Shiny Things and the Random Redhead

Clicky, clicky, whee!

2010-02-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to dust off this blog. (The keyword here being "trying".) So, in lieu of words, I'm totally going to picspam y'all with some of the photos I've taken in the last 2 years. Some of these are the most viewed (and sometimes I wonder, "why?") and some of these are just favourites of mine because ... well, because.

Without further ado, images.

(And, damn. I meant to pick, like, 10. Uhm, not so much.)

This image, by far, has received the most views on my Flickr stream.

This is a close third. (From the Nomeansno show at The Knitting Factory.)

Same show, and I think my favourite from the night.

I don't know why, but I think this? I love.

This one just makes me giggle, on so many levels. (You had to be there.)

One of my nearest and dearest friends. I think I like this one so much because there is just so much of *her* in the eyes.

This weekend was full of so much joy, and happiness, and tears. And it was pretty much summed up when Becca walked down the aisle, with her black parasol, and laughed. And then? Another one of my best friends, her now-husband, cried at the sight of her.

I am happy, nay, joyful, to see that a dance troupe that I was a co-founder of is still alive and kicking.

I think I love this one because G looks *so.damn.serious*. Personally, I think he was trying to not faint.

Again, alive and kicking.

This one I like, and makes me tear-up every time, because the night this photo was taken was at a very sad event. But I caught Sarah and her partner in a moment of pure bliss, and love. Dancing.

Another one of my nearest and dearest friends.

What can I say? I'm a fan of blue.

The colours! The light! (And, dude, he's just purdy.)

High-flying ass. (Both the shot, and the man. MUAH Mish. Love you, mean it.)

I love reflections.

Mmm, candles.

I love the sand. How you can create something right there, in the moment, and then erase it.

The hair!

Random bits of jewelry, on a box.

Yeah. I do the same thing.

Flying hair!

I r not amuzed. Feedz me, beeotch.

YAY! Blue!

Dancing feet ...

I guess I love black and white. (And it is also forgiving of many mistakes.)

What can I say? I like cemeteries.

Red, White, and ... BLUE!

Walking, walking, walking ...

More hair!

Pitter patter, pitter patter

2010-02-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

Drip, drip, drip.
I hear it, once again.

In each falling drop.
It is felt.

“Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain …”

Drip, drip, drip.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

Drip, plop. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Plop, drip.
______________________________

“ … let me be alone again …”
______________________________

“Do you want more rice, or more beans?”

One year, three years, ten years, later …

… that is the question that Dad asks me.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
______________________________

The flank steak juices fall.
Drip, drip, fzzz.

“Do you want more rice, or more beans?”

“ … but little does she know that when she left that day, she took my heart …”
______________________________

Stepping out of my room I smell it again.

Fat, rendering. Juicy, on the grill.

Drip, drip, drip.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.

A broken man, flipping sustenance on the grill for his broken girl.
______________________________

The smell tempts me.

I think it tempts you too …
______________________________

“Ann Marie, you need to eat.” (I think he is telling me I need to live.)

“Yeah, I guess I am hungry.” (I try to tell him the same.)
______________________________

Bleary eyed, and sad, you turn to me, facing away from the grill.

“Would you like seconds?” (I think you are trying to say, “I love you”.)

“Yes. I would. Thank you.” (I think I am trying to say, “I love you” back.)

We look at each other, hiding emotions. Eyes and hearts hidden. You scrape the grill, I scrape the plate. And we continue on, silent in our suffering. Forks scraping our plates, saying what we cannot say to each other.
_________________________________________

Over the weekend, we listen to music, forgetting our unspoken “grill” conversation.

You turn up the volume dial on the radio.

“ … looking for a brand new start …”

Each of us smile, finally making eye contact. And then go back to our plates, knives and forks digging in.
_________________________________________

Drip, drip, drip.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

I sit, alone, in my room. As you do, in your own.

“ … rain, please tell me now, does that seem fair …”

Listening. Listening to the “drip-drip” of the rain.

Stepping out of my room, I flash back.
Dinners cooked.

Stepping out of your room, you flash back.
Dinners cooked.

Our eyes meet, and we turn back … heads bowed down.
_________________________________________

“ … pitter-patter, pitter-patter …”

The pitter is the patter of steak, and fat …

… falling to the coals.
_________________________________________

Pitter … the scrape of a knife on the plate.

Patter … the throwing of that same knife on a plate.

Pitter-patter … the sound of loss, and anger, being thrown at each other across dinner.

Silent, in our stares. Silent …

… in our silence.

In our blame.
_________________________________________

Pitter …

Patter …

_________________________________________

I step out of my room, in 2010, and …

I flash back.

Flash back to dinner.

Drip, drip, drip.
_________________________________________

The smell of water.
The hiss of meat in the oven.

The sound of rain.
The feeling of drops on the roof.

Both say,
“Hiss, hiss, hiss.”

Both carry with them a smell.
A memory.
_________________________________________

Pitter …

Cutlery, falling …

Patter …

Tears, falling …
_________________________________________

Pitter …

Tears, falling …
_________________________________________

Patter …

Cutlery, falling …

_________________________________________

Pitter, patter.

Pitter, patter.
_________________________________________

Tears and cutlery have been tossed aside.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain.

For many years, all I felt was sadness. But now? I get it.

A parent, and even a child, can feel the same pain. The same loss.

_________________________________________

What is it telling you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQstQST1GiM

Searching for our song

2009-11-06T01:46:00.000-08:00

You terrify me.
(Please don't break my heart.)

There is so much more I could show you; that I could give you.
(Please don't break my heart.)

But ...
... I am afraid.

Afraid of showing that much to you. Of giving that much to you. I want to. I do.
(And if I do? Please, don't break my heart.)

When I roll over and show you my most vulnerable parts, will you embrace them, or eviscerate them?
(Please don't break my heart.)

But ...
... I am afraid.

____________________________________

I wrote the above because I am feeling raw, and vulnerable. And that vulnerability draws me to write really bad poetry. (If you need an example, please read the above.)

Tonight I curled up on my bed with So You Think You Can Dance, Chinese food delivery, and IM conversations. Any one of the preceding would make me do a wigglesome dance of joy normally, but tonight? Even the combination of all three made me feel unsated. So … the show is over, food has been consumed, and conversations shut down. I still feel restless. What to do?

Oh, I know! Break out the notebook of a dead woman! Let’s see what she has to say …
____________________________________

So … here I sit, in a house that you helped buy, flipping through yellowed paper that was written on before the concept of this house was even realized, reading words that smell of thirty-year old smoke, written by a woman I can only hope to know. But never will.

Even though I am part her, and she is part me, I can only guess to her meaning.

All I have left are these faded words tossed on slips of paper (maybe haphazard, maybe intentional), saved in a chocolate covered, purse-sized notebook.

All I know is that those words, these words held in my hand, written a generation ago, and maybe written before I was even a thought, or a spark, speak to me.
____________________________________

“Though I must fight some battles alone,
I cannot live alone –
I am no longer a separate entity –

For I have come to know the joy of another.”

And …

“The most valuable gift we have to give is ourself. [sic]
And it is within the constant giving of ourself [sic] that happiness

as we desire it

evolves and becomes real.”

____________________________________

These are words, written down by a (now) dead woman. I think they are her own, but I cannot be sure. All I do know is that they touch me, deeply and movingly. And it makes me want her all the more, if just to vent to her. To babble at her. To reach out and touch her; to touch her arm or face or even hand. To grab that hand and bring her in to hug her to myself. To ask her what she meant, and what she was feeling, when she wrote those words down.

Since I can’t do that, I can only imagine, and construct, make-believe conversations. Conversations where I re-create puberty and do the whole, “but Moooooooooom! He said, and then I said, and then he said, and then SHE said, and then THEY said, and … *sob sob* … what does it mean?” (Insert the teenage angsty-voice of your choice here.)
____________________________________

And, since this is my fantasy, I pick up that chocolate notebook, brush off that asshole pubescent girl, and flip through the pages to figure out which question I am asking.

And then she answers with,

“As we listen to the music,
we learn and grow wiser
while searching for our own song
and the message it will sing.”

And then my (now no longer teenaged self) says, “Huh? What the hell are you talking about?” As I throw myself across that twin bed and beat my feet against that horrible flowered comforter, I will scream out, “you just don’t get it! You don’t understand!”

(My unknown question is still unknown. It’s just a feeling. And I still kinda hate that pubescent girl that I once was, once upon a time.)

As my teenaged self yells that invective, “you DON’T UNDERSTAND!” my adult self goes, “oh, shut it! I get it now.”

My adult self says, over the screaming meemies of my teenaged self, to my Mom, “oh, okay. I understand. I get it. You are telling me to listen to the music. Take what I hear and make it my own. March to the beat of my own drummer, right?”

The ghost mom tells the alive me, “yes, exactly.”

The ghost of the teenaged me says, “what the fuck are you talking about?”

But then ghost mom says, “if you see yourself as a rock, no one will touch you.”

The adult me just nods and grins, leaving the teenaged me rolling her eyes. And still kicking her heels in frustration. (Mom and I just giggle. I still kick my heels though.)
____________________________________

At some point Mom wrote down in that chocolate notebook,

“We feel, therefore we are.”

And to that? I say yes.

Nothing more than “yes” can I say in response.

Yes.

It took me a long time to acknowledge feeling. And to even accept feeling. And to believe that feeling is … okay.

So. If we feel? (That is okay.)

If we feel, we are. (And that acceptance I’m still learning to embrace.)

____________________________________

“We are where love has come to live.”

Mom and Dad are both gone. When I grieve either one, without the other – when I miss Mom, without missing Dad; when I miss Dad, without missing Mom … – I feel guilt. I feel guilt that, at that moment; I am placing one above the other. But I’m not. Only now am I learning that I am grieving the passing of them both. The passing of them as Mom, as Dad. As a couple. And as my parents. And as individuals.

And through this weird fucked up process we call grief am I learning love. Learning love of family. Love of others. Love of this weird thing we call life. Most mostly?

I love Mom. I love Dad. Through them love has found a home within me; their love of each other, their love of me, and their love of … love.

Love lives within me, and therefore?

I love myself.

Otherwise known as “Love of self”.
____________________________________

The very first part that I wrote of, of terror … well, it could apply to friendships. Or to love. Or to my parents. Or yours. Or to yourself.

Actually, it applies to all. And to none.

Love can be terror.

“Reflection is the insight of tomorrow.”

When we reflect, mostly upon ourselves, we view the past. We fear the tomorrow. I say tear down the fear. Tear down the terror. Embrace the tomorrow, and all the weird reflection that comes of it.

As Mom would say …

“Life beats on”

“Live in the happiness with the knowledge that the world will grow a little better with you there.”

____________________________________

I say, “You terrify me.”

I think, “There is so much more I could show you; that I could give you.”

I say, think, and live, “But ... ... I am afraid.”

Taking a page from Mom and Dad, I say to myself, “deal”.

I answer, “But ... ... I am afraid.”

____________________________________

I embody not just Mom and Dad, but also Me, and I say this, and question this …

“What shall I do to love?
Believe.

What shall I do to belive?
Love”
____________________________________

For once in my life I will listen to my parents. I will believe. And I will love.

I hope you can do the same.

A snapshot. Full of pee. Signifying nothing.

2009-09-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

So …

I love my boys. I really do. Just over 2 years ago (has it really been that long?) a friend of mine calls me up saying that there were some youngins that were found behind a dumpster, starving and close to death.

She knew I was itching to fill the void that Ms. Liza left when she was unceremoniously a) attacked by a raccoon, b) fought a coyote, or c) lost a fight to a Toyota. (The jury is still pending on cause of death.) I mean, there I was – in my childhood home, sans cat, with only my (soon-to-be-ex, heretofore known as STBE), his dog, and another stray dog. The “guy” level was overwhelming, and the estrogen, after Liza left, was decidedly lacking.

I was a cat, living in a dog world. That shit had to change.
______________________

The call …

“Hey, I know this may be a bit too soon, since it’s only been a few months, but this lady at my shop found some kittens … ”

“Ohhhh, I’m not sure. I mean, so much is going on right now, I mean with the house, and the dogs, and the STBE … ”

“But they are SO cute! Here, listen.” (She holds the phone up to some really pathetic meows. My redheaded Virgo partner in crime? She fights dirty.)

“*sigh*. Fine. Let me put on my bra. And some pants. I’ll be there in an hour.”
______________________

The meeting …

After fighting Southern California heat, and traffic, in a roller-skate of a car with no air conditioning, I arrive in Riverside. Even if I didn’t bring home an orphan today, I was thankful to finally be out of my car, with some blessedly cool air drying the gallons of sweat dripping off my body.

“Finally! Come here, come here, come here! Just lookit doze cute widdle faces!”

Before I really had a chance to savor not being stuck on the 91, and before I could really grok that it wasn’t eleventy-thousand degrees, I was face to face with this:

And then? This:

I was helpless. HELPLESS! How could I say no? (God, I'm a sucker.)

Needless to say, these two little shitheads came home with me that day.
______________________

The ride …

These two little no-longer-orphans were now tucked away in a cat carrier on my passenger seat. I had both windows rolled down in my roller-skate, but it was still eleventy-billion degrees out. Their plaintive mews kept cutting into my heart.

“Oh, I know babies. It’s hot out. And you’re scared and trapped in a little box. I’m so sorry. Soon we’ll be home, where you’ll feel the ocean breeze. Kind of. So … tell me … what are your names?”

The bastards played coy with me, and didn’t tell me their names for a full week and a half.

They mewed, and I responded. Even though we bonded during that hellacious drive, they still refused to tell me their names. The whitish one? Just kept staring – he had these huge eyes, that took in everything. The grey one? Well, he stared as well, but it looked like he was plotting at the same time.
______________________

Ah, home …

We arrived home and the poor dogs were beside themselves. Kasha was just so excited to have new additions to the home that she just wanted to play. Her form of playing, though, was sniffing the little fuzzballs, bouncing their butts on her nose, and then rolling them around the house. And Teddy? Oh, poor guy … he took one sniff and hid. I guess he remembered some past experience with cats where his nose was decimated. (Can’t really say I blame the guy.)

So, after a week and a half, they deigned to tell me their names.

Argus and Asmo (short for Asmoedus).

They really do live up to their namesakes.
______________________

And then the fun began …

Apparently we bonded TOO well on the drive. By this time the STBE was taking turns sleeping on the couch, and in the bed. Soon, the couch was a better option. Why was this? Because the two teensy-tiny hellions were jealous. When he would sleep in bed, they would invariably pee on his head. And on his pillow. Pretty much anything that he touched while in bed? Yep. They peed on it.

One night? They even peed on my hair. (Hand to god. They PEED. ON. MY. HAIR.)
______________________

Payback …

They have never really understood the concept that only one thing can occupy one location at one time. Many times, I have gone to sit in “my” place on the couch, only to find it filled with a cat. And though I do lower myself slowly, in the hopes that they will realize their impending doom, they never move.

(I guess my ass isn’t as terrifying as I thought it was.)

Tonight, again, I almost sat on one of the cats.

This time it was different. It may have been the fact that I was really distracted. It may have been the fact that I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings. Or it may have been the fact that I really had to pee.

It wasn't until I felt fur on my rear that I realized one of the cats was drinking out of the toilet.

Thankfully, I was able to reverse course. But if I had peed on Argus' head? I probably would have felt bad.

Just a little. But it did give a whole new meaning to “wet pussy”.
______________________

Hmm, maybe I should have. I mean, turn about is fair play, no?

Apart from? Or a part of?

2009-09-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been in, but not of, life.

Too much time spent on the hamster wheel …

… spinning …

… spinning … but never moving forward.

Static.

Circular.
_______________________

I’ve been dreaming.

Wanting to shake up my dream tree. I've been shaking it, but nothing falls.

Dreaming of murderous mafia-zombies.

But sadly not dreaming of being an architect.

_______________________

I am in the world …

… apart from it, but not a part of it.

_______________________

Too much time spent behind a book, or a lens. Experiencing life only through words on a screen or via second-hand phone conversations. Never first hand, except for momentary grasps. And stolen kisses.

Hiding behind closed doors, because my house is no longer my home. No longer my safe haven.

Living, but only through another’s view.

_______________________

Maybe what I am trying to say to myself is this …

Self? Stop being a passive observer, and become an active participant in your own damn life.

Self? Stop doing a Phoenix impersonation and use that tinder to build something, instead of burning it down.

Self? Remember. Remember that it really isn’t so bad. There is joy in the ordinary.

Self? Don’t be so afraid of just reaching out and grabbing that hand. Screw your own internal censor.

(I mean, seriously? Self? Get off the wheel. It could be worse – you could have bifurcated paws.)

Self?

Get out there. And live.
_______________________

(And here's a video. Just because it's been in my head for a few days. This song turned me onto the Buena Vista Social Club. The documentary is fantastic too ... rent it. Buy the CD.)

Fathers Day - 2009

2009-06-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

As a woman I was always made to feel that Mother’s Day should be my focus. It wasn’t.

Allow me to amend that. It WAS … until I was 5.

After that, though?

It was Father’s Day. THAT was my focus.
________________________________________________________

From then on, it was just you and me kid.

When I was 7, I gave you your first Mother’s Day card. It was one of the few, very few, times that my grandmother never second-guessed me. There are times that I wish(ed) she would have been that open in other instances …

At first you were confused. But the confusion turned to a smile once you saw what my second grade handwriting said. And then that smile turned to a grimace, a happy grimace nonetheless, as you tried to hide the tears.

Every year thereafter not only did I celebrate you on Father’s Day, you were also lauded on the day reserved for Mother’s. Because that’s what you were to me. Most people didn’t understand … “Uhm, yeah, okay … why are you getting a Mother’s Day card for your Dad?”

“Because.” And really?

That’s all I could say.

Because.

You either got it, or you didn’t.

Many years after Mom died, I realized that not only were you “Dad”, you also had to fill the role of “Mom”. A small part of me understood that when I first unintentionally got you that first Mother’s Day card. I didn’t know what I was doing then, but later I did. And once I realized that? My heart opened, and then broke. And then? You kept receiving cards. It was no longer “Mother’s” cards, or “Father’s” cards … you got cards. Just because. Because, yes, you were my Father. But you were also my Mother. But most of all? You were my parent.

You were Pops.

________________________________________________________

There you were, a young, handsome, and virile man. Left floating, seemingly alone, by the death of your “one”. Adrift, with a small child clinging to you. A needy, artistic, and needy child clinging to you for dear life, when all YOU wanted was to be left to do that … float adrift. Drift away.

Thinking back upon that now, as an adult, I must admit this …

I honestly don’t know how you did it.
________________________________________________________

You started off as this carefree surfer.

And then Vietnam …

You admitted that there was another love before Mom. You told me that when you felt I could actually hear it. And I did. Yes, I was hurt. That hurt came from a child’s understanding, a child’s outlook. (“What do you mean? There was ANOTHER woman before Mom?) The child hurt, but the adult understood. The adult felt.

However, the child (and adult) still twinges a bit when she looks upon this photo …

(Am I a horrible person to say that I am so glad that she ISN'T my mom?)

But this adult (and child) is ecstatically happy to realize that she broke your heart. (No, shush. I am NOT happy she broke your heart. But I AM happy to realize that she broke you just enough so that you could meet Mom. And so that you and Mom could meet as partners.)

________________________________________________________

Your side of the family (my family), says that there are two of you – the pre-Vietnam Chris, and the after-Vietnam Chris.

As much as I would have loved to have known you pre, you wouldn’t be “Dad” to me if you weren’t also the after. I mean … that’s all I knew.

The “pre-Chris” loved his family, and looked after his sister. Yes, he was a bit free, and a bit naive. Always searching for the next wave.

The “after-Chris” was mostly the same but with harder, and sharper, edges. (Still searching for that ever elusive wave, though.) The pre would have tried to talk sense into his brother-in-law, for being too hard on his sister. The after was the one who went searching for the same brother-in-law, gun in hand, for abusing his baby sister. (Thankfully, the after never found him. Otherwise, I would never be here.)

You know what though? I kinda like the “after” …

________________________________________________________

I saw the sadness, and desperation, in your eyes. Not only was it seen, it was felt.

From you I have learned how to love. I’m not talking about loving family just because they are blood, or loving friends just because they are there… yes, you taught me that. You also showed me what it was to open yourself up fully. To splay yourself, your emotions, your core. To open yourself up to the unknown. You have shown me that you CAN do that.

And you showed me that you can reap those benefits. The benefits being that you reap what you sow ...

... Mom loved you so much ...

... So did I. So do I ...

You have also shown me that when you do that, you leave yourself open to heartache. It’s a heartache I never want to experience. Ever. At least, not in the way that you did.

________________________________________________________

Until I became headstrong in my teenage years, we were tight. Tight.

Once we gained some space, some distance, only then could we become friends again. For me being an asshole teenager … I apologize. I know you understood, but still. I am sorry. I KNOW you did much worse than I ever did (hell, you even told me of some of your exploits!) But still?

I am sorry.
________________________________________________________

If there ever comes a day when I do have kids (a day which I hope for, but feel will never happen), I can only hope to be like you. Yes, I do want to be like Mom, juts a little. But mostly?

If I had to choose the parent to emulate, it would be you.

YOU.
________________________________________________________

After Mom died, I know you were lost. And I understood that you would have gone away as well … if it wasn’t for me. (And, no, that’s not ego speaking – maybe I was just a responsibility at first, because of grief. But later? After the initial heartbreak? “It was just you and me, kid”.)

But still? Helllloooooooooooo Catholic Guilt ™!

After though… you morphed from Dad into Pops. And I turned from “god damnit! Ann Marie!” into “Bubba”. Or “Bub”.

When you were alive, I never actually liked, or understood, The Beatles. But after you went? I really did try to understand why you loved them so. It took me a while, though. And now?

Now I get it. (Strawberry Fields still flips me the fuck out. I doubt that will ever change. I still sit at that same table, in the same kitchen, and Strawberry Fields still strikes in that same visceral way. Yes, I “get” it now. It still makes me uneasy. And now? Okay … *shrug*)

You and I … we do share genetics. But now, we also share a love of the Fab Four.

