahead of me, as I knew I would. But I also now have a fervent wish to take responsibility for myself, my mental health, my well-being, whether or not I feel up to doing it competently right now. I can take responsibility and make choices, and deal with consequences, and it's going to be an imperfect, messy learning sort of journey. I'm okay with that finally.

And that is no small triumph.

And I feel like I'll be just fine. No matter what happens, no matter who's in/not in my life, no matter what choices/mistakes I make. I'll be okay.

And that is no small miracle.

STREET ART!!!!!!

2007-03-15T05:48:00.001-04:00

http://www.streetsy.com/

and

http://www.woostercollective.com/

makes me want to do some. reclaim some space for art instead of advertising.

Bless Me, Father

2007-03-14T20:01:00.000-04:00

Just the phrases of the confessional creep me out.

i don't think i've sinned. i don't believe in sin. it has been decades since my last confession

****

My confession is:

i am never alone

even when physically alone, as i am now, in my apartment:
my mind--the spectral world
that surrounds me--
is positively
overpopulated

when will he call?
i love my mama
i miss loren
how's amy? how's nikki? how's pooh? how's every mother's child?

i am ever, overly mindful of Others.

i am scripting conversations with the absent
i hope desperately will be
life-altering, life-repairing, life-making.

i am remembering opinions, thoughts, habits---about commercials, neighbors, even times of day (i remember john's watch alarm beeping, we were in a store, he had set it to remind him when it turned 12:34---1234, magic numbers in a row, make a wish)

i exist
in mist in fog in haze
of Others

****
I am planning a vacation. A one day retreat. All me.

Although now that I type this, maybe Diana is right. Maybe a full day is too much to expect to spend with myself initially.

Maybe one hour, maybe 30 minutes when I practice aloneness, when I snap the rubber band on my wrist with every thought of Others. Oh bruises, oh my sick mind, oh my heartache.

****

and still
i want to beg,
like a pulse
barely noticed
under everythought:
come here be here stay here
oh you you you you you pooh

2007-03-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

asking him to leave
hurts

and i imagine how he feels
(hurt)
and i hurt more

i don't want him to go
i need to be alone
i want him to learn to care for himself and be comfortable, happy, calm
i want to care for myself so i'm comfortable, happy calm
i want to have the power to make him not feel rejected or sad or disappointed or let down or angry.
i want to be sane enough to accept i don't have that power.

i want him in my life
i like him--he's funny and smart and sarcastic and dear-hearted and talented
i love him lub him bunches and bunches and...

did i just destroy any chance we have?
did i just make it possible for us to last?
did i just wound him beyond repair?
(so powerful, aren't i?)
can we date now? is this possible? is this too much to ask?

fuck.
i wish this were easier fairy tale bliss no problem.
i wish it didn't hurt so much.
i wish i could stop crying.

1st day of Depression Day Camp: a scathing review

2007-03-06T16:52:00.000-05:00

depression day camp was an unbelievably disappointing waste of three hours, as my camp counselor spent the time reading handouts--and reading them quite poorly, i might add, in a semi-literate fashion--between random tangents and exhausted platitudes. snooooooooooooore. not just boring, but an expensive pile of useless.

my camp friends were an obviously antisocial ex-con ("i just drove; i didn't know my buddy was going to rob the convenience store"--judge judy would tear him a new anus) and some sweet quiet dude with terminal leukemia which the dumbass counselor would not let him forget for a second ("you were in a car wreck? AFTER you were diagnosed? you fight with your wife? is it because of the leukemia?").

we three blind mice and someone's doddering old auntie grizelda. not the miracle cure i was hoping for.

luckily, there are other camp counselors, one of whom ran the CODA meeting i used to attend. she, i know for a fact, is totally awesome. tommorow, i'm going to ask if i can be moved to her camp.

diana said i'll get labeled as a non-compliant, difficult client. we laughed, but it's probably true. they preach assertive bullshit, but most people want you to shut up and do what you're told.

To clarify

2007-03-04T20:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not WORKING at Ten Broeck. I'm attending the program, due to severe depression.

Psychiatric Intensive Outpatient Program

2007-03-02T12:59:00.000-05:00

Ten Broeck Hospital uses a combination of cognitive-behavioral techniques and the medical model of treatment in treating adults who are experiencing problems with psychiatric illnesses and/or emotional problems. Therapeutic groups focus on addressing areas of crisis/stress relief, effective coping skills, grief resolution, problem solving, social skills and life planning.

***

My schedule: Tuesday through Friday, 1-4, plus Saturday 9-12.

All prayers and well wishes welcome.

TEAPOTS!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-24T12:59:00.000-05:00

THESE TEAPOTS ARE THE COOLEST OBJECTS I'VE EVER SEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOLY CRAP.

2007-02-22T18:33:00.001-05:00

luckily no one appears to be reading my recent sad-ass diatribes.

wise choice, my friends. wise choice.

