healthcare and bananas

so this morning i log onto my healthcare provider, aetna, to see about getting a counselor. i'd already located one that was in network and just had to, ostensibly, call. there's this nifty link about logging on to view claims, etc. so i log on and view my claims and NONE of my labwork is covered from the last dr's visit.

now i had good healthcare up north; used to be blue cross blue sheild, which covers everything and then some. aetna apparently doesn't work the same way. i should maybe have braced myself. but i didn't because last time i went to the dr it wasn't that bad.

which makes me wonder about the bill in my in box from the hospital; do i pay it or not?

i'm not sure anymore what's making me feel ill. it does make me sick to watch dan jump through all the hoops just to see a psychiatrist, and see the county slowly light said hoops on fire. we're not tigers or lions or bears, to have to show off our paces in order to qualify, are we? it's not fair to treat people who are sick in any manner of the sort.

if you need a fricking band-aid, you don't have to apply for one at the courthouse. same should apply if i need to see a doctor for any reason. i should not have to worry about who is providing the band aid. i should not have to worry about how long it's going to take me to get one--will i bleed out before someone finds one? should i live in fear that the band aid will break my bank account?

i don't want to have to ask for help from a counselor. it's hard enough as it is to think myself into the mantra of "yes, you want to call" when i see the hoops through which others leap, blind and mute. i'm not a reformer, and i'm not a stand-up-and-fighter, but this is getting on my last nerve. i don't want to see any more faces or bills or nameless claims telling me that there's nothing i can do except for suck it up and take it.

when i was a kid in church there was always this big focus at christmas about not having enough room at the inn, and how grateful mary and joseph must have been to have been let in to use the feeding area of the cows and such. i feel like i am witness to this no room at the inn mentality, in modern times. if you need help, there should be no fear and no need for money; someone should have doors that open regardless of your status in the state.

if you can't tell, i've been pissed off about this for days, probably months. ever since dan saw his therapist, and his therapist told him to call the county, and the county told him to see a dr and call the social security administration, and he saw the dr and called the ssn and is still waiting for the county again.

why? what does it do? he needs help NOW, not tomorrow. he needs meds NOW, not three weeks from now. everything we've read indicates that bipolar people do much better in therapy when they are medicated--because it allows them control of their moods, or at least evens them out, enough to make the therapy tools useful. so what's with this ridiculous holding pattern?

i see what he's going through, and i don't even want to start. not because i know i need meds or anything; just because i don't want to have to go through the same rigamarole. in the end, i tell myself that all his trials will be worth it--he will eventually get all the things he needs to put himself together again, and he will be the better for it.

but for the time being, i see him bleeding. i see him being leached away by his inner wounds. there is nothing i can do to help him but stand by and hold gauze onto those wounds and pray that we can stanch them until the government comes around and is able to give him better treatment than this haphazard support structure that's trying to hold him up now.

i think knowing that you are just the structure, that you are part of the crutch but not feeling like you're part of the cure--that's hard. that you're just another toothpick in the barn, just another pebble in the great wall--which apparently is supported by federal laws, if you're bipolar.

where are those laws now? where are they? i want an answer. i want to call someone and say, do you see this man? do you see what his brain is doing to him? do you understand that by taping things in place, you're not damming the river? it's still here, all of it.

so for another weekend we'll sit at home and try to scrape together hope, take our minds off the inevitable delay of monday and the start of the same cycle.

for now, i'll focus on what is good--dan's running a game tonight, i have a good book to read, and if i don't go up to kitchi tomorrow for my dear friend cari's birthday, i'll get to go to the gay pride parade with my friend nathan on sunday. well, actually i'll be at the parade; nathan's marching, proud in a lavender satin cowboy hat. and for now, i'll eat my banana, because i have bananas today, and at least there's that. (:

quickly

i told dan the other day that sometimes he had to allow me time to catch up to where he was at mentally. sometimes you talk on the phone and arrive home and he's cycled completely in a different direction. it's kind of frustrating, kind of exhilirating, kind of human. today i came downstairs and felt the same way, and dan actually said that sometimes he needs to catch up with the rest of the world too, not always vice versa.

we talked a bit this morning about how therapy is going to change him, how meds might change him, how his approach to dealing with things is going to be what changes most. i finally thought about how my life before dan patterned me for a life with dan--dad was pretty mercurial before he got on blood pressure meds and had heart surgery, and his anger often shaped the way dinner went, etc. i think that the up and down aspect of life with my father created in me the acceptance to deal with people who were just as bipolar as dan is. i think about the rocks i carry in my pockets and how they were formed over millions of years to be just this shape, just this color, just this size, and how over the span of 30 years a human soul can take on much the same form.