When someone says yesterday … I understand it on my level. But I also understand it on yours. And I really do think that is the legacy you left to me. There ARE shadows …

And if you were still here? I would say this to you: the shadows are really the dark parts. Know them. Appreciate them. Roll in them. But please, don’t live in them. Instead, allow them to serve as contrast. As a foil, to the light that you lived.

A light you had so much of.

A light that burned too bright. And too fast. A light that was extinguished too soon.

________________________________________________________

I can believe in yesterday … and now? I CAN move on to tomorrow.

But only because of you.
________________________________________________________

I love you, Dad. Granted, I may be away this weekend following my own passion, but I think that you may, just may, understand that. You will never be far from my mind.

This Sunday I will raise my camera, and a glass, and wish you nothing but a slipper tail lobster, some 7&7, and know (hope) that Mom is by your side to share it with you. (And then? In my mind she will make fun of you. With some inside joke that only the two of you know the punchline to.) When the two of you are laughing ... I hope I catch just the faintest whiff of scent ... Shalomar and Cinnamon for her, with just a touch of Old Spice for you. Even though I know you hated it.

And then? Then I will smile. And laugh. And then I will cry through my own inside joke. Damn the rest!

Happy Fathers Day Pops ... wherever you may be.

I chase the light

2009-06-23T02:18:00.001-07:00

I chase the light.

The sun through the window shows her face in a way only I know; full of joy, love, and the weight of a world only she knows. And I want to capture it. Gather it to me for always. And then, show that understanding back to the world.

I chase the light.

The music is captured on his face, with eyes half closed, and the beginning of a grin. His toes tap and fingers drum on the almost empty pint of cider, half forgotten. I can see the beginning of a story there.

I chase the light.

A tear leaks from her eye, and it races to catch the smile now unleashed. We all cry, laugh, and scream as they say, “I do”.

I chase the light.

The first time your fingers met mine, I could barely breathe.

I chase the light.

How can you capture a scent?

___________________________________________

My friends, my family, my lovers … they aren’t seen as just (or only) human in my eye. They are bits of experience – a scent, a touch, a feeling, a tune, an image.

All fleeting – amorphous moments in time.

But together?

Joy.

Life.

Anger.

Hate.

But overwhelmingly?

Love.

___________________________________________

I wish I had embraced photography and writing sooner than I did. Maybe some of the moments of my life could be tangibly touched or read again. And shared.

But now? Instead of dwelling on “if only”, I will work towards “and then”.

And then? After this photo? After this paragraph? What happened?

___________________________________________

Well … you will just have to stay tuned.

Chicken Piccata

2009-06-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

Each time I make this, it turns out a bit different. Sometimes the sauce is thinner and other times, like tonight, it turns out thick. What can ya do? The prep time seems to take longer than the actual cook time. Here’s what you’ll need:

Chicken (The “real” recipe says 4 skinless/boneless breast halves. I prefer to pick up a pack of chicken tenders – already thin, and easier to control the portion that way.)
Butter (About 3 tablespoons, give or take. Make sure it’s room temperature – don’t try to shortcut this by softening it in the microwave. Just my preference.)
Flour (Measurements to come.)
Olive oil (2-4 tablespoons.)
Lemon juice, fresh squeezed. Use that crap that comes in the plastic faux lemon and I will never speak to you again. (Now, I’m all for lemon – during the summer I would eat one, or maybe 3, lemons per day. Loves me some lemon! That being said, the recipe calls for 1/4 cup but I would cut down on this and use more wine, or more broth.)
Chicken broth. (Approximately 1/4 cup, depending on if you use this to cut the lemon with.)
WINE! Dry and white. (About 1/3 cup, but I always wind up using more. My preference is sauvignon blanc. Use your favourite, just make sure it’s dry.) Buy two bottles – one for cooking, and one for drinking.
Capers (drained) and parsley (1/4 of each. Typically I’ll use mostly fresh parsley and some dried, but use what you have.)
Salt and pepper, to taste. (I prefer kosher or sea salt. And some white pepper mixed with the black.)

Typically this is served over angel hair pasta, but tonight I used jasmine rice. Choose whatever side you prefer.

1) In a small bowl, take 1 tablespoon of the (room temperature!) butter and mix it with 1 1/2 tablespoons of flour. Mix together until it’s smooth. Set aside.

2) Flour the chicken. (Dump some flour in a deep plate or shallow pan.) If you use breast halves, you’ll want to pound them down. I hate to beat my meat (no comments, Peanut Gallery!) which is why I use the already semi-thin tenders. You can either dust the chicken with salt and pepper before drenching in the flour, or you can do what I do – mix the salt and pepper in with the flour. Set aside. Wash the caked flour off your hands. (This is the part I hate – icky chicken and flour under my nails. Bleh.)

3) Take a drink. You may drink the wine, I’ll stick with beer.

4) Start with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Dump into the pan and heat (hot, but not smoking.)

5) Add chicken and cook until golden-ish. About 3-5 minutes per side, or until cooked through. Salmonella is BAD! Depending on your pan size, and amount of chicken, this may have to happen in two batches. If you have to cook the chicken in more than one fell swoop, this is when the extra oil comes in. Add a touch more to the pan, and cook away. Set cooked chicken on a plate and tent with foil.

6) In the same pan, add the wine, broth, and lemon to boil. (Heat is about medium-high, to medium.)

7) After the wine/broth/lemon is boiling, stir in the butter/flour mixture from earlier. Boil. (This may take a bit of whisking to get it to blend together. Be patient. It will come.)

8) Once the butter/flour is introduced, throw in the capers, parsley, and last 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir. Take a taste. If you want to add more salt or pepper, do so. If you want to add more wine, broth, or lemon juice, now is the time to do so (if the sauce is too thick, definitely add more liquid).

9) Place pasta or rice on a plate. Put chicken over that. Over THAT, spoon some sauce. Viola!

10) Crack open the wine (or beer, or water, or what-have-you) and enjoy over some candlelight. Or pop in a movie and curl up on the couch. Or … open up some Scottish Sock Puppet youtube clips and enjoy.

This one is a hit at my house. Unfortunately, these guys get nothing. NOTHING! (Okay, they get some kibble. And love. Lots of love. But that’s it.)

Whaddya mean I don't get the leftovers?!

This is my patented stink-eye. When asked why he was giving the stink-eye, Senor BooBoo was quoted as saying, "You get this because you are not sharing the chicky-chicky with me. I might just eat your head."

Teddy says, "Phbtphbt!"

I think Argus is contemplating peeing on my head. It was later found out that he did, indeed, say, "If I don't get some chicken love, I will pee on your pillow. Don't push me, woman!"

Asmo was unavailable for comment at this time, but his agent said that he would get back to me. Riiiiiiiight.

And then I said, "Blah blah. Wah wah, wah-wah-wah-what?"

2009-06-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

“You just don’t flirt with members of the opposite sex when you’re in a relationship.”

Okay, you know what? That may be true for you. But for me? I flirt. I love it. Does it mean anything?

No.

Dictionary.com describes in part “flirt” as: “to court triflingly or act amorously without serious intentions”.

Without serious intentions. Do you see how I highlighted that?

Without serious intentions.

Maybe, just maybe, your life experience has taught you that flirting is more serious. My experience has shown me that this is not so. That flirting is NOT serious.

We have just gone round and round about this. And yet you persist in the unyielding view that flirting equals intent. For you? Maybe it’s true. For me? It is not.

Honestly, the men I actively flirt with are the ones whom I have no ulterior motives about; the ones that I have absolutely no interest in. This is because they are safe. They know this, and I know this. Apparently, you don’t.

When I say I’m going out to dinner with a friend I mean just that – a friend. We have known each other for neigh on 17 years. I am sorry that you may feel that we are “on a date”, when in reality we met for pot stickers so that he could talk about his ex moving to some god forsaken state to live with her producer. And how that affected him.

If that is a “date”, then I’m dating every single person that I know who needs some time to just vent. To just talk.

_____________________________

You asked me to give specifics of when you put words in my mouth. I wish I could give them to you right now. I wish I could say that every time you accused me in surreptitious ways of still being in love with my ex, that I could shake you by the shoulders and say, “no. I am NOT in love with him. Yes, I did I spend my years between 16 and 29 either wanting, or being with, him. However, he cheated on me. He literally destroyed my childhood home, and then sold items of my fathers that were never his to sell! How does this not parse with you?”

How does me saying, “we were done months ago, but I just couldn’t tell you that because I wanted to make sure it was true, and not just fear speaking” … how does that say I was lying to you? Does this not show you that I wanted to MAKE SURE that I was making the right, and hard, decision about us? How does me, trying to work through some feelings so that I know that they are real, equate a lie? Yes, it IS true that I didn’t bring up these thoughts and fears to you. For that, I apologize. I fucked up, and I am sorry.

It is also true that I didn’t bring them up because I was afraid, yes, afraid, that you would take them very much to heart and then squash everything that you were feeling.

Those feelings? Those emotions? Those are what made me fall in love with you in the first place. And, you know what? Those feelings are still there. I loved you then, and I love you now. But …

… but …

But now I realize that, even though I DO love you, you aren’t “the one” for me. And I’m sorry I cannot give you some pat answer that will make it all be okay.

We are human.

We are fallible.

I am fallible.

And as fallible humans, we fuck up. We fuck up because of fear. Because of fear we don’t communicate in the moment, when we should. And for that, I am truly sorry. Mentally, I am groveling on my knees. (Physically, I am embracing my outer Ice Queen.)

I wish I could have verbalized my uncertainty about us earlier. But … but … I was terrified. TERR-I-FIED. Terrified that I would come home to find you gone. Not just gone, as in your stuff is no longer where I thought it would be, but gone as in, “I keep shaking him but he’s not waking up. No, I SWEAR I can see him breathing. I don’t care that his body is cold, he really isn’t gone” …

And yet you say that if I had only just talked to you, we could have worked things out. That you could have, or would have, changed.

And I don’t want that.
_____________________________

I want someone who I can love, withOUT the change. Someone that I can honestly embrace and welcome, warts and all. Your “warts” were also mine. And because of that, I realized that yes, there can be someone who accepts me. But at the same time … no … no, I cannot have your warts mix with mine. Because if they did? I would take too many steps backwards.

Did you understand and accept that? Yes. Yes you did. And for that? I love(d) you.

But now? Now it is not okay.

Because of the acceptance you showed me, I have truly realized that there honestly IS beauty in the flaws. And because of that, I have learned that my flaws cannot also be yours. Because if that is the case, my (and our) flaws create cracks. And those cracks create chasms. And those chasms create the deep dark places that I have already lived through, and cannot visit again. CAN-NOT.

You said you would be willing to change.

I don’t want that.

_____________________________

I want to love someone, warts and all, and be okay with it. And I want them to love me for the same reason. Down to my soul, down to his soul.

I want their crevices to balance out my peaks. And vice versa.

What I don’t want is for them to change solely for me. If they want to change for themselves, sure. Have at. If they want to change because it is something they want, and because of that, they know I will support them, please … knock yourself out.

But to say you would change because it makes *me* uncomfortable? Because by changing it would make things easier? No. No, no, no.

He was, and IS, a wonderful, kind, and caring man. Sadly, he wasn’t the wonderful, kind, and caring man for ME.

Could I have been more communicative about that? Yes. Of course. Did fear constrict my throat? Of course it did. Did I learn what to do, and more importantly, what not to do, in the future? You bet your ass I did.

If you read this, please know that I DO love you. But please realize that no matter how much you say that you aren’t my ex, that you aren’t the people in my past … please realize that those people still colour my present. And no matter how vehement your protestations are, those experiences I will still bring to the table. Is it fair to you, or to me? No, not really.

But it is all I know.
_____________________________

Am I running away?

Maybe I am.

But, if I stopped running, would I be settling?

Survey says … yes.

I am learning that sticking up for myself is hard. Damn hard.

And that when sticking up for yourself, you will never have the cut and dry answers that the other person wants.

...

Oh jeez. Fuck it.

To live a cliché, “It’s not you, it’s me. I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”

_____________________________

Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Asking Too Much - Ani DiFranco

Maybe I am asking too much. But I don't think so.

Joyful Girl - Ani DiFranco

      'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
    and the woman who lives there can tell
    the truth from the stuff that they say
      and she looks me in the eye
    and says would you prefer the easy way?
    no, well o.k. then
    don't cry

It’s taken a while to look in the mirror. And now? Finally, I can look myself in the eye. The easy way really isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.

And I won’t cry.

(Much.)

So ... how're you? ;)

I may be rough, but I am still precious

2009-05-31T02:24:00.001-07:00

I will never apologize about my past. No, nay, never.

No, nay, never. NO MORE.

Even if it makes you feel better.

Everything I have ever done, every mistake I have ever made, every encounter I have lived through ...

... all of those occurrences have made me the person that I am, today. This moment. This here and now.

This person that you have loved? This person that you still love? This person standing in front of you?
____________________________________________________

I AM the sum of my parts. Ain't nothin' will change that. And no longer will I apologize for my past. Instead ...

Instead?

I will revel in it. I will bathe in it. I will let my fingers rummage through each experience, each jewel, and I will let them slide through my fingers. I will grab handfuls of them, great big fistfuls, and I will bring them to my face, let my lips taste and kiss every one of them, and then... ?

... then I will inhale each and every one. I will smile at the remembrance. I will throw myself down in the plunder of my past. And I will roll in it. I will laugh in it. I will be positively GIDDY in it.

These gems make my mosaic. This one here, this blue one? It shows learning.This crack here, this red facet? It shows experience. This scar, the green one that catches the light just so? It shows a lesson. This one here, the amber one with all of its flecks? The one that seems like it will break with the slightest breath? This one is my cornerstone. The one I hold most dear.
____________________________________________________

Individually the tiles, the gems and jewels - they may be marred, they may be scarred, they may be broken, but on the whole?

They are beautiful.

And you know what? So am I.

Sometimes all you can see is the whole. And you forget that it's the small details, the small cracks, that make the whole gorgeous.

Don't you dare forget that. Because? Because even if you do? Even if YOU forget?

I won't.

I REFUSE.
____________________________________________________

Some of my imperfections, some of my flaws, some of my light that is reflected out, you may not like. Well, you know what? Too bad for you. I like them. I may not love them, but I like them just fine. And if you don't? If you can't handle them? If you can't embrace them? Well ...

... that's your loss. Not mine. I have fought too long and too hard to hate myself because of them. I have earned each and every one of these oddities.
____________________________________________________

THIS ... this is my face. Suck it.

(And this stone? This one right here, that you can't seem to look away from? That one is a diamond. And that diamond is me.)

Hooray for boobies! And by boobies, I mean words.

2009-03-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Words and perception – the definition of “hell” to one person, that same word can mean something completely different to another.

Growing up there were some words I wouldn’t say. Not that I couldn’t, I just wouldn’t. Take the word “just” – it was something I would steer away from in spoken conversation. I would write it, just like I wrote jam, shit, Shannon, and chicken – all of those words were verbally verboten to me.

No, it wasn’t that I wasn’t allowed to say them, but somehow between my brain and my tongue, the ch, sh, and juh sounds come out somewhat jumbly and slurry. It gets tiring to write out my spoken words, when I was trying to say something innocuous as “Jim ate jelly”. Beginning then, I learned a work-around in my spoken vocabulary. It’s why I don’t say “shit” out loud a lot, even though it was my first word.

*******

Raised in Orange County, I always thought that all women wanted big boobs and blonde hair – it’s what my friends and peers talked about when we reached puberty. “D’ya think they’re real, or does she stuff?” “I dunno. Do you want me to go ask her for a tissue and see where she reaches for it?” When I finally did get my own set of boobs, I wanted them to be bigger, better, faster.

Well, that’s not really true …

For a long time, I didn’t want boobs. Did not want them. No, no, no. It meant I would be a woman. It meant that I could no longer go and hide in trees, or at the bottom of the pool. It meant that I would be noticed. Being noticed was tantamount to my own personal second circle of hell.

Driving home from school one afternoon, my grandmother said that it was time for me to get a training bra. Of course, anything my grandmother said I needed, or what she thought I wanted, I did everything within my power to do the exact opposite. I really didn’t need a training bra at the time, but apparently I had reached some magical, mystical age that meant, to her, that I did. From that day forward, I slouched. No amount of love taps on my back from the ruler-wielding nuns would make me sit up straight.

Well, that’s not really true either…

In dance class I always had perfect posture. (Is it odd that I was more afraid of my jazz teacher than the nuns?)

The uniform blouses that we were forced to wear at school aided and abetted in trying to hide my growing buds, but the leotards? Every flaw, real or perceived, was there for all to see, much to my shame. (Did I mention that I really didn’t want boobs?)

It was only when my dance teacher said that I might need some support that I finally caved and let my grandmother get me a training bra. I’m still traumatized from that shopping experience. Did she not realize that clutching a bra, then holding it to my chest, and exclaiming for the entire store to hear, “No, this one is too big!” would scar me for years?

The summer between 8th grade and my freshman year, the beige satin trainer began to pinch and I had to resort to stealing my grandmother’s C-cup bra. That, too, pinched in time.

“I don’t know where your bra went – maybe it has gone to play with the socks in the Dryer In The Sky?” After that one and only shopping trip, I was still too emotionally raw to experience another one and so I lied. That was the time that I realized that some small white lies are good. So, I lied about stealing her bra and I hid it under my mattress.

Again I found myself slouching.

*******

Once I realized that my boobs garnered attention from the cute surfer boys (Sal Belmonte? I’m looking at you), I started to embrace my boobs. To see them not as a hindrance, but as something to be used; used so that I could get what I want. If I wore a low cut top, leaned against the counter, and placed my arms just so, I created cleavage and the attendant at the Arco would sell me cigarettes – at age 14. Since his eyes didn’t get much further up than my clavicle, I was never carded.

Fast forward to age 21. Tanya was complaining about herself, saying she felt fat, that she looked fat. I, of course, told her, “You aren’t fat, you’ve just got huge tits.”

That went over like a lead balloon.

Actually, a lead balloon would have gone over better.

I’ve learned a lot since then.

*******

Words are a cozy blanket on a rainy day – I roll in them, they cover me, and give me warmth. Sometimes how others perceive my words? It is more like a big bucket of ice water splashed in their face.

Actions speak louder than words at times – I think Tanya saw that. My actions belied the stupid words I had said.

When I saw the look on her face after I made that comment about her boobs, I realized that I really stepped in it. Another case of foot-in-mouth-itis. After a long conversation, I realized the hurt that my words caused, and she saw that I was trying to compliment her. (That whole concept of “big tits = beauty” was what my Orange County and raised by a male experience taught me. It’s all perspective, no?)

*******

Almost 12 years later, that moment is what comes to mind when someone asks my opinion. That moment, and her face. “Are my words being filtered through my own life, my own perspective? How will the asker receive my words? Will they understand what I am saying at the core, or will the words cut?”

I have learned to love my boobs, just as they are. They, like my words, are me, I am them, I embrace them, but they no longer define me (nor do they make me slouch). Sometimes, like my words, I use them. But more often than not, I let them be. If others want to judge me by them, that is their perogative; their perception.

Yes, I still speak honestly, but not quite off the cuff any more. I allow myself pauses, and deep breaths, before I speak. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes I still slouch. But always, it is heartfelt.

Sometimes, it is all I can do.

Oh Dave. Goodbye, my friend. Goodbye.

2009-03-20T22:35:00.000-07:00

I hate this. My nose is so plugged up I can’t breathe, my eyes are so teary I can’t see. My heart is so sore, that I can’t feel. (Or I feel too much.)

Oh, Dave. Dave, Dave, Dave! (For the “Dead Like Me” fans out there, the intonation is the same as when George says, “Mason, Mason, Mason”.)

*******

Where to start?

You are a storyteller.

A rescuer of stuffed animals.

A kind man. And I DO mean that – there aren’t many people that I describe as “kind”.

Nice? Yes. Caring? Yes. Sweet? Yes.

But kind? To me, that word sums up all that is good, and right. Not many people can embody both of those words. Some live one word, some the other. But both? Only you.

You work with developmentally disabled and abused kids. You act as an advocate; a counselor; a teacher; a safe port.

A friend.

Throughout my life I have been blessed (not just blessed, but lucky, lucky) to know many people who work with the downtrodden, the so-called less desirable, the broken, the “unfixable”. Granted, they all work and embody caring, embody love, and embody aplomb. But you?

You …

YOU are KIND. Down to your marrow, you are kind.

*******

Before I officially met you, we played. Without ever knowing the other persons name, we saw each other on an early Saturday morning – you seeing me, me seeing you, and we both made eye contact.

Blue to green-hazel.

Green-hazel, to deep blue.

Our eyes met.

Of course, I was confused. But I went with it. You? You were going out on a limb.

(At the time I was 16, and you were close to 30. But then, as now, I couldn’t, I can not, resist a game. I think you sensed that in me. Then, as now, you always saw to the core of a person.)

Blue to green-hazel.

Green-hazel to blue – our eyes told the story before any word was ever spoken.

You ducked behind a tree. After a second of confusion, I see your eye, then the rest of your face, and that sly, joking smile, emerge from behind that tree; seeing me standing there, very confused. Just as quickly as you popped out, you popped back in again. And then? Then I knew what you were about. I joined in, my lip curled in understanding. My head ducked in a quick nod. A nod that said, “yes, I see what you are about. I see your ante, and raise it”.

The game was afoot.

I, too, found a nearby tree, and for a few moments, we played a game of peek-a-boo, much to the amusement of the various passersby. Once our trees tired of us, and shook us off like tired leaves, we moved on.

A slow, yet fast moving, game of statues followed. A visual Marco Polo, a game of “red-light, green-light” if you will, wherein each of us pretended to not see the other. Again, the passersby were confused, yet they still walked away with a smile. I?

I walked away with a song in my heart.

I think it was at the end of that weekend when we actually, and officially, met. (As soon as you hid behind that tree, and I followed suit, we “truly” met. Everything else was just semantics.)

“Hi, I’m Dave. Thank you for playing with me yesterday.”

“Hey Dave. I’m Anni. Thank you for allowing me to play with you.”

“Thank you for joining in. It’s not really about you and me, is it? It’s about the world.”

“True ‘dat. See you next Saturday?”

“I’ll be behind the tree. See you then.”

*******
After a few years of talking, we became friends. We each saw through the others wall, but neither said so. It worked for us.

Goddamnit! You were supposed to marry my cousin, and show her that not all men are self-centered jerks. You and I knew that, though it was never spoken aloud. It was always danced around, and winked over, on your part and hers.