Ho hum

2007-02-22T18:13:00.000-05:00

I try to think of fascinating, fun blog entries.

I fail.

*****

I am feeling very un-fabulous. I am feeling like curling up in bed, covers over head, in a dark bedroom. I am feeling like my physical presence provokes spontaneous projectile vomiting.

I attempted last night, on impulse, to re-fabulize with blonde hair dye. Sadly, I only managed a lighter auburn (with darker ends than roots!!). Sigh. It's fine, not horrendous---just not blonde, not drastic, not....fabulous.

I ponder various piercings. Tattoos. Something sharp and new and unignorable. Something coooooool.

****

Journaling about my (quite enormous) weight the other day, I decided to stop pretending I want to lose weight to be healthy. I do want to be healthy. The primary reason I want to lose weight, though, is to be pretty. I want to be pretty. There, I admit it.

I can do basic math, I can write fairly well, I know a little about a lot of things, I have interesting hobbies....fuck my personality. I want to be PRETTY.

I want my boyfriend to be stricken by lust at the sight of me.

I want to be able to buy attractive clothing at reasonable prices.

I want to be able to walk about in the world without constantly worrying about knocking over objects with my ass. Without fearing the width of an aisle being narrower than my girth.

I can see beauty in other folks who are carrying some extra weight, no problem. I love the warmth and curves of them as much as I love the planes and angles of skinnier folk--I love the varied shapes of people. I find all sorts of physiques pleasing to my eye.

I am, however, disgusted by my physical form.

And today, at lunch, sitting with my disgust, I could not get a second helping. It made me nauseous to think of it.

Maybe someday I'll grow as a person, love myself unconditionally, and not be consumed by a desire to be "pretty" (which I can't even define--what weight is the pretty weight? what hair color is the pretty one? what clothing? ugh--just hating myself out of habit).

That day is not today.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

2007-02-20T16:39:00.000-05:00

I've become a drone. Checklists, day planner, address book, spare chane hidden in my purse for the occasional parking meter. My work is neatly organized in a sturdy canvas covered binder, zipped up tight. My socks are mated, I take my daily vitamin, I go to bed at 10 and rise at 5.

snooooooooooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrre

My evil twin is an impulsive, angry toddler--I ply myself with candy, don't clean up my messes, let the trash pile in the corner like that Shel's Cynthia Stout, I purse my lips and roll my eyes at small annoyances. I sometimes walk outside at work to stamp my feet angrily. I ignore my bank balance, I snatch items from store shelves that will only gather dust until my good twin's next Goodwill drop off.

AIEEEEEEEE GIMME GIMME GIMME

****

So I have superego and id---no ego.

****

I write to Nikki: I haven't had an adventure in so long. I can't recall the last one. I occasionally drove through Cherokee Park at night last fall. I recall some excellent great-wild-nature excursions with Patsy.

I have lapsed in fairy dust production. No cleaning house in a prom dress, no wandering to places unknown, no slow study of some beautiful newly-discovered natural place. No field trips. No midnight run for some small delicious treat. No CEREMONY to my daily life.

My friend Kaelan is participating in an amateur boxing match in Atlanta. She's spent the last year working as a lawyer by day, and a rodeo writer by night. She's a freaking superhero.

Am I delusional when I have a vague sense that I was once a wee magical?

Was it poetry? Does psych/social work kill that spark for me somehow? Do I need to be immersed in literature old and new, and hammering away at words words words to transform from half drone half toddler into my superhero self?

Kid Creatures

2007-02-18T05:41:00.000-05:00

At Kid Creatures, drawings of young children are remade by grown up artists.

Venn Diagrams

2007-02-17T19:51:00.000-05:00

A Venn Diagram consists of overlapping circles--the space where the circles overlap notes the commonality of the two circles.

I frequently envision relationships like that. There's my stuff, your stuff, and then what's between us, how you influence me and vice versa. How much overlap=how much intimacy.

The overlapping space is a tricky area. How much control do we have or need over that overlapping space? How much can we ask of people to give to that overlapping space? How much energy do we devote to the tidy careful upkeep of that space?

What happens when that overlapping space is too small or too large for comfort? What if I want lots of overlap but you only want a bit? What if we want the same overlap but lack the skills to cultivate it?

Struggling over, negotiating these boundaries...so frequently we do it unspoken; we imply and infer, we interpret body language (correctly or not), we extrapolate from one instance to create a theory of what another person wants/doesn't want from us (ah, declined plans=get out of my circle).

I wish we could just state it bluntly. At times, what I want or what it seems to me "should" happen seems so clear, like the action/reaction of predictable physics...until I start trying to state it and it gets muddy, confusing, seems hurtful ("honesty can be a weapon of cruelty"). Human emotions, the mind, how we relate is not so clear, is influenced by myriad factors (known and unknown, conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational).

Sometimes I think we don't state the truth because we secretly hope it will change, or that it isn't the truth in the first place. We spin fantasies; we fill that overlap in the diagram with what we hope could be, dreams we wish were reality. We make promises we can't keep but want fervently to; we discuss plans we have no skills to manifest.

