Sunday, October 30, 2005

mental health meme

got this meme from broke, who got it from joel (http://paxnortona.notfrisco2.com/) :

For the mentally ill

What is your diagnosis?

so far, my dg is ADHD with dysthymia and some kind of anxiety disorder yet to be determined.

When were you diagnosed?

ADHD about three weeks ago, dysthymic depression...last week.

How long do you believe you have suffered from mental illness?

i cannot remember a time that i wasn't displaying one or another of the symptoms of ADHD, but depression did not set in until i was in my teens. it's been with me ever since.

What medications are you taking for your disorder?

so far, none. my t-doc is creating a report to give to my general doc, who will actually write the perscription.

Tell us about an episode.

well, i'm always ADHD, and i'm always living in a gray world. sometimes the gray of dysthymia is punctuated by a major depression, which is what i'm feeling i'm in right now. i can't sleep for more than a few hours, i don't care to eat, i just don't care.

as for ADHD, that feels like looking into a kaleidoscope. you're trying to see the pattern but all you can do is be wrapped up in the beauty--you're looking into a small canister and seeing this whole other universe. it feels the same way with focusing on the world at large: i can see the beauty and the horror, but i am so distracted by those things that i cannot see the pattern.

Do you feel ashamed about suffering from a brain disorder?

sometimes.

the foundation of a disease is that it causes the carrier dis-ease. you're not comfortable in your own skin. you're not comfortable in the skin of the world. you're not at ease; you're on edge. it doesn't feel like i should be ashamed so much as it feels that i should find some way to be "normal"--even if that is only a setting on your washing machine.

i am ashamed of my behavior when it causes me distress at work or with friends and family. i'm ashamed that it's taken me so long to seek help. i'm ashamed that i cannot control it myself, the way that i can try to control my blood pressure by eating less salt and walking more. i wish that there was some way to "fix" me without having to take another pill.

What advice do you have for other sufferers?

keep going. find something to care about that has no one else to care about it--i have cats, and one plant; if i'm not paying attention, one of the two brings me back to reality quite forcefully. (;

try to have good humor; it helps when the lights go out to not mind if you cannot locate the candles straight off.

What advice do you have for those who don’t suffer from your condition?

be gentle. be considerate. be kind. don't judge.

Is there anything you want to say to Tom Cruise?

my mother raised me to this standard: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. minnesotan? yes. inflammatory? nope. if i'm allowed to live in my own little niche of the world, then tom can go live in his. quietly. (;

this next part is for the "unafflicted" but i'm going to answer anyway because at one point or another in my life, i used to be undiagnosed, which isn't unafflicted...but carries with it a different stigma.

For the unafflicted

Do you believe in mental illness?

i have always believed in mental illness. it's not just an idea; it's chemical.

Are there any mentally ill persons in your family? What is their disorder? Are they compliant with taking their medication or resisting?

i have aunts and uncles who suffer from severe to moderate depression. i'm sure most of my siblings are ADHD, just undiagnosed. my uncle who suffers from depression takes his meds regularly. many of my family are alcoholics or recovering alcoholics. i have cousins who believe they're jesus, but that's neither here nor there. (;

Are you afraid of the mentally ill?

i think when i was a kid, i used to be. i was always petrified of waking up one day and being schizophrenic. i guess i was scared of other people being mentally ill but in the same way i was afraid of my grandpa (who didn't have teeth and was difficult to understand).

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

lists and lists and lists, oh my!

i have this list of things to do on my vacation (that's this week, mind you) and i've not had the motivation to do much at all.

i know part of my problem is that i'm ruminating--and trying to break that cycle is often difficult. the train of thought just keeps rolling and rolling, despite the fact that there's no hill to keep it going. i'm sitting here, rolling it with my own hand, a child with a pink and white hula-hoop.

i'm watching my new kitten, henry, choose a peice of kibble. he's quite picky, in spite of being a little hoover when it comes to other foods that hit the floor. has to find the right kibble peice for the right mouthful at the right time.

on monday i saw my t-doc again, and we went over the MMPI 2. for anyone who hasn't taken this test, it's a series of true-false questions that allow the dr to see where you're at as far as depression, paranoia, etc. measures a ton of stuff. the questions seem, after a while, to be the same thing, over and over, tossed in with random crap: "I love my mother" (true or false) and then "I'd like to be a racecar driver" (true or false) and then "I don't like walking into dark rooms" (true or false). so on and so forth. it took me about an hour a week ago to complete this, filling in all the little circles. i did not miss one question--answered all 567 of them.

and yeah, my hand hurt from the coloring. i don't think i've done that much coloring since i was in kindergarten.

anyway, we went over the test and helene said, "this was interesting. you are a lot more depressed than i thought you were. you don't present yourself as depressed." we kind of agreed that it was something that had been going on for so long that i have glossed it over and am able to function within the bounds of it, but that it's still crippling me something fierce.

we talked about anxiety issues i have, and paranoia, and how mainly, my form of depression is that a ton of the time, i have a difficult time understanding where my emotions are coming from, and actually caring about things that are happening in my life.

i keep thinking of dragging my emptiness around behind me, like a giant cement mixer truck, spinning and spinning.

i'm tired of having feelings that all feel like bulldozers. there's nothing that sneaks up and taps me on the shoulder--no feeling of sadness creeping in like rain, no feeling of joy pressing along my spine like massaging fingers.

it all feels like being ambushed.

if i get sad, it's sudden. if i'm happy, it's quick. it reminds me of thunderstorms in early summer--you can see the clouds, it rains, it rumbles, it flashes--and then it's gone. hard to make it last.

it's exhausting. i'd like to be able to slow down and process some of this, comprehend it. it's hard to learn how.

i've got 29 years of bad behavior, or bad habits--your choice--under my belt. you could call me an expert at one thing--avoidance. (or two. i certainly know how to clean things...)

i know that i try to avoid things; my own pet peeve is that i avoid confrontation. i keep thinking of that line from "serenity", the smugglers talking to mal: you fight when you oughta hide, and you stand when you oughta run.