“Hey, how’s Dave? Have you talked to him recently?”

“Yes. I have. He says hello.”

“Hey there redhead. How’s your gorgeous cousin?”

“She’s fine. She says hello.”

All the unspoken subtext between the two of you was never verbalized, but it was felt. Always was it felt.

If there was ever a match made in heaven and all of the afterlife’s, you two embodied it. Sadly, you were both circling the same tree, but never met on the same side. It was a game of tag, with no one being “it”.

Circles. Both of you searching for the same end, but both …

Running in circles.

Circles … around each other.

*******

Thinking back to that first of many games of hide and pseudo-seek, and peek-a-boo, what I see most, what I remember most, are your eyes. God. Your eyes!

They are so, so, SO incredibly blue. Paul Newman had nothing (nothing) on your peepers.

You know that blue of the Caribbean ocean? Where the really light part meets the really dark part? That small sliver of colour in between the dark, and the light? With a touch, just a touch, of the setting sun indigo? THAT is the colour I remember.

That is the colour, and the smile, that looked out at me that very first time.

That shade embodied everything in and of you. It was deep. It was light. It was fun. It was sad. It was a fan-fucking-tastic mix. A mix of this, that, the other, and everything in between.

Your eyes? They are open. And loving. And, yes, mischievous. There is that gleam. Always that chuckling gleam. God, how I miss that look. The concept of the eyes being the window to the soul? In your case, there was never any doubt.

Your panes were never smeary, or smudged. Clear. Open. Clean.

I envy that, yanno?

*******

One of the first honest, and no holds-barred conversations we had revolved around the developmentally disabled, and abused, kids. Somehow the conversation was hijacked from the light and fluffy into something more real, and tangible. And felt. How we got there, I don’t remember. Somehow …

… I spoke of creating theatre on a semester time-frame with these kids; you spoke of creating a connection with them, on a day-to-day basis.

We both taught each other during that conversation.

You admitted that many of their stories, their life trials, their experiences, made you want to quit, you knew you had to stick with it. “Who else is willing to just sit and LISTEN to them? And then get up and play with them?”

And then you did. You sat. You listened. And then? Then you played.

Then … then I spoke of volunteering at a certain facility in San Francisco … you responded with the fact that you worked, day in and day out, with those same kids at that same location. The heartache and love you expressed, not just through your words, but through your body language, spoke volumes.

Although I loved you the moment you started to teach me to play years before, behind that tree, THAT moment solidified that feeling. And then some.

You make me want to volunteer again.

*******

Your smile and humour – it is open. It is wide. At times, it is guarded. Subtle. VERY subtle.

Only those who knew you could see that subtlety. And the walls you hid behind, calling them “subtlety”.

Not a mean, vicious, or even snarky, bone resides in your body.

Sarcastic? Yes.

Biting? Wellllll, at times.

But overall? So damn joyful; life affirming.

Joie de vivre? You should have been the spokesman for that concept.

*******

You know, I have never realized until THIS moment … this exact, very moment … that you, YOU, were an underlying component in my new-found optimism.

It’s all so clear now.

*******

The difference between child-like, and childish? You taught me that.

For the longest time, I gave up the fun, because I thought it was “childish”. Until you, I never realized that childlike does not equal childish.

There is a difference. Truly.

And you taught me that. You did.

Thank you. Thank you for teaching me to love the swings again, without feeling self conscious.

Thank you. Thank you for showing me that to play inane games with a toddler doesn’t equate to me being “an idiot”.

Thank you. Thank you for showing me the joy of living, and experiencing, through another’s eyes, and lens.

Thank you. Thank you for teaching me that stopping to smell the roses doesn’t slow you down from your walk through life.

Thank you. Thank you for teaching me to embrace. Embrace life. Embrace friends. Embrace children. And? Embrace the moment. Embrace “the now”.

The now only happens once.

When the hell is the now? Well … it is … NOW. The now turns into “the then” and also “the future”.

“The then” can only be appreciated if you experience the now.

“The future” is only, truly, lived if you embrace the now … now.

Future and past … the cannot be measured without “the now”.

As much as I loathe to say this … thank you. Thank YOU for showing me what an uptight ass I was; thank you for opening the door, again, to child-like (but not childish) wonder.

And joy.

On Saturday, when I am able to visit my friends’ kids, I will play with them until they fall down from exhaustion. Until they fall asleep on their feet. Until they pee from laughter.

*******

I can’t call or text the cousin to tell her – it’s too late, and she needs her rest. After Dad died, she became the caretaker, and warden, of Nana. If I tell her right now, this will kill her.

It’s better to wait until daylight.

It amazes me that after 9 years, each of you still asks about the other. That is telling, no?

You, Mr. Dave, have touched people. Some of them you KNEW you touched. For others, others like me who prefer to keep their emotions and feelings locked up, you touched, without you knowing.

You never knew that touched people, though I suspect that you had an inkling.Your fingerprint lies on them (and me, and us), all the same.

*******

Another storyteller I met at 16 was Mykie Dave. Larger than life, he was; literally and figuratively. (He was also a redhead, so he got untold bonus points for that fuck-up in genetics. What can I say? Like attracts like. And you and he were friends, not just with me, but with each other, so … )

He was the first person that I thought of to officiate my wedding. (Though you were a close, a very close, second.)

Your storytelling, and his, were very similar: both of you told tales of love thought lost, but then found … and realized.

The only difference between your stories was this: Mykie Dave always said that, “funny doesn’t have to be nice” – he sometimes beat you over the head. Whereas you … you were always nice. (Mykie Dave used a 2x4, and you used a ruler – both were tools to beat people over the head. The difference was in the bruises left the next day.)

*******

I should have called. I FELT it. I FELT that I should have called.

But I didn’t.

For me, time doesn’t hold a lot of sway. (I think you knew that.)

Sadly, for the last two years, I think you not only heard, but felt, each moment count down.

Tonight … that clock ticked its final second.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

(GodDAMN those egg timers!)

*******

That friend or that family member that you have, for no known reason, been thinking about lately?

Call them.

Send them an e-mail.

Give them a hug.

Reach out.

If only "just because".

*******
Before I completely lost my shit tonight, my old roommate Ken randomly IMed me. He offered me a much needed break from my own head, and emotions. When I was on the verge of a breakdown, on the verge of an “ugly cry”, he brought me some laughter.

So did some of the goofy and off the wall blog posts tonight.

If you can’t laugh through your tears, what else can you do?

*******

Shit. Say it ain’t so. Please.

Say it isn’t so.

This news is still just a few hours old. I wish I could plug my ears with my fingers, close my eyes, rock back and forth and repeat, “la la la la la, waterfalls, waterfalls” over and over, and over again, and when I opened my eyes, the world would still have you in it.

*******

Although you were not my safe harbor, you were still part of the shoal, and you played that role (of safe harbor) for many kids.

What the fuck are they (and I? and us?) going to do without you?

I have lived through this before – I have lost someone, some people, I love too soon. However, *I* had a support system in place.

Many of the kids you touched don’t have that. They never experienced the haven of acceptance and peace until you came along.

*******

I hope I can do you justice.

Each day, I try to find my own tree with which I can hide behind and invite others to come play hide-and-seek. Although I do live the mischievous, I am still trying to find those who will get, and play with, me.

It’s a long road, but such a fulfilling one. (Thank you for showing me the alternate route.)

And although I am pretty much over the concept of praying … I PRAY that this weekend, when I am playing with the bazillion kids of my friends, that I can channel you.

That I can offer them some hope. Some laughter. Some mystical twinkle. Some safe bubble.

*******

Death is what gives this thing we call life a frame. To quote Rumi,

            Dance when you're broken open.
            Dance if you've torn the bandage off.
            Dance in the middle of the fighting.
            Dance in your blood.
            Dance when you're perfectly free.

*******

Goddamnit Dave! We weren’t done telling stories. (YOU weren’t done telling stories. I was just learning how.)

Why did you have to up and die tonight?

You may be gone, from this physical plane, but I will dance. I will dance in my blood.

I will dance for me, for you, and for YOU, YOU who are reading this incoherent babble.

I will dance to embrace life: mine, yours, yours, and YOURS, and ours.

*******

I have heard, and experienced, better storytelling. However, here is a link to a story that Dave recorded just 8 short months ago.

Dave? You know that you can do better than this, I have seen, heard, and experienced you do better than this … you KNOW this. However, I will embrace what is below, and remember all of our conversations to the best of my ability.

I will miss you. It's only been a few hours, but already I miss you. (You hated to make me cry, but damn … you are doing it now. But you are doing it in such a happy, yet sad way … you can’t yell at me for this. DON'T YELL AT ME! Stop smiling at me, and laughing with me, whilst I cry. It defeats the entire purpose.)

The beauty that was, that IS you, I will try to pass along. I will try to live.

No. Scratch that. I WILL live. And love.

My friend? I love you. And I wish you nothing but peace, love, happiness, and a pain-free, cancer-free, existence.

*******

David is a graduate of the Dominican University Storytelling Credential Program and holds a Bachelor's Degree in theater. He is a member of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum Storytelling Corps, and has served as a member of the Board of directors for the Storytelling Association of Alta California for six years. David is the recipient of three Marin Arts Council grants. His Storytelling CD, Anything Can Happen, is the winner of a Parents' Choice award.

______

David Ponkey serves as a storytelling therapist for Sunny Hills/Children's Garden group homes, and is a member of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum Storytelling Corps. David served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Storytelling Association of Alta California for six years, and is the recipient of three Marin Arts Council grants for storytelling with special needs students. His storytelling tape, Anything Can Happen is the winner of a Parents Choice award.

*******

I love you.

2009-03-09T04:13:00.001-07:00

I stopped saying “I love you” when I was 5, shortly after she died. I thought that those three simple, monosyllabic, words could kill someone. That I had that kind of power.

“I love you Mom” ...

BOOM! Gone.

Brrrring! Brrrrring! The telephone was sqealing, screaming, yelling.

"Uhh, hello? Oh, god, no. No. No. NO! Ann!!! Ann!!! Katie is dead. SHE'S DEAD! Katie is gone."

Does it matter that Katie's daughter, YOUR granddaughter, was sleeping next to you in your bed (because of nightmares), and could hear your voice? The voice that was yelling out to Katie's mom, my grandmother, she (I) could also hear?

You were gripping the bedroom doorframe, gathering strength for yourself. Was there any compassion for Ga, for me? Were you grabbing that wooden frame for yourself, or for us?

All that little girl (your granddaughter) knew, at that moment, was that the last person she said "I love you" to was gone. Forever.

And there you were ... bellowing that she was dead. Tsk, tsk.

No compassion.

I guess that is what they describe as a wake up call ... literally.

*******

It took a decade and a half for me to say those same words out loud again. When I first said them, I cringed; I thought that a lightening bolt from on high would come down and smite him; my first boyfriend, the one to whom I said them. The feeling of love? I was full of it. The words? I meant. Never the twain shall meet. At the time, I was terrified to combine the two – the addition of feeling and words I just couldn’t do. Couldn’t handle. It was too terrifying. My soul felt like it was going to be torn. When I said them out loud to him, I thought quietly to myself, “I hate you”. It was akin to not stepping on a crack to keep mother’s back intact. I was trying to balance the feelings. The words. The intent. It was to save your life (or so I thought).

My aching heart? It would bleed.

*******

Almost 3 decades later, I still have a hard time saying those three simple syllables. Instead of light and happiness, there is still fear, darkness, and loss tied into those words; more specifically the order in which they are said.

Many times (too many to count) I wished I had said ~~those~~ these words:

I

LOVE

YOU

Say them with me.

I. LOVE. YOU.

Just saying them out loud – separately – it’s not so hard, right? Said separately, they are easy – like reading off a grocery list. They are words that we use every day, in many different contexts.

Stating, saying, and feeling those simple words, in that SPECIFIC order … that can, and is, terrifying.

Still ...

*******

Why the fuck are we so scared of how our love will be taken. Perceived?

Why can we not tell someone we love someone, without fearing how THEY will take it? Are our emotions only true, dependent, and worth something on how the other person ~~sees~~ feels those emotions?

Can I/you/we not love someone? Whether or not they love me/you/us back? Does it HAVE to be a two-way street?

It is comfortable when the one way turns into two-way; in fact … it’s easier. That pent up breath that you didn’t know you were holding? It finally comes bursting out. "I love you."

"I love you too." PHEW! Why the hell are we so afraid to voice what we feel? Why can’t we allow our heart to speak the truth? Damn the consequences!

*******

Thinking back, I remember a couple (maybe two, maybe six, maybe four) times that I actually told Dad (out loud) that I loved him. Out loud. There were only a couple of times that the words “love”, “I”, and “you” came out in the correct, and in the right, order.

The correct order. That was felt. All at once. That small handful … said out loud … well, the amount of times I said it? It makes me feel like a shithead.

The terror I felt, from trying to voice those three words, would always tie up my throat. (I mean, I told Mom numerous times that I loved her. And Dad. And a random assortment of family. But then? Then she died. Were my words enough to kill? I didn’t want to take chances, so those simple words were stricken from my spoken lexicon. Nobody heard those words for a long, long time.)

I know, know down to my heart and marrow, that Dad knew that I loved him. But there are times …

…

... there are times that I wish I could have overcome my own self-imposed fear. Not only for him, but also for me.

They are just words, right? Just sounds that are made – starting at the lungs with an inhale, exhale. Let it out. Let it go through the vocal chords and zenith over the tongue and through the mouth. How hard is that?

*inhale*

I

LOVE

YOU

*exhale*

Three syllables. Three breaths. Three short sounds to make.

*******

Just saying “I love you” was hard enough. Words can be insubstantial. The wind can catch, and take away, anything said. The words out of your mouth are ever changing – a dust mote caught in the sunlight. Never permanent. It twists, and can be twisted. It can be carried away.

Written down though? Said AND felt?

Those words can haunt you.

They are palpable.

*******

Tanya, one of my nearest and dearest friends, taught me the power and sanctuary of saying, and feeling, those three words. Those words said, and felt, in the correct order. Many times she said them to me. I kept pushing her away. She didn’t care – she was saying her own truth. Finally, finally, I accepted them. She taught me how to love myself. Not in any perceptible way. There was no “a-ha!” moment; her words, and feelings, wriggled themselves into my psyche. She created a chink in my emotional wall that went both ways. I opened myself up to love from the outside, and it penetrated my own inside workings.

She loved and accepted me – warts and all. By doing that, by feeling that, and by stating that vocally … she allowed me to open up just enough to love myself.

Many friends and family did the same thing, and they all created the cracks. Each and every one of them had a hand in breaking down my walls. But Tanya was the one who was the most persistent and adamant in her feelings. And one of the most vocal.

*******

There was a time that I was used to, but not yet comfortable with, saying “I love you”; the next step was actually writing down those words.

It was easier to stop cutting my wrists than it was to actually put pen to paper and permanently etch those feelings. The act of writing was more permanent – it was not as ethereal as just saying something What if the object of my love died? Or didn’t reciprocate those feelings? Did that mean that my words, and heart, killed them?

That was my experience – my words killed.

It wasn’t until later that I finally realized that my words, my feelings, were just a victim of circumstance. That by saying “I love you” – it didn’t mean an automatic death sentence. It actually meant growth. And life.

Withholding my true feelings not only hurt(s) friends and family, it also hurt(s) myself. I know that Dad would have liked to hear me actually tell him that I loved him more often than I actually did.

But I also know that he just knew I did.

*******

“I love you Bubba.”

“You too.”

Even though I couldn’t say it, he still felt it.

He, however, was able to say (and feel) it.

Learning ... I'm learning.

*******

Superglue is one of the greatest inventions – it allows you to put back together pieces to where it’s almost whole again ...

In that vein, I’m mostly put back together.

The breaks, the chinks, the cracks, they are all still visible. But by showing them, I’m also showing that I have been used, and loved. I am not perfect, but I am still adored.

“I love you” is no longer something to fear. It is no longer an invective. They are now words that I embrace. They are words that I live. They are words that I feel.

They are words I now say.

And feel.

Now? Down to my marrow, my soul, I feel and live them.

*******

I wish I could have said those words aloud in life, instead of waiting until we were both broken: me, grasping the flag to my chest – he, being lowered into the ground.

At that moment, he was complete – laid to rest with Mom. His pain finally subsided.

I was the one still broken.

*******

To those who are reading these black words on a white page? I say this to YOU, without fear …without reprisal ...

I love you.

Photo's from Phriday

2009-03-08T22:13:00.001-07:00

Brain fried.

Feet sore.

Skin? Burned.

In lieu of words, photos from Friday.

On life ... make your own adventure ...

2009-03-03T02:33:00.000-08:00

The past, the present, and the future are all tied together; a sweaty lovers embrace. Twisted like some perverse Gordian Knot.

The past was painful. Death. Love lost. Attempted suicide(s). Rape. Hope.

The glass is half empty. On its way to being drained. I should just

give up...

The present is the same - painful. However, instead of seeing death and loss, I see a life lived. And love. That is what I choose to see now - lots of love. Granted, the present is still coloured with shades of the past; but that old sepia hue lends itself to some amazing tints of the now.

The glass is half empty. On its way to being filled. Maybe, maybe, I should stick around.

The future is unknown. I cannot say what I will see, or what I will live, or who I will love, or what I will live. I can only give safe harbor to the hope that I will experience each to its fullness. Whatever they may be.

Yesterday taints our today, and our tomorrow ... sometimes, you just want to hide away.

The glass is half full. On its way to overflowing. What’s next? Who cares? I can’t wait!

Past, present, and future: not only a knot, but also a circle.

Sometimes, when this thing we call life gets to be too much …when it feels like there is just too much ...

… too much responsibility

… too much worry

… too much, “oh fuck, what next?”

… too much, “honestly, I really need just 5 more minutes”

… too much, “I wish I didn’t have to do this but … your time with us has come …”

… too much, “where will the money come from?”

… too much, “I can’t take any more”

… too much, “I’m too fat. I’ll never find love”

… too much, “This world is going to hell, and I’m holding the hand basket”

… too much, “I’m too broken. And so are you.”

… too much … too much …

Sometimes you have to just let it be, and let it shine.

It is times like these that you just need to take a break. Be selfish.

Go play.

Take a moment and go pump your legs on the swings. Go relive your daredevil days on the monkey bars. Release all the cares of the now, and just ... be.

Welcome the sun on your face. Revel in the wind through your hair. Kiss the sky, and the one you love.

When the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders, and you are feeling Atlas-like, aren’t there times when you want to shove off that massive globe and just … run around, fly kites, wrestle, jump and play? Even when those waves crash into you? Reminding you of your misery?

When the sounds of silence don’t quite clamor enough… when your words and arms just don’t reach enough … those are the times to revel in silence. The silence that is your, and our, own. Accept that your silence is sometimes acceptable, and okay. When just being there, without words, without judgment, is … enough.

Revel in those moments. Revel in that silence.

Revel! Revel in the spaces between.

Tears can be those of happiness or sadness.

Laughter can be that of joy or pain.

Lies at times, can be a fine line between happiness and pain.

Live in the grey. Live straddling the black and white. Live in those spaces between.

My wish, my hope, is that everyone is able to steal just 5 minutes (five small minutes) a week, and re-live a mere 300 seconds (seconds!) of pure, and in the moment, fun.

300 seconds of laughter.

300 seconds of remembering bruised shins, and knees.

A mere 300 seconds of …

JOY.

In those 300 seconds, there IS no what if, or what next, or what now ... it is only ... what next?

There is only 300 seconds of unadulterated laughter.

You can spare that, can’t you?

Come on. You ARE beautiful. C'mon ... greet this brand new day.

Look around … find those spaces in between …

(It took me a long time to find beauty … but I have found it. And I am still searching. And I won’t let it go ... even if it’s dressed in rags.)

There are still times that I long for yesterday ... but I am living in the now. I force myself to do so ...

So, there are these monkey bars near my house … any one want to come out to play?

In Bruges

2009-02-13T23:54:00.000-08:00

Holy hell ...

I'm TRYING to watch the movie, to listen to the dialogue, to follow the story ...

But I can't.

All I can do is bite my lip, and imagine that Colin Farrell is doing the same (to me).

(Damn those accents!)

Effluvia

2009-02-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

I suffer from ADD/OCD/SAD/ED/BBD/attention span of a gnat/shiny-thing/or whatever-alphabet-soup-you’d-like-to-call-it brain, so here’s my mental dump of the night.

For the most part, I’ve treated this whole “25 things” the same way I do my alarm clock – I just keep hitting snooze. Maybe it’s the procrastinator coming out in me.

Apparently I’ve hit the “no, five more minutes” button too many times, and have too many people tagging me, so I guess it’s my turn. (Otherwise known as, “alright already! I get it! Here’s my list. Are you happy now? Sheesh.”)

Granted, I DO post a lot of "emo-me-me-me" shit, but someone asking me to actually pinpoint 25 things?

I choke. Then I procrastinate. Then I find something else shiny to take up my attention.

Always shocked when I log into one of the eleventythousand networking sites that I’ve signed up for and BLAM! “So-and-so has tagged you in their ’25 Things’ note.” 99.9% of the time I assume that they picked me because they were running out of ~~friends to torture~~ options.

(If you don’t want to read, that’s fine. But there are some links, so it won’t be a total time suck. Well, maybe it will be just a touch of a time suck.)

1) Some friends hide from me when I pop onto g-chat. Many are looking for the pithy conversation that can only come from the quick back-and-forth banter that you can only get from one line conversations. Sadly, I interject into most of these conversations (can you call them that?) random food cravings. Tanya says I have Food Tourette’s. To her I say, “bacon”.

2) I've found that when I listen to the Deb Talan station on Pandora I get all touchy-feely. I lay the onus of all of my more emotional writings (or vomit, you can choose whatever description you feel is most appropriate) on her.

3) There are some songs that make me close my eyes and live in the moment – and I don’t mean re-live a past moment, or live in a moment yet to come. ~~(Wentworth Miller, I’m looking at you – our moment will come. And come. And come again.) Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, bacon.~~ What I mean is that I close my eyes and live in that exact moment. There is nothing next, and nothing then – there is only the ever changing void (and voice) of now. There is no exhale, because I am living in and experiencing this inhale.