By "we", I don't mean myself and 1 other person, nor do I mean all humanity. I think I'm talking about a subgroup of folks like me--who, like upside magnets, are both attracted and repelled by Truth, by the inherent risk of truly living. Who are unsure how to navigate that overlap, that space between two people that is so personal and complex and vital and terrifying. How do I communicate across that canyon? How do I slide sideways along the edge of my circle to dare meet another where we overlap?

There is no safety net, no climber's gear to keep me from plunging. There is no roadmap, no rescue crew. It is me, and you, and this space between us that could form into a healthy thriving "we". Or continue to be a dark place where wishes and dreams and what-ifs echo off unseen crevasses, reverberate, make us lose our bearings and be lost for god knows how long.

I want to be brave. I want to be daring. I want to devote all I (sanely) can to the Overlap, the Space Between. I'm ready to live rather than think of living. I need new tools, I need to manifest rather than wander in dreaming. I am ready to negotiate. I am ready to learn the unique roadmap of this overlap--its boundaries, its pitfalls, its detours, its notable landmarks of communal memory.

But I am only one circle. No matter how hard I try, I can't make a Venn Diagram, with all its lovely possibilities, with one circle.

oh bother

2007-02-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

welsh farmers are advertising for love on their milk bottles. the welsh accent is so lovely lilting unfathomable.

my coworker today reported a day-before-valentine's marriage proposal via a gorgeous diamond ring on the collar of an unbelievably adorable new shih tzu puppy.

photographs of clouds on the internet are probably the natural wonder least likely to inspire the awe conjured by their real life counterparts.

i wonder what my parents did for valentine's day. i bet my father gave my mother flowers and a gushy sweet handwritten "Love you so much" note. i bet there was some slap and tickle over morning coffee. i remember when i was wee, my parents would have silly laughing "arguments" ending with kisses. i can picture my mama's face crinkled with loving exasperation at my dad's latest antics, lips tight trying not to smile; meanwhile, the insistance in his eyes becomes comical and mischievous, he knows he's got her now....and kiss, scene, cue the unreachable expectations.

"Be yourself"

2007-02-13T17:59:00.000-05:00

Today, "Bob Saget" (new coworker who tells horrendously corny jokes a la America's Funniest Home Videos' former host) was doing his usual unedited soliloquoy--straight from his brain to his mouth--and I couldn't help screaming in my head, "Reel it in!!!"

Then I thought about all the advice from various sources that amounts to "just be yourself," be aunthentic, tell the truth.

What a crock of shit.

When someone says, "Be yourself," they don't honestly want that. They want you to be the best version of yourself edited for the particular audience at the moment. They want "yourself" to exist within the confines of situation, setting, and cast.

For god's sake, people: FILTER. Filter....

I'm all filter. My "inner me" is so straightjacketed...

Oh fuck it. I'm sick of myself.

Burning Questions

2007-02-08T19:10:00.000-05:00

In "xoxoxox", are the kisses "x" or "o"? I say the kisses are "x" because that looks more like pursed lips, whereas "o" looks more like encircling arms.

****

I feel like breaking into an abandoned house. Josh and I once finally got into that big old amazing house in Richmond--I still have a scrap of newspaper that was under peeling wallpaper, advertising flapper girl fashion. I still remember the wheelchair in the middle of the hall (which was darkening in the late afternoon light).

Once in a while, I'll sculk around Urban Explorers. That's it. No more sneaking into cemeteries. I've developed what some would call paranoia and some would call common sense--I don't go places anymore that are dark and unpopulated. Dark, unpopulated places are inherently dangerous or attract dangerous folk. I watch the news, I know I know I know.

Some gorgeous lush sadness in abandoned places. Whispery goosebumped tragedy.

Avoidance and Distraction

2007-02-06T18:29:00.000-05:00

My coping mechanisms of choice these days are avoidance and distraction. For example, I AVOID working on my budget by DISTRACTING myself with videos of baby bunny rabbits on Youtube. Seriously adorable videos of baby bunny rabbits.

It's like I've never seen video before. I don't think I fully appreciated how much people put their lives on the internet. Blogs, myspace pages, videos, photobuckets and flickr albums, email whirling back and forth through the air, through wires, through cable. Zoom whizz bang. Our atmosphere is information, is minutiae--web is a good word for it, everyone seems caught in it and feverishly wiggling their morse code.

Does there remain even one Mamaw, in a handbuilt house, back up in a holler, with no idea about 750 cable channels, cellphones, downloadable porn? I like to think there is. I like to think, even though I'm not ready to volunteer to be the One, that there are people who are living lives a little less changed. I'm not sure all this technological white noise is doing much but helping me AVOID living my life by the sheer joy offered by endless DISTRACTION. There is always one more blog to read, one more art page to search for; I lose hours on Etsy.com alone.

