wee hours of dawn

well, more pre-pre dawn. it's about 145 and i'm just NOW home from the airport.

had a good weekend; cari was down, so we bummed around at the mall, had some fabulously fresh vietnamese food, and hung out on the sofa reading people magazine and eating pickles and mint oreo cookies. lovely. people mag was full of the usual celebrity mumbo-jumbo, pictures of horribly dressed but in style skinny bodies, and one of my coworkers.

surprised? tell me about it. we're flipping through--angelina jolie, brad pitt, brooke sheilds...dray?

dray's been having issues because of the city he moved to. his family consists of his girlfriend and their two kids, and his girlfriend's daughter from a previous marriage. they've been together for 13 years, just never tied the knot. anyway, they moved to Blackjack, Missouri, and found a home. bought and moved in. and THEN found out that they were being denied an occupancy permit because they weren't considered a family.

huh?

they're fighting it. the city stated that it was up to them to have unearthed this small code. whatever! who goes looking for something that's going to keep you OUT of a neighborhood? ridiculous. the notoriety has been hard on the kids--you know how kids are--and the principal actually suggested that perhaps they keep their eldest home until things "smoothed over."

the mere notion of it had my office up in arms. and apparently people magazine, too. go dray go!!! we're all behind you up here!

so tonight my dad and uncle flew in from palm springs, ca, where my dad's middle brother jed is recovering from a massive stroke from last april/may. he's got very limited mobility--can roll backwards in his wheelchair, write a little bit with one hand, and speak slowly and with lots of frustration. but at this point, anything is better than the original prognosis last year that had him not making it until the end of june. behold, the power of a stubborn irishman. (;

anyway, their plane was supposed to land here at 959 pm. i tracked it online; dad called and said that the changeover in houston would be late, about half hour, and that they were being forced to check their carry ons, because the overhead compartments were full--more time consumption.

i track it again. plane gets closer and closer...and then veers off and flies about 30 miles west of the cities. it finally lands about 1145. i drive out to meet them at the baggage claim...circle the airport a few times, because you can't wait outside in your car by the claim area. finally park and go in around 1215. dad's luggage didn't make it. my uncle's did, but minus a bunch of electronics. he'd brought a portable dvd player to show jed my cousin's wedding, and the family reunion pics from last summer. of course that was missing, as was his camera, his electric shaver, his cell phone...all kinds of fun stuff. we waited a little while, so that he could cancel his cell phone and file a report, and to see if dad's bag would show up. no such luck. finally gave up and drove them up to my cousins house, about 30 min north of my house. dropped off and drove home.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg. frustrating! i think this week so farhas been all about frustration and aggravation and annoyance. you don't sit up typing at the wee hours unless there's something fueling your fingers.

at the same time, the frustration i'm feeling--on behalf of my coworker and his family, my dad's missing luggage and lateness, and my uncle's stolen articles, my late arrival at work tomorrow morning (inevitable at this point)--it's all things that i can live with. that they can live with. yeah, they're all frustrating. but they're frustrating because it's all based on things that gave joy.

dad wouldn't be frustrated with his missing luggage if it didn't have pics of jed and the boys on the camera, which is awol. my uncle wouldn't be put out if he didn't know what he had lost. and dray wouldn't be so hurt by the town's reaction if he didn't care about his family and his neighborhood. i wouldn't be awake so late if i didn't have a working vehicle.

i suppose it's all about definition, and reminders. kalhil gibran wrote that what brings you sorrow is often what brought you joy, and what brings you joy sometimes brings sorrow. double-edged sword, this life. sweet and sour.

course, it could just be that it's the wee hours of the morning, and i'm chilled and typing while my pillow is singing its siren song down the stairs...

i will survive

the other day dan and i got sucked into watching the Top 100 Dance Songs on VH1. lots of them are recycled from other top 100 shows and such; but they're just as brain-sucking as watching spike tv's Worlds Greatest Car Chases--you have to see how it ends.

i'm not an ambulance chaser, not in the least. but i am a curious person. so we watched until the end of the show. not to ruin it for the rest of you lot, but the top song, according to the show, was gloria gaynor's "i will survive."

being deaf, mostly i only know the chorus of songs, until i've either listened so many times that i know the words or looked up and memorized the lyrics.

so i had to look up the lyrics.