i know i do that--i can look back at the map of my life thus far and SEE the line of my crossing--jagged, erratic. avoiding that which might cause me to hurt--and also that which might cause me to grow.

i never saw my parents fight. they were quiet, don't yell at each other in front of the kids, type of parents. i don't know that they fought elsewhere, either. it's hard to say. all i know is that dad would come home from work carrying a chip the size of jupiter on his shoulder--work, vietnam, the burden of supporting a family. you name it. he'd come home and just be angry--his face, his shoulders, the tread of his shoes.

it makes me cringe, just to think of it. my father never hit any of us, never hurt my mother. never spoke loudly. but the very prescence of fury being restrained in a house is enough to make me want to hide.

i have a hard time remembering times when his forehead was not creased, eyebrows tucking into each other. impending doom--that is what i felt.

i think that the younger kids didn't feel it as much. my middle sister remembers it, but the twins--they don't. over the years, dad's gotten treatment for high blood pressure, and had bypass surgery, and he is a very, very different man. he's always liked hugs, but now he actually cherishes the hugs, and he doesn't have this perpetually frustrated look on his face.

i think that my trust in men has been undermined since day one. i could not trust that my father would be happy to see me, until i put on a song and dance that made him realize he was home, and could enjoy his family. it was something that i think we all learned, as kids. "look over here, it's the bird of joy! yes, yes, you can be happy to be home!"

i love my father. i do. he's a gentle man, a loving man. i can see echoes of him in my actions, in my behavior. but more than anything, i can see how, as a child, i was sublimely influenced by his behavior.

i think about the trust issues i am having with dan--how hard it is for me to trust men. i think about that and i cringe away from it. i don't want to confront that feeling, because i love these people. i love dan, i love dad, i know many, many men who are cut from a mold of honor, justice and all those things that make people, as a whole, good.

the test i took also showed that i have a high sense of naivete--not that i'm not aware of the world and how i operate in it, but that i expect that everyone is going to treat me well, that no one will hurt me. part of my issue with the entire situation right now is that i place implicit trust in women. my mother has never given me any reason not to trust her; neither have my sisters, or any of my female friends. to be honest, most of my guy friends have not, either. but it's difficult for me to place them in the same bin--part of me keeps them separated, for whatever reason.

what it comes to is that i trusted serena implicitly to be honest with me; i think part of me did not want to confront the fact that perhaps there was something more going on than i thought, and i could not believe when the truth came out that anyone i held dear could treat me that way.

dan apologized; dan's been willing to work. we've been making steps in repairing things, using glue and duct tape and threat, to put things back together, to change the way we react and act towards each other. slowly, i am rebuilding trust. the problem with trusting dan is that i think i'm holding back all the trust i have held since i was young--trust was contingent on moods, on how well i did at disarming that mood. i'm not only rebuilding the trust i had in him; i'm rebuilding ALL my trust, and taking down the vaudeville act that pokes its head out now and again, trying to defuse the angry bomb.

performing allows me to hide from my own fears; it allows me to just "ignore the man behind the curtain" ala the wizard of oz. if i'm distracted by averting another persons' mood, then i can distract myself and avoid my own, as well. difficult to fold up the costume, however.

the women friends i have are my backbone; i have allowed them to be my backbone, since i trust them so easily and have had no reason to do otherwise. i'm pulling back into my turtle shell of avoidance, when i am with my girlfriends, because even though none of them has wronged me and i'm not hurt by them, the hurt of having dishonesty visited upon me by one woman has left a bad taste in my mouth for others.

but i know that if i fall backwards, there are a million arms to catch me. i trust in that, because over the last few months, that is what has kept me afloat--knowing that everyone is there, knowing that i have only to ask.

my avoidance comes in the asking. my avoidance comes in the telling. because by doing either, i feel as if i am confronting something that i don't want to confront.

i have two boxes in my garage. they're save-it boxes, from when i was a kid. they've got baby books, math books, turkeys i colored in first grade, you name it. my list of things to do this vacation included opening them and going through them. it's something that should be easy for me to do--confronting childhood and giving away barbie dolls. but in doing so, i'm cut by the edge of being nearly thirty--looking in those boxes will remind me of my own longevity, and i'm not sure i can confront that, either.

it's much easier to hide, to work on things like cleaning the bathroom, and finishing my witch's weeds, and take the cat to the vet for shots, than face the monsters that lurk under my bed.

Monday, October 24, 2005

hellspawn, the lover, the goddess and the king

ie, my cats.

just wanted to post a picture of my kitties for anyone. it's my first adventure into actually putting pictures in my blog so bear with me. this could get ugly. but the cuteness level of the kitties will save the post, i hope. LOL

my first kitty ever is wylie irene. she was a very cute, very vocal, sometimes demonically posessed little tortiseshell with white whiskers. during the move from bemidji to the cities, she needed a place to stay, and moved in with dan's parents. this was supposed to be a short term stay; however, by the time i was ready to have a kitty in our new place, they'd gotten quite attached, and she got along well with their other two cats and dog...so instead of uprooting her, she remained, and is doing just fiesty-fine. (; what i don't have is a good picture i can put up of her...but i'll keep looking.

i do have good pictures of my quinn, my next cat. however, they're all prints, and i don't have a scanner...so this is a picture of a picture, but it'll do.

d and cathy brought her to us from a farm, where the cats were known to be quite friendly, and quinn was my little lover. the first time she got in trouble and was sprayed with water, she sat looking up for a good five minutes, convinced as only a farm cat can be that it was raining. (; the vet guessed she was about 7 months old, give or take.

when i brought her in to have her spayed, she was diagnosed with feline leukemia. i've got a post somewhere in the dungeons of my blog about quinn. she was just so friendly. the spot between her shoulder blades smelled like honey.

the vet had an experimental program of diluted meds to be squirted in her mouth every night (diluted meds that in humans are used to combat AIDs). giving cats meds is always an iffy business--hold cat, apply force, use the jaws of life to open them up and force the meds down their throats. quinn, however, was such an easygoing cat that she just didn't seem to mind. in fact, if you were in the door and not at the fridge prepping things immediately, she was right there reminding you of the fact.

we had her for a good 8 months or so before she started to get anemic, and it was about a month after she first displayed symptoms that we had her put to sleep. the picture above was taken the day before she died. i'd been taking her out on a lead to lay in the sun, and a year ago on july 4th weekend, it was beautiful outside.