Was wandering the library for hours better or different? It was less sendentary, I suppose. Required slight interaction with other people. The heft of massive art books--the slick pages of color prints of such lovely detail; something so Important about the weight of them. The plastic sheen of a bestseller in a protective book jacket, somehow accenting the promise of trashy brain candy. The musty smell of older books versus the gluey smell of newer ones, the yellow of older pages, the pleasure of deliberately ununiform cut pages, the joy of finding a scrawled note in the margin or forgotten bookmark. The rasp of each page turn signifying one step closer to end.

And at home, reading: the corners of books pressed into my chest as I read lying down. Overcome by some particularly striking passage, I'll lay the book on my chest and reel a bit--feel like a hot air balloon with one more rope unknotted, floating a little more tipsily and further from ground.

Right now my eyes have the dry ache that results from too much internet viewing. The heat of the laptop is bothersome. My posture gives me back pain. Bunny videos are nice. Blogs are wonderful. I need to un-cyber-fy though. I need to work on my budget and tidy my kitchen table and make some more valentine goodies.

Infectious Laughter

2007-02-02T19:12:00.000-05:00

Distorted Concept of Beauty

2007-02-02T06:39:00.000-05:00

Via: VideoSift

Well, I thought I knew that models were helped by an army of people to look beautifu--but I didn't, not in my bones. Far more than hair and makeup: the computer editing of the photo especially freaked me out.

Etsy.com find of the day

2007-01-30T17:52:00.000-05:00

Could this cup of tea ring be any more fantastic?

A cumbersome piece, no doubt, but I love it.

YouTube

2007-01-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

Henry Rollins apparently does comedy shows?!?!?!?!?

Enjoy his rant on President Bush. There's also a very funny Love Letter to Ann Coulter.

I love Henry Rollins.

No News

2007-01-23T16:13:00.000-05:00

I've decided that when television news has depressed me due to a) the obvious pleasure newscasters take in reporting tragedy, b) focus on how common household items could kill/maim/mutate you and your children and your pets, and c) politics....

I've decided that what I should do is turn on KET when the kid shows are on. If aliens only intercepted educational television for children, they would conclude that the Earth is full of wild animals roaming and exciting careers and ecstatic fun in everyday activities like cooking. Kid KET is wonderful (with a few exceptions of the truly unwatchable). Kid KET says, "Life is AWESOME, you can do lots of FUN things/meet lots of TOTALLY COOL people, and we are all your close friends who would love a postcard/email/video from you."

I wish I had a babysitter right now who would hide some cool toy in the apartment and give me a treasure map with clues planted along the trail to finding that cool toy. Except I want the cool toy to be a nice cold Cosmo.

Maybe I could make a living "babysitting" adults. Nothing sexual, just an evening of board games and movies and ghost stories by flashlight and a tent made of a sheet over some furniture. That'd be a sweet restaurant--show up in your pajamas for pizza, mac and cheese, pb&j before a "bath time" consisting of spa type treatments, then cozy up in some fantastic feater-filled chair with a comfy blanky to watch some beautiful affirming gorgeous movie. Then someone would have to drive you home because you're so relaxed--guess they'd have pick up service too. Saturdays would be craft project day, Mondays would be "Help with Homework" (organization and time management tips)...

Oh so many ideas flooding my head. I want to be babied as an adult; I want people to explain themselves carefully so I understand them, I want to have hand clapping and cheers greet my smallest accomplishment, I want my bath drawn, my bed prepared, my back rubbed.

I feel puny today, I guess.

Stranger than Fiction

2007-01-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

Will Ferrell is surprisingly amazing, playing an IRS agent sleepwalking through life. He is fumbling and earnest and completely loveable. Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhal, Dustin Hoffman gave equally believable performances (no surprise there); all the characters fully flesh, idiosyncratic without pretense. I love when acting is so good I forget the actor, all my previous experiences with them, and they ARE the character.

Maggie Gyllenhal as a baker describing the tasty treats she baked in college was incredibly sexy.

People are bizarre and frustrating and difficult and hilarious. I utterly adore movies that express that--Garden State, Big Lebowski (all Coen bros movies), Rushmore (all Wes Anderson movies).

"You're never too old for space camp, dude."

Upswing

2007-01-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

Then, for no particular reason, my mood shifts.

After I-can't-tell-how-much-time spent in that foggy lost country of Sadland, I somehow stumble on the right train out. Stamp my passport, I'm hap-hap-happy again.

Maybe it was as simple as reading my daily quote---the day it said we are connected to parts of each other, no one connects everywhere to someone else's everywhere. My humor touches her humor, but our politics are disparate; his politics match mine but our depth of introspection wildly differs.

To expect someone to match you, quality to quality, attitude to attitude, mood to mood, is unreasonable. It is "All Or Nothing" irrational.