i think a lot now about the way that our relationship works--the words we choose, the way we work together and the way we don't, the interactions, the conversations, the delicate dance. part of me wants to rewind and go back and pretend that nothing happened; that's the part of me that is procrastinating calling the therapist, finding out if aetna covers therapy, finding out about anything that might be deemed "progress." the other part of me, the other half, is overjoyed. more than half, really--dan has unearthed a lot of hidden things that needed to see the light of day. but the most precious thing that has been unearthed has been the friendship that we have always had, and the willingness to discuss things.

time has fermented this relationship; we're comfortable with each other enough to actually talk and be honest. for a long, long time we were comfortable with each other, but i am not sure we were entirely honest.

there's sweet and sour with everything in life; sometimes more sour, sometimes more sweet. the sour part of the past 3 weeks has been feeling betrayed by someone's brain chemistry; the sweet has been the comprehension and the understanding that there is a reason. the sour has been realizing that you've been living in some kind of dream world, and that you have to leave it; the sweet has been realizing that the dream world wasn't always a dream, that sometimes it was a nightmare and there is a reason for that nightmare (kind of like eating mexican and then wondering why your belly has turned to fire...) the sour of the past few weeks has been the ups and downs; the sweet is realizing that there is hope.

it's all balanced out by the education. i've done more reading about depression, mania and being bipolar and living with someone who is bipolar, in the last week, than i have in my whole life. right now dan and i are reading simultaneously "a brilliant madness," by patty duke and gloria hochman. thus far we are both giving it 5 stars--one chapter written by patty about how bipolar disorder affected her life, the next by gloria about the medical steps that can be taken and a much more clinical look at things. nothing is written, however, over or under your comprehension level, which is much appreciated because both of us read a ton. definitely recommended.

the education, the knowing--that has been sweet. i can look back and see so many events that came to fruition and caused unknowable pain in our combined past, and pin it on two things--dan's bipolar swings, and my depression. together it's like two addicts, trying to find solace in each other, never stopping the cycle.

the last three weeks have been like shedding clothing i didn't know i had on. i could come up with more metaphors but it's redundant. enough can be said by just saying this: i'm glad, with my soul, that dan finally broke this cycle. i'm glad that by doing so he has turned over a rock and found something immesurably wonderful: himself. i'm glad that by doing so, he's allowed me to search and find myself, and that together in the looking, we've found an honest friendship that i didn't know i was missing as much as i did.

i said this would be quick and so far it has been. i've only been typing a little bit now. i need to go do some laundry and maybe revel a bit in the blue, blue sky.

i've been reading the tao te ching by lao-tzu at night, and it's been comforting in its zen. have to share a spot here. it's all about balance. (: this translation is by stephen mitchell.

36
If you want to shrink something,
you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something,
you must first allow it to flourish.
If you want to take something,
you must first allow it to be given.
This is called the subtle perception
of the way things are.

The soft overcomes the hard.
The slow overcomes the fast.
Let your workings remain a mystery.
Just show people the results.

hindsight

so dan got a diagnosis today: bipolar disorder I. at least it's a name. i was reminded forcibly of talking to serena about when she was diagnosed with lupus after being sick for so long, and uncomfortable, and finally having a name and an approach to the problem, and the utter sense of relief this brings.

it's not the end of the road; it's finding your spot on the map, and realizing that it's a long way but that there is a way.

since three weeks ago, when dan had his self-professed and therapist-sanctioned "psychotic break," we've known there is an elephant in the house. it was probably mastadon sized. but after a while you just keep averting your eyes and making believe that it's really not there.

now the elephant has a name. probably still won't come when called, or stop pooping in the living room for a long time, but it has a name.

on saturday morning i woke up with this feeling that i had to face the fear and put education on my side, and i searched online for much of the morning for answers to the therapist's original feeling that it was bipolar disorder. i read up until i was nearly bored. and it helped. it helped because even if we weren't sure that this was the exact elephant in the house with us, i could now tell it was an elephant of some kind.

there's a lot of work to be done. a lot of demons to face and a ton of issues to resolve, or heal, or learn to live with. but it's a start, and that's all i can ask. at this point i just want dan to be healthy, and me, and hope that the start we have taken--naming this moody elephant--will put us on a track to being more healthy and living a life that we want to live, separate or together.

i can look back on the lives we've lived thus far and see where the breakdown was, all the times we stared at each other between the legs of this gray goliath and thought we had reached comprehension and understanding. i can look back and say that i wish this had happened years ago, because it would have freed up our lives and our feelings much sooner. i've communicated better with dan since that thursday than i think i ever have. i know i've said it before, but it's the truth. i've always wanted this honesty; i guess i just never knew how to both ask for it and demand it and value it.

hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. the elephant has always been in the room.

i think i'll name mine "imelda."

patience

they say it's a virtue
but i can't see how it can be
i'm tired of waiting and waiting
of the apathy that i see as patience
i want to do
something
for you
that will lift or support
much in the manner of my own beloved
bra
but my hands are tied
by fear.