I need a moment after that song.

And maybe a towel.

Whew.

Sorry, where were we? Oh, yes …

*Exhale*

4) For the longest time, my “Live In The Now” song (now known as LINT – what? I had temporary dyslexia, and LINT comes much more trippingly off the tongue than LITN) was American Pie. Nothing else mattered when "American Pie" was on. Unfortunately, I can no longer listen to Mr. McLean in my car, not even to “Vincent”, because every time I do the only thing I have to show for my ~~LINT~~ unholy love of 70’s music is a speeding ticket, or more accurately, tickets. Every single ticket I’ve ever had ~~the joy of receiving~~ happened when I listened to “American Pie”. EVERY.DAMN.ONE. It was so bad that when I radio-whore through the stations to this day, and that song comes on, my Pavlovian response is to take the metal coffee cup and bash the radio. (Sadly, the cost of replacing the stereos is still less than my combined moving violation fines.)

5) Portobello Stroganoff. (Add more garlic. And substitute in portobello's.) It could also use some more cowbell.

6) Procrastination I have mastered. (Which is why I’m finally doing this stupid list months after it was popular.)

7) I love ears. (Hmm. Maybe this is why I love Van Gogh?) There is just something about grabbing an earlobe between my index and middle fingers and then rubbing the meaty part with my thumb that I find comforting. As a young child, I would sneak into my parent’s bed and curl up between them, with each of my hands mauling one of their ears. It’s something I still do to this day. (I actually stopped dating someone because they hated having their ears touched.)

8) Speaking of ears, I loathe having wet ears. I can clean my body, my hair, my face, my EVERYTHING, but if I don’t q-tip my ears, I still feel … dirty …

9) I've had a love-affair with owls since before I can remember. Never did I have a blankie, but I did have this one particular stuffed owl. To tie in with the ear fetish … this owl had the PERFECT nose that I could rub. It was just the right amount of silky and firm. After I massaged the second owl’s nose into oblivion, my parents went out and stocked up on them. Somewhere out in the world, there are at least 5 poor, mauled, and noseless stuffed owls. There’s still one left, up in the attic somewhere.

10) Even though I hated living on the road, I truly do miss it more often than not. Odd, that.

11) Inwardly, I gave up Catholicism the day my mother died. Outwardly? I held onto it until my grandmother died. (Until she died, I wasn’t allowed to let go.)

12) Mmmm. Scampi. (Not as good as the family recipe, but close enough.)

13) The same grandmother, whom I had a love/hate relationship with, honestly (and unknowingly) taught me how to embrace and love “me”; all the while she was trying to recreate me as a sad clone of ~~my dead mother~~ her dead daughter.

14) Sleeping is my best friend, and my worst enemy. I adore sleeping, yet I hate actually going to sleep. For some reason I feel that I will miss out on something. This is brought home to me, more and more often, when I go to sleep as the sun rises, and I wake up completely rested and ready to take on my “day” after 8 hours of sleep. No alarm clock needed. However, when I go to bed at a “reasonable” time, and be it 5 hours or 10 hours later, I still wake up exhausted. (There is a reason I need 3 alarm clocks.) There’s something to be said about circadian rhythms, no?

15) All at once, jumbled up together, I love and hate smoking, and being a smoker. When people offer unsolicited advice about smoking, I really do want to smash them in the face. I wonder, would they offer that same advice to a junkie, alkie, or overeater? I do hear you, I DO, but please let me quit when I am ready. Intervention really only works for those who are ready for it.

16) Dancing is my sanity, my sanctuary, and my meditation. It’s the only time that my brain will actually shut up.

17) Friends call me “shiny girl”, because (even though the connection makes so much sense in my head) I always make unseemingly random statements out loud.

18) The best beer I ever had was found at an ABC store in Saugus, MA. It tasted like smoked sausage.

19) I just saw a commercial for "GUYS Gone Wild". My brain will go to the corner now, and quietly rock back and forth. Pass the bleach. Please.

20) The one and only time I went tubing was on the Medina in Texas. I got stuck in an eddy (are there eddy's in the river, or is that just the ocean?) Not only did I get smashed against a fallen tree, but three other people were smashed against me. The one who was smashed against my ass? My former father-in-law. I'm still traumatized.

21) You know those moments? The ones where you are terrified that you won't make it to the bathroom in time? But then you do? That moment, when the last drop hits the water, is one of the best feelings in the world. Ahhhh.

22) Once I was in a year long, monogamous relationship, and we never had sex. However, he did introduce me to the music of Tom Waits, so I guess it balances out.

23) One may be the loneliest number, but 23 has always been my favourite. Followed closely by 42.

24) Until I lived in San Francisco, I never knew how much power there was in the simple, and physical, act of human touch.

25) "The Name of the Rose" is a book I read over and over. The copy I have is now held together with a rubber band.

Good lord. That was full of ego and tripe.

Forget about me – here’s my current LINT song from Deb Talan.

(Ohhh, look! A shiny thing! Mmmmm. Avocado.)

February ...

2009-02-05T03:10:00.000-08:00

Every week I have to drive by the telephone pole where my mom said goodbye to this world, and hello to the next. To this day, I always choose the lane furthest away from that evil piece of that 20 foot tall piece of wood. If I am forced to be in that far right-hand lane (thanks CalTrans!), I have a mini panic attack. And on those nights, I wonder what my life would be like if Mom made it to my 6th birthday.

Would it be better? Worse? Or the same?

Would I have younger brothers or sisters?

Would I have tried to kill myself repeatedly at the ages of 11, 14, 16, and 18+? And did I try that because she was lacking, or because I accidentally felt my grandpa’s (her father’s) boner? Or was it because I was broken, through no fault of our own?

Would I, and my unknown sibling(s), have been a product (or products) of a broken (or unbroken) home?

Would Dad have died at the ripe young age of 57, if he didn’t mourn her (and Vietnam) everyday, by trying to find his salvation in a 7&7?

Would I have been more (or less) comfortable in my own skin?

Would I have allowed myself to enter into an unbalanced and unhealthy marriage?

Would I be better off, or worse off?

Would I know HER better, or worse? And what would our relationship be … now?

Would I (still) be jealous of my family who knew her longer, and (possibly) better, than I ever had a chance to?

(It seems that I’ve become a pseudo-anthropologist regarding her: recreating and dissecting what her life – and mine – might have been like, by piecing together her story from talking to her friends, rummaging through her old clothes and jewelry, reading her old college nursing notes, inhaling the scent of the “then”, and re-visiting photos of a past long, and sadly, gone.)

For so, so, so long Dad and I both lived life stuck in a groove, like a scratchy .45. A refrain, or refrains, stuck on repeat, never to reach that next chorus …

Dad: You Are the Woman

Me: Just Remember I Love You

- Dad: (It's how I feel each time you're close to me)

- Me: (When there's so much trouble that you wanna cry)

- Dad: (It's hard to tell you all the love I'm feeling, that's just not my style … )

- Me (The world has crumbled and you don't know why)

- Dad: (I saw your face and that’s the last I’ve seen of my heart … )

- Me: (When it feels like sorrow is your only friend … )

- Us: (Just remember I love you and it'll be all right. Just remember I love you more than I can say. It'll be all right.)

February marks the month, oh those many years ago, that my mom and my god, that his lover and his wife, left us. I know that the tears shed tonight are residual (and that those tears are actually, and truly, happy tears). No longer are they the tears of despair and loss.

Over the last few years I realized that being stuck in a rut wasn’t healthy for him, or for me, or for us. And that by refusing to live, on both our parts, and by refusing to move on – to live in the past – that we were actually dishonouring her memory.

Granted, the above are the questions of life that I will never know the answers to. And because I have read a shit-ton of Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels, I am no stranger to the concept of parallel universes.

Today, THIS day, I take comfort in the fact that somewhere, in some other place, I still have Mom. And Dad. And I have a potential sibling.

And (potentially) we all have each other.

I understand that death is a part of life. I do. Honestly, and down to the marrow of my bones and soul, I DO understand. I understand, and embrace, that for each death that I (and we) experience, I (and we) rejoice in that life – that life lost and that life lived.

And now? I am finally (finally) able to live that life. And I do it joyfully, and unabashedly.

These mental and physical scars that I carry with me remind me to do so. And whenever I’m in doubt, I look down at my wrists, and I reach down into my soul and I remind myself to live my own life … joyfully.

And unabashedly.

(This concept of breathing? Of feeling my heart beating through the generations? There are no words for it.)

I WILL steal the stars from the sky ... and no longer will I wonder "what if".

I will LIVE "what next?"

Am I cold?

2009-01-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

Not just physically, but emotionally?

Many of my friends are losing their parents. Or are sitting at their bedsides in the hospital. And I feel for them.

I do.

But at the same time, I find myself at a loss for words. I mean ... I feel their loss on a visceral level. Honestly, I do. I WANT to be able to offer the words that will dry their tears, and make them see through this current darkness. I WANT to offer that. But …

But … at the same time, I'm jealous. Very jealous.

I'm jealous because they were able to actually have parents; they were able to experience having "mom and dad", in whatever incarnation (divorced, never divorced, etc.) into their 30's, 40's, and 50's.

And that's why I'm jealous - they had what I could never have. They have experienced what I could never experience.

Please don't get me wrong: Dad was amazing. He was my bulwark, he was Father and Mother combined. And for that ... I'm eternally grateful. (C'mon, he was my POPS for christsakes ... ) Even though he’s been gone for a few years, he awes me still, even to this day.

From kindergarten through now, most (if not all) of my friends, never experienced the loss of "mom" or "dad", and I felt they always looked at me as "other". Some of them experienced divorce, and growing up in a single parent household, but in both cases, both parents were still alive and kicking. (How that played out is another thought, for another time.)

Looking back, I realize that my feelings were misplaced. They weren't looking at me as other - they were looking at me with mixed views, they were looking at me through their own lens. Many times, their looks showed the fact that they were scared; deep-down to the marrow of their bones, scared. Scared because I was living out one of their worst phobias, scared because I embodied their terror: that of losing a parent. ("There but for the grace of god ... ")

My self perceived "other" truly wasn’t pity on their part. Not really. It was fear.

For many years, their fear morphed into my hate. I hated the fact that they pitied me. Hated the fact that they kept their distance, as though losing a parent to the unknowable "death" was contagious. Then?

Well, then I blamed them. But now?

Now, now I understand.

As I watch so, SO many of my friends sit by their parents bedside ... I no longer feel hate.

I feel fear.

Fear that I can’t be there for them in the way that they need.

Fear that I can’t be there for them in the way that they want me to be there.

Fear that I will let them down. Because after all, I HAVE been there, and I HAVE done that.

Then … when friends and relations said, “It’s really hard right now, but it WILL get easier …” Honestly? I thought they were full of shit. After a while, I saw their wisdom.

Now … when I find myself repeating those same words, I feel their truth.

And I can’t fully explain to my friends the long-term truth of those words without feeling like a hypocrite.

I was in the same place they are. Truly, I understand what they are going through. How can I tell them that, “no, really, I AM here for you”, without mouthing some meaningless platitudes, or clichés?

I know that death is just part of the circle of life, but knowing that doesn't erase the hurt that follows it.

Other than showing my support through my actions, no words that I can say will help. But I know this …

…that later, be that days, months, or years, they will get it.

And for that? I will still be sad. Not only for them. But for myself.
And mostly, for all of us.

Personally, I'm trying to move away from the concept of grief, and move towards the concept of celebration. Celebration of the life we were able to share, no matter how long or short.

And I also know this: that my concept of celebration isn't wanted right now, but I know that it will. Someday.

Until then, let's commemorate the life we knew. The life we know.

And the life we hope to live.

A rant: Superstars of Dance

2009-01-12T21:53:00.001-08:00

I’m a dancer, have been since I was 3. Anytime there’s any sort of dance show on, I will watch it. Currently I’m both repelled and intrigued by “Superstars of Dance”. However …

I wish they would give more history – what to look for. What characterizes the traditional dance form for that country? The audience who has never seen Indian or African dance – what should they look for? And, most importantly, how the HELL are they judging? On technique? Choreography? What? In ballroom competitions, at least the televised ones, they give you pointers on what to look for, and what they judge on. (Oh god, did I just say something positive about ballroom competitions? I think I may be losing my mind.)

Monday nights, the girls and I sit around and IM our ever-so-insightful thoughts on the show to each other. Here’s tonight’s apoplexy:

What the hell, Michael Flatley? You are from Chicago! CH-I-CA-GO. (That’s in Illinois, you know – America. Just in case you forgot.) Where did you pick up an Irish accent? The west side? The east? It’s a bad accent, at that. Drop it already. Though you are partially the one who helped bring Irish Dance back into focus, but you are also the one that (horrifically) brought arms as well. Arms! Just like there is no crying in baseball, there are no arms in Irish Dance.

I hate you.

And camera person? This is a dance show. D-A-N-C-E. Which implies choreography, footwork, patterns, neat stuff having to do with the body. How can I see any of that when you do close-ups on faces? Or when you follow one person as they leave stage, completely ignoring the rest of the troupe still dancing?

Lick me where I pee.

South African judge (I refuse to allow you your name, you are pompous and don’t deserve it). Oh, Jesus’ balls. Are you the undiscovered love child of Prince and Lou Diamond Phillips? Stop trying to impress the Australian judge. Smarmy git.

Piss off.

Ireland please, for the love of all that’s holy, just stop with the arms. Do I need to channel Susan Powter? “Stop the insanity!” This is all just skips, with some rallies thrown in for sound. (Which I think they are dubbing in.) Arms? Again? Oh, look! A leap. Just one though. And when did chaînés turns come into this? Bah! And you’re the world champions? I’ve seen better dancing in the 7 year old category at my local feis.

Póg ma thoin.

Australian judge – I love you for giving Ireland a lower score. I still think you’re a harpy though. But South Africa? Stop trying to impress her. We all know you are just leading her on.

Russian ballerina – you have the crazy eyes, but oh so beautiful feet (and stop dropping your damn left elbow during your turns).

America, America … don’t get me wrong, I love popping as much as the next person, but this is just … double-jointedness. Throw in something else. Anything else, please. Ohhh, you can contort your chest, but again – not dance. (Talent, yes.) Your face while “dancing” continually looks like you are trying not to shit your pants.

And for a commercial break - Billy Mays. My night is now officially in the 7th circle of hell. All that’s needed is the ShamWOW! guy to make an appearance.

Oh Africa! Gorgeous dancing men. I will withhold my snark. Besides, I can’t type through drool. (I’m a pig.) And how could that dance score LOWER than the popper? Pfft.

Argentina – your judge is so very sweet. How did she ever make it in the dance world? Is there a hidden Lydia Grant in there (Debbie Allen’s character from “Fame”)? I keep expecting Miss Tango’s boobs to pop out of that dress, which makes it very hard to concentrate on the actual dance. (Psst, cameraguy? Stop showing her tits!)

India – I love all things Bollywood. Gorgeous, although simple. I’d love to learn more about/how to do traditional Indian dance, but I might feel like an imposter. Maybe if I dipped myself in henna …

Australia – I’m sad that I couldn’t see your first group performance (damn you, cameraman!) But if the solo was indicative, holy schmit Dingoman! His feet! If you score lower than Poppingboy, I will have to shake my fist at the television. He can father my children, or at least practice the art of procreation with me. We could populate the world with freakish arches! (South Africa judge can suck it with his “holier-than-thou” commentary.)

The popper won over Australia? I poop on you judges!

I can’t watch anymore. I think I need a drink. Maybe Billy Mays will mix me a concoction with some Oxi-Clean thrown in for flavor. At least it will clean out my brain. And possibly the bad taste in my mouth.

Screw it, maybe it will just kill me so that I won’t tune in next week.

Growing Pains (no, NOT the tv show)

2009-01-09T21:55:00.000-08:00

I may have been born in Utah, but I was raised in California; Southern California to be precise; Orange County to be exact.

Growing up in the land of blondes and BMW’s, I never quite fit in during the day and that made for some angsty nights. Because Orange County was so ill-fitting to me, I moved away from it the day after I turned 18. Where I landed, where I called home (and still call “home”, fit me like a long lost and favourite glove – San Francisco.

Even saying those two words makes my eyes misty and my throat catch. Baghdad by the Bay taught me so, so, SO much and in recompense, I gave to it my soul; it (my soul that is, what little of it there is left) still resides there.

Because of that beautiful city, and of the gorgeous souls I met there, I was able to embrace myself, in all my grandeur and in all my (many) faults. It also taught me that it isn’t so much the place, as the person.

And that is a lesson I’m still trying to remember, and teach myself, on a daily basis where I find myself back in the land of milk, honey, and boob jobs.

*******

Tonight is just an achingly beautiful night, a soul-gripping night. The Santa Ana’s are in full gale: all the smog, the dirt, the corruption, the pain, and the anger – all of it is swept away. Today I could see the surrounding mountains and hills resting under a crystal blue sky. (It truly is a relief from the typical smudgy, smoggy brown that is typical.) I could smell the ocean, and the earth. The chit-chit-chittering of the leaves blowing across the asphalt was a perfect soundtrack to this day. Tonight, I can see the (almost) full moon lighting up everything, and the stars. Oh my god, the stars! Pinpoints of perfect.

Don’t get me wrong, we have our share of political scandals and redheaded step-children (Mike Corona, I’m looking at you), but today I didn’t think of that. The wind whipped through me and took away all negativity, all self.

Growing up, it was days like today that made me whole-heartedly embrace this region. Smile. Spread out my arms. Let my hair “flop about like a besotted salmon”. And just …

… be.

*******

There’s just something so … vital … so life affirming … about wind. Before the fires start I mean.

But this is the night, the exact type of night, where I am proud to say I grew up here.

And I want to go howl at the moon.

Maybe it’s because it’s my folks anniversary today, and I’m sadly happy that they are able to spend it together again at Good Shepherd Cemetery. They raised me in this neck of the woods where I’ve always had a love/hate relationship, and for the first time in my life I can say this – I’m happy to be home.

And I’m happy to be ALIVE.

Brain still broken

2008-12-22T00:17:00.000-08:00

I can't find my words

2008-12-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

I think my brain is broken.

Photos from out and about

2008-11-18T21:32:00.001-08:00

Because my brain is broken, here are some photos from when I was out and about a few weeks ago. Wheeee!

I wish I wrote this

2008-11-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/07/havrilesky/index.html

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T18:31:00.001-07:00

Where I work, we take Halloween seriously. Departments dress up, decorate, and always try to outdo one another. The café always decorates – there’s a Jack the Ripper looking guy in one corner, and in another a zombified scarecrow; there are jack-o-lanterns, black cats, cobwebs, and flickering lights on the salad bar, over the grill, and at other random places. People bring in their kids for office trick-or-treating. It’s a fun way to break away from the suit-and-tie environment that we have the other days of the year. (Granted, with the way the economy and mortgage arenas are tanking, the enthusiasm for All Hallows this year at work has waned.)

I just went downstairs to grab some coffee. (Mmmmmmmm. Cinnamon coffee = heaven in a cup!) While down there, I saw a little girl (maybe 3 years old?) dressed as Bam-Bam. Not Pebbles. Bam-Bam. She’s here with her dad and spreading her cuteness around like SARS. With a serious and intent look on her face, she runs over to the scarecrow zombie and threatens him with her caveman club, waving it at him so very fiercely. Then she runs back and stands in front of her fathers legs, like his wee protector, and at the same time gathering safety from him, glaring all the while at the life-sized doll who is threatening her territory.

The two times she safeguards us from the evil zombie scarecrow (she’s not to be trifled with, don’t let her 3’ frame fool you into underestimation!) she does so entirely silent. There is none of the typical toddler “hi-ya!” yells – only deadly, deadly silence. Forget the Marines or the Seals. If I ever need a defender, I’m calling Bam-Bam.

I think my ovaries just jumped out and bit me in the ass.

Stuck between the bars

2008-09-30T01:17:00.000-07:00

This happened to me.

No.

Seriously.

I shit you not.

more animals

It was shortly after Mom died, and Dad and I were out eating at some restaurant in the mall. (At that time it was the “high-class” mall. Close to 30 years later, it’s now the ghetto mall.) The 80's-tastic kind that had the pseudo-wrought iron bars that separated the moneyed masses (who could afford a sit-down restaurant) from the roving teenagers (who were relegated to finding sustenance at Orange Julius). The fact that I considered a restaurant in the mall as the epitome of haute cuisine, I won’t get into now. (Though they DID have the red and white checkered plastic tablecloths, complete with red-glass candle holders. Tres-chic. That’s me, class all the way.)

Anyway, Dad wasn't paying attention to me for a second, so I took my chance, and the bars looked big enough for my head to fit through. (What can I say? Apparently I was having a Laugh-In moment. I loved that damn show.)

The flashes of memory that I have of that time usually contain some sort of restaurant – I guess Dad didn’t want to cook much. Can’t blame the guy. Lord knows I wouldn’t want to cook, or try to referee a 5 year old.

I remember one time (at band camp), wanting to be a “big girl”, big enough to go to the restroom “aw by myself”, but then after traversing the tribulations of finding a non-icky toilet, one that didn’t smell like mold, hermetically sealing the toilet, then maneuvering my short-ass self onto the toilet, I find myself screaming for help, because I was too small to open the floor-to-ceiling stall door by myself. For hours I tried to wrench open that door (though it was probably more like 45 seconds) just so I could prove that I could do it on my own. I think it was at a Coco’s. Dad had to come in and open the door for me. I felt like an ass.

There are many instances of me doing something dumb in public, in a restaurant. Oh hell, I still do that to this day. (If you’ve eaten out with me, or just have seen me eat, you know this. It’s one of the reason’s I steer away from light coloured tops. And I always ask for extra napkins. Shit, I really should have my own travel-bib.)

Back on point – I *thought* my head was big enough to fit through those bars. And it was. Reversing my head, and ears, back out through the bars though? A bit trickier. Apparently ears easily bend one way, but not the other. I was able to get out (as evidenced by me typing this to you now from my bedroom, and not from that same booth in the restaurant), but it was only because the waitress (and Dad) buttered up my neck, head, and ears with butter (shit you not, they buttered my head with those single-serving pats) in order to pull my head-strong self out of those bars.

Did I learn my lesson? Not really. Sometime within the next year, I did the same thing. Except this time I wasn’t publicly humiliated.