My loved ones suddenly seem like a panel of experts that I consult for help in their particular fields. Who helps me sort out my own thinking? Who inspires me to be a better person? Who makes me see how ridiculous, silly, fun the world can be? Who will play "what if" with me? Who will appreciate the new stickers I purchased? Who will help me figure out the best papier mache recipe? Who loves the dark and disturbing? Who appeciates my need to make wildly inappropriate jokes, and can match me, outrage to outrage? Who will watch horror movies with me?

Lucky me to know so many wonderful people. Oh mighty Is, oh universe, never let me cease to admire the vast variations of people, never let me love less. I want no perfect match but to be compelled Outward, to seek Others, to enjoy an ever expanding circle of influence. Bless me with need that I might be inspired to Adventure.

I Heart Mitch Hedberg

2007-01-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later. ---Mitch Hedberg, Mitch All Together

Yell Fire

2007-01-17T05:59:00.000-05:00

Yell Fire by Michael Franti and Spearhead
(aka My Favorite Song in the Whole Wide World Right Now So Find It and Listen To It Immediately Because It'll Change Your Life and Make You a Better Person In Addition To Making You Shake Your Booty)

A revolution never come with a warning
A revolution never sends you an omen
A revolution just arrived like the morning
Ring the alarm, we come to wake up the snoring

They tellin' you to never worry about the future
They tellin' you to never worry about the torture
They tellin you that you'll never see the horror
Spend it all today and we will bill you tomorrow
Three piece suits and bank accounts in Bahamas
Wall street crime will never send you to the slammer
Tell all the children in the arms of their mommas
The F-15 is a homicide bomber

TV commercials for a pop a pill culture
Drug companies circling like a vulture
Iraqi babies with a G.I. Joe father
Ten years from now is anyboby gonna bother

Yell Fire, yo, yo ,yo
Here we come, here we come
Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo
Revolution a comin'
Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo
Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo

Everyone addicted to the same nicotine
Everyone addicted to the same gasoline
Everyone addicted to a technicolour scream
Everybody trying to get their hands on same green
From the banks of the river to the banks of the greedy
All of the riches taken back by needy
We come from the country and we come from the city
You play us on the record, you can play us on the CD
All the shit you given us is fertilizer
The seeds that we planted you can brutalize them
Tell the corporation you can never globalize you
Like Peter Toss said Legalize It
Girls and boys hear the bass and treble
Rumble in the speakers and it make you wanna rebel
Throw your hands up, take it to another level
And you can never, ever, ever make a deal with the devil

Yell Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo
Here we come, here we come
Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo
Revolution a comin'
Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo
Fire, yo, yo, yo, yo

Job Hunt 2007

2007-01-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

Sign it's time to find a new job:

You're flooded with relief at the prospect you might be fired in the morning.

****

I wish under the "objective" section of a resume, I could type the truth:

"Find a job that is moderately fulfilling, with adquate compensation to afford necessities and a few luxuries, that doesn't make me consider suicide"

****

I think I can live a real life outside of "work". I think I can be explosively fulfilled and blissfully happy without the paycheck. I just need the paycheck to pay for shit. I only know I am tired of trying to do something momentous with my Career while dealing with a tedious mood disorder.

Fuck it, dude, let's go bowling.

Weepy Wednesday

2007-01-10T18:41:00.000-05:00

I feel all broken. I feel like the machine making me malfunctioned. I feel faulty and leaky. I feel like if I were brakes on a car, I'd give out just as it coasted down a mountain toward a bottomless crevasse.

I do not trust what I see. I do not trust what I hear. I do not trust that I know anything.

I want to be wrong about where my heart is heading.

I want to be wrong about my fears about people's foibles and weaknesses.

I want to be wrong about the alarm going off in my head: GET OUT! WARNING!! SELF-DESTRUCTION in 3....2........

***

I write to clementine: I wish people changed like topography does--with an earthquake or a volcano, some Mighty Shove of the Almighty. Reshape me.

I feel more like water dripping in a cavern, slowly trailing calcium to build a stalagtite.

The worst part is that I annihilate myself, I give myself away, I hold a pillow over my face and smother smother smother myself.

***

If I can't be repaired, I'd prefer to be fully pushed into insanity. This grey nowhere is boring the shit out of me.

Work

2007-01-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

is there any grown person who LOVES to be snatched from sleep by a screeching alarm 5 of 7 days to go work for food? is it possible for me to feel so happy in a job that i don't get this dread in my tummy every night before bed---the "oh god, i have to go to the bad place" feeling?

i didn't have it the first six months at the job. is that a pattern? for the first six months, i'm still oblivious, not really catching on, it takes me so long to interpret undercurrent and innuendo, i'm a little slow. then, the lightbulb moment: oh, Dick hates Jane and Jane wants Mary's job and Mary doesn't understand certain facets of the company, etc etc etc.

Which comes down to: people are complicated. Their interactions are messy. They are self-centered. They don't seem able to telescope and see these ties between people (or, god forbid, interpret them differently than I do). At this job, there are people who see what I see--but somehow they aren't bothered by it.