***

so it's saturday and dan's at a temp job that is boring beyond belief. i understand boring (serena, you'll recall with me RUST) and i understand temporary (my sister sara and i worked cleaning apartments for two weeks one time) and i understand the need for money. i am trying very hard to be supportive and not be judgmental, but sometimes it becomes difficult. i dislike walking around my own house on eggshells--but that is the state of the union and eventually i will become used to it, and it won't bother me.

which is my greatest fear.

i don't want to be numb. i want dan to have something positive to hang onto. i want him to see that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that there are things to hang onto, and i understand that right now he's not seeing it because it's buried. i just need some support too--and this job is going to help out, even minutely. he is seeing it as a nail in the coffin of failure; i'm seeing it as a reprieve, even momentary, of the amounts of money i see going out of my account to feed us.

of course, he's not eating much right now, so it's not that large of a dent, i suppose.

the mental health center isn't open on saturdays, so i am unable once again to make an appointment until monday. i'm hoping to set aside some time on monday morning to actually call, but i know that i need to get into work fairly early in order to catch up on last week. i've been so unfocused at work lately, so uncaring about the output that i'm creating, or rather lack thereof, that i've created more work for myself. now it's time for damage control, i suppose.

anyway, i'm off to make my kitchen floor shine... (;

topsy turvy

our friend darin tells this awful joke about these two horses in this field, topsy and turvy. i'm not going to go into it because it's long, it's boring, and in the ten years i've known darin, i've heard it about three thousand times. or so.

but the name does describe how things are going.

topsy. and turvy.

today was better than most have been recently. dan was in a good mood, and that makes life a bit easier. i have to admit it. i'm always worried because i don't know what kind of mood he will be in, and his mood dictates the moods of those around him. i try hard, for the most part, to zen myself into a place that doesn't allow me to be affected by the waves he creates around himself. but a lot of time it's beyond me to escape those waves. i hold out hope and i have faith in that the therapist he sees will give him tools he can use in his life to make it easier on him, to make his hurts not so bad, to make life livable and likeable again. i also hope that the therapist i see will be able to do the same for me--maybe give me tools that will help motivate me into finishing my degree, looking for a new occupation, moving towards owning a home, etc.

there has to be a better way. something that is less like living on a slip n' slide and more along the lines of a pretty carousel or something akin. right?

it makes it easier to know that you are not alone, that there is hope and that there are other people out there who are both willing to help and at the same time going through issues that are like the ones i am facing, or dan is, or anyone. it give me something to look forward to. today was such a good day. it gives me hope that days in the future can be like this, that there is beauty in the leftovers of whatever it is that is happening.

i cling to the quote from delenn, about how growth happens but there is pain. sometimes there has to be pain. sometimes there has to be sorrow and hurt, in order for joy to taste so good, in order for hope to be so fragile.

i think there is. maybe. i'm hoping. will keep you posted. for now i'll paste some khalil gibran in here because he merits exploration, and because his words really do apply:

from The Prophet: On Joy and Sorrow

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

the good, the bad, and the unfocused...

nathan wrote the other day about breaking the lens on his camera, and how he was trying to get used to the new lens and how it affected his picture taking.

i'm feeling about the same way.

the lens through which i viewed life for a very long time has been blurred. it's cracked. it affects everything that i see. rose tinted and sharp, it's overly critical and unfocused. can a lens be confused? or can it just confuse?

i'm not sure.

in the end, the reality is that i need a new one. it feels like dan does, too. the way we look at the world has become skewed, and so has the way we look at each other. it feels like forever until monday, when i can find out who my insurance covers in order for me to see someone about my situation, and i know dan is in the same boat. you just want the time to go by so that you know where you're going to end up.