*insert a moment of silence for my dear girl (; *

so then we were kitty-less.

about two months before she died, my friend cari needed a home for her kitty, shiva koja. a year before, her mom had passed, and she ended up with her mom's dog, kc. kc and shiva did NOT get along, and the cat had been living mainly in the basement since kc arrived. cari's three other dogs were fine with shiva; it was just a difference of feline and pug opinion. (; so the eater of worlds and vomiter of hairballs came to live with us.

i've got a better pic of shiva somewhere but have yet to upload it. so here she is, in all her glory. she's a small cat, about 7 pounds or so. her fur makes her look fat and fluffy, but i'm horrified to think of shaving that girl.

shiva is the oldest kitty in the house at 11 years old, and she is VERY opinionated. her little meow leaves a bit to be desired, however. she sounds like a cross between a cat and a sheep, i kid you not. when i get a chance i'll find the other pic i have of her--she's got a little gray hitler-type mustache under her nose that makes her look a bit like said dictator...and her take-charge attitude belies a cuddle-me, i-purr-like-a-harley, demeanor. i think she knows she's a goddess. dang it all. (;

lately she's seemed quite clingy. my friend rene just bought a home (yay rene!) and inherited a dog with the house. her older cats got along fine with him, and so did her youngest cat, spanky george, but three cats and a dog and a six-year-old in one house has got to be enough to drive you batty. she'd looked for a home for spanky george half-heartedly, and i finally said we'd take him. (no, rene did not name the cat...her daughter did. go figure.)

i couldn't see having a cat named spanky george, so went through my normal day of trying to see what the cat was going to tell me about his own name. i had it narrowed down to dan's choice, otto, and my choice, henry. henry just stuck.

the first day or so he was here, henry followed shiva around, trying to be friends. shiva played the prototypical old lady and was pissy with him, but they've settled down a great deal and i think may actually get along fine and dandy once shiva remembers that he's not going to ambush her, just eat all her food.

henry the red is quite the talker--i often think at 3 am that perhaps pavoratti would have been a better name, because he has got a Very Good Set of Lungs. he talks to us when he's anywhere. speaking of henry, i need to make the appointment to get him...fixed. shh, don't tell him. (;

the other upside is that having tiny shaped kitten food in the house has been easier for shiva to eat (she's got bad teeth) and she's actually put on a good pound since we got it. cari said she's always been just a teeny tiny slender little cat, but i think that it isn't going to hurt her to add a little bit to her frame. maybe it's my inner italian speaking, but she looks healthier, in my opinion.

so those are my babies, past and present. and my first upload! yay for me!

watch out...more pics forthcoming. (; you might want to invest in a good pair of goggles.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

stares

she stares
at the nearly empty birdfeeder
mind occupied by how bright
the grass is
despite clouds.

it seems as if
someone
is trying to make up
for the sun's obscurity
by creating a light
so stunning
that the red leaf on lawn
glows

she stares
and it all becomes
pictures
paintings
epic in scope,
the blades of grass an army so large,
so vast--

the whole, fading into crimson leaf
it isn't just "outdoors" any longer
it's a portal to a place
she cannot go

if the birdfeeder is full
the photo
changes
to its core.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

tag, i'm it...

thank you broke, for tagging me...i've never been tagged before. (; now let's see what i can come up with.

1. i've got red hair that curls on its own terms.
2. i can't hear out of my left ear.
3. i write poetry and breathe at about the same rate.
4. i've learned that i can hate someone, feel pity for them at the same time, and forgive them, simultaneously.
5. i despise wearing socks...
6. ...but if i have to, i like to wear socks that are colorful and fun...and kind of look like they're from the kid's section, but they're not.
7. we have two cats at the house, but i've only paid pet deposit on one.
8. i adore the smell of fresh turned earth.
9. i can't wait for it to snow. it's worse than a gift someone's giving.
10. i never sleep through the night.
11. i'm hate centipedes and bees. bees make me turn into a squealing 6 year old girl, and centipedes push me to climbing walls, even though i know they could climb after me. *shudder*
12. i'm a terrible correspondent. never take up letter writing with me; i'll kill the sport. (;
13. i'd rather have it so dim in the house that you have to squint to read than have it be bright.
14. most of the time, i'd rather be wandering in my favorite state park than anywhere on the planet.
15. my favorite movie is not The Princess Bride.
16. i have a secret passion for romance novels by Georgette Heyer.
17. i'm a gamer--with dice and clipboards and everything.
18. i always thought i didn't do math well, but i keep getting jobs where i am required to do math, and to my dismay, i do quite well...
19. ...but word problems are still the bane of my existence.
20. i chew way too much gum, but i only like to chew Trident.

there, i'm done! thank you broke!

Thursday, October 20, 2005

the death card

i remember back in high school, while at a speech meet, sitting in bleachers and someone picking tarot cards for people. the card that was picked for dan and me was the death card. in reading, it's important to note that the death card does not project immiment death--it foretells change.

there's been a lot of change in our relationship, a lot of fluctuation. right now, dan's been writing about his brother, and the week before the funeral. i feel the need to fill in a few spots because there are some things i remember, having been glued to his side for the whole week.

i don't have a ton of time but i'll do what i can to also remember.

i remember getting in the car and realizing that i did not have my purse, and dan did not have his wallet. we were racing back to his parents house and a police officer pulled out behind us, but instead of racing hell-bent for leather, we slowed down so we wouldn't be pulled over.

i remember stopping at ball club, this teeny tiny town, to see if they had a phone. they did, but dan's parents' house just rang and rang. that was an hour into our journey.

i remember him turning on the radio--i remember hearing touch of gray, and glancing off to my right, out the passenger window, and seeing the sun break through the party cloudy day outside. it was sunny for the rest of the day. and that is when i knew. it's like feeling your soul sit down, pressing the pause button.