***

First I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
I grew strong
I learned how to carry on
and so you're back
from outer space
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face
I should have changed my stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second
you'd be back to bother me

Go on now go walk out the door
just turn around now
'cause you're not welcome anymore
weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
you think I'd crumble
you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I will stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll surviveI will survive

It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart
kept trying hard to mend
the pieces of my broken heart
and I spent oh so many nights
just feeling sorry for myself
I used to cry
Now I hold my head up high
and you see me
somebody new
I'm not that chained up little person
still in love with you
and so you felt like dropping in
and just expect me to be free
now I'm saving all my loving
for someone who's loving me

***

one of my coworkers got a job elsewhere. she's someone who used to hang out with serena and me, back in the day. i will miss dil immensely; she's a fellow giggler. and i'm glad that she's going because she's wanted a different job for a while now, and this is definitely an upgrade from her current position, and she gets to work with her husband.

at the same time, my very first thought was: thank god.

dil's one of the people that asks how serena is doing. among others. from the beginning when she moved, i told the people asking to just email her, and gave them her email address. some replied that they had, without response. apparently it is simply easier to just ask me, because i was a point of contact in the past. i don't feel right being completely honest with people about everything, mainly because the web is so tangled. how do you tell the whole story without sounding like either:

A) a whiner
B) a whiner
C) a whiner

none of which are appealing to me. at work, the people i have told no longer work there. for some reason the anonymity of being online makes me able to share my whole truth. but in person--i lock up. i'm like my computer: too many commands and the screen freezes.

my pat answer is still that she just stopped talking to everyone in minnesota--friends, etc. obviously she still goes through the airport on a regular basis to visit her parents in iowa and brother in st cloud, but i'm not sure if anyone local hears from her.

at any rate, i was surprised to find that first feeling of relief: one less person to ask about serena.

***

in therapy on thursday, helene and i talked about taking responsibility for your actions and emotions, and yours alone. i pull a discussion move that exactly mirrors my dad's, from when i was a kid: "it's all my fault, just blame me, that'll end the argument." what it does, helene explained, is give the other party an easy out: "fine, i'll just blame you then." and then i carry around the responsibility for that person's reaction or actions or feelings.

i told her about what cari said, that to think that other people have a problem with you, or to think that you are the activator for other people's feelings--that's selfish. that means that the world is revolving around you, which galileo already proved was scientifically impossible. helene agreed.

i know i've been carrying around all these feelings about all these things--and most of the time, i drag the other players in my staging with me. i make myself responsible for how they're feeling, what they're doing. and before i know it, i'm mentally and emotionally dragging EVERYONE around.

that's a habit, one i need to break. thaddeus said once that i have to remember that i am in my little bubble and dan's in his; same idea.

i am not responsible for serena's actions. i didn't force her to stop talking to anyone. that was HER choice. it was HER choice to walk away from the situation, to be what my dad calls a "fair weather friend"--there when life is sunny, runs away when it rains. i didn't MAKE her do anything.

it's difficult to keep that tenet in mind. i always feel like i could have done more, or differently, and that would have changed the current situation. true, but for whatever reason, the cards played this way.

no use crying over spilled milk. there's always a cat to lap it up, or a towel handy.

besides, gloria gaynor's voice is belling in my head: i will survive.

dreaming like a warrior queen

anyone who's read my blog for a while probably is aware that i have strange dreams. dan generally just shakes his head when i recount my inter-cranial night time epics.

around the full moon, they get more vivid. sometimes more wild, sometimes more real--i can't describe what it's exactly like. but it's always very visceral. being as we're only a few days from full moon, i expect that i'll have the normal range of strange.

i can control my dreams, ie, if i need it to stop because it's too scary, or wake myself up, etc. often i just watch things unfold, to see where my unconcious mind wanders.

kind of like putting a radio tracker on a moose, and then watching it ramble around on the gps.