i'm going to go all geeky in analogies, here: it's like playing WoW online, and having lag. you don't know where you're going to end up. all you can see is this big gray or blue or brown splotch and you're stuck there until the system catches up to you. you're not sure, the whole time you're waiting, if you're going to un-lag and be underwater, or un-lag and be where you want to be. or perhaps the question isn't that you're where you want to be, just that you're somewhere.

i can look at a map and tell you where i'd like to go, to visit. i can think about the media i own and tell you what i want to hear or read or work on. i have a vague idea of where i want to be in 5 years. but i want the 5 years to be done now, so i can see if i'm there.

rice is in the steamer; we're supposed to be having teryaki beef but dan's out for the count upstairs, and after the day--work this morning after very little sleep, trying to rummage sale and getting downpoured on, slogging back to car and driving home to change, hitting the grocery store--i'm tired too. every cell in my body feels somewhat dehydrated and sleepy.

and my rose tinted vision of life, albeit slanted and messy with fingerprints from trying to fix it, is now fogged with nap-page.

short post

my shins hurt. guess i've been overstriding when i walk. that or i need new shoes. may have to experiment and do something about the shoes. maybe watch my strides, too. i know where the overstriding comes from: walking with tall people. (;

on a related shoe note, my beloved sister sara got my birks back. they'd been at a shoe repair place since last fall, after something happened and the cork outgrew the sole. they've been done being fixed for a while, but i kept forgetting to pick them up.

so monday we go up to sara's and dad is all excited about showing me his belly (which looks better, but also looks like he got the rough end of the bar fight, lots of bruising) and also that he'd made potatoes for dinner. i was like, whatever, okay, proud of you, good on ya, etc. there's a turkey roaster on the table and i know my mouth started watering at the thought of tasty taters. we chat for a while and finally sara takes the top of the turkey roaster off--and there are my sandals!!! she apparently had a pair of her own shoes in for fixing and asked if he had any birks left, or if he sold them if no one came to pick them up. the shoe repair guru said that other shoes he'd sell, but birks he kept because someone always comes back for their birks.

which is the truth. birks fit like no shoe i have ever worn--they're formed to my feet and i never get tired of walking when i've got my birks on.

unfortunately, they're not designed for exercise walking.

but hiking, wandering, exploring--birks keep your feet happy and that keeps the rest of your legs happy, which helps your hips, and your spine...so on and so forth.

so my feet, the base of operations, have been overjoyed since monday.

(; thank you, fast eddie, god of shoe repair, and waiter for slow birk wear-ers. and thank you sister sara!!!

day is done

i'm rootless and wandering
gypsy woman i close my eyes and everywhere
is
home
nowhere is welcoming
and yet i belong
all over.

***

the dr was, to say the least, refreshing. she didn't do a full exam, which was nice. listened to what i had going on and made the astute observation that it really hasn't been long enough to judge, as far as the "female" problems go. so for now, birth control, to keep my cycles in order, and hopefully to cut down both on time of cycle and severity. i'm sick of being sick every other two weeks--cranky, bitchy, whiny, crampy, bloated, all around olympic caliber p.m.s. so that will be nice, once i figure out these pills.

i never went on the pill before. was on depo provera but hated it, except for the fact that i didn't have a cycle at all. that was nice. but i didn't feel right, and there's no way to explain it other than that.

so for now, monitor.

blood pressure was still up, but not as horrible as last time i was in. yay.. the dr said that my depression could be amplified by the meds for the blood pressure...so another wait and see. she did not want to medicate for the depression right away; VERY relieved. i'm on enough meds now. don't need another at the moment. she gave me a referral to the mental health unit, which will ask questions and then set me up with someone who might be able to help me.

so another step in the right direction. i think.

i'm just facing now the work that comes with trying to fix your life. i have to start walking every day. i have to start taking my blood pressure on a regular basis. i have to take more tablets. which doesn't seem like much if you're on them, but when you're just starting...it's a bit much. i have to see a therapist, and see if i can get my life in order.

maybe then, when i am accustomed to being healthier and feeling better, maybe then i can proceed with other areas of my life.

for months now dan has been telling me that i should have gone back to school to be a vet tech. maybe i should. or at least look into what is required. and then make a decision. i think back to when i was in high school and college and think about how much i wanted to be a veterenarian, and how i discounted the whole thing due to math. and then i think about my day to day workload, and how much of it is math, and how perhaps this is life's way of showing me that i've got nothing to fear and nothing to lose.

but sometimes it is hard to see the lessons life is offering, when you're so closed off that you can no longer see them.