i remember that the next song that started playing was "don't fear the reaper" and we turned the radio off. the next time i heard that song was on the morning of 9/11--woke up and turned on the radio, and then turned it off, and three hours later i feared the reaper.

i remember getting to the house, sobbing with the family. i remember driving home, curling up in the bed, crying myself to sleep.

i don't remember driving back to duluth. i remember stopping at work the night before and crying when i had to tell susan, my supervisor, that i wasn't going to be in for a few days, and telling her why.

i remember sitting at home that night, alternately crying and packing, and hearing dan make phone calls--to big d, other friends. the one person he really wanted to reach was his friend phil, but he was overseas on a school trip. when he tried calling he was told that the only way they could get him through was if phil was involved in corey's death somehow, ie, part of an investigation, etc. we found another friend who was also over there, and her husband (at the time) broke the news, and then she told phil.

i remember the mounds of food--piles of it in the kitchen, the fridge packed, the counter crowded. i remember picking at most of it, not hungry. i remember going to the store to buy Immodium-AD, and that being the one thing i saw everyone in the family eating.

i remember not wanting to stay in corey's room because it felt too strange. i remember dan's mom saying that she felt the best there. i felt the best sitting at the top of their backyard, behind the immense garden they had. i watched corey's dog, gabe, wander around. i think of everyone in the family, i felt that gabe had the most knowledge of what had happened, the first acceptance. i watched the fur he shed be tossed around on the grass, watched a sparrow swoop down and scoop some up for its nest. that is when i knew i would make it through that week. before, i wasn't sure. it felt interminable. i think that was on tuesday.

i remember corey's friends--this great armada of people--coming over to watch the video of corey in class. i remember the improbability of everyone laughing uproariously over corey's personality--the improbability being that we were laughing so hard, and he was gone. the living room was full of people who cared, people who were trying to inject some happiness and good memory into the miasma that was hanging in the living room.

i remember those cinnamon rolls that appeared from someone that were the only thing i wanted to eat that week. when they were gone, i half-heartedly ate some lasagna, cold. but i don't remember eating much else until the reception, after the funeral, when someone made me eat a piece of cake.

i remember dan's dad sitting us down and telling his children that even though they were not technically his, he wanted them to understand that he loved them as much as he loved his own natural son, and he didn't want them to forget that. i remember being included in that circle. i remember him telling us that he was on the way home from the church, from talking to the pastor, when it occurred to him that he had never just told his kids how he felt about them, and felt he had to do so, right then and there.

i remember the visitation. i remember knowing that when i looked in the coffin, it wasn't going to be corey laying there. and it wasn't. it was leftovers--the shell of the boy i knew, the man he was growing into. the real corey, the one who joked and pulled pranks and took pleasure in using a super-soaker squirt gun on the cats instead of a small spray bottle--that corey was elsewhere.

i remember going to the church. i didn't have a role to play other than girlfriend. i ended up being the kleenex holder, and throughout the day made sure that everyone had enough tissue. it seems so insignificant.

i remember seeing a girl i used to babysit, at the funeral. she'd been in corey's grade. i remember looking at her and saying, "ashley, you're huge!" because in my mind, she was gigantic, compared to the ashley i'd last seen.

my parents were in branson at the time, on vacation. my sister had gotten through to them and i spoke with them one night, but they weren't going to be able to make it up for the funeral. i really, really wanted someone there from my family. i remember standing in the back of the church, waiting for the funeral to start, and turning, as if someone had tapped my shoulder, and looking outside, and seeing my siblings walking towards the church. i remember walking out the door and not wanting to go back, not wanting to have to remember why i was there. i walked into their arms and for the first time that week i felt like i could let out the grief i was feeling, and i cried. i remember seeing their faces and the smell of my sister's perfume, and being a little cold, but not caring about anything but seeing them and being held.

i remember dan being so angry about them asking him to speak. i remember that the girl playing the organ was a school friend of mine, and i remember trying to make conversation with her, and her saying that when she found out who had died, she knew she had to be the organist at that service. i remember the short prayer that was said, before the service started, just the family and me, and jen's boyfriend (now husband, matt), which was a whole nother soap opera waiting to be started.

i remember dan speaking, and doing so very movingly, very eloquently. he brought corey back while he was speaking. i remember sitting with dan's family, not mine, and holding up his sister, sarah. i was trying so hard to be strong for them, to be whatever they needed me to be, that whole week. the only times that i let it down were outside, staring at gabe's fur blowing around in the wind, and when i first saw my siblings. i cried with dan, i wept and we held each other at night, but i felt like i needed to pull back and share my grief, but not flood him with what i was feeling.

i remember sleeping that week on the floor in the living room, with dan's cousin, mitch, who was i think around 13 or so. i remember waking up and hearing everyone asleep, and laying there listening to the breathing, glad that they were. i remember feeling horrible that i was so glad to be alive, but i think that's natural.

i remember after the funeral, everyone came back to dan's parents' house, and stood around talking and such. it was the first time dan's mom had seen most of her relatives in ages--their family dynamic is sometimes skewed a tad--and i remember corey's dog, gabe, barking and barking at my brother. i remember meeting dan's cousins, whose names escape me, and his little cousin telling me about how he baked bread with his other grandma, easter challah, like i'd just attempted a few weeks before. he explained how to braid the bread, a technique that my loaf did not showcase.

i remember going out on dan's birthday with a bunch of friends from high school. a few years removes you from their supportive close-knit net. it doesn't feel the same, going out with them later, as it did when you saw them every day. dan tried to make the best of it, but i remember him being furious when we got in the car that he had been forced out. which he was, don't get me wrong. but i think the intentions behind everyone's actions that week were good--no one wanted to push anyone, no one wanted to coerce. they just wanted to help.

the problem with helping is that there's a lot of assuming that goes on during that helping. the group assumption was that it would be good to get out of the house--and part of it was. i can't deny that. but it had to be one of the worst experiences i'd had, because no one knew what to say, and the only thing on our minds was corey.

i remember dan sitting up writing the eulogy, and spending time reading that bill walton book corey'd given him. i remember standing in corey's room at some point that week, recalling when we'd sponge painted his ceiling with dark purple paint. i could almost smell it, fresh, even though it'd been years since we'd done that.