Friends of the family lived in a two-story apartment, which had the metal-latticed staircase frame. Their kid, who was the same age I was, and I were playing. He wanted to play cops and robbers – where he was the cop, I was the robber – and wanted to handcuff me to the frame work. Before he could, though, I did THE SAME DAMN THING. This time though, I realized my ears wouldn’t break if I just held my breath, pulled back quickly, and bit down my tears. There was no way I was going to let my head get greased up again. The back of my ears were a bit tender for a while, but nobody else (except for Cristian) knew of my humiliation. Well, until now at any rate.

To this day, I have this overwhelming urge to stick my head through railings. Weird? Very. Yet, I still succumb to that stupid temptation of, “hey, it looks like I can fit my noggin’ through there …” Just a few years ago, I found myself sticking my head through the second-story railing of the apartment complex I lived in. The view was superb.

I guess I like to look at the world from different angles, with a heavy metal safety guard. Then, as now, I just … I just want to run, fly kites, wrestle, jump, and play. You really can’t do that when your head is shoved up your ass. Or stuck between bars.

I’m coming home. No … I AM home.

Anyone have any butter?

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7FeIu_pf-_E

Take me out ... tonight ...

2008-09-15T02:21:00.001-07:00

Apparently I'm on a Smiths kick. Embracing my old goth/punk/new wave days. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I DID listen to hair metal. It was great escape. Still is. But The Smiths? Joy Division? *swoon*)

We find succor in our past, no?

The last few years have been a learning experience, with a steep fucking curve. Would I have it any other way? Some parts yes. But overall?

Hmmm. May I get back to you on that?

No?

Alright then. (Ya bastard inquisitor! I shall call you Torquemada ... )

Would I? No, I wouldn't. Our parts create the sum, no? I'm finding that my sum is just fine. Now. It's always growing, changing, and morphing. It's a little twisted, a little chipped, but overall ... I like my total. My end product. It's not perfect, but it is mine.

Have I made mistakes, messed up, and fucked up? Of course.

Haven't you?

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and all that.

***

Growing up I always felt I should be seen, and not heard. Some of that concept was spoken and unspoken, explicit and implicit. Either way, I took both views to heart. Only after I lived 30 years was it that I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could be heard as well, and that I wouldn't disappear because of it. Or stop being loved over it.

That being seen AND heard wasn't a venial sin. (Just a mortal one.) That maybe my former teachers weren't blowing sunshine up my ass, and that possibly, maybe, my words (and how I strung them together) had some value.

I don't want to preach. I don't want to be an example. I don't want to DO anything, really. I just want to be. To exist. Yes, there are a lot of dark abysses that I harbor and embrace. There are also a lot of bright pockets of light. (That whole parts=sum thang.) When I write to the 'nets at large, I don't want to be read as a harpy. Or as a know-it-all. Or to be viewed as needy, or over-opinionated. I just want to be read. To be understood. Not to be seen as though I'm standing on a soapbox. Just ... to be ...

Isn't that what we all want, deep down? That to know, in the cacophony of life, our voice stands out? Is felt? Is heard?

***

The other night, I dreamt I was skiing. Fighting moguls, a triple diamond course. And it felt good. Invigorating. Scary, yet life-affirming. There are so many things that could go wrong while having two thin boards strapped to your feet: falling off a cliff, impaling yourself with a pole, or breaking some bystanders nose (yeah, the nose thing is a true story. To that unknown woman, I'm truly, deeply sorry.)

Skiing was something I loved as a child, as a kid, as a teenager. Honestly, it's something I still love. (I just haven't done it in a dog's age.) I woke up ... longing, and semi-sad. But I also awoke joyful. An odd juxtaposition, that.

I was curious, so I looked up what skiing is supposed to mean in the land of dream-speak. What the dream-dictionary said was, "To dream that you are skiing, suggests that you are pushing yourself and putting your mental and/or physical ability to the test. You are your own fiercest competitor."

Hmmm. Oddly, that's true. Very. On so many different levels. (And it sure as hell beats the "transvestive pooping outside of my bathroom stall" dream of a few months ago.)

And you know what? I'm over being seen. I want to be heard; I guess that's why I'm trying to write more, and put it out to the world at large.

(Those of you who know me I say, "Fine! Put me in a room with people I don't know, and I'll still be the person standing in the corner bogarting the buffet. Being in the center of action, the life of the party, will never be me. Baby steps people. Baby steps. Now pass some more of that shrimp cocktail my way!")

***

Shyness CAN stop you ... from doing all the things you'd like to. Lord knows it stopped me. Still does, at times. But I am finding out this ...

... I AM woman.

Hear me write.

***

(Thanks Ms. Bug. I read this years ago, but re-read it again tonight, and it made me think. Again. http://people.tribe.net/queen_of_pumpkins/blog/820dcb0e-4008-4695-80a9-98076fe7f97e)

Poop! I smellz it (or like it)

2008-08-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

Dogs - 0

Cats - 0

Me - 4

Yes. Tonight was bath night. Dog 1 meekly, delicately, stepped into the tub. (Okay, it was after about 5 minutes of me saying, "yes, you're a good girl. A vewwy vewwy good girl! Aw, who's my good girl? Yes! You! You're my good girl!") The entire time she was giving me those eyes. THOSE eyes. Those eyes that said, "But, but, but ... I'm a good girl. For why am I being punished? Do you not love me anymore?"

Dog 2 fought. He growled. He gave his all. He splayed his legs against the edge of the tub, in a hopeful stance of, "If she can't get me in, I can continue to revel in my poopiness." Time and time again, this hasn't held true. And it didn't hold true tonight. I picked his 60 pound ass up and dumped him (gently) into the tub. After that, he was docile. (Granted, he still shot me glances of, "You know, I COULD eat your face if I wanted to". This was in direct opposition of his look of rapture when I was scrubbing that one spot. You know, the one just above the tail? Yeah, he has a love/hate with bath night.)

The cats are easier to manhandle. Just grab 'em by the scruff of the neck and hold 'em. One will willingly get into the water, but doesn't want to remain. The other will fight before he touches water. But once he's in there, he'll walk back and forth, caught between his genetic history of "water = bad!" and the fact that he thinks it's kind of neat.

At any rate, I have 4 clean animals (their smell? Much improved!), and one very dirty me. The combo of sweat, wet dog, dog slobber, and flea shampoo does not a "stink-pretty" make.

It just makes a stink.

Snapshot of my 'hood

2008-08-27T22:25:00.001-07:00

I live in the land of milk, honey, and boob jobs. Where every sentence ends with an up lilt, as though everyone is always questioning … something? The verbal stops, pauses, and connectors aren’t the silent denoters of periods, commas, and em dashes; instead they use punctuations of “dude!”, “like”, and “right?”

Southern California is one of the most laid-back, yet uptight, areas of the country. (I feel I speak with some authority on this, seeing as how I spent 3 years of my life traveling these states of our nation.) Because of this, you get a weird mix of people. Sometimes the weird mix is found in one person, sometimes in a neighborhood.

Take my neighborhood for example. Almost every night, sometime between 9 and 10, there’s the rollerblader. Now, rollerblading isn’t uncommon especially round dese heah parts. The late night rollerblading? Still not uncommon. However my guy does it shirtless. And LOUDLY singing along to whatever is on his iPod (typically some mix of Ice-T, Eminem, Snoop, and the like). Another denizen of my tract is actually a friend of mine – he goes night walking. Sometimes he does it with his mandolin. Sometimes he does it while tying a pillowcase around his neck, and pretends he’s the folk crusader, rescuing damsels with his righteous chord progressions. (Okay, he doesn’t REALLY do that, but he DOES think about it.)

Then there’s the typical mix that all neighborhoods, even apartment complexes, have – the newlyweds, the crotchety old man, the prozaced-out eternally happy Mom, you know … the norm. Then there’s the family next door: they are kind, kind, kind. The teenaged girls are nice, with just a touch of rebellion. Their male cousin lives there as well, and he is one of the nicest and down to earth boys ever (and he’s 13). Then there’s their youngest son, who will either turn out to be a serial killer, or a lawyer. (The jury’s still out on that one.)

With all these people living in close proximity, you’re bound to overhear something you may not have wanted to know. But then there are the people who are out, walking their dogs, talking on their cell phones; it’s the OC version of multi-tasking.

In a quiet neighborhood, especially when the night is settling into its skin, voices can echo. And carry. And you’ll hear things the speaker probably wishes she had waited to ask until she got home. Things like,

“Have you ever moaned with your mouth open?”

Why, yes. Yes I have. You mean, you haven’t?

This is one shade of my grey

2008-08-26T04:04:00.001-07:00

I've never had an abortion. No need for emergency contraception here. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. This is not to say I haven't had a scare (or three) when I went to the local CVS to buy a 12-pack and a pregnancy test. (And may I just say that I hate it when some person behind the counter decides she can moralize? And the rare times I've been in this situation, it WAS a she. "Well, if you're pregnant, you KNOW you can't drink that beer ... " to which I responded, "Yeah, I know. If I am, it's HIS congratulatory drink, but if I'm NOT, it's OUR 'phew, we missed the bullet on that one' toast". Always it was said with a smile, even thought part of me wanted to say, "Shut your damn maw and just tell me the total, you self-aggrandizing bitch".)

Coming of age in California may have skewed my perception. If we had stayed in Utah, I may be singing a different tune, and living a different life, right now. But ... I did, and we didn't, so here I am ...
______________________________

A few months after getting my first kiss, I lost my virginity. Raised a strict Catholic, I really only heard peripherally about The Pill ("something only whores want/need") and condoms. So, although I was "safe" in exploring my budding sexuality, the fear of getting knocked up was like lead in my head. As I weighed the scales of my own sexual justice, what I came back to were these two thoughts: if I got pregnant, RIGHT NOW at age 16, would I have the kid? Or would I abort? Both thoughts, both options, pulled at me as though I were nothing more than seaside-boardwalk taffy. The scales never, truly, equalized ...

As I was still searching for the ever elusive orgasm, a few friends around me were already on the pill, another had an abortion, and one more was just another "teenage pregnancy" statistic. MY thoughts, and THEIR realities, were at war in my head. "I can't go on the Pill, it would mean I'm a slut" vied with, "Please God, let this condom work as it should!" jockeyed for attention with, "holy shit, it happened to her, it might happen to me", mixed with my relief of, "thank God it's them, and not me".

And some people wondered why I couldn't just let go and flow with the moment. Pfft.
______________________________

The most vicious attacks against me came from girls. From women. I realize (now) that it was fear driving them. It wasn't me, per se, they wanted to belittle. They had to do it to feel better about themselves, about their place in the world, their self-inflicted hierarchy.

Do I agree with it?

No.

But then I realized something ... we all have our roles to play. Mine, then, was to be their victim. To take what they said ABOUT me, and absorb it into the woven fabric of my soul. To turn their perception into my truth. To accept their taunts, their words, their fantasy, and turn it into my reality. I had to allow myself to be the victim, in order to find my inherent strength.

It's something, hopefully, that taught both teams (them and us, tormentor and tormented) something. Something about compassion, about walking a mile in the others shoes. The tormented learned inner strength and understanding, the tormentor empathy and understanding.

Sure, the learning may not have happened then, hell ... it may not have happened yet, at all, to the individual players. But it will happen. Timing doesn't matter, only that it DOES happen.

That moment of "oh, wow ... ok. I get it". On BOTH sides. I'm still learning that I never knew what was going on in their heads, in their home-lives. It's still just conjecture at this point. I only knew how it affected me. And for a long time I could only hold onto my perception, my reaction. In my smaller and selfish moments, I still hold on.

The middle school "slut", who would sneak out with her bathroom hall pass to steal kisses with the blonde jock? I learned later, much later, that her home life was a mess, a mess to the nth degree. It makes my emotional wobblings look incredibly small in comparison. And now I realize she was just grasping for some control. Something only SHE had control over. SHE was the one who chose to kiss that boy in the hall. That was her empowerment, her awakening. The rest of us? Yeah, we called her slut. And for that, I still feel like shit. Because could I honestly say I wouldn't do the same in her position, then?

Hindsight being 20/20, I understand now what made her act out, what made her target me. I was a geek. I was the only redhead in school. I was the easy target. Physically small, and mentally soft and scared, scarred.

Then though ... ? I didn't understand. And then, it hurt, deeply. Honestly, it still does. Sticks and stones?

Bullshit!!!

Physical wounds CAN heal, but those words ... those words stick like a burr.

I was upset, then, that she couldn't see my life, my outlook, my reality, through MY eyes. The fact that her reality, her 12 short years of life, was skewed through her experiences ... I didn't get that. Didn't understand. I didn't see HER life. Not then, at any rate.

The mutual hurts, of the then, built up a wall of non-understanding. On both sides.

Now though? I think if we ever meet again, that unspoken wall would still be there. But not as solid. Not as real. Not as intimidating. More of an automatic protection; an unconscious feint. Yes, there would be a chink, where we could not necessarily walk a mile in the others shoes, but at least we would have a movie-preview-type of understanding. An understanding that leaves us satiated, yet wanting more.Questioning.

We may separate by looking through each others weakness, and the understanding that comes from it, or we may bring up that armored self-preservation once again, our souls still connected under that hard shell of metal ...

That armor will never be as strong, viable, or whole, again.
______________________________

In trying to "get" others, or at least accept them, I see more of the universe. By seeing them, I see more of me. In their stories, their lives, I catch a glimpse. A glimpse of something more.

A glimpse of sympathy.

A glimpse of empathy.

But underneath it all, a small, minuscule glimpse of understanding.

And selfish satisfaction, selfish cognizance.

I'm trying to view people past the armor they put on to the world at large. Trying to see past the bravado (theirs and mine), to the core underneath.

This whole acceptance thing? In a word (or two) ...

... it sucks.

By viewing others, it forces the mirror back at the looker. The observer. And makes them ask questions. Questions they may not be ready to answer, or at least answer to the world at large. Sometimes not even be able to answer to themselves.
______________________________

Growing up, life was very black and white. We were ALL sinners. There was no real grey. The grey you saw, that you questioned? It was answered in a very black and white way.

"Why does she pick on me?" .... "It's because you're different."

It wasn't until later, much later, that I learned that their version of "black", of different, was truly charcoal. Their version of "white"? Ecru.

I DO admire, envy, and feel pity for, those people who CAN view life in complete black and white. There were, and are, times when I wish it were so easy. Black equals bad, white equals good. If only it were that simple, and that clean. That striated ...

... She picks on me because I'm "bad", I'm "other" and I deserve it ...

What happens when you mix black and white?

You get grey.

And that's where life lives, and thrives. And grows.

Life isn't that clean cut, that striated. It's in the shadows, in the mix of black and white, where understanding, sympathy, and empathy take root. And where the most fun, interesting, and fertile times of our lives take place. It takes place in the shadows. In the grey.

I cannot tell you that your combination of black and white is better, or more pure, than mine. Both are just shadings. Both add depth, and character.

Sometimes the hardest lessons are the most meaningful. And the most slippery and obtuse. I keep trying to remind myself of that. That *this* shade of grey is MY life, right now. And I must understand, or at least tentatively grasp, this shadow, this shade, before I can move on.
______________________________

Would I, or could I, get an abortion right now, at *this* moment in my life? The right here, and the right now?

No. I don't think I would. Or could. It's too deeply a mottled mix of black, white, and grey.

However, I want that choice. No, let me rescind that. I NEED that choice. Need that palette of options, of colors, before me.
______________________________

I don't agree with the way our country is headed, the way our world is headed. But I still harbor hope. Oddly.

If someone tells me that *this* is the way I should think, or that *this* is the way I should behave, or that *this* is the box I should fit in ... I rebel. Down to my soul, I rebel. It may not be an outward manifestation, but I DO rebel.

Maybe some of it is genetic. Maybe some of it is learned behavior, like Pavlov's dogs. Either way, I balk at the restraints put on me.

And that's just it - while I'm working on breaking myself free of self-, or other-, imposed shackles, I try to never put those on another person. It's hard. Really hard. It's easy to moralize from the safety of your own chair, your own mind, your own life. Harder still to take a moment to take a stroll in their life, and out of your own.

And it's hard to *not* denigrate, or belittle, another. To put them in a box that's easily understandable to you. Even when they try to do the same to you, to enshroud their own safety. It's a gut-jerk safety mechanism. On both sides. Fight fire with fire, yanno?
______________________________

My mother is no longer here. Nor is her mother. My blood. My heritage. My history.

However, *I* AM. I am here. Here, using the black, and the white, to create my own personal shade of grey.

And I refuse to let their their voices die, because I am afraid to use my own. Hell, they were the ones who gave me my voice in the first place, even if they didn't agree with what my vocal chords produced ...

Both of them were nurses. RN's. They saw the fallout of the 60's and 70's. They didn't agree with it, not on a spiritual or religious level. (Maybe Mom did. She WAS a hippie and just ... was ... and just ... accepted ... )

But on a human level? Yeah ... they mixed their own shades of black and white.

Maybe I'm just searching for human contact. Not necessarily connection, because that would mean me giving up part of me. But maybe reaching out for just a touch? A sense of someone walking in my shoes, while I walk in theirs?

A touch of compassion would be nice about now.
______________________________

Maybe what I'm trying to get at is this:

If you are my friend, I will support you. NO MATTER WHAT. Hell, I may even provide an alibi.

If you aren't my friend, but my acquaintance, I will support you. NO MATTER WHAT. I may not provide an alibi, but I will wholeheartedly give you my ear, support, and guidance (for whatever that's worth).

If I don't know you, I will support you, as long as you are forging your own color, your own place, and are doing it with openness and honesty. Being true to yourself. I may not agree with your views ... but if they are come upon honestly, and with empathy, I will give you my support. (Just don't put your own spin on my charcoal creation.)
______________________________

Each of us creates our own palette, our own mix of black and white.

Who am I to say that your grey is the wrong shade?

Who are YOU to say that MY grey is wrong, or immoral?
______________________________

What started this blather was partially this: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/08/08/plans-b-damned-the-quest-emergency-contraception

Some of it is this: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/key-votes/
______________________________

I'm just finding my voice, after a long hiatus. Please don't make me raise it. Or silence it. Just let it ... speak.

And listen.

And I promise the same. I hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHxGXeyXNnA

Don't hide what you feel inside. Don't let anybody stand in your way. Just let the music ...

2008-08-17T06:42:00.001-07:00

... take you higher.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The title is a small shout-out to David Coverdale. What can I say? I was a hair-metal junkie. Oh hell, who am I fooling? There is no "was". Skid Row is still a guilty pleasure. (I blame my Uncle Mike for that. HE was the one who put a tenner in my hand and forced me to go into Liquorice Pizza to pick up the newest album from Whitesnake. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Damn you, Uncle Mike!)

*******************************

If I were more savvy, I would just create a mix of the below. But I'm not that technologically keyed in (I could be, but I'm lazy). So instead, I'll just throw out a few links. Listen to all, or just snippets, or just scroll past it all. In this, I'll allow you to create your own mash-up.

(Please stick with me through the links ... as I said, you don't have to listen to all of them, but it's my set-up here people ... and as an additional disclaimer - when I say "trad" music, I mean that to be the instrumental/traditional music of Ireland, Scotland, Cape Breton, etc. Or, as my friends from Ireland call it, the "diety-ditty shite".)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g9Cxrc7FSg
I'll be there, with a love that will shelter you. I'll be there,with a love that will see you through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQdSJXPDtjs
Look out baby, 'cause here I come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lOcRI37cu0
But there's a power, and a vital presence, that's lurking all around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqH_xqh0eVw
If you stick around I'm sure that we can find some common ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p2g2WuGXwE
And my fond heart strove to choose between, the old love and the new love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhSYbRiYwTY
I'm stepping through the door, and I'm floating in a most peculiar way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaOyUdiv7rU
You showed me how, how to leave myself behind, how to turn down the noise in my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EoNd_maBbY
He sings out a song which is soft but its clear, as if maybe someone could hear.

http://www.imeem.com/people/du5ZGSY/music/ggSG_jmu/ben_taylor_band_island/
Everyone can see that I'm an island, I've got ocean just about everywhere that I can see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lzb-jYZrLE
No you can't take that away from me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o2dPi_hhTc
In my dreams--it's still the same. Your love is strong, it still remains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv343ai0EfA
Where I come from and where I am going, and I am lost in between.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9vlmAYw0a8
Er, Sean Ryan?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dh90sTlSOs
Quimbara quimbara quma quimbamba. Quimbara quimbara quma quimbamba?

Okay. That's enough for now. And it barely scratches the surface.

-- When I first started this rambling, I wanted to make a point of how music is our universal connector. But the artists and songs I chose to link to seem to be my subconscious telling me something. (Maybe it is saying something to you too.) Just an observance. Now, onto my blathering. --

How do you capture this? All of the bands linked above I've seen live, some numerous times. Each and every show was a narcotic to me. There's the fact that you're seeing these strangers, though they aren't strangers to YOU, because they somehow spoke to your soul. ("Oh my god, they wrote that song for me!") Then there's the communal anticipation - every single person is there with some expectation, some want, some need, and those desires become a palpable energy. It all adds up to a heady brew.

How do you capture those emotions, those feelings? How do you contain that deluge in a paper cup? Can you?

Would you really want to?

You can't capture moments. Seriously, how DO you catch a memory? Photographs are one way, but they only retain a small part of that infinitesimal moment. It's not like you can carry around an old mason jar and plunk it onto your head every time you want to keep some memory, some event. Even capturing fireflies ... they eventually weaken and their light dies out. It defeats the purpose, no?

(And if you DID try to go the jar route, the concussion from all that banging against your noggin' may not be worth the price.)

How do you keep those fleeting times of your life real, immediate, and tangible? For me, it's listening to music at every chance, and finding new artists. Expanding my musical knowledge base. The ones I've seen live, when I hear their CD again, I'm brought back to that moment, and that time of life when I saw them play. It may not be as gripping or as urgent as *that* moment, but it's enough of a visceral memory that I'm left wanting more. It's like giving a needle to a junkie ... they will want more. And then more again.
________________

The Four Tops and The Temptations were my first concert; Dad took me. The first concert that I took myself to was Bad Religion, and I've seen them more times than I can count. (Greg? Have my babies? Please?)