i have to admit, i am lonely down here. i seem to have lost my boyfriend, and my best friend, and it feels like it's because i don't have the system requirements to keep up. serena's out west; cari's up north, and cathy goes to bed ten minutes ago. tangee has a child; tish is kind of a tv nut. i miss my girlfriends, and i miss having people to hang out with and communicate with, too. i can't afford a better computer now, so i guess it's just a matter of making do with what i have. just tired of making do. i hear dan and serena talking--the tapping of keys online--behind me, and i feel so far out of the loop that i cannot describe it.

it isn't that i don't have friends; i know i do, and i know, from the outpouring of support lately, that they are there---AND THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE FOR ME, ALL OF YOU! i just wish everyone were closer, so that a cup of coffee didn't have to be planned out two weeks in advance. i guess i need someone else in the area who is a) awake b) cheap and c) easily amused. LOL in retrospect, i moved here, so i guess it's up to me to find this person.

it's just another one of my molehill-mountains.

lucky for me, the shepherd's pie is almost done, and then it' s off to bed. day is done. one step closer, to something.

heavy

my limbs
are weighed down by procrastination
the fear of failure
the lure of temorary insanity

i'd like to bait them free, hang feathery bits
on trees, the car, perhaps even
people
just to get myself out of my gray lake
but it's not going to happen
alone

so i sit typing
each finger, one thousand pounds
sinking into your keyboard
i should be typing
on my own but i can't
move
three feet
west.

***

today is my doctor day. i have an appointment at 1030 am but i'll be leaving around 10 in order that i might arrive early, to be safe. this time i will bring a book; last time i didn't and there was only one parenting magazine.

today i'm very nervous. perhaps that is what is inspiring the feeling of simultaneously being free of everything and weighted down by all of life's generalties.

i'm terrified that there's something wrong that cannot be fixed. with my body, with my brain, with my beloved. who is only my beloved--i'm not exactly beloved by him at the time being. i'm scared that i have poisoned our relationship, but i know that to be in a relationship there has to be two people--two individuals coming together. and right now, we're not two individuals. we're barely one person spread thin between two people.

i'm scared that the doctor won't understand that i'm depressed, and that i don't know how to fix it. i'm scared of crying all the time, of bleeding all the time, of having to just live in limbo forever. i don't know why it takes things like this to wake me up; why can't i wake up on my own and see that there is a need for help?

why does it take such great pain?

i think about that quote from babylon 5, about how the only way to grow is to constantly go through states of pain, in which you are being born. i try to focus and hang onto that quote because it brings me sanity. finding that bit of sanity reminds me of getting water at my grandma altobelli's house, on hot days when i was a kid--it was always in this greenish container with a white spigot in her fridge, and tasted so cold and so crisp and slightly metallic.

maybe it reminds me of easier times, when perhaps whatever it is that is flawed between my brain cells was dormant.

these past few years have been difficult. lots of tumultuous things happening--trying this relationship with dan again, moving to the Cities, being away from friends, dad's heart bypass surgery, my cat slowly wasting away, my car slowly wasting away, more surgery with dad, his imminent retirement, and now my uncle, dying, or clinging to life.

understanding that i'm probably depressed.

despite what the websites say, it does feel like something to be ashamed of. it's like, why can't i deal with the problems i have? why can't i face life? why is joy so fleeting? does it have to be? is it like this for everyone? does everyone feel worth so little? i feel like burdening my problems on someone else is just weakness.

but maybe that's my dad talking, when i was young. "why are you crying? i'll give you something to cry about..." etcetera. i'm afraid of the reprecussions--what if i lose this creative vein that is tapped when i am feeling down? what if i can only write poetry and fiction when i'm depressed? does being depressed open up channels to the creative spoodge of the universe and make my hands move in nouns and verbs?

i'm afraid to find out.

i'm afraid to change my world--despite the fact that it's not what i want, and despite the fact that my relationship is not healthy, i'm terrified to lose what i have. i'm usually not open to change, especially when it's not my choice of change. i don't like not having options. i don't like being forced into one thing or another.

but the other day, thursday, dan made me face a lot of things that i think have been hidden behind my gray veil for a long time, made me be honest about us and me and him. and the thing that i remember thinking, when he said that he would be open to outside help, was that i was so glad because that meant maybe i could have help, too.

i never thought about needing it. i never thought i did. but i think i do. and at this juncture, i'm more afraid of hurting than i am of changing.

so i'm going to the doctor. it's my big day. i'm going to find out what's wrong with my uterus and tell my doctor that i think i'm depressed. and we'll see what i find out.

the part of kim that's afraid of life is curled up in a corner trying not to cry, not to be ashamed, not to be embarrassed.