i remember so many little things, all tied up in each other. i remember going back to bemidji, drained and empty, and i remember dan's family sending food and the remainder of the reception cake home with us. at some point the next week, our friends came over and aaron polished off the last of the cake.

i remember not wanting to go anywhere, or do anything, for quite some time. i know dan was in the same boat--up all night, catch a few hours of sleep at some point. for weeks and months on end, his morning shower was his time to grieve for the day--the water so hot i thought his skin was being punished for corey's absence, he'd lay there, crying. it was something he needed to do, to let it out.

i remember not long after that he started running a game, to keep himself occupied. that ravenloft campaign ran for over a year, every wednesday, a few odd days tossed in. at the end of it, he gave all the participants a little gargoyle, as thanks for playing, as thanks for watching over him.

i think back to that week and it feels like i'm watching someone else's life played out. i remember myself as a player on that stage. i remember myself as technical support. i remember my role, and i remember that feeling i had every morning, on waking: why am i sleeping on the floor? why is the dog snoring? oh, that's right...corey's gone.

i did a lot of rationalizing. like dan said, columbine happened that tuesday. i had this deep peace within that said that there was a reason for him having to leave. did he reach nirvana, and just head off into the blue? corey was an old soul; i wouldn't have put it past him. perhaps his soul was needed elsewhere. i don't know. things in nature happen for reasons out of my control; corey was a force of nature: the quiet of winter, the deep silence of the first snow.

that was in april. in august, my mother called on the night of a thunderstorm that produced fist-sized hail, which i had run out to collect. dan called down from the apartment window that my mom was on the phone, and i ran back in and put the hail in my freezer. my aunt was dying after suffering what they thought was a massive stroke and heart attack. she was on life support but they were going to turn it off.

she died three days later. i wasn't terribly close to my aunt, but it felt like perhaps i needed a reminder of what it was to see that grief, all over again. i made a card for my cousins, her children. i remember stopping at their house on the way out of town, and my cousin shelly looking up at me and saying, "thank you for the card." there was a light in her eyes that told me she was not just saying that because she had to; she was saying that because she was thankful.

there are many things in life for which i am thankful, and often i do not know who to thank. i am simply the beneficiary.

that week of corey's funeral, someone brought a book over and left it at the house. it was a new book, called "the next place." it is a beautiful book, almost a children's book, and it vaguely and poetically covers death. i read that book and carried its message with me for years, until cari's mom died. then i felt like i was on a mission to find that book. after a rampage at barnes and noble, i sent it to her while she was in texas, helping her dad recover from the accident, with a rock.

i think that's when i started carrying rocks all the time, in my pockets.

who do i thank for finding that book? who is the person who put it on that coffee table? who brought those cinnamon rolls to the house? who put a rock in my pocket? i don't know--but in that same way that shelly thanked me, i thank the world at large for holding me up in so many small ways.

obviously, my memories are not the same ones that dan carries. they're tinged in their own way by their own images, by their own emotions. i hold onto different things than he does. my grief, in my mind, was lesser; i think a good deal of the time, i repressed it, let it out when i was walking in the state park, because i felt that was the only way to do so and not have a detrimental effect on my relationship with dan.

corey's death altered the way that dan and i operated, as a couple. i was afraid to show him my feelings, not wanting to be a "burden." i meted it out on my own. dan's stuffing of his own was difficult to watch--i didn't have a name for it, i couldn't tell you what he was doing. but i'd seen my father do it for years, push all those feelings down, ignore them, realizing that they're too great to handle in one fell swoop. you have to take them out little by little--or as they say in my uncle jed's recovery process, little by slow--and consider them, and put them back. and do that same thing, over and over, until looking at them hurts, but does not cripple you.

my friend cari explained that the wound left by her mother is too huge to heal. you don't heal some things; you learn how to manage to live your life fully, with that handicap included.

no one back in that humid gymnasium had any idea how prophetic that card was, the card of change. it's foretold many events in my life, most all of which are tied closely to dan and the relationship that we have. or perhaps it foretold nothing--perhaps it's just coincidence, because even without that card, things change; people change. corey has been an agent of change in my life--his life and his death, and that week of forging myself, after he died--those things changed me. i know they changed dan.

i'm glad to look back on that week--it's taking it out, it's reminiscing, it's reliving, and in the telling, releasing. props to dan for the prompt.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

afternoon poem

coffee

two cups of dark heat,
colored by creamer
to be the shade
of my mother's skin in summer.

if you get close enough to the cup
to feel steam
on your earlobe
(not that i did...)
you could hear the crack
of my single ice cube,
noisy fissures and splits.

it's gone now
swimming and whirling
through my veins
making my hands jump and leap to someone else's
strings

i am the jagged edge

letters i did not choose form on my page
words unspoken yesterday
bubble up and pop
out of my mouth
in the wrong order
i'm faster than light
or i was

it's wearing off
my two cups of java water that takes me
from human to
heroine

for the span of an three hours
i wonder
where i put my cape.

***

william carlos williams was a doctor. he wrote during the day, on perscription pads. one of my favorite poems ever is his red wheelbarrow poem...

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

i think of him whenever i'm sitting at work composing something on a peice of notepaper, or leftover memos, or even in email. email makes poetry all too possible at work.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

circus circus

yes, i'll say it twice if i damn well please.

it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pretty!

i am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tired! (: i tried to sleep longer than 8 hours but my cat insisted on being fed or some such nonsense...tricksy kitty.

cj got here around 445, and we jetted over to tish's house. from there to the macaroni grill, which of course was excellent dining, and we were seated by the fire. i had carmela's chicken rigatoni, which was a parmesan marsala white sauce with carmelized onions and mushrooms in (surprise!) rigatoni pasta. very tasty. for dessert i had this lemon spongecake soaked in lemon something, with lemon frosting and real whipped cream, on a plate drizzled with caramel. YUM.