***

last night i dreamed that i came home from work and there was a gathering in my living room; everyone in our normal gaming group, some just arriving, some camped on the sofa. dan, eero, corpse, and an old gaming buddy, terror. and sitting off to the side, serena.

i stopped when i came in. walked into the kitchen. dan came in and said, "i was just as surprised as anyone else. she just showed up." i said, "why is she here?" and he said, "i think she thought she could just come back like nothing had happened." as he walked back into the living room she said something about where everyone else was; dan replied that it didn't matter because darin wouldn't talk to her anyway, when he and cathy got here. which was the case. they walked in, looked at serena, and darin asked dan to go for a walk. corpse and i were to meet them somewhere else along the way and go out for dinner, as corpse had just helped us move something heavy.

i tried to stay away from that side of the room. chatted with cathy, who left soon after darin took and dan took a hike, with the understanding that i would drop him off at home when i found them.

corpse and i got in the car and went looking for the boys. across town, we found them sitting in this huge group of people, on the ground at a low table. they'd found some kind of training camp; dan was sitting eating bean-less chili and some cheese bread. i asked him what he was doing--he said that it was free, all he had to do was show up every day and they would teach him to fight. behind me a man was pounding a heavy stake into the ground, about as big as a fencepost. darin said he would demonstrate; he stood up and squared off with the post, and then slammed his hand into it. dan joined him. i could hear the smack of their skin on wood, hear the shouts of encouragement from people behind me, see little splinters flying off into the cold night air.

darin decided to go home for the night; he was going to walk dan to the restaurant, which was some distance off in the woods. corpse headed off with them. i went home to change clothes. i dug through my laundry basket in our living room, looking for something clean. serena moved over to sit nearer to me. i picked out my clothes and got up to leave. there was no one else in the living room, so she followed me outside. "do you want me to come with you?" she asked. "no," i said. "you can take the picture in the living room and your coke bottles in the garage and your shoes upstairs." and i walked away.

when i got to the restaurant and relayed my tale, dan asked me why i wasn't more of a bitch to her. i said that i couldn't be. there was no point in wasting energy. i'd wasted enough, waiting for her to want to talk. i'd wasted more, when she made the one effort to make contact, and i responded politely and heard nothing more. i felt i was done waiting, i explained.

after dinner corpse went home. (it's a dream, who knows how he got home...) dan and i walked up the lakeshore to meet my mom, who was cleaning out my grandma's house. the rest is blurred; there was something about some painted stones that were worth a lot of money, and the stones were lost, we recovered them but there was a fight with some kind of water demon or something.

at the end of the dream, just before i woke up, i was walking across a parking lot with a child. i told the child to go into the motel; it was one of those one-story places, light blue siding, black trim. the child went in the door and a pale gray bird flew into my hair, the size and shape of a barn swallo. tangled up and flapping, pulling little hairs like pin-pricks on my scalp. i swung my hair around; it was longer in the dream, just as curly. the bird tangled further up, closer to my head. that whole part was quiet--the bird made tiny struggling noises, i could hear my breathing, and hear the lake lapping shore in the distance, my feet stepping on the pavement.

finally it was free. it flopped around on the ground, and then shot me a panicky look, and flew off.

i laughed with the people in the motel room--dan, my mom, her sister, some cousins i think. and then i woke up.

***

i don't feel any different. the only two things staying with me are the explanation i had to give dan as to why i wasn't more mean to her, and the bird, tugging in my hair.

do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. in more witchy terms, do as thou wilt, an it harm none--other people, the earth, your cat, your self. i don't want to cause harm to serena. it would get me nowhere, except ashamed of myself for acting at that level.

before battlestar galactica last night, i watched a two hour presentation on the history channel about boudica, the queen of the iceni. back in the day (60 ad, to be exact) her husband was ruler of the iceni people; his pact with rome was peaceful, his lands offered tribute. in his will he deeded the land to the emperor of rome, and his two daughters, as was common practice: women were equals of men, most taught weaponry and war. prasutagus died; rome stepped in. they flogged boudica when she resisted, and raped her daughters.

in retaliation, she raised an army of over 50,000 celts and ransacked the nearest roman town, then the next, and the next, until she came face to face with the last few roman legions on the island, where they fell in defeat, victims to a significantly advanced military.

the program ended with the caveat that while she did what no other uprising had or would ever do, boudica also caused her people devastating losses.