It bothers me. I'd rather be oblivious to undercurrent and innuendo. It seems like being oblivious goes a long way toward my happiness. It seems like only with understanding does the suffering start.

So, again, my question: does everyone hate working? Maybe not because the intricacies of human interaction cause major stress (as for me) but for various other reasons. Just the basic idea that you HAVE to be somewhere. Or having a shitty boss, or having some crap part of the job (cleaning toilets, dealing with the public, fill in the blank).

Is there possibly a job that would not make me feel sick eventually? Like on the cusp of a complete mental breakdown sick? Or am I just sick, and with more therapy, more drugs I could tolerate this all much better??? Or am I just going to be uncomfortably employed my whole life?

I'm sick of thinking about myself. I'm sick of thinking about PEOPLE. Maybe an English/library science path is better--maybe thinking about people through poetry and characters would make it all easier to bear.

I'd rather be rollerskating right now.

2007

2007-01-02T19:19:00.000-05:00

Resolutions:

1. Balance my checkbook 1x a week
2. Build a papier mache tree
3. Quit smoking on Valentine's Day
4. Do one thing each day deliberately to take care of myself
5. Be more honest

So there--I send these resolutions out into the ether to be held accountable by you internet spies who still read my ramblings despite lack of update.

The apartment is filling with the smell of golden cake mix baking. I have star shaped sprinkles to decorate the chocolate frosting, and plan a big glass of cold milk to have with the confection. Is anything more delicious and pleasureable than warm cake and cold milk?

I'm tired.

Mutually Assured Destruction

2006-11-05T16:08:00.000-05:00

What would the world be like if America had killed 200 million Russian people with nuclear bombs?

What would the world be like if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated?

What would the world be like if Martin Luther King Jr. hadn't been assassinated (a very funny--all of them are funny--Boondocks episode concerned the return of MLK)?

What if Jesus never came? What if no one thought of the wheel? What if the plague had never happened, or the Irish potato famine? What if religious tolerance kept the Pilgrims right where they were born?

What would the world be like if the dinosaurs hadn't been made extinct? If whatever godspark hadn't set the primordial ooze to living?

It could have been totally different. Moment to moment: choices are made, influences exert their power, people and elements and stardust dance their various collisions and this reality plays out.

Only this reality? Or where are the doors to other possibilities? Is there a place where I'm living out a solitary nunhood? Or a life in straightjacket? Or dead at 24? So many forks in the road, seemingly small, insignificant...but here I am, with this self, this life, these choices facing me.

What next? Bring it on.

2006-10-30T16:04:00.000-05:00

in dreams, the outrages of the day replay (with bizarre revisions of situation and character inthe code of sleep).

in dreams, i don't hold my silence.

in dreams, i protest. i take offense. i see other perspectives but honor my own above all. i am not fair. i storm. i say exactly what i'm thinking, speaking from a visceral self that during the day is straightjacketed.

in dreams, i get it out of the way: i behave irrationally, selfishly, instinctively, immediately. there is no passive aggressive later, after having realized my own lies.

i feel powerful. i feel my voice is heard, and if it isn't, i raise it louder, i will raise it to a scream if need be. i will not be ignored by others who are pulling my sleeve, criticizing, asking for what i don't want to give--i will not be manipulated, i will not be bullied, i will not be ignored.

there isn't a nanosecond's whisper of a thought that i manipulate, bully, ignore myself. that is as unnatural in these dreams as, in reality, growing a second head.

i wake to disbelief. i wake to guilt that my dream speech will be heard by and horrify the people who are accustomed to my silence. i wake to envy of my dream self who is wolven and fierce and burning bright.

Fun with Google

2006-10-05T19:09:00.000-04:00

Create a Band

Create your own conspiracy theory

Create your own adventure

Create your own hell

Create your own alien

Quote of the Day (from work)

2006-10-04T20:11:00.000-04:00

Mr. Cool (always asks for his meds with a loud, "Hey, I need my meds, babe") is calling 911 again. In the past he's called to report that we aren't giving him enough cigarettes, or that his family isn't bringing him enough soda. Today, though, there's a REAL emergency.

From the staff desk, we can hear his booming voice, "There's a man here, he says he's Kirk Douglas but I don't think there's any actors around here. He won't pay his rent and he won't leave. He says he's Kirk Douglas."

Moments after he hangs up, 911 calls us, requesting we restrict Mr. Cool from the phone.

Earlier in the day he was demanding an explanation for why he hadn't yet received the credit card sent to him by the CEO of Ford.

Note: neither Kirk Douglas nor anyone resembling Kirk Douglas is living secretly at the personal care home without paying rent.

2006-10-02T22:44:00.000-04:00

Flipping or flooding, the river’s muddy.

Recent rains are churning silt and litter,
or the maiden days of autumn
have kissed the surface water cool
until the bottom rushes up for a chill.

Whatever the cause, the waterfront has
become foreign territory and the year
marches steadily toward winter.