apparently on fridays and saturdays the grill has a singer--so we were serenaded by this man with an AMAZING tenor voice. he sang something in spanish, but it wouldn't have mattered, because when people are singing i have a hard time focusing on the words when this lovely voice is just flowing all around you. halfway through his song i realized that this pretty elderly lady a few tables away was staring at me. i smiled back.

the only downside was that we also were seated next to about 16 kids who were at a giant table and quite obviously en route to prom or something. must be fall formal? who knows. dresses were sparkly and children were loud. that prompted a chat at our table about what we wore to prom, what we did, etc. it was entertaining to think back on those years, but i'm not sure i'd like to revisit. (;

after that we stopped at tish's parents' house to put leftovers in the fridge and find some cigarettes for cj. on the road again, parked up by the walker art center and watched the tent as we walked in--this huge blue and yellow striped circus tent, surrounded by all these littler ones. walked through the concessions tent, in which they had all kinds of stuff that was amazingly beautiful, but far, far out of my price range. one of my favorite things was these bags they had that were recycled tent. what a good idea!!! what a horrifying price tag: 135.00!!!

found our seats in said tent. the stage was in the round, so a round stage swirled with designs, divided by two curtains. we couldn't see the people on the other side of the stage until people started walking around a little bit with lights over there. the screen was (and i'm going to use this word to death in this post) amazing--sheer, with angels and such painted on it. between the curtains were these three gigantic chandaliers, which appeared to have candles flickering on top of them. stunning.

the story behind "corteo" is that this clown is dying, and guarded by angels (who kept swooping out of the top of the tent wearing beautiful gowns and little wings to attend him and other players) he's making his way to heaven, stopped only by all the well-wishers (characters) who are parading through to say good-bye. this was gleaned from what was going on and the bits in the program--the singing was gibberish (to me) and the speaking parts were a pidgin of english, french and italian. nice to hear but nothing sensical.

on television it's much easier to pay attention, but it's also much more remote. you don't see all the peripheral stuff going on--you hear the music and you see the performer, but you don't know that on the floor below this person, women are whirling in dance, or people are drumming. the stage rotated in different areas--one ring on the outer edge, one plate in the middle, and in the very center of the stage, a drop hole that people could disappear into or appear out of. the screen was used as needed to shield our poor eyes from setups and such, and half the time i was so caught up in what was going on that by the time it was nearing the floor i FINALLY thought, oh, they're putting the screen down... (:

the costuming, as befits cirque productions, painted the stage, but the real show is put on by the performers, who move around in ways that made me think about how legends are started about flying people and so on. i'm trying to remember all the acts but i just cannot--the first was with the three chandeliers, women draped and swinging around on them, contorting their bodies into strange positions, spinning, flying. then there was a scene with two huge beds that were actually trampolines, and people flying from bed to bed and flipping...you've seen it on bravo. well, not this production. (: yet...

there were jugglers and this man who whistled like i've never heard, people leaping and twisting on a long trampoline that spanned the stage and off onto the sides, above which was an act in which women and men were tossed about like toys. there was a tightrope walker and a balancing act with a tall, tall ladder. the second to the last act was a woman who soared through the air on these two looped ropes, with this long, long hair whipping around. she was the closest thing to a bird i have seen. the last act was all these high bars, men hanging on the bars and swinging around on them in unison, flipping and rolling in mid air, only to catch the bar or even land on it standing.

that's the truest beauty of cirque: the people, throwing themselves into the show and making everything look like art, when it's actually the human body at the height of athleticism, carefully masked and glittering with makeup and yards of diaphanous fabric.

the music is created live, right there, on all four corners of the stage, voices and instruments sighing into the area.

i think the tent held 2600, but it didn't seem that large because the stage was not that large. the only downside (in my opinion was that the seats were all manufactured for smaller people, so by act II we were feeling cramped and overly warm. but that just was good because then when we got outside, the cool air was invigorating and felt like the perfect crisp end to an evening of dim smoke and mirror and incense.

the image was haunting and little bits of it keep popping up in my head, here and there, cloudy like a dream.

i cannot wait to go again! (:

Saturday, October 08, 2005

it's in the details...

dan was talking in his blog (www.wastedscenes.blogspot.com) about being bipolar today, about being aware of how you're reviewing the world around you based on what's going on inside you.

i guess i haven't taken a look at my own inner workings and how they affect my eyesight and processing speed (to sound like a real geek here and liken myself to a computer...yay technology...)

i know how i flavor the world--lots of times it's rose colored because i don't want to think about the negative aspects of it. at the same time, i think that the negativity has to exist to balance the positivity. you cannot have sun without somewhere having shade.

and therein lies my problem--i'm trying to become more aware of seeing the whole picture. being diagnosed w/ add has not changed anything in my life, except for being more aware of how i attempt to scale the earth.

everyone comes at it with different tools and different ideas, and different motivations. my problem lots of times is that i am so focused on the minutae that i cannot see what i am climbing. i can see and smell and touch the moss in front of my face, but the mountain...too big.

details, details, details.

i think that's why i cannot complete so many projects--i get so caught up in the details and in seeing the balance between them that i get lost. i get confused.

it's like having the stop sign in front of you, but not stopping because all you can see is how red the sign is. you're not seeing what the sign SAYS. you're seeing the sign just as another peice of landscape to be inspected. if i focus on how this affects my life, i can see that it has a somewhat
detrimental effect on how i see things.

i used to drift into pity parties about walking in the woods because dan didn't want to go. he wants to have a goal in mind. i'm happy just walking along and BEING and absorbing all the
little things i see--leaves glistening with leftover rain, sprouts pushing past ground cover, the smell of soil...i need to look up and combine both aspects of thought--i need to find the balance between the details and the picture.

i need to read the stop sign and appreciate its color at the same time.

easier said than done. (;

dan's going through a lot of pruning right now, trying to decide how to lead his life, what roots need to be pulled up, what needs tending--ie, the Big Picture. he's dealing with the if that is serena. i'm dealing with the same issues. my whole thing is that you can be a friend to someone even if they're not being a friend to you.

it's in the details.