i don't want to find that, in my self. i don't want to purge myself to the point of taking damage for my own actions--i'm aware, and it's pointless to do so. i identify all too well with boudica's need for blood, need for revenge. part of me wants to lash out and cause pain, wants to raise my fists and steel against what caused me grief. but in the end, i don't want my actions to stain my internal landscape to the same point.

if you dig down deep enough in london, you find a layer of red soil; that is the era of london burning at boudica's hand.

habits

i've got a lot of habits, mainly bad ones. to name a few:

1. i eat WAY too much chocolate when i get emotional
2. i scavenge thrift stores like crows on roadkill
3. i never call in sick to work

today i made an exception. i went to work...and came home. my stomach is just kinda wonky and it felt a little outside my realm of existence to be there. luckily i didn't have anything pressing to finish, so i told my coworkers and boss and here i am.

home.

***

there's a lot that went on in february. i feel like i'm unraveling as i mull over what all was stewing in the brainpan during that 28 day month--a real goulash of leftover bits, nonsense, and ignored emotion.

three things made up the bulk of my mental broth.

first was in early february. dad's two year anniversary of open heart surgery. it still makes me cringe a little to consider the scar on his chest, and how it came to be there. i think back to that day in the hospital, sitting there petrified and laughing.

the second was later in the month, on february 21st. three years ago, my dear cari lost her mother in a car accident.

and third was my own rollover into decade number three.

everything kind of piled up. as i peek back into the mess, i see it like three cars heaped and crushed on the highway, more slowing and crunching behind those three.

dad's surgery is something that my mind still clings to, in difficult moments. this morning as i drove to work i considered the death of a minnesota baseball legend, kirby puckett. he had a stroke yesterday and died last night. two saturdays ago i walked with my dad, upright and mobile, to support the american heart association--whose sole purpose is to educate and prevent heart attacks and strokes. i thought about my uncle, whose life has been shaped in so many different ways by his stroke, and who has had to re-imagine where his path travels. it all slammed together in a neat package, and i got a bit misty.

cari's mom came to me in a dream at the end of january. i woke up thinking that i had to get the spare room ready, because vicki was going to be staying overnight. now, vicki never came to my house. but i had this feeling as though she were arriving soon, despite the fact that she's been gone so long.

the girlie weekend up north coincided with the time that she died. it seemed fated that we celebrate our friendships, because vicki lived her life like a celebration. i miss her more for cari's sake than my own; but i do miss her.

and then my own wheel, turning: age.

birthdays are just like habits--only this habit is enforced by a much more rigid structure than my random purchase of chairs that need reupholstering. the calendar keeps marching along. i can file a complaint, but it's just that: a complaint.

it's been a long year since my last birthday. a good year, a bad year. i could file a complaint with the universe that it wasn't as good a year as perhaps it could have been--but it would be disregarded and ignored, along with any praise i might heap upon that same time frame.

the events that happened, happened. truths unfolded, stories revealed, history made.

***

i write when i need to write, when i feel the words pressing up in my chest and blurring my vision. i write because i have to write. i write out of habit, just like i eat chocolate. pavlov's dogs may have been more consistent than my own sporadic tapping, but if chaos is the constant, it can then be consistent, can it not?

this month reminds me that spring is shooting up through winter, grass through snow. the ice drips on the patio. the seasons turn, a habit larger than i can imagine.

awol

yeah, i've been awol for a while. dan reminded me the other day that i had only posted 3 times in february...not much, and i'm long winded, too. (;

thank you all for birthday thanks!!! (: (: (: (: (:

work's been nuts; lots of overtime for a few weeks, and now of course there's a moratorium on it, which means that you don't take lunches and then you have to come in late or take a long lunch...which piles up and becomes a longer workday, anyhow. ya'll know how that goes.

girls weekend up north was fabulous! we had a great irish dinner at brighid's cross, and then trooped across the street, where we did shots and gabbed and sang along to the jukebox and laughed until our cheeks hurt.

by cheeks i mean the ones on my face. (;

the next day cari and i had lunch at a diner, and i drove home. stopped on the way to do a drive by hugging in st cloud with my parents, and then jumped back on the road again.