I do remember every concert and every piece of live music that I've seen. Now ... I can't rattle them all off, or even remember all of their names (there's been a metric assload of 'em), but if I hear a band, I can most likely tell you whether or not I have seem them live.
________________

Recently I posted about the quiet time of night, when you can truly feel at home in yourself. But what about those times and experiences that allow you to go OUTside of yourself? When you don't want the world-collective to be quiet, and you want to connect instead?

Live music does it for me. More specifically, live trad music. It's one of the few times my brain shuts up completely (dancing being one of the exceptions). There is no static in the background, no mental niggling. I am in me, fully. In the music, completely. In the moment, wholly. I'm connected, yet disconnected, all at the same time.

I've lost track of time, of self and surrounding, being caught up in the moment. Moments are (supposedly) fleeting, but each moment I've had when I'm surrounded by music have never been lost. They are here. HERE. (Imagine that I'm pointing to my chest, my heart. And stop looking at my boobs!)

We carry each of those moments with us: those instances of feeling, of connecting, of being more ... and of being less. They are never lost. They are inside of us. Hell, they ARE us. When enraptured at a concert, I live right up to that second. And then I live all of my lives that could have been. And my life that is. And will be. And then I lose all of that. I just "am".

Don't just be in the moment. Live it.
________________

Why the fuck am I channeling Tony Robbins? I really don't want to be some arm-chair psychologist, or motivational speaker (or have that horrible tanning-bed look). I don't want to tell you what to do, or how to feel, or how to view the world. I guess, that by putting my thoughts out there, to y'all, I can tell myself that I'm not actually talking to myself, talking to an empty room, not actually talking to my cats, but instead I can pretend that I am communicating with (at) people. Because, after all, only "those crazy people" talk to themselves.

And talk to their pets.

(Besides, when I DO talk to the cats? Their response is ... ball licking ... not really the answer I was looking for. Thanks guys. Bastards.)
________________

Personally, live music allows me no sense of time. No sense of worry. It gifts me with transcendence.

In that moment, everyone is individual, and everyone is whole, and part of the whole. Everything is learned, and unlearned. In that moment everything is forgiven, and everything is forgotten. Everything, that is, except for that note, this note, that phrase, this chorus ... this moment of electricity. Of vibrance. Of feeling so incredibly grounded, and yet it is still an out of body experience.

Pretty much ALL live music does that to me, when I am there in the audience. I feel a part of, and apart from. And I'm at peace.

Recorded music doesn't make me feel that way, at least not in that immediate sense. Unless it's trad. I don't know why that is - maybe some unknown genetic memory.

Trad music (even bluegrass in a way) is kind of weird for me - I can have it playing in the background, and I don't have to concentrate on it; it won't disturb me if I'm doing another task that requires me to focus. But if I actually do stop and listen, it reaches out and grabs me by the throat. By my heart. And by my gut.

It's still the only type of music that I can consciously force myself to put in the background. Other music makes me stop, and listen to the lyrics. Focus on what it's saying ("Is it revved up like a dooce, or is it wrapped up like a douche? I should replay that part again ... ")

Maybe I view trad like the lover that will always be there, no matter how I treat it. Just because I listen to other genres, or go and see their shows, and feel that same excitement when I listen, it doesn't lessen the hold that trad music has on me. Or the love I have for it.

Apparently trad music is my aural booty call.
________________

3:00 AM is when I'm alone with me, yet semi-connected to the world. Being at a concert, or in a pub watching a trad band, is when I'm just part of a whole; when the world is semi-connected to me. A small speck that creates the whole ... experience.

One paint-spot, one small dab of the brush ...

... can create this:

Individually, yes, that one point is interesting. Taken by, and of, itself, it can be beautiful. (The listener, the audience member, as a person can be endlessly fascinating and intriguing. But when I'm at a concert, I honestly don't give a shit about them, except for how they contribute to the show. The energy they give off. How they tie into the entire experience.) When that one small part contributes to the whole? Wow.

There are those of us who connect(ed) by following the Grateful Dead, some by going to see indie groups play where the band outnumbered the audience, some by being in packed arenas to see Jay-Z, and some by standing in a small club to see a cult-status band, where you feel packed in like a sardine - oil included. For me I can, and have, connected in all of those places. I've connected listening at home to 8-tracks, albums, tapes, CD's, and now the internet (PANDORA! I love you!)

Music is the art form that can reach out through whatever delivery platform (recorded, live, or something you created), and grab you. Music really is the foundation of life, mine at any rate.
________________

To me, music IS my shelter. It's my safety net. It does, and has (on so many levels and in SO many ways), see me through.

I think most of us want to grip, capture, and hold close those seconds. Those that bring us into the moment, and take us out of ourselves. Me too. I want to be able to Tivo those experiences so that I can relive them, again and again. And again. It wasn't until now, THIS moment, that I now realize ... I don't want to.

I want those transcendental minutes of life to remain ever elusive, but still within my grasp. The fact that they now have that soft, feathered edge make it more comfortable, and comforting, when I look back. Though the intensity is now dulled, there is still that memory.
________________

It feels like I'm leaving this unfinished, and I am. While writing this, I had all of the above links playing, then some. The musical siren song is calling me. Asking me to come visit them again. This song ALWAYS makes me cry, and still I laugh and smile through those tears. Because it takes me back to a place, a snapshot in time. A time when I was crying a lot. And laughing. And living. So I'll leave you with this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN2XPaMjB0E and this question ...

The above was a snapshot of the soundtrack of my life (concert-wise at least). What's your soundtrack, concert or otherwise?

The difference between dusk and dawn ...

2008-08-15T03:12:00.001-07:00

Why is it that when I *should* be getting ready for bed, my brain starts to wake up? I've always been this way, even from a very young age. (Okay, maybe the feeling of wanting to stay up all night was due to the fact that I thought an evil leprechaun lived under my bed, and that weird anxiety has never left ... nor has that leprechaun. Fucker.)

Anyway, when most "normal" people are sleepily wiping their eyes, and yawning their "good nights" through a mouthful of toothpaste, I'm starting to wake up. Maybe some of this is situational - this is the time I'm able to catch up on my e-mail, random YouTube links, and news. But always, the night has held me in its grasp. Especially 3:00 A.M. - I found out later in life that this is considered the "true" witching hour, but for me, there was a palpable change in the air, when everything just seemed to stop. And to breathe. And to "be". And to just accept whatever was out there, happening at that moment. It was, and still is, my comfortable and safe time. My me-time.

There's something gripping, and tentative, and soft, and even "dark" - no pun intended - about the wee hours of the night that just captures me. Reaches down into my soul, heart, and mind, and it won't let go. (Like a cat embracing a catnip mouse.) Maybe it's because the world (or at least the world around me) is quiet, and that allows me time to expand my brain, and let down my walls. It allows me to be fully in my skin, allows me to feel, and allows my brain out to gambol - this is the time when my synapses are allowed free reign. It's when I can follow the random paths of, "what if", or "what if I hadn't"? And I don't stress over it, at least not at that point. Not at that time of night. (Or morning.)

Seriously though? That type of thinking (the what-if's) leads to a downward spiral. When we play that game in our head, of COURSE our lives are that much better (or that much worse). In my late-night fantasy land, I ALWAYS win the lotto at the last possible minute, rescue the kitten in the tree, donate wildly to charity, and then Colin Farrell always seems to find epiphany in monogamy (with me) when he meets me at the supermarket ...

Our lives just ... they just are. No more. No less.

Life is what we make it. Life is what we *don't* make it out to be. It's raw material thrown our way, and our job is to shape it into something. Whether that is a bad rendition of an ashtray, or a Michelangelo-like sculpture, we are where we need to be (not necessarily where we WANT to be). But ... we are where we need to be. We are here, right now, right HERE, in this place, in THIS moment, because this is where we must be in order to ... do. To process. To digest. To take-in. To learn. And to teach.

The 12-year-old me would scream at the almost-32-year-old me. THIS, this "me" is not what I wanted, what I envisioned. THIS IS NOT ME, DAMNIT! But ... here I am. And this IS me. And you know what? I wouldn't give up, or re-live, any minute of it. (Yes, with hindsight being 20/20, there are instances where I wish I HAD acted differently, said something other than I did - or decided not to say - , or acted in a different manner.) Yet, all of those instances, all of those moments, have led to the "me" I am today.

Am I perfect? Am I all that I can be? Am I living up to my potential? Hellz to the EN-OH! But I am living my life. Even though sometimes this concept of living seems to be arduous, and instead I feel I am stuck on pause, in stasis. On the snow-channel of the TV.

We all, each and every single-damn-one of us, have those moments when you relive an earlier moment, and come up with the PERFECT comeback. But focusing on the woulda-coulda-shoulda is detrimental to our growth as people. We just have to put that away under the mental file of "Next time, I will say, I will do ... "

Regrets? Yeah, I've had a few (or maybe eleventy-thousand of them). But I would never try to trade them in for the life I have now. I've found perfection in the cracks, and I'm quite content to sit in those foundational ruptures and laugh. And weep. And cackle through the tears. Laughter is fun. Laughter is love. Without laughter, there is no life.

A friend of mine said something in a flippant moment, that has stuck with me for over 10 years now. The exact phrasing is off, but the meaning was, "I'd rather regret the things I did, rather than the things I wish I had done".

I'm trying to live that motto, trying to embrace this roller-coaster of life, and laugh the whole way. Joyfully. Embracedly. Whole-heartedly.

Finally I'm realizing that I can't be everything to everyone, but I can be the best "ME" when all is said and done. If my final product is an ashtray, or a sculpture, at least I know I was made out of love, blood, sweat, tears, and fire.

And that is what I strive for. Am striving for, daily. Moment to moment, second to second.

We are the sum of our parts - me, you, our friends, family, acquaintances, and even our ancestors have a hand in molding who we are. Sometimes carefully and lovingly, sometimes heavy-handed. A genetic butterfly effect.A societal imprint.

This late night peace and stillness allows us (or me, at any rate) to think. To feel. This is the time when the world-collective isn't using its brain, which shuts off all the extraneous noise. And this is the time that truly allows our souls to embrace, and enjoy, the silence.

It forces me to be more open, more embracing, of others. Of their quirks, foibles, and flaws. I recognize these things in myself, and know that others have a universal experience. What I've experienced, and lived, so too have they. As I learn to love myself, I learn to love them. It literally blows my fucking mind. And rends open my heart in ways I never, ever, could have imagined.

And now? Now I will laugh. And I will live. And I hope that you will laugh with (and even sometimes at) me.

To quote the inimitable Frank Sinatra:

I've loved, I've laughed and cried.
I've had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
No, oh no not me,
I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!

When is your "silent" time? When is your "what do I see in me, when no one is around" time? When are you able to strip yourself down to your bare essentials, and see who you truly are, who you truly want to be?

Do you actually, truly, and honestly seek a quiet time? Or, do you allow the pomp and circumstance of what we call "life" to draw the lines of the art that is ... you?

It's late, and I must go meandering down the dry-goods aisle to meet with Mr. Farrell. I can't be late for a date, now, can I?

Thoughts on the news (trigger warning maybe?)

2008-08-13T01:19:00.000-07:00

On another site I'm a part of, someone posted a link to this story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4481742.ece

Granted, I do agree with the original poster when she said this woman was a "character". I also agree with another commentor (commentator?) when she said she was "effin' crazy!" On the surface, I'm TOTALLY amused. However ... this is what I posted in response over on Tribe.net:

Heh. Okay, I can totally see the glee in finding amusement in this woman's craziness. (C'mon, who doesn't like to look at a train wreck every now and then? Even when we can empathize/sympathize with them ... )

But ... from an "uppity" standpoint, I take offense at a couple of things in how this story was told (a trigger warning may apply here):

"... the 17-stone Kirk Anderson claimed, his petite, busty admirer tied him to a bed ... and forced him into sex ... " ,and then: " ...You have seen the size of Mr Anderson and you have seen the size of my client ... "

Not to totally derail this conversation, but ... rape is rape. Men rape women. Women rape men. Men rape men. Women rape women. People rape PEOPLE. There is no gender involved - it's power. It's rage. It's anger.

No means no. End of story, end of interaction. It does not matter your size, your gender, or what you are wearing. If you do not want to have sex, then you say no. Your partner should abide by that. Sometimes ... they don't. (I really don't want to come across as trite in this, or really cut-and-dry, but I'm trying to get some thoughts out without doing too-damn-much-editing. Please read my words in the spirit I hope they convey, and not in the semantics from it.)

In the sum-total 14 paragraphs of the article, of those 5 mentioned her looks. And 5 in some way made an insinuation about sex. Mathematically, that means that 36% (okay, okay, 35.7%) of the article focused on: her looks, sex/rape (even though they don't call a spade a spade and call it rape), or some combo thereof. Is that journalism, or sensationalism?

The man that she handcuffed and forced into sex did not consent ... the word *forced* implies that. (At least, by my parsing, that's the understanding I came to.) Granted, many a man has had fantasies of a woman/women tying them to the bedpost and "having their way" with them. However ... this man was Mormon. And typically I view religion as ... other.

From personal experience, there's a lot of hypocrisy betwixt sex and religion. However, I do know and interact (daily) with a lot of Mormons. Those that ARE (Mormon), live by it. The ones that want to break the "rules", don't really identify as Mormon. (More often they'll call themselves Jack-Mormon, or some other derivative.) So, the fact that this man was a Missionary ... eesh. What she did was rape. That's it. End of story.

I've met Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc., who will bend the rules to suit their needs, but Mormons? From what I've experienced (and that's all I'm saying ... it's my experience ... either they ARE Mormon, or they aren't - or were raised, or recovering, or what have you) ... people will bend their religion, and what their religion espouses, to suit their needs, or to make it fit their world view. With the Mormons, though, it's all or nothing. (There's more subtext here I know, and the ladies in this tribe who have a metric tonne more insight and education into religion than I do can offer more insight, they can/will offer their observations.)

Hmm. I guess what I'm saying is ... "what the hell does it have to do with the facts what she looks(looked) like, and what bearing does it have to the matter at hand what religion HE was?" Not a darn thing.

It's all sound and fury, signifying ... what?

Again from the article, "To flee on bail, she donned a red wig and disguised herself as a member of a mime troupe, together with her alleged accomplice, Keith May."

I'm gonna put on my snark hat right now ... a red wig?!??!? Are they inveighing that people who have red hair are evil? And will run from the law? And that those eeeeeeeeevil redheads will join those no-goodnik mime troupes to escape justice? (Okay, mimes are evil. I keed! I keed!)

Keeping the snark hat on, again from the article: "... then resurfaced ... dressed as a nun ... a rope and handcuffs were in her car."

Maybe she just needed some space to totally live out her quasi-religious-BDSM fantasies ... ???

This turned out a hell of a lot longer than I intended, but apparently it struck a nerve. (Granted, some part of me is still totally entertained at the craziness of the woman. I mean, c'mon - she had puppies cloned from the EAR of her dog for Christsakes.)

More on art ...

2008-08-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

... I was watching Margaret Cho, and she said something that made my brain go, "aroo?" It woke something that's been tickling my brain for the last few months/years, and here's my start. Am I on the right path?

This, along with my last post, is a very rough draft, almost stream of conscious. I think what I'm trying to say is that just by listening, hearing, even being a passive observer, we all contribute. And that if we all just become a teensy bit more aware of what each person has to offer (even if we don't agree with it), our daily lives will become that much more beautiful. Hmmm. Yeah. I think that's where I'm headed with this.
__________________________________

What is art?

Is it the snap of a shutter? The brush of oil on a canvas? The turn of a phrase? The pitch in a voice? The note on a scale? The line of a leg?

Right now I'm watching Margaret Cho's "Revolution" and she said something to the effect of: "The function of art is to comment on culture." I emphatically agree, but would have to add to this: yes, one part of it is to comment on culture, and some other (not all encompassing parts) are to make you think and to make you feel.

Art begets Art.

How do YOU choose to comment on culture? Do you consider yourself an artist?
__________________________

We are all artists, deep down inside, down to the core of our being. Each and EVERY ONE of us is an artist.

We live.

We breathe.

We experience.

Art is "us": it's how we tap into our inner beings and it is how we show ourselves, how we show our views, how we show our souls, how we show our opinions. It is how we reflect "us" back to the world. When we do that, when we hold up that mirror or even a two-way glass, we are artists.

"But what about someone like Limbaugh? He can definitely turn a phrase, but does that make him an artist?"

Yes. Yes it does and yes he is.

Now, before you get your panties in a twist, hear me out.

When someone like Rush Limbaugh says something like "dunderheaded alarmists and prophets of doom", regarding environmentalists, he is spurring art. A statement like that will make you think, and it spurs you to learn. It spurs people to take photographs like this

Is that photograph NOT art? Is it not evocative? I cannot say what the photographers mindset was when she snapped this photo: if it was just something akin to, "wow, look at the structure, the colour, the composition; or if it was something more along the lines of, "oh, we're just dunderheads are we? Well look at THIS Mr. Limbaugh! Gore 4EVAR!"
___________________________________

This image is art to me. It woke something inside of me, which I'm still trying to verbalize. What does it say to you? What was this artist thinking, or trying to convey? If you do not "see" what he was trying to "say", is it still art?
___________________________________

Art IS a comment on culture. It is also a comment on our current world situations. There are certain songs, dances, paintings, and photographs, which will evoke different meanings in different people. But there are some forms of media that start out as journalism, and then turn into art - it's a cultural view.

I didn't know Eddie Adams history at the time of this initial writing. But... even if the intent of this photo was to show the atrocities of war, if it just started out as visually showing facts, it morphed into art. Heart wrenching, and yes, disgusting, but art nonetheless. Why?

Look at the photo again. LOOK at it. Strip away what you know of the history of the time. Just ... please, just ... look. Just think. Just feel.

Did it stir anything inside of you? Yes? Then it is art.

_____________________________

Art is education. When you view, hear, or feel something, and it makes you think ... and then research .... it is art.
_____________________________

Art can be selfish (acting, singing, performing) in that we *need* that immediate feedback, that instant applause, to continue to light our fire.

For others, art is therapy: we HAVE to get these images, these words, these movements, these notes ... we just have to get them OUT, out of our brain so that we can come back to some semblance of sanity and stop the images, stop the words, stop the movements, stop the music in our heads just so we can sleep. And function.
_____________________________

Art is showing others the world as you see it, and inviting them into your space ... and hoping that we can all find a common thread so that we can meet in understanding on that common ground.
_____________________________

Why is it that when someone is considered an artist, they are typically viewed through the filter of some sort of addiction? All of the "great" artists were fucked up in some way, and sought release through various behaviours, chemicals, intoxicants. Is it because "art" drove them, or that society at large just didn't hear them? Painters, writers, singers, dancers, comedians - most of the "famous" ones were dependent on something. Was/is it because of society? Or was/is it because they doubted themselves, and only through inebriation, by allowing them to "get outside" of themselves, were they able to tell their truth?
_____________________________

Art, as viewed by most of society at large, is seen as something "frou-frou", as "classist". It's narrowly defined as something only the Imrpressionists did, or "weird stuff" that's seen in art galleries (Pollack anyone?) But actually ... art is SO broad, and SO all encompassing. Each of us lives and breathes art. I create art, you create art, they create art ... even by being an observer we pay the piper of art.
_____________________________

Art is the vehicle of being heard, of being understood. And isn't that what drives most of us - to be heard?

Yes. We are ALL artists.

Drafting

2008-08-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

So, I'm kinda thinking that this will be a multi-part post. Here is my VERY rough draft. Part one.

I do have a question to you: how would you like to see this random train of thought played out? I'm playing with the concept of a "choose your own adventure": yes, I AM asking for input, but that doesn't mean it will influence the outcome. But ... it may.

This is the beginning of a tangent, and depending on how you view it, it MAY tie into the second part I have saved in my "drafts" folder. If your thoughts (of where you think/would like to see this lead) don't tie into what I already have written, then, well ... so be it.

Yanno?
_________________________________________

Damnit. I want to be prolific. I want to write. I want to dance. I want to shoot (photographs, not guns, but sometimes shooting guns can be fun. BANG!)

I want my words, my movements, my images to make an impact. I want what I write, dance, and show to inspire another person to take my idea and make it better. And I want their work to inspire me to one-up them. A healthy, artistic competition. None of this, "I'm better than you" type of competition, but one of, "holy shit! That was fantastic! Here's what I've done with it. What do you have to say?"

Every single day I'm introduced to a new way of writing, a new way of moving, a new way of looking at life. Not all of them I agree with - some I vehemently disagree with. But you know what? I envy those people. The people whose words and images and dances move me to tears ....

...
to feeling

... to anger

... to something MORE.

Something more than "myself".

Well, maybe envy isn't completely the right word. I DO envy them. Yet ...

... They spur me. They influence me. They awe me. They light that fire under my ass that makes me want to hone all of my skills (and find new ones), so that I can be at times be clear and concise in my written word, and at times semi-amorphous in my movements and visuals. This compulsion is so that you (the audience, the viewer) are led to your own point, your own conclusion.

Many of the people that I envy are near and dear friends of mine:
* The younger ones that make me wish that I had taken a different path.
* The older ones that give me hope that I can still accomplish my dreams. And excel at them.
* All of them share one trait though - they do not deny their artistic bent.
_____________

I have artistic constipation, and have for a few years now. Soon I will be prolific, I know this, but this current stasis is killing me, suffocating my soul. These words, these visions, these movements, they are all stuck in my head.

Does anyone have mental Metamucil or DrainO that I can use to flush them?

_____________

When people ask me what I do, I feel they are asking who I am. What I do for money is NOT who I am - I refuse to be constrained into a box of who YOU think I should be, of how you think I should act and feel. Does it make them uncomfortable when I don't fit into their percieved statistic? When I'm forced into a box, I will do anything within my power to break out of that box (even if I do like and find the box to be cozy and agreeable). Sometimes this works in my favor, most times it is to my detriment.

Yes, I do well at my job, but that is not the only layer. The people who identify with their jobs, and allow those jobs to create who they feel they should be, seem to view me as ... less. When they realize that I do not live to work, but instead work to live, it seems anathema to them that I have more pressing desires outside of the 9-to-5. I feel as though I'm viewed as a pet monkey. And I hate that.

I WILL play by their rules, but adding a bit of "me" into the mix.

Does this make me a corporate heretic?