see, i have this quilt sitting upstairs, unfinished, in a black plastic bag. i'd like to finish it and send it to serena, so that i know it's finished and received. but i've no idea of where i'm at on her list of things to do, and she's not quite at the top of mine, to be blunt, but that's mainly because i have this niggling disbelief that she'd ever be willing to TALK about any of what happened, and it doesn't feel like she's exactly caring about me or dan. she's exempted herself from the bad parts version of being a friend.

since i get so focused on the details, it's difficult for me to think of the larger view, and yet sometimes, easier. i would like to work through these things and understand them--it could make me a better person, and in talking about them, i think her, too; the only reason i know this with certainty is because it seems to be working between dan and i.

i have forgiven; now i want to see where i'm going, and i've been living in fog and murk for a long time. so i have to either ask for directions--therapy, friends, advice, writing, talking that's been amazing and healing and eye-opening--or i have to plunge ahead all by my lonesome. i can't do that. in therapy i'm learning that the best way to deal with thoughts and feelings and emotions and roadblocks is to actually deal with them, instead of hiding until it seems to be gone.

that's like waiting for the waters to recede in louisianna. yes, the storm rolled through, but there's people down there cleaning, and there's people who aren't going back. everyone makes decisions--but decisions, i can tell you, are never final until the fat lady sings.

i haven't heard her yet, but then again, i'm kinda short on hearing. (;

as i get bogged in the what if's version of the future, i have to live NOW--and now, she's not talking, which has been a very, very important step in comprehension and healing. actions speak louder than words--by editing herself out of this part of my life, she has snapped the ties that bind friends together. her prior actions hurt--sometimes they still do--and so do dan's. the difference is that he WANTS to fix and work on repairing and rebuilding our friendship. i get the distinct feeling that serena does not. i'm more hurt by what she's doing now than i think i am about what happened before. no use crying over spilt milk, but someone has to clean it up. while i have effort--dan--living in my house, i have lack of effort--serena--embodied in a bag upstairs, in the form of a quilt.

dan's answered every probing and painful question that jogs through my distracted head. that, in my mind, is friendship--being open and honest, being willing to explore the dark parts together, and take joy in the happiness, too, and help each other through those times when you need a hand. i feel abandoned by serena's actions--i made effort to build a bridge, but to me, it feels as though she has walked away and is ignoring that bridge.

anne frank's quote sticks in my gears: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."

if i share this belief, and feel that being a friend is more important than having a friend, do i finish the quilt, which still has a lot of details to be worked out? or do i deliver the bag to the thrift store and call it quits? how long do i wait for her to be willing to even open a line of discussion? can i live with being her friend, if she is willing to talk to me but not dan, with whom she appeared to be MUCH better friends?

her definition of friend is different than mine; this i can accept, because everyone has their own head and ideals to form. but in the end, if this is how she wants to be involved in my life--running away at the first sign of trauma--i feel a need to know what kind of friend she has been, and what kind of friend she is willing to be.

i'll hold out hope that perhaps things can change. i've changed, dan's changed--perhaps serena is changing too, in her self-imposed chrysalis.

it's again...in the details.

all that said and thought, i have a busy-ish weekend ahead of me. i'm off to breakfast with dan shortly, then this afternoon i'll be running a few errands and getting ready for a friend to come by around 430. we're collecting friend #3, having dinner and then going to see--yes, i'm still in disbelief as well--CIRQUE DU SOLIEL!!!!!!!!!! i am SO jazzed about this.

tomorrow we're off to see serenity again--if you haven't been to it yet, get thee hence! it ROCKS! and nathan fillion is HOTT--apologies to dan, who has a nicer ass. LOL his rendition of mal totally reminds me of harrison ford in the early star wars films--hott, i tell you, hott.

it's totally a gamer movie. (; which is perhaps why all the gamers we know are returning for a viewing, if possible. LOL

DETAILED hugs to all and sundry--k(:

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

autumn

it's autumn.

yeah, it's been fall here for a few weeks, according to the calendar. however, according to the weather, it's been spring, summer AND fall.

sunday it was muggy and humid. monday it was muggier and humid-er. monday night it thundered and stormed and we literally got 7-9 inches of rain, ala spring. now today, it's about 45-50, party cloudy, and chilly.

lovely.

i long for this weather all year. the minute we have our first above-60 day in may or june, i'm jonesing for my cold weather again.

today was a normal work day. got to work early and was accused of being an early riser twice before 9 am. agreed that i have become such in my older age. (; mornings are full of hope and plenty of room to get things done prior to the day actually beginning. got some work done, and then got invited to the cirque du soliel show on saturday. YAY!!! i say again: YAY!

today is gaming wednesday, eero's manhunter game, in which i get to (hopefully) spew some meteors from my fingertips. then it's onto hockey again--the NHL is back in business and i couldn't be more pleased. even if they don't win, they're fun to watch, and lately the vikings have been downright depressing. or worse, you tell me--if you live in minnesota, you're experiencing the funk, regardless of if you're a rabid fan or not.

personally, i don't mind football, and for some reason being involved in the human combat chess game has given me a greater patience and appreciation for football--it really is, as dan says, strategy.

at the same time, for someone with a short attention span, hours and hours of watching and parking my ass on the sofa to watch giant men in spandex toss themselves at each other is just not up my alley. i like watching the highlights--that's about my field of vision.

hockey, on the other hand, is fast-paced, and periods are only 15 minutes--fifteen minutes that go by much more quickly than the four quarters of a football game.

perhaps it's the thought--again, back to the beginning--of ice, of that chill being not too far away. i live for winter, when the earth is hibernating and presents all kinds of places to meditate that require some intense planning, if you're to be outdoors.

i keep thinking about the movie, the cutting edge--db sweeney's character has a picture of him, sniffing the ice, because he just loves it so much.

feeling is mutual; i love winter that much. i love the soft brown dirt of spring, and the brilliant green of summer and the crisp orange of fall, but nothing surpasses winter, for me. it's an experience that i cherish every year. when the snow melts i can feel myself grieving, sometimes. and welcoming winter back onto the planet--at least, winter as we know it here in the northern states, where there's plenty of frozen lakes and snow and breath that is a dream in front of your face--that winter, i welcome with open arms.

it's easier to breathe in winter, easier to hike through the woods, easier to find ready-made fun--you just scoop it up and create. snow and sand offer the same play-doh like substances, but snow for me is infinitely more entrancing.

i'm waiting, right now, for the first frost, and the first flakes. you know spring is here by the robin; you know winter is here by the geese fleeing south, and the trees shedding their summer finery, and the first lighter-than-air water-spun lace that is snow.

so autumn, you're well-met. come on in, paint my patio with yellow oval leaves, rinse my house of humid negative flotsam, let the smell of sandalwood be the warmth that everyone holds within.