the part of kim that loves exploring things and learning is keyed up.

heavy and weightless. drowning and reaching for the lifeguard. closing one door and opening another. trying to be born, i guess.

i own a bitchy cat.

yesterday i spent the day shopping w/ corpse and cathy; corpse wanted women to help pick out his wardrobe again, just like 2 years ago when serena and i went out w/ him. dan was along that time too, and i almost wished he were with this time because i think that with only women picking out the clothing, corpse might be in for sore spots later...he may appear a bit "metrosexual." but what can we do now, return things? ha. i laugh in the face of good fashion. (;

dan and i had a good talk yesterday afternoon, and then he went off to spend time with serena, and i went off to drink wine w/ my girlfriends. thought it was going to be a sleepover, but i'm glad i came home because otherwise the cat would have woken up the rest of the household VERY early with her terrorist demands for fresh food.

as it was i'm up and i thought for sure i'd be able to sleep more than 7.5 hrs. not likely. i had some terribly bizarre dreams about being at a school ten years after a bus had crashed into it, and having to help my cousin janelle, who was trying to get a very old rottweiler and something that looked like a large apricot poodle to mate. don't ask me, i have no clue. it's not like i was watching animal planet yesterday, or at the dog park...who knows. there was a spot in the middle of the dream when i was standing in my living room, looking at my huge coffee table, where someone had penned a note in red ink on blue paper: kim, call your parents, very upset. i had a feeling it was about jed, and for a minute i forced myself to wake up, and then fell back asleep and into humping dogs. gah. why, brain, why?

so today we drive to river falls, wi, to help spoon and josh move. i'm glad of the activity because if i'm around the house i just find something to cry over. i'm chalking it up right now to everything that is going on, with the added bonus of being premenstrual and incoherently weepy already. as with all things it takes me forever to understand and wrap my head around them. case in point: dan's a computer gamer. it's taken me a long time, and i'm still working on it, for me to not be jealous of the time he spends on the computer, happily gaming. the better i understand it, the better i feel about it. but it still is time i cannot spend with him, because my computer has been reduced to word processor, just because of changing system requirements. i have to admit that amelia does look tiny and ancient next to dan and eero's modern behemoths. after typing on dan's computer too, i get on amelia and immediately have to put my waiting-in-line skills to use, because she's a bit on the slow side, in comparison.

either way. it'll be good to get out of the house. it'll be good to help someone else. it'll be good to step back for a little bit. i can't get out of my head long enough to make sense of anything right now. and as long as i have my cell phone w/ me, hopefully mom and dad will be able to make contact as needed. which means that jed won't be out of my head, either. it's like walking meditation--i have to force things out to have the silence in my head. shoo out the thousands of milling thoughts; the party's over. ask the emotions to leave, just until morning, just to get through. i suppose i've never applied my yoga stuff to everyday things--or maybe i have. i remember thinking at one point that for me cleaning is like meditation. i don't see why helping someone move cannot be grouped in the same category.

tomorrow we get together w/ my sister and her husband for a later lunch in the afternoon--sounds like burgers and such. i think dan is coming with me. i have no idea, because at the time i accepted, we were not in the situation in which we are now in. it hurts me that i'm not his best friend any longer. or maybe i am? i don't know. serena seems to have taken that place. even though dan says that i'm not being "set aside" i can't help but feel that i am.

i think it's back to the self-worth thing. hopefully a counselor or therapist can help me make sense of that feeling, and get this half-assed, haphazard life i lead turned around. i'd like to have goals, and see them completed. i'd like to not be afraid. my problem is that i turn everything into some insurmountable wall. when i was a kid my mom used to say that i turned molehills into mountains; it's not a far cry from where i am now. i don't know why; it seems like i should have the necessary tools, but they're just absent, or maybe forgotten. maybe i had them but lost them. who knows. it's useless at this point to gripe and whine over what i'm missing, or what i'm perceiving as missing, because someday soon i hope to regain and recoup and recover.

and my totally bitchy cat has now eaten and made a BIG stinky in the back hallway. so i'm off to do menial work like scooping the poop of felines. which, according to my cat, is the very reason i breathe... (;

clean sweep

you ever slipped and fell?

hit your ass on the ground SO hard that the wind just gets knocked out of you?

it's been one of those kind of weeks. i'm at the point where everything makes me cry because i am feeling quite hope-less.

but at the same time, i feel a sense of hope that perhaps is just tempered by it being different than the hope i had before.

i think that this is a turning point. a hard point, but a turning point.