Make it stop

2008-07-31T23:35:00.001-07:00

I.
Can't.
Stop.
Listening.

http://www.imeem.com/thmorrigan/music/_wuKN-5H/deb_talan_ashes_on_your_eyes/

Pandora? I love you. (That site is friggin' crack to me.)

Methinks I must get this album

Learning, learning

2008-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

Why is it that when I SHOULD be going to bed and sleeping, the Muse decides to pop in for a cuppa? I'm not complaining - I would much prefer to see her at 3 A.M. rather than not at all. However, my brain feels like TV snow, so I'm going to indulge my OTHER muse right now - photography.

So.

My family has a pretty darn fantastic eye for photography: Popi, Dad, and at least two of my cousins. Apparently, so do I (eye, har har).

Anyway, this is something I want to learn a hell of a lot more about (settings, depth of field, yadda yadda). I even bought a new purse so that I could always have my camera on hand. So ... here's the first post showing some of my beginning tries at being a shutter bug.

(And if I see these photos anywhere else without credit to me, I will find you and give you an Irish Hardshoe lapdance.)

Emo barf

2008-07-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I wrote the below tripe on July 6 – Dad’s anniversary. I was watching “Across The Universe” and blabbering and bawling like a fucking baby. So – it’s a bit incoherent. And I’m tempted to edit it, but I’m not going to. I’m linking the songs that struck me, that tipped my brain into the weird space that I was in. Maybe you’ll get it, maybe you won’t.

Also, today my dear, dear friend’s mother died. She was also my friend, not just her mother. I will miss her sharp wit and humor.

________________________

Growing up, I never “got” The Beatles. Dad, his friends, his contemporaries, even MY contemporaries, loved them. I just didn’t understand, didn’t get it. I mean, c’mon … “Hey Jude … ?” It never had any relevance for me. Not then.

The last decade or so, I’ve started to understand it more.
________________________

I think I was about 9, maybe 10, and Dad was blasting “Strawberry Fields Forever”. It’s minor and dissonant, and that struck a chord in me that just didn’t harmonize. Not yet, anyway. For some reason, probably due to the internal jangling I just didn’t know how to parse, the song made me feel at odds with myself. It made my brain react on some visceral level in a way that I just could not … GET. I remember looking up at him from my homework and saying, “Really? This is what you like?” Dad just kind of chuckled and said, “Yep. It’s the Bee’ouls.” (When you read this, mentally read “Bee’ouls with a glottal stop, a bad American accent trying its damndest to try a Cockney accent on for size.) Then he went back to making dinner, not quite silently humming to himself a medley of Beatles tunes.

Click this, but don’t watch. Just listen. Listen with your pre-teen mind. The one that is still innocent, and can’t quite get the underlying meaning. Just open yourself up to the music and tonality. Take yourself back to the black and white of childhood. Take yourself back to the time when there were no shades of grey …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywg-PdeGVL0
________________________

There’s something universal about The Beatles. About love. About loss. About pain. About joy. About frustration. About anger towards the “other”. And, because it DOES need to be said twice … about love.

________________________

None of us are one thing or another. We’re a weird mix of disparate ideologies. Now … now, we understand the difference between supporting our troops and taking a stance against war. We can love our friends and families because of, or in spite of, their stances. No longer do we spit on the troops. Now … now we welcome them with open arms, even if at the same time we (internally) rail against a war we do not agree with.

I never got how Dad could have such a deep love for “hippy” music, for “Hair”. Especially since it was so anti-war, anti-Vietnam. But now? I get it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChTBKjtfd2w
________________________

It was the late 1990’s. Swing was in full revival. Life was good. I was happily typing away at my computer at work, and Tanya calls. “Hey Tanj” I say. Her first words, “The US is sending troops over to Iraq, again.” I never really understood what people meant when they said, “I was hit in the solar plexus”, but now? Now I got it. You see, I was dating someone who was active in the Navy. And Tanya, bless her heart, knew that. She also knew my past, and knew that I would automatically think of Dad. (Forewarned is forearmed, and all of that.) I really don’t think I can describe the feeling of my heart leaping into my throat at that moment. That moment where I thought, “Holy shit! This man that I adore COULD be sent to a foreign country and die .,.” There really is nothing more awakening than realizing this: we are all infallible, and mortal, and that some man in a suit and tie holds our own life, our own breath, in their hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwB8QiKWodk&feature=related
________________________

He signed up. He wasn’t drafted. He did what he felt was right, what was his patriotic duty. The generation before him, and before that, fought in WWI and WWII. Some even Korea. That’s the mentality that held many men of my (and your) father’s generation – the mentality of “duty” … just something that had to be done. Many then, and now, may ask, “Why? Why sign yourself up for death and emotional destruction?” Well … it just what you had to do. He could have dodged, but he didn’t. And by NOT going against his own grain, it changed him. For better or worse.

(Dad and Malcolm are at 0:32, Dad at 0:34) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Idr8Z_VTSA
________________________

This … this is the song that allowed me to love The Beatles. Unabashedly.

With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

From the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdaa6M8DN7g

From The Bee-ouls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHChc2I7FKk

With Abel, I KNOW there are were many, many things wrong with “us” … but, I do know … I KNOW … that I can totally and completely break down in front of him. And know that he won’t judge me for it. I guess … hmm, I guess that is what I’m looking for, what I am striving for. I DO want to lay my soul bare, and know that I won’t scare someone away. Yet … yet …. when I do open myself like that, I want to know that that they will still be there, fully and completely, when I butterfly myself open. When I lay myself raw. (I don’t want them to shy away from salmonella now do I? Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck.)

________________________

Three years ago today is the day I found my bulwark, my FATHER, bloated. And … stinky. Smelling of death. And endings. And that? That is something I NEVER wanted. I always had these … “hopes” … that one of his friends would “find” him. And that they would call me. That they would call me with the news. I never, NEVER, wanted to be the one to find him. Find him so laid bare. Even though, deep down, I knew. I KNEW … I would be the one to find him. I never wanted to. Ever. Even though I knew that was the way it HAD to be played out. Finding him … gone … that killed a part of me I’ll never get back. It killed some of my innocence. Even though I knew my innocence was long gone before this that day.

I’ve been going through some major transitions, life transitions. And even though it’s a transition I NEVER thought I’d go through … it is what it is. And I always thought that Dad would be here through all of my changes. I feel like a failure – I wasn’t able to make my marriage work, I wasn’t able to bring into this world a child, a grandchild. I feel like a failure, of epic proportions. (I know I’m not.)

My friends, my true friends, who know me, know how hard it is for me to lay myself so bare. So … “butterflied” … it’s a painful experience for me. Yet … yet … I know this is something I need to do, something that has to happen. It has to happen for me. It has to happen so that I can move forward. And even though it makes me seem weak (at least, in my own mind) it’s something that I have to do.

Mom was an unabashed hippy. She wanted to hitchhike to Woodstock. How she wound up with a dyed-in-the-wool Republican is beyond me. However … they made it work. And it gives me hope.
________________________

A quote from “Across The Universe”: Music is the only thing that makes sense anymore. And now? NOW … I get it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQNpEET9WqQ&feature=related

(EDIT - A month later, I finally realize something. I really wish he was around, now, even if just to see this movie. Some of the views he would not agree with, but overall, he too, would "get" it. So, thanks Dad. Thank you for not just teaching me, but showing me how to see both sides of the coin. In your depression, you really, truly, and honestly, taught me how to keep hold of my sanity. I love you.)

It's my brain

2008-05-26T13:15:00.001-07:00

I have these words in my head … so many words. These words in my head tell a story, but the story just doesn’t want to come out. I’m staring at these words, these black and white words on a page, and they are staring at me, as though THEY are the enemy, and I am the enemy, when, in fact, they are truth. These words, these same words on the page, belie both their hurt, and my acceptance thereof. My willingness to see the meaning behind the words. It’s an infinite loop – both sides tell the meaning, the truth. Each side is unwilling to see the meaning behind the words, behind the meaning.

This is the Gordian Knot – both sides have validation. However, this is my truth. My past. Something I haven’t wanted to face for a long time. Because those words tell a story, my story. And I hate the fact that my words (my story) opens the door to some ugly truths about the human psyche. About MY psyche. About YOUR psyche.
_______________________________________________________

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, a time which we should spend honoring those who have come before us, and have gone – some before their time, some after it. But each one deserving of a short moment taken out of our day, to give them a nod: A nod of thanks, a nod of remembrance, a nod of honor, a nod of love, whether or not we agree with the politics that took them. It’s a time to reflect upon the past, both general and personal, a time to invite the past to sit down and have “a cuppa”, and to speak.

This should be a weekend of reflection, of intro (and outro) spection. A time and place to honor those that came before us, who allowed “us” to be. A weekend where we should allow ourselves to look at our past, at the steps that we’ve taken that brought us to this place we call “the present”. Because – past, present, and future – they are all inextricably intertwined. Our past leads us to our present, our present leads us to our future … Sometimes holding onto our pasts will make for a very uncomfortable present, which will lead to a wonky future.

Maybe over “a cuppa”, when we meet face to face with our lives up till now, we can exorcize the demons of our pasts, and allow us an open road to the future, the present. Embrace that past, both bad and good, and enmesh it with our present selves, to clear the path for our future selves.

_______________________________________________________

Some people have told me I have a remarkable mind, and I don’t quite know how to react. To quote Tim Minchin, “This is my brain, and I live in it … it’s where I spend the vast majority of my time” – to me, my thoughts (logical and circular, true or false, healthy or self-perpetuating) are just those – MY thoughts. There’s nothing remarkable about them. They just … are. At least, that’s how it seems to me.

I spent most of my life (at least until a few years ago) trying to forge my own self, my own identity – something, and someone, separate from my mother, whom I never really knew.

I never felt remarkable – I was always trying to live up to some other persons’ ideal version of me, some mold they were trying to fit me into. A mold that didn’t quite fit right in the shoulders, and tugged a bit at the thighs. It was a close enough fit, but the lines didn’t fall right. And I admit it – I tried to shape myself into those odd fitting clothes for a while. Tried to tell myself that the fashion they were touting for me was the fashion I wanted.

Reverberations of, “What would your mother say?! What would your mother think?!” still haunt me. And you know what? From all I’ve learned, from all I’ve gleaned, my mother would say, “Good for her! She’s becoming her OWN PERSON!” And even though I really didn’t know her, I want to take a moment and give her a nod of thanks. Her nudist and anarchistic tendencies, they have been passed down to me. Flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood. “They” didn’t get it, but we (she and I) do.

_______________________________________________________

My friends only know me as “me”, as ____, and they love me for that. And for that fact? I am truly grateful. They weren’t there (excepting a rare few) when my Mom’s family was trying to fit me into the Katie-mold. Instead of letting me make my own ___-mold.

Because of that, I judge myself harshly. I try (tried) to be the person in the corner- the quiet one who doesn’t make waves or draw attention to herself. When I tried to enact my own way of being, I was shut down. When I showed a spark of creative thinking, of going outside of the status quo, I was met with the argument of, “That’s not how your Mom was”.

Well, the stories that I’ve heard, of Mom, have told me that THAT was who she was. Always the individual. Yet, when I tried to forge my own individualism, it was shot down. Put in the parentheses of, “That’s not how your Mom was”, when in actuality, it WAS how she was. As an adult, when I met with her friends, and they told me, “Wow, you are very much like your mom”, and I took that as a “good on ya”, instead of seeing them trying to fit me into her mold. I took it for what it was – a compliment.

I wish I had the strength of character, then, to say, “Stop! Stop trying to turn me into your dead daughter! I am her, I am my father … I am ME!”

_______________________________________________________

This staid person you see? She’s just a façade, a straw (wo)man. Straw burns easily, and I DO love me some fire. Now, finally, am I able to embrace “Anni”, and not “Anni, trying on Katie for size”.

Now … who has some marshmallows? They always go well over a fire.

_______________________________________________________

It’s all about baby steps. This red hair, these freckles? It’s not just my mothers. It’s also mine.

There was always some sort of benchmark to live up to, and now that those benchmarks (well, the people who held them for me) are gone, I’m feeling a bit … moor-less. It’s forcing me to find my own identity, separate from the confines that were ascribed to me. I’ve been given a blank slate, and I have a pen in my hand, but the paper is still blank. At least to my eyes. Others, looking at the “paper of me”, see varying things – a scribble here, a dash of color there, a whiff of Amber (if the wind is just right). And I guess I see those hints as well, but they haven’t formed a coherent picture yet, not in my mind.

In my mind I’m still a frightened little girl, hiding in the bedroom linen closet with a flashlight and the newest installment of the “Create Your Own Adventure” book. (True story – linen closet. Flashlight. Book.)

_______________________________________________________

I am me. Hear me roar. *squeak*

_______________________________________________________

What spurred this emotional vomit? Tim Minchin: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDGuPp1np4o)

Did you know ...

2008-05-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

... that, IN CANADA, the plural of "fish" is ... "fish"?

Thus spake The Canadian.

I can't believe that his genetic material will continue after him.

Communication to our youth, or lack thereof

2008-05-25T00:36:00.000-07:00

It’s spring. There is a change in the air from the coldness of winter to the melting spring, a renewal, a resurgence. Outside it’s blue skies and birds chirping. But inside my 8th grade classroom it’s a darkened room, a quiet chatter of hushed voices, completely at odds with the birdsong outside. There’s something palpable in the air – a sense of excitement, uncertainty, and curiosity. All I can see are the silhouettes of my classmates from the glare of the TV screen in front of the room, heads close together whispering. Sister Maria shushes us in her thick brogue, “Now, now ladies. It’s time to be quiet”. Then … then, our “educational” video starts.

All I can really recall from class that day is a vague feeling of repugnance and disgust, and a lot more questions than I was willing to ask at the time. Two other things that I remember: red, lots of red, and the sounds … a vacuum-like whirring. This whirring was the medical procedure being done, known as vacuum aspiration or D&C. (I think one of the girls had to leave the room in the middle of the video.)

What I’m describing is the sexual education we received in 8th grade in Catholic School. There was more covered, I’m sure, but what stuck with me almost 20 years later, was that video. We had to have a parental consent form signed to see this video – we were very curious about that. All of us were excited and curious – “what would they show that needed our folks’ okay? It MUST be nudity! I mean, this IS sex-ed, right? Why else would they segregate the girls from the boys, just to show a video?” Well, that’s what our 13-year-old hormonal selves were hoping at any rate. Boy, were we wrong.

The video? It showed an abortion being performed.

In a way, I get why they showed us that – it’s an impressionable age and scare tactics do work. The Church is vehemently anti-birth control and anti-abortion. Brain washing and indoctrination is best done starting at an early age.

Gina was never a friend of mine during our Catholic School years, but once in public high school, we did become friends. Our educational and religious background was the same and our family background was similar. So – why did she wind up pregnant at 15/16 and not me? Why was I able to continue to go out on weekends and experience teenage life, while she was stuck at home, watching her body slowly expand in order to shelter the new life growing within?

Some of that, I think, goes back to those unasked questions from 8th grade. At some point I DID ask. I found trusted adults and asked my questions, I listened in on adult conversations (it’s amazing that people think that kids don’t hear things), I ate books on every subject (though we won’t go into my guilty love of sci-fi and fantasy here) … and I think that search for knowledge might have made the difference. Gina thought (at age 15/16) that you couldn’t get pregnant if it was your first time. Sadly, so did her boyfriend. Talk about a life lesson, eh?

I still think about Gina – wonder how she is doing, what type of person her child has grown into (wow, she must be 16 by now), and hope that she will teach her about sex. Teach her openly and honestly, without relying solely on the school or church to do so.

Education, of any kind, needs to be supported at home, including the uncomfortable subject of sexual education.

I’m of two minds regarding this story (comments in parenthesis are mine) - www.dailygazette.com/news/20..._sexed/.

“The parents said they had collected 163 signatures of residents opposing the introduction of Planned Parenthood materials or organization-developed instruction in the school.” (Now, I’m curious – are these just residents, or are the majority the parents of children in the aforementioned school?)

The article links to a site (www.notinourschool.com) which is the spearhead behind the fracas. I didn’t spend much time looking at the site, but one of the ideas they state is that Planned Parenthood purposely uses bad condoms, so that there will be an increase in a need for their abortion services. Huh?

“Deborah Young said she started researching Planned Parenthood education guidelines and found passages that suggested masturbation is a source of pleasure.” (Uhm, yes. Maybe I was a hyper-sexual child, but I remember being very young and figuring out that certain things just felt good. Of course, I would never ask about it, because I knew it was “dirty”, so I was left to my own devices to explore and not have any idea what was going on, physically. Children are naturally curious creatures – isn’t it better to give them the information about their constantly growing and changing bodies, instead of leaving them in the dark and having them muddle through?)

“Dr. Michael Rochet, a physician, said the school district should search for alternatives for Planned Parenthood programming because he believes the instruction will facilitate curiosity among students.” (First off, I do not want this man as my doctor. Secondly, is curiosity a bad thing? Isn’t curiosity what spurs open discussion between people, friends, lovers, and parent and child?)

But then, he redeems himself in the following statement - “We don’t have to follow everybody else. Let’s lead the pack,” Rochet said.” Now, I understand how people will be quoted out of context, in order to fit in with the authors’ viewpoint. This statement, taken just as it is, I completely agree with. Why not build something that will fit in, and be tailored to, your own community? A program that is built by and for the community? A foundation that is community led, parent led, but with feedback from the people that are being proselytized to?

When I read this story, I could see both sides. However, reading this story through the spectacles of my own life story, I can honestly say I wish I had Planned Parenthood teaching sex-ed in my school. Alongside the abortion video. I think it may have saved me a lot of angst. And questions. A LOT of questions. The private school education I received I would never give up. But, there is a difference in private vs. public school education. Private school has a lot of heart behind it (right or wrong) and public school has a lot of information, with the heart lacking.

I really don’t want this to turn into an issue of pro or anti-choice, pro or anti-abortion. It’s one where I want people to question, to communicate, to dig down deep and find out what they want to teach – what to teach to friends, what to teach lovers, what to teach their children. We create our community, we say what is okay to teach, and what is NOT okay to teach. We are the ones that say what questions are okay to ask, and what ones are not.

But isn’t that what life is? A journey of questions, then seeing where those answers lead us?

So tired, so much to say, but I just can't ...

2008-05-21T01:04:00.001-07:00

I always thought that “feminism” was a dirty word. That if I stood against the status-quo, stood up for my rights as a human (not just a woman), that I would unbalance … something. That “something” was never fully explained to me, other than, “It’s okay for him – he’s a boy. If a girl did that, she’d be considered a whore.” That is a direct quote from my Ga, when I asked her why my Uncle and (soon to be Aunt) were living together, but not married, and “when could I have a boyfriend?”

I think Ga, if born in a different time, would have been one of those loud, brash, and outspoken feminists – she always believed, down to her marrow, that women and men were equal. Each one could do what the other could. She even had my career planned out for me: I would first become the first CEO of Shell Oil, and then the first woman President of the United States.

But then … then she would say something like the above (that it’s okay for boys, but not girls), and that would chip away at the foundation she was trying so hard to build for me. A foundation that (now) is starting to take hold, one where I am strong, confident in myself, and not afraid (well, not too often afraid) to speak my mind.

I always thought that “feminist” was a dirty word. That if I succumbed to the dreaded feminism movement, I would turn into a misandrist, wear sandals, chop off my hair, move to Berkeley, turn Vegan, and be an unloved spinster. (Okay, well, I did chop off my hair and move to Berkeley, but no sandals for me!)

From Dictionary.com:

Fem-i-nism
1) the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
2) (sometimes initial capital letter ) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
3) feminine character.

I prefer the third definition: Character: “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.”

We are all individuals, men and women. Each of us has strengths, each of us has weaknesses, and those vary from person to person. Being lumped into one category or another is unfair to us as singular beings, as well as the whole. Each of us has something to teach, and something to learn. When we start stereotyping based on gender, we lose out on this learning that we call life.

“Good lord woman, what’s got your panties in a twist?!” Quite a few things, actually: Honor killings theriomorph.blogspot.com/2008/....html, recent court decisions www.foxnews.com/story/0,29...173,00.html and www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article and Phyllis Schlafly receiving an honorary doctorate degree from Washington University news-info.wustl.edu/news/pag...664.html. (This is also the woman who stated, “By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape.”)

Gender equality has come a long way, and I am very happy to live in a country where I am allowed to voice my opinion, and where others can disagree with that opinion, and know I will not be stoned for looking at man by accident.

Some interesting takes are here, some I agree with, some I don’t: viv.id.au/blog/

This wasn’t as coherent or tongue-in-cheek as I wanted, but I’m friggin’ tired and sunburned. Night all.

From a "sister"

2008-05-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

This is something that a near and dear friend of mine wrote. It gave me chills and I wanted to share it. I'm surrounded by some friggin' amazingly talented people, and for that? ... I'm grateful:

I am the new hope
The revolutionary Mint Edifice teeming with the helpers, the thinkers
The strange trouble makers.
I am filled with the exclamation of power,
Deconstructed, reconstructed
A puzzle of mismatched pieces
Housed and linked like a bight kaleidoscope
Bundled together, sheltered by a common dream.

I am the new hope
The awesome flower of desire
Unsupported, under funded, unimaginable,
Isn't it, that I Exist?
Within the realms, the borders
Against the grain, working toward expansion, the wide-open intension.

I am the new hope
The hope against hope against the suffocating tyrant
Tyrannical culture
The small beads of us, woven together.
Our faces look into each other
Under this roof of desire
We hold the promise, the awkward will to deliver
We release the fractured dove
Palms outstretched, faces to the sun.

We are the new hope
Forever revolutionary, standing among the rubble
The Mint Edifice dissolved.
Our sinking angry hearts hot
Kick with panic, sickly trapped
Undone by the double hold
A fear in our eyes so tender
We go numb without each other.

We are the new hope
Gone unsheltered and unclothed
The golden warrior spirit exposed
Our shields up in a circle, protecting ourselves
We move forward
Unsupported, under funded, unimaginable
We walk, Don't We?
Away from that which was
The Mint Edifice of shame and so much desire
Common dreams without without a common cause
Our leaders tired, so much defeated.
We are the new hope
Spirits renewed, we are not broken
We know our truths transcend
The walls cannot contain
Our hot hearts
They beat toward a new way of being
Into the future, we let go of those we tightly grasped
Because we know we are truly not alone
And together we are profound
Bound by experience
We forge ahead with a quiet burning peace
Beacons illuminated still
By the kernels of our intensions

We are the new hope
We've already changed the world.