Monday, October 03, 2005

humid

while it was muggy all day, tonight it's actually humid. that nasty minnesota humid, where 10000 lakes give up 1/4 of themselves and the air tries to give it back to the rest of us.

last weekend was my first weekend off in a long time. it was nice to have my weekend back, rescued so to speak as it was from the 1600s aka the renaissance festival. i had a great deal of fun, made a lot of friends, and got to experience firsthand the loveliness of wearing a skirt and bodice for 12+ hours a day. and maneuver in a biffy.

dirt, laughter, wet wipes and fun--for only 24 hours a weekend! (;

so this saturday the plan was to ignore the phone, glue my gluteus maximus to the couch, and commune with media of some type. what ended up happening was that my mom called and i drove up to meet her to visit my grandma w, who, as it turns out, was in fine form.

my whole day was kind of slow and hurdle filled--the weekend prior, on my way home, i hit the mother of all potholes at festival, and my tires were a bit low. so i stopped at the gas station down the street to fill my tires--only to find that it was broken. next gas station had quarters jammed in the coin slot. the one after that (yes, station number 3) seemed to work fine...with the notable exception of filling the tire with air. my goal psi was 35; the front left tire was at a 17 when i started my journey. after station 3, left tire was at 9 psi. limped across the highway and finally was able to fill both front tires. needless to say, i was about half an hour late due to this fiasco.

got to grandma's home--mom's outside. apparently she visited, offered to take her to lunch, and was summarily dismissed. that's the scottish for you.

we had some greek for lunch, then went back to try to visit again. this time was better; grandma'd had lunch, and was waking from a nap on her couch.

her couch, because there was a nice gentleman asleep on her bed.

yes, racy grandma. i agree. (: she made a big point about how he only came over to nap in the afternoon, and how at night she slept by herself...but my grandma is one of those people who does best, or thinks she is at her best, when she is with someone else, even if he's just napping on her bed. who knows.

at any rate, gene woke up and exited stage right with a pca. grandma then regaled us with confusion about her sons (which was which) and how often they came to see her (according to her, never.) mom tried to argue but it's useless when they have dementia. even if my dad and uncles were there every day, she wouldn't remember. there was a whole section of conversation about how they'd trapped here in this home when she was helping another woman (whose name she couldn't remember) move into the building, and another part where she was convinced she had more than one husband, and that none of her numerous spouses were named jack, who is the only husband she had and my grandpa.

then there was the snickering portion of the afternoon, wherein she explained that the glasses she was wearing were not her own, but some nice man who had accidentally exchanged glasses. both mom and i doubted that this was the case, mainly because grandma's glasses are gold with little mauve roses engraved on it. grandma hasn't been able to see out of one eye for years now (stroke in just that eye) and the other eye's a bit muzzy as well, so she was running her thumb over the engraving and saying that it was that man's name, the one whose glasses she now wore. she also said that the glasses amazingly were stronger and she could see better out of them.

mom was trying not to giggle.

i feel a bit guilty about giggling over grandma's foggy perception, but at the same time, i cannot imagine that she would want us to find our visits boring and dull. which they can be, i don't deny that. but at least she's not as depressed as perhaps she was last year, or the year before, when she first came back to mn from arizona.

i cannot imagine losing your faculties, slowly, the way that she has to dementia, or the way my mom's mother has, to alzheimer's. it's like they're being stolen away by some brain tissue gone moldy.

i can see echoes of the grandma i knew when she smiles, or when she gets stubborn about things. i know her by her smell--red door perfume by someone, but it takes on a different depth when coupled with grandma's skin. for someone who is driven by smells, that lingers in my mind, linked to their old house in coleraine, subtly influenced by the sharp tang of the black label whiskey she used to drink. i remember combing her hair for a nickel.

i remember being angry with her when i was a teenager, angry for forgetting me and my mother and siblings in the haze of liquor. angry for only remembering her sons, her beloved sons.

i find it ironic in the most painful of ways that when we sat there visiting with this woman who used to ignore us in the simplest ways, she remembered us--my mother and me--but she turned her back on her boys.

i think back on the memories i have of her house and my other grandma's house, and how different they were. grandma w's house was dry and airy, and smelled of grandma's nice perfume and grandpa's chew. grandma a's house was too small, too warm, crowded, humid.

maybe that is why she drank, to rehydrate, or to keep restored. it's a bad notion, and one i don't relish.

all i know is that reflected in my grandmother's skinny, warped fingers, i see a mirror of who i could be, and the women and men who came before me. i see who i could become--this bitter woman, so lonely and betrayed by her own brain cells into thinking that she has been abandoned.

perhaps i will become her, someday, the world around me colored by grief and longing, forgetting who i was, but becoming nothing more.

i think about this picture of my grandparents when they first met, leaning backs together. i miss my grandpa a lot. i remember him being wise and soft when i needed him to be. i see my father becoming that man every day, white haired and balding.

anyway i think of that picture and in it i see the meeting and forming of a family that is a legend in my home. i think of my own relationships and how they move my life around, how i move them around and how they make me into something else. i become according to the world around me, and i shape this niche around me into something else, too.

just watched serenity last weekend too, twice. there will be more viewings before it is pulled from theaters. highly recommend this movie as it's supporting one of my all time favorite tv shows, filled with wit, comedy, drama, shotguns and space. i'm already jazzed about it coming out on dvd because that means that perhaps there will be that lauded wonder of dvds: extras.

so go see serenity. get out of fluke minnesota 80 degree humidity, ponder your existence, and visit your grandparents. that's enough to put anything into perspective.

(;