Endless Angst

2006-10-01T19:31:00.000-04:00

As a codependent, I have a heightened awareness of subtle changes in voice tone and inflection, body language, facial expression.

One second of silence between question and answer could indicate several things:

1. person is thinking up a lie
2. person is gritting teeth against how irritating I am
3. person is is codependant as well and trying to figure out what answer I want to hear
4. and so on, ad infinitum

Which interpretation I choose depends on other clues (gritted teeth given away by the muscle twitch in the jaw) as well as how low tide my self esteem is at the moment. I have yet to discover a way to tone down this quivering antennae, the unceasing anxiety buzzing under my skin constantly.

Having lived mostly in fantasy, obsessed with spirituality and other abstracts, I am ill equipped for dealing with people. I am Gemini--I advance and retreat, pull close and push away. I can't choose between companionship and solitude.

I want not to overthink. I want to feel, act on impulse, live balls out and damn the consequences.

Jeffrey Michael Harp

2006-09-24T12:01:00.000-04:00

"The Yawning" by Jeffrey Michael Harp on Hippopatomouse, via Neatorama.

He calls his work "Victorian Surrealism", and it's delightfully spooky. Appropriate for the season.

I've yet to make any Halloween plans. Beyond purchasing a plastic skeleton head to hold my candy, I've given far too little thought to this, our holiest of days.

2006-09-19T19:56:00.000-04:00

NPR mentioned that the Indonesian anti-terror program of allowing people to vent their feelings, jailing the actual violent offenders and putting them on television (so the people could see that they weren't being coerced or otherwise mistreated)has reduced support for the terrorist organizations there. Isn't that funny? Free speech, open information, it works.

As for Bush's contention that Article 3 of Geneva's forbidding of "outrages against human dignity" being too vague....I don't really find that distinction that gray an area. And hasn't history taught us that abusing detainees doesn't lead to good intelligence (and cerainly not to improved international relationships)?

I'm a bit disgusting by the attempt to distinguish that the Guantanamo detainees aren't the sort of people these articles were drafted to protect...I'm of the opinion everyone's entitled to the same rights.

There are some days that I feel like I spend the entire day screaming in protest in my head.

Luckily it's junk pick up week in the Ville--the boy and I will be headed out after viewing House to see if we can score any items to paint, reuse, dink around with.

Ugly Dolls

2006-08-28T19:51:00.000-04:00

OOOOOOhhh, so spooky and lovely and wonderful:

Strangedolls
October Effigies
UglyArt

Typical Day

2006-08-24T16:55:00.000-04:00

I sometimes wake up at 4 or so, when Jay comes to bed. Failing that, I have two alarms to wake me--my cell phone by the bed is loud enough to rouse me initially; after I switch that one off half-consciously, the one across the room causes me to actually leave the warm cocoon of my bed--I'm 60% convinced at this point I should rise and prepare for work.

I shower (if I haven't overslept, which happens probably 3 of 5 days), brush teeth, take meds/vitamin, dress, realize I haven't packed any lunch for myself as I always intend (and never do), kiss Jay and I'm off.

I arrive at work, greeted by a)angry resident who curses me simply out of inertia, b)staff telling/asking me something that 70% of the time makes me want to roll my eyes (never do--smile, little codependent, SMILE), c)resident demanding my swipe card (to enter the hospital where the cafeteria is), a ride somewhere, etc, or d) on very very lucky days, peace and quiet and I make it to clock in (hopefully before 7:07, at which point I'm officially "tardy") and up the meeting room without incident.

I sit in the meeting room for shift report---again lots of information that either doesn't connect, is heard from someone who heard from someone, educated guesses, completely ignorant guesses, complaints that recur daily, and 30% info that will assist me throughout my shift. Sometimes there's fun banter, but at 7 a.m., it's a lot to expect from anyone.

7:30 shift report's done and the 3rd shift exit; we on 1st shift chat a moment, review the shift schedule to find out which residents are assigned to us (usually the same 4 or 5 plus a few random extras), which housekeeping jobs are assigned (put up clean linens, clean a particular room, keep fruit and koolaid flowing in the kitchen, etc), when our lunches are (anywhere from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.).

Depending on how alert they are, Liz will have a story about how she learned something new by a charmingly embarassing situation, or Lauren will affectionately dub someone a "hot mess", or Amy will renew my faith in humanity by being unbelievably kind and good at her job, or Susan will have the earworm of the day.

Finally we go downstairs, serve breakfast, ask what everyone has planned for the day (frequently "not much" beyond showering; sometimes booked with groups and outings), encourage people to get their meds, do their daily activities, talk about some of their treatment goals if we get a spare moment.

At about 9:30, that part of the morning is over, and I smoke.