to sum up: i've been having health issues for a bit now, mainly "female" issues that will hopefully be addressed on tuesday when i see the doctor. needless to say it's a bit stressful, as a woman, to just know that something isn't right, but not be able to point at it and say, that's the problem. it's internal. it's icky. that's enough.

my uncle is in the hospital, after suffering strokes again. they don't think it's anything right now but a matter of time. it's hard to think of my dad and his brothers minus number 3, but i know that jed would never want to live unless it was a life he wanted to live, and i know his brothers know that. it just is downright depressing--he's suffered through enough in life that death should not be this horrible hurdle, this pain-filled departure. and in the same breath, it's a release, and sometimes, growth is painful.

case in point: my stress number three: thursday dan had pretty much hit the low point in his life. or maybe this year. who knows. at any rate, there were lots of tears and sobbing involved, and it became something more, something that bared emotions and pared them down to the minimum: he needs help. i need help. we need help.

what was once an emotionally healthy relationship is not that any more. it's stemming from so many things, so many different items, that i can't put into words what they are. it's too much. we're both resenting each other, resenting where we are in life, and worst of all: blaming.

i never wanted it to be like this. i didn't realize that it had gotten so awful, for him. or for me, i suppose. i know that life doesn't hand you happiness on a platter; it's just not like that. but it shouldn't be like this either.

we both agree that we want to try. we want things to work. we have issues with trust, but we are both willing to see a counselor and see if there is a hope. i still love dan. i always will; he's a part of my soul, someone who inspires me and makes me want to do better. the problem is, we're both in the same rut--careers are not what we thought we were going to do, which dribbles over into life being not what we wanted. and then it's back to resenting the other person. mindless, endless loop.

i pray that something good can come of this, that perhaps we can take what we started with and make it into something good again, something healthy and something worth being a part of.

i'm very good at sweeping things under the rug. if i don't like where life is going, i hide. i stick my head in the sand and just wait until i think it's "over." in reality, it doesn't work that way. things happen, people interact, and words are spoken. and with or without you, life moves on.

i think that for a long time i've mistaken my own apathy for patience, and my own depression for someone else's. you often see what you want to see, and hear what you want to hear, whether that's good or bad. i thought that things were going along just fine; i could see that dan was depressed, and thought that i was being patient. in reality, we were both depressed, and i was once again being apathetic--if i wait long enough, it will pass.

but it doesn't. it doesn't ever pass. it comes back. it's karma, it's wishful thinking, it's whatever you want to call it. but it won't go away just by wishing it so. when dan said that he would accept help, i was tearily overjoyed. i was so glad, so glad, so glad--because part of me was thinking that was the only way i could ask for help, if he was going to as well.

in retrospect, it's a curious chain of events that leads you to the point we are at, the impasse that we have been at for years, or months, or days. i just am clinging right now to the hope of all hopes that perhaps we have a chance. is it possible that us, that dan and kim, could be over? do i want it to be? no, i don't. of all people i have met, dan is the one who makes me laugh, makes me smile, and understands me the best. he's like a peice of my own soul.

when i think about it, as a whole, i am so overwhelmed that i cannot see straight. i can't deal with all of it. and that's when my head wants to get popped into the ground. that's when i want to hide. usually, it is when i hide. i take myself into the ground, i bury myself in earth, i remove myself from existence because i have this mistaken belief that i am either not worth as much as i am, and that the world can get on just fine without me, or that when i open my eyes and snow white myself awake, the world will have changed and my prince charming, the one i knew when i was awake before, will be miraculously happy.

today i'm going to go over to tish's house for a night of wine and wise, witty women. i'm going to put my head in the sand about a few issues--just to get to tomorrow, and to get to the day after that, and the day after that, when maybe, just maybe, i can ask for help--and days after that when i can get the help i think i might need. maybe find the help that dan and i need.

so send some good energy this way. i'm not as hard up as others, but i'll take whatever is sent. (:

612 pm at work...

still at work. why, you ask? because modem is dead at home and i'm trying to keep up on bills and email in the interim. dan emailed today from the library to let folks know we were down; i'm sure he's disgruntled as the internet is a HUGE source of jobhunting for him.

so dad's out of the hospital as of last night. we got to the hospital at 11; he went in at 12 for surgery, and was out by 115 or so. in recovery for a bit and then we sat around giggling in his recovery room until about 4. home by 415. all in all, quick and easy. he's off this week, and then has only 2 weeks of work left before the big r: RETIREMENT. he's glad it's a short time, but i think mom is more glad. less stress equals happy family. it's going to be SO weird not to have to worry about dad being on call, missing holidays and family events, having time do just enjoy life. i'm so glad for him i could cry right here at my desk.