the following weekend dan and i drove back to st cloud for a BUSY saturday. by 730 am we were at the st cloud mall for my dad's heart walk--which went VERY well! the wednesday before, i brought the donation form to work and passed it around the office. between my immediate coworkers and my own contribution, we had 220$. i called in a favor from a sales rep and she drummed up 200$ from the sales reps! the actual total was 420.00, and my company (despite seeming like slave labor at times) matched the full amount. on friday night, when we got home, i gave dad the folder. of course he got teary--he's just like me, never expects anyone to do anything nice for him. i think total, with his contributions and mine and my company's, he pushed over 1200.00! it was beautiful!

my mom, my dad, myself, dan and my bro in law, brett, all walked. halfway through my brother showed up, a little hung over, and walked the rest of the race with us. i think we were done around 9. on the way home we stopped to visit my sister at the eye clinic; she's got a new office and my parents had yet to see the remodel. got a tour and went home to clean up around 1030.

when we got there, my brother was already downstairs, playing with my sister's dog, maura. my mom gave him crap about wrestling with the dog and dave said he hadn't yet, because she'd torn apart a kleenex box and left evidence all over the crime scene.

the actual total destruction points was as follows:

1 book of my mom's
1 box of kleenex
1 plastic glass coaster
2 books i loaned my sister (who left them on the coffee table the night before)
1 tube of vanilla flavored toothpaste (mine)
1 toothbrush (mine)
1 toothpaste holder (mine)
and 1 comb (mine)

(sensing a trend yet?) i think it was the cat odor that clings to me.

anyway, maura my canine niece gave me a gift certificate to barnes and noble, so that i can replace the book that was most damaged (Love in the Asylum by Lisa Carey). the book was acutally missing only a small bit of the front cover, but most of the first 50 pages of the book, too. the other book (Hula Done It by Maddy Hunter) has tooth marks in the bottom corner, but is still quite readable.

spent the afternoon visiting; i rarely get to see david. it's like when you watch national geographic on tv and they show only night shots of the animal, because it's nocturnal and reclusive. dave's not a reclusive type, but he's also not one of my sisters, who like to hang out and chat over coffee or shopping.

around 7 or 8 we drove to becker, mn, for a benefit concert my sister had organized; she volunteers at a domestic violence shelter. it was all heavy metal, which is usually my music of choice. the first concert raised about 700.00, so she was hoping to make a little more than that with this one since the first was on a sunday and this was on saturday. the bar was smokey (ish) and the first band was okay. the second band was right up my alley--dark, crunchy and the singer's voice was amazing. kind of peter steele from type o negative, but not so low that you can't hear the song. got the cd and have listened a few times, and still really like it!

around 12 another band was coming on, and they had the executive director of the shelter speak before them. she was a gal my mom's age, who clearly did NOT belong in the bar. very nice, good speaker. one of the dj's from the radio station supporting the benefit got up and talked about her experience with domestic violence. the band started playing and we both went, uh, no. the sound was good but neither dan or i liked the lead singer. i moseyed over to beth to tell her we were sneaking out, but she insisted we had to stay...so we stayed. before the next song, the band said, "there's a girl in the bar celebrating her 30th birthday--kim, this one is for you. it's called victory song. "

it was very nice to be noticed, but i'm an under the radar girl. i was petrified that they were going to ask me up on the stage, or have me stand up, or something. beth came back for hugs goodbye and such, and we left around 1230. instead of driving back to my parents house, we just drove home and slept in on sunday. thereby avoiding mass on sunday morning.

yes, i'm a bad little recovering catholic girl. (;

tuesday the girls at work brought in lunch and cake, and then we met family for dinner at this organic restaurant on the north side of the cities. it was good, but somewhat bland. at the end of dinner, the staff brought out a peice of cheesecake and the restaurant sang to me.

*sigh* so much for under the radar.

wednesday night i met coworkers after work for a quick drink, and then thursday...cripes. what did we do on thursday? oy. anyway, yesterday morning we had breakfast with friends at our favorite breakfast cafe--their syrup is AMAZING! homemade maple warmed with butter...gaaaaaaaaaah. now i want more! (; did some shopping yesterday night, stopped at blockbuster for movies but couldn't find the one i wanted so i ended up with mansfield park...which was okay. nothing special.

now it's sunday morning. i'm up. the house needs cleaning.

i'll try to be more consistent. being awol is easier done than said. (;