The rest of the day is: checking people's rooms to assess cleanliness/laundry needs(wildly varied from Martha organized to wishing I had a gas mask), helping someone cook or shop, taking someone to the doctor or to get their ID, trying to rope some folks into playing a game and interact with each other, asking some folks not to yell/curse/say unbelievably vicious things to their peers, gratefully accepting a laugh from folks who usually don't say 10 words a day---cheerlead, encourage, give out cigarettes on the hour, wipe down surfaces with 409, make notes about what folks are doing during the day....

I usually lunch at 11. These days, I grab fast food and listen to State of Affairs on NPR.

Afternoon: cheerlead, encourage, follow up on folks you asked to shower/do laundry/clean their rooms/take their meds to see if they did, make plans for cooking or shopping with other folks, try to convince some folks to take a walk, give out cigarettes on the hour, try to get notes on every person I've been assigned for the day.

3:00--shift report. 2nd shift fights the urge to roll their eyes at us as we recount the day with 30% of useful information. Sometimes there's fun banter, which is more likely at this time of day; the social workers and clinical director are there for this report. For some reason, there's a split between "floor" staff and "management", so the fun banter doesn't get too irreverent. I don't understand the split, because management seems really grounded, extremely talented clinically, approachable. I worry constantly I'm oblivious to some unspoken signals, and that I'm slowly, unconsciously painting myself into a bad corner.

Shift report is over at 3:30--sometimes it is, sometimes there's treatment plans to discuss or a particular issue that just takes longer to hash out. Most days I'm out by 3:45 at the latest, clock out and rush home, hoping to beat the train which makes traffic unimaginably slow at one particular point on my ride home. I curse other drivers, it's hot in the car, I'm thirsty and should have used the restroom before leaving work and everyone else is the worst driver in the world.

At home, sometimes Jay greets me from the couch with "Hi sweetheart" or sometimes he's at work. Either way, I collapse on the couch and contemplate exercising, making something for supper (and packing lunch); I check my email, watch crap tv (my tolerance for Judge Judy is appallingly increasing). My head aches. I've eaten crap food all week, watched crap tv, I should go outside, I should paint or write or ...

perhaps nap on the couch? perhaps eat more crap while watching more crap tv? perhaps start yoga tomorrow, spend time in the park this weekend. Sometimes I do check my bank balance, which is good for a few hours panic to distract me from the low grade melancholy that at this point appears central to my character.

I can read or talk to Jay but not both at the same time. I have attention span for only one activity, and that's a bit sketchy. My back and shoulders ache, although I'm not conscious of any particular stressor--yes, certain residents offer interactions that are unpleasant but they are in context, they are ill, they are suffering, that's why they live there. Some days I remember that better than others. Some days I read people more accurately than others, can think faster on my feet to deflect a bad situation. Some days I get lots done, some days I feel like I spent all day just running in circles.

I think about all this. If Jay's home, we eat, talk, kiss, he plays video games while I sit and think about all this.

And then, I try to convince myself to be in bed by 10, by 11, by midnight. These days I'm tired morning to night, but I blame most of that on poor diet, no exercise, possibly depression.

I go to bed, trying to remember what I have scheduled to do at work the next day, or if the next day is a day off, what I need to get done, what I want to do. Jay stays awake (which will change when he restarts college next week) until about 4, when he wakes me coming to bed....

Tuesdays I try to make it to Loren's for supper and Gilmore Girls/House; Fridays are hopefully to be spent with Patsy at CODA and then debriefing from CODA.

I need a jump start. Some drastic ass-kick to a healthier direction.

If you read through all that drivel, congrats. You now fully comprehend how boring it is to be me when I'm in neutral.

2006-08-23T19:02:00.000-04:00

I found this from Personal Development for Smart People via Lost Soul Companion's forum:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

That sounds like a plausible method. Maybe this weekend.

reality

2006-08-22T22:10:00.000-04:00

what is true: the world on crap television (pick one: reality show, faux courtroos with various stereotypes presiding, martha oprah springer???) or the world on bbc news or the world according to jon stewart and stephen colbert?

the world in my boyfriend's video games. the world of my drunken downstairs neighbors. the world of the resident at work who does not leave his room except for meals.

the world of george bush, angelina jolie, courtney love, bono, nameless iraqis dying and dying and dying. the world of orphans or aids or beauty queens?

where do i live? how can i put in for an address change? i am in some gray no zone, nowhere, barren. i catch winds from these other lands, horrendous or beautiful: the sound of humpback whales bellowing their intricate songs, the sound of bombs exploding, the sound of drums or dancing or of a fist connecting solidly with flesh.

wiggle my nose, click my heels three times, whisk me to neverland where pan will save me every time from the hooked pirate. take me through the phantom tollbooth, send in a nanny with an umbrella on a stiff wind, show me the way to hundred acre wood where i will live under the name of saunders.

i am feeling tired of this messy mysterious world. i cannot assimilate all the information into a coherent whole. i am a whiny american with internet, air conditioning, and existential angst. i am lost i am lost i am lost.

give me a world small and manageable, where i can affect change readily, where there is peace and color and quiet.