Hrmph

2008-05-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/2008/05/bff-the-kiss-of.html

What the hell is wrong with the LA Times recently? Have they lost their collective minds? Since when do we actually use celebrities as our gauge for what constitutes a healthy friendship? It’s actually not so much the article that makes me go *snert*, but one of the comments:

“I personally have learned to keep women at arm's length. They are dangerous. I like them, I just don't trust them. My life is full of women. But my personal approach is to know thy enemy and proceed accordingly … For the most part, the best approach to women is about the same as petting a snake.”

Wow. Just … wow. (Keep in mind that the above was posted by a woman.)

Why is it that the friendships between women are held to a different standard? Fighting can actually be healthy – it’s how we learn about ourselves, about our friends, and it allows us to grow as people. As long as it’s healthy fighting, it also strengthens that relationship/friendship. Are we all supposed to be in lock-step with each other and agree on everything? If so, that makes for a pretty damn bland friendship.

Regarding this line:

“Haven't you ever bickered with a bestie? Or felt the sting of a friendship ulcer when you introduce two pals and later find out that they're planning a road trip to Baja and forgot to include you? ¿Qué?”

I have a varied group of girlfriends, and unlike a monogamous relationship, I don’t expect to be their only “bestie”. (That term just makes my teeth itch.) The core group of women around me now … each one of us has a different role, a different character, and we show those sides to the others. If one of us needs a creative revenge tactic, we go to friend X. If we need a sympathetic ear, we go to friend Y. And if we need some true, albeit hard to hear, advice, we go to friend Z. Sometimes it can hurt, having your friend turn to someone else for advice or support, but if you know yourself, maybe you’ll realize that you aren’t the “right” person for them at that moment.

“They get angry at each other, throw a kidney punch and call it a day.” I think that we women do as well, however our kidney punch consists of words. Communication. (And with less chance of peeing blood too. Kidney punches hurt … )

Women aren’t bad at friendships – we excel at them. If it wasn’t for the women I met, and have in my life as friends, I sure as hell wouldn’t be the person I am today.

Golden

2008-05-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

The ring came today – it’s beautiful. It even fits (granted, it only fits on my wedding ring finger, but still … it fits!)

I took it off and just sat outside, rolling it between my fingers, rereading the inscription over and over, and thinking that this is something my mother touched. This is something she picked out, had inscribed, and gave to her best friend out of joy and love. A small band of gold, given and received in friendship.

I can imagine Auntie Fran rolling it between her fingers, the same way I did, probably thinking about her friend. After Mom died, I’m sure she rolled this same ring in the same way, but instead of thinking of her friend in the present tense, she was thinking of her in the past tense. Remembering that day when she got this ring, the day they met, the days they were there for each other in tears and in laughter.

As I was looking at this tangible memory of friendship, I realized that Matt probably did the same thing that I did, after Franne died. That I’m assuming Auntie Fran did after Mom died.
Holding a piece of the past so full of happy memories, thinking of hands – hands open in friendship, hands open in marriage, hands open in love.

His hands, my hands, their hands. The ring has come back (almost) to where it started.

Everything is circular.

For the day you stood up

2008-04-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

How friggin’ appropriate is this? Especially now. The day I stood up for me, for my needs, wants, and desires. I stood up and am becoming myself again. I stood up and said, “No, this is unacceptable. This is not okay.”

It’s a tough road ahead, that’s for damn sure. But I’m strong. I can handle it. (Granted, I still need those moments to go sit in the corner, rock back and forth and cry, but who doesn’t?)
__________________

Matt and Frannie have always been in my life. I haven’t heard from Matt in over a year – since Auntie Fran died. This morning I see a Houston area code pop up on my phone, and since I don’t recognize the number I let it go to voice mail. After the phone vibrates, letting me know I have a message, I check it. Lo and behold, it’s Matt asking me to call him. He had been going through some of Frannie’s things shortly before Passover and came across a ring my mom had given to her on her graduation day.

The past few weeks he’s been going back and forth over what to do with this ring: keep it? Give it to Mara, his daughter? When we were on the phone he told me, “You know, I think the best place for this ring is with you. I think it would be appropriate.” Cue the waterworks. After taking a semi-deep breath (can’t show emotion! Must not show feeling!) I said, “Thank you. That would mean a lot to me.” And it does. Much more than I can ever put into words.

The kicker? She had it inscribed – “For the day you stood up.”

__________________

Mom was just a few years older than Frannie when they met. How did they meet? Oddly enough, through a help wanted ad. Auntie Fran’s mother had recently passed away and her father couldn’t keep up with working, maintaining the house, and raising two children on his own. Even though Frannie was capable of doing the housework and minding her younger brother, I think her father wanted her to concentrate on her school. So, he placed an ad in the paper looking for someone to help around the house.

From what I’ve been told, Mom read the ad and thought that it sounded like a fun job to have. So she responded. When they opened the door to my mom, aged 18 or 19, they saw a semi-hippie standing in penny-loafers (no socks), Levi’s, and a peasant blouse. It was the wearing of no socks that started their friendship.

From that point forward, they were always together. If they weren’t together, or were separated by school and life, they spoke weekly. Their relationship reminds me of some of the relationships I have with my friends, and for that I am thankful.
__________________

I haven’t fully stood up yet. But I’m getting there and I know that if I waiver or wobble on my way up, “my girls” will be there to lend a steadying hand. And behind them? The ghosts of friendships past will be sending their own brand of silent support.

A rant

2008-04-18T21:08:00.001-07:00

So, this is something I posted on Craigslist, and someone picked it up to post on his blog (http://falsesenseofmaturity.com/). The universe seems to tell me to write more often, so I'm going to dust off this blog and post more often. Here is the aforementioned post:

How dare you. You lied to me, bald-faced, and I bought it.

Almost.

I almost believed you when you said, "I have never ONCE cheated on you when we were together." That isn't a complete lie if you use the definition of together as being physically in the same place at the same time. Using that, yes, it's true that we weren't together when she was riding your purple pony. Nor was it just once, it was numerous times. Bravo – you never once cheated when we were together.

A while ago we had a conversation in which you stated that you finally understood what it felt like to be hurt - when your ex's would say, "I loved you, you hurt me", and you said you FINALLY got it. You were thinking about her.

Thank you – thank you for making me feel like an ass. All those years of self-work I did so that I can be happy with who I am? I took a major step back. All those struggles to overcome the need to slit my wrists because I felt I never measured up to "other girls", or just wasn't the person everyone wanted me to be? You proved me right.

I truly was happy with the 'me' that you married. I am very happy with the 'me' that I turned into, and am continuing to become, after the divorce. However, your actions have set me back a few emotional steps. Once again I'm comparing myself to others, once again I'm feeling like I have nothing of importance to contribute, once again I am feeling unwanted, and feeling "less".

Thank you – thank you for picking off the scabs to my (once thought healed) self-esteem. You have shown me that I AM strong and that I WILL move forward: emotionally strong, with pride in myself, strength of character, and still with the capability to love. It was painful, but great for growth, and once these wounds heal, I'll have some nifty scars.

I hear men dig scars.

You know, it's the hypocrisy that kills me – you've always said, on cheating, that everyone BUT the partner will die. So that they will live with the pain and knowledge that THEIR actions brought about so much pain and hurt to others. Tell me … why is it okay for YOU to go and f00k around WHILE WE WERE MARRIED and yet it is not okay for me to date, now that we are over? Hmmm.

Thank you – thank you for teaching me to trust my gut. When I hear that niggling voice deep down saying something is wrong, or that something feels right, I will now pay credence to it. No longer will I brush it off as doubt or second guessing. My inner-voice, my gut, is no longer silenced and is allowed uncensored speech.

I don't feel our hearts are designed to love just one person. Yes, I am pissed off that you had (at least one) affair (that I can prove beyond all reasonable doubt). Yes, I am pissed that you fell in love with her. That apparently you're still in love with her, whilst hinting to me that maybe things could work out between us. And denying the affair the entire time. Tell me – is that fair to her? She loved you, she cried over you, you ripped out her heart. You loved her, you cried over her, your heart is torn. By lying to me to save your ass, you are belittling those feelings that you two had/have. In order for all involved in this to move forward, you need to be honest. Openly, harshly honest. Honest with her, honest with me, but most of all, honest with yourself. Tear down those macho walls you've built and finally admit that you're human. During our relationship I would like to think that I allowed you a safe place to do so, but apparently I wasn't safe enough.

Want to know what else really hurts? I mean punch in the solar plexus hurt? Everyone knew, and yet nobody said a word. THAT makes me feel like a fool. And an ass. So again, thank you – thank you for teaching me that I CAN get egg on my face and live to realize that it's not the end of the world, but the beginning of a new one.

Never eat before bedtime

2007-11-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, my dream. There was a prelude up to the meat of it, something about getting lost in San Francisco, but it wasn’t really San Francisco – it looked like a set on the back-lot at Universal. Anyway, after some random meandering, I get to my cousins apartment. (It is actually her old apartment manager’s apartment, from a long time ago, where I spent many an underage drunken night. Damn those parties!)

I get there and we’re just talking. She leaves the front door open, because in my dream the apartment complex abuts a forest. Outside I see a pack (gaggle? pride? murder? group?) of chimpanzees. I get up to go to the bathroom and as I’m walking down the hall, the chimps come in to the apartment and follow me to the bathroom.

What they do after is what makes me doubt my sanity and am now really curious to know what my psyche is trying to tell me … I’m in the bathroom and each chimp takes turns to fart at the door. What the hell?

I leave the bathroom and come back out and the chimps are all back outside, pointing at me and doing the weird chimp head-bob laugh thing that they do. I’ve had some strange and random dreams, but this one takes the cake.

My brain is a scary place.

My genes. Her jeans.

2007-11-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

Not many of you know that Alzheimer’s runs in my family. (Gee, great.) Anyway, Nana is afflicted with this disease. I’m truly learning that if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, so I continually look for bright spots in otherwise dark situations. (Typically this is in the form of humor laughing at people. I’m mean. Deal.)

Back to Nana – growing up, and until she started developing dementia, she was always very anti-naked. A point of pride with her was that Popi never saw her fully unclothed. She held the concept that sex was only for procreation and never fun. (And you people wonder where I got my body/sex issues. Exhibit A: Nana.)

Knowing this, the next part is really kind of sad and amusing. Earlier this year, my cousin (who is Nana’s caretaker) would come downstairs in the morning to get coffee started and there would be Nana at the counter, reading the newspaper wearing a turtleneck, socks, and … that’s it. (Granny ass isn’t the first thing you want, or need to, see without at least one cuppa in you.) Apparently she LOVES her new-found freedom from pants.

Sunday my cousin calls and tells me, “We have to change Nana’s name.” I’m thinking something’s wrong, or we have to do it for legal purposes or something, so I hesitantly ask, “Whhhy?” It seems that good ol’ Nana has been stripping in the dining room. And I don’t mean stripping wallpaper. The woman is taking off ALL her clothes and not wanting to put them back on. (She will, but it takes some persuading from what I understand.)

My aunt thinks we should call her Bubbles La Rue. Any other “granny stripper” names come to mind? Another friend said Nana Rose Lee. I was going for imMoral Millie. (I’m afraid of what I will do when I’m her age. Run around wearing undies on my head?)

Ani inspired

2007-11-08T23:05:00.000-08:00

Recently I've had a revelation: I'm angry. I'm angry with my mom. Angry with my dad.

She's been gone for almost 26 years, and just now am I allowing myself to admit that I am angry with her. Mad. Furious. Angry for leaving us. Angry that my dad allowed himself to fall into such a deep and dark place after she died. Angry that I felt that I had to be the life-line for Dad. Angry that her parents tried to turn me into their dead daughter, instead of just being okay with me as ... me. It's actually not HER that I'm mad at, just the situation that her death created. There's more to it that I am not saying, but that's all I can really put into words right now.

This catharsis though has an upside - it is making me re-evaluate my needs. Not my wants, my needs. For about 2 years there has been this unknown feeling brewing in me, and finally I realized that it is my "needs" voicing their concerns. Screaming at me, "Hey! Dipshit! Focus here, we are not to be ignored!" For a long time I always thought of others first, put their happiness and THEIR needs first. Now, there is this realization, one of, "hey, this really is MY life. Perhaps I should start living it. Enjoying it. Reveling in it. Bathing in it. Being okay with ME. Knowing that I have value, in and of myself, and not as the offspring of my mom."

The realization that it is okay to demand attention for me, and not as a watered-down version of Mom. A version that could never live up to others expectations. Though some life situations may be untenable right now, the knowledge that the SITUATION sucks, and NOT ME ... that is truly liberating.

The song that has been stuck in my subconscious for the last two years is Asking Too Much, by Ani DiFranco.

And no. I am not asking too much.

Now ... back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Amused

2007-10-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, the intrepid Canadian has moved floors, leaving me bereft of anger/amusement on a daily basis. Oh well, I guess this blog will move more onto my musings. Or somesuch. Speaking of ...

I love reading the police blotter for my city. Many of these I read and think, “wow, do people seriously call the cops for this kind of stuff? Seriously?!” Most, though, are just sad and funny – funny because some of the actions are just plain amusing in a Darwinian sort of way, and sad because these people will breed and pass along their DNA to the next generation.

I had to bold the parts that I found amusing. All comments in parenthesis are mine. (And some of you wonder why I moved out of here the day after I turned 18.)
_____

_____ Avenue, _____ block, petty theft: An adult male was in custody on suspicion of shoplifting. The suspect was being uncooperative and getting up and giving hugs to security officers, 1:41 p.m. (I don’t know – giving hugs seems to be cooperative to me.)

_____ Park: A pony was loose in _____ Park, which is in the _____ block of _____ Lane, at 10:43 a.m. Monday. The caller said its owner was having trouble catching it. The pony reportedly "almost bit a kid in a stroller." When the pony's owner found out the police had been notified, he became upset and left the park with the pony. (The title on the blotter got me – Rogue Pony almost bites kid. Yeah, those rogue ponies are evil. They roam in packs all around My Town. It’s so bad you can’t go out at night without carrying a bag of carrots to distract the ponies if you happen to run across one.)

_____ Avenue, _____ block: U.S. marshals informed police Thursday around 5:30 p.m. that they had taken a subject into custody in the Lowe’s parking lot in the _____ block of _____ Avenue. Callers reported earlier that the male had thrown his skateboard into traffic. He told the marshals he was upset because he had been kicked off a bus for belligerent behavior. (And throwing your skateboard ISN’T belligerent behavior … )

_____ Avenue, _____ block, suspicious circumstances. A resident told police she thought someone was in her attic and it sounded like the person was “dropping stuff.” She also said she had called police in the past with the same fear and every time police responded and checked the attic, no one was there. The woman noted that she was “not drunk or high,” 1:34 a.m. (No, not drunk or high, just crazy.)

_____ Street, _____ block, mentally ill person. A woman described as “hysterical” by a dispatcher reported that her boyfriend was “on a plane” and was broadcasting from 555.55 FM that he was “on his way to come and kill her.” A dispatcher noted the woman wasn’t “making any sense,” 12:03 p.m. (No comment.)

_____ Street, _____ block, sexual battery. The same woman from the earlier “mentally ill” call reported that her boyfriend’s son had sexually assaulted her while he was visiting from the United Kingdom. She also said there was a small airplane outside her balcony writing bad things about her in smoke and “somehow broadcasting messages to three subjects that were in/around her residence.” Later she confessed that she had “made the whole story up” because she had consensual sex with her boyfriend’s son and she was trying to reconcile with her boyfriend, 10:14 p.m. (Damn. Just ... damn. This stuff is better than a soap opera.)

_____ Street, _____ block, patrol check. A woman in a beige Honda drove by and yelled at people in another language as they were going into a Mormon church for a Jewish religious service, 11:01 a.m. (What gets me is the whole "Mormon church holding a Jewish religious service" part. If you aren't Mormon, you're really not supposed to be going into their inner sanctum, yanno? And why, oh why, would someone call about this?)

_____ Avenue, _____ block, patrol check. A woman told police she believed people were hiding in her attic and she wakes up and sees people walking around, 3:59 a.m. (Same crazy woman as before. Maybe ghosts? Oh, or zombies. Braaaaaaaaains! No wonder they are looking for something, this woman doens't apparently have any.)

_____ Avenue, _____ block, other agency: A man called police to say he thought he may have died earlier in the night but that he was feeling fine now, 4:21 a.m. (Yeah, I thought I’ve been dead before too. But it turns out I was just hung-over. WTF?!)

_____ Lane, _____ block, 911 non-emergency: A woman called 911 to report that her boyfriend was logging into her MySpace.com account without her permission, 2:11 p.m. (911? For real? I shudder in fear that these are the people that will lead us into the future.)

_____ Avenue, _____ block, vehicle burglary: A backpack and a camera were stolen from a car sometime during the night, 2:54 p.m. (Okay, who the hell leaves anything of value in their car? I can understand if you're running in and out of somewhere, but overnight? Are they dumb?)

_____ Circle, _____ block, vehicle burglary. A handgun was stolen from an unlocked vehicle, 12:16 p.m. (Once again - who the hell leaves a handgun in plain sight and in an unlocked car? We ain't in Texas here. Y'all.)

_____ Street and _____ Avenue, suspicious circumstances. A caller said while she was getting gas at a gas station, a person offered her money for sex, 1:28 p.m. (This implies, to me, that the guy either doesn't know where to look for a prostitute, or the woman was dressed like one. Either way, I wouldn't want it to be noted that I was dressed like a wh0re whilst pumping gas. Can you imagine all the "pumping" puns that you'd get from that? No thank you.)

_____ Avenue, _____ block, fire. A car was on fire in a cemetery parking lot, 8:03 p.m. (I know that this cemetery closes and locks its gates at 6. The only explanation I have is zombies. Hey – zombies like bonfires too! Maybe they were making s’mores.)

Damn. Just ... damn.

The only time to use an elevator ...

2007-06-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

So today, I get a call from downstairs. “You need to add another quarter to the ICJ (In Canada jar). I was getting my breakfast in the break room, and HE starts this random conversation with me.” As it was related to me, here is how it went down (CK represents the Crazy Kanuck, P represents the person he was speaking to.)

CK: Good morning, how are you?
P: Fine, yourself?
CK: Good. You know, I just don’t get it. You guys have a lot of overweight people here in the States. IN CANADA, I worked in an office where the elevator was purposefully made slow so that people would take the stairs instead. It kept us active and trim. (My note – I highly doubt that the office building would purposefully make the elevator slow. All elevators I’ve ridden on in small buildings are generally slow. Unless you’re riding the one at the Stratosphere in Vegas. That one is very fast and kind of scary if you’re drunk and the world is spinning. But I digress.) I mean, you should really just take the stairs anyway, unless you’re like, an 8 month pregnant woman and the baby is trying to shoot out between your legs.
Me: (At this point, I can imagine the look on P’s face and I’m going between giggles and shock. I mean really – the baby is shooting out between your legs? Thanks for that visual. I think I need some bleach for my brain now, thanks.)
CK: Hm, wow. Your oatmeal smells good. (At this time he ends the conversation and walks away.)

Seriously, how do you get from babies shooting out of hoo-haa’s to “wow, your oatmeal smells good”, and without even saying goodbye? I’m glad I already had my oatmeal before this conversation was related to me.

Later this same day, P goes to ask CK a question. His door is cracked, so it is not fully closed, and P knocks then walks in. As P is walking in, CK is quickly pulling his hands up from under his desk and scooting in as far in towards the desk as bodily physics allows. Hmmm, I wonder if he was “massaging the numbers”?

Now, where's that bleach?

Are all Canadians arrogant? Or just this one?

2007-06-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

It’s just one of those days where I feel I am about to snap. Everyone wants a piece of me, and they don’t seem to understand that they aren’t the priority. Granted, most of them get it when I explain that I cannot help them now but will help them later this week, because I’m working on this one massive project. 99.9% of them nod and say they will either figure it out on their own, or that they’ll talk to me at the end of the week. I love them. But then, there’s that 0.01% who seems to think that the world revolves around him.

He feels that when he wants something we should all stop what we’re doing and revel in the wonderfulness that is him. (He has a poster sized picture of himself on his office wall. Seriously.) Telling him, “No, really. I cannot help you now. The lease for Company X is up in 2 weeks, and we’re moving them all to Location Y. I need to finish the logistics of this” doesn’t sway him in the least. Company X doesn’t fit into his worldview at the moment and doesn’t care that their deadline is more important than me making him lunch reservations. Which will no doubt change tomorrow and then the next day. And I know I’m not the only one doing this for him – he’ll ask another assistant to do the exact same thing. He says that his way of doing things is better, because he subscribes to the Kaizen mind-set. Hmmmm, if that were the case, you wouldn’t have people doing the same job twice, which is actually the job we’re paying you to do! You are a lawyer; we are assistants – why do you assume we can do the same job you can do? Maybe in Canada they give out law degrees to whoever asks for one.

His view, by the way, really only consists of Canada and why the US sucks in comparison to it. If that’s so, then why did you move your arrogant ass down here in the first place buddy? I should’ve screwed with his immigration papers while I had the chance.

And to top it off, it's not even lunch yet and I've spilled coffee in my lap. No, actually, not my lap - my crotch. Now I'm sure he'll think that, "At least in Canada, people don't pee their pants."

Oi! 'ello there!

2007-06-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

All right, I’ve caved. And here I am, officially blogging. Why do I have “C’mon people now, join in, start a blog-train, blog-train” running through my head?

Here's some random for you ... show your friends you love them, send ‘em some crack, http://www.virtualcrack.com/ (Wow, you really can find anything on here!)

I’ll mainly post random thoughts, weird food cravings, and rants about a particular co-worker, interspersed with the obligatory drunken post(s), along with the hopped up on coffee ones. And on that note, I have some pasta boiling and I must pee. (Coffee goes straight through me, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything, bladder be damned!)

I'm an avowed chowhound, so if you have any favorite "make me cum in my pants" pasta recipes, send them my way! I lost a dinner bet and have to make a pasta dish for an Italian. Nope, no pressure there!