in other news, my uncle jed is stabilized. he went in last week w/ mini strokes. the man has no luck, but he has a support system that is awe-inspiring. people are praying for him, visiting him in hospital, doing what they can to keep us apprised of the situation (he's in CA and family is in MN). dad and i actually setup a website on sunday night for him at The Caringbridge. VERY simple and just for folks going through health issues, so that we can update as needed.

that is the last thing i need to do tonight before heading home. i'm tired, it's sunny out and i need to get into my car and head out, but i really want to check and see if there are any other updates. i gave dad a tutorial on how to post, and wrote up directions he can email to family and friends who have updates to post as needed, but i want to make sure that people are checking it. yesterday alone we had about 20 hits!!! which is cool. if anyone feels a need to check it out, drop me a msg and i'll email you the site addy. (:

i'm outtie--see ya'll later. (:

cats, light sabres, and paintball, oh my!

so my cat should be drawn and quartered. here's why.

friday we got the car packed and drove up to free beer weekend, mikey's offering of free beer, turkey, and a place to pop your tent. it's about a 2.5 hour drive, give or take with road construction. had lots of fun friday, ate the owens' wedding reception leftovers, which were quite tasty, and sat around the fire until quite late drinking the proffered free beer. the beer in question was mikey's home brew, and while lacking in carbonation, was quite tasty all the same.

there was talk of bears, wolves, and deer--none of which but the bear were scary sounding, as it sounds as though they're just not too afraid of humans. eep. so friday we go to bed (in the tent! yay! i love my tent!) nice and toasty warm under the new sleeping bags, and comfy on the air mattress. i can't sleep because i keep having to pee because of the beer. yay beer. and the later it gets, the more paranoid and overtired i get about the freaking bear.

i think i got up about six or seven times to pee. dan should be sainted because i kept waking him up to make sure there was no bear. and all through the night, no bear. i HATE outhouses. outhouses in the dark: fifty times worse. you laugh. i weep. (;

so we all are up and off the land by 830 or so to grab breakfast at the buckthorn in gordon proper (which is about 3 miles east of the cabin, has the greasiest breakfast ever, but is cheap and very appetizing...go figure). after breakfast everyone suits up (which takes about an hour) and by 11 we're all running through 5 acres of land with paintball guns.

that was quite theraputic. and warm. the players in this group keep their guns turned up so that it will leave a welt if you get hit. for the most part, that means lots of padding. cathy even wore a type of body armor vest. i just didn't care. i figured, if you're getting shot you should have it hurt. so i wore jeans and a t-shirt, and over that a thick fleece jacket, which eventually got traded out for a camo jacket. despite the fact that at the moment i can't afford a gun for myself, or camo wear, and borrowed a mask as well (thank heavens, because i got pegged twice in the mask!), and add to that that i didn't hit ANYONE but a plastic bottle, and the fact that my borrowed gun kept bursting paintballs when they were chambered and had to be cleaned out not once, not twice, but three times...i had a literal and figurative blast. can't wait to try my luck again. i'm hoping that by next year i will maybe be able to afford my own gear, instead of borrowing. but you never know. those guys all have way too much gear for one person to use anyway. so we'll see.

like i said, i only got hit twice, in the facemask. then i got hit once in the left boob, and once on the hand; neither left a mark. dan's got a couple welts on his arm, but nothing horrible, and nothing life-threatening. none of the ones that hit me broke open except for the ones on my mask. paintballs are water soluble, and apparently just break down when it rains, so the fact that the forest was decorated with sprays of orange, green, smurfy blue--not a problem. especially with the amount of rain we've been getting lately.

anyway. why is my cat going to die. let's get back to this.

so we showered, not at chrissy and mike's cabin, that's an outdoor and mikey didn't want to have to get it going and cleaned out, but at some free beer weekend folks' place down the road. quite possibly the smallest shower i have ever been in. but a shower all the same. it felt good to get rid of the deet and sweat, and check for ticks. i think i found a total of three wandering around, and then when we got back from showering, a teeny tiny one on my right hand that was determined to be one of the "bad" ticks--the lyme disease carrying fellas. once they start feeding you have to get them to back out--usually the only thing that works is a match. you light the match and blow it out, hold it to their hiney and they freak out and move back. of course, no one had a match (yes, camping without matches--everyone has lighters of some type; mikey was using a propane torch.) so darin picks up the torch and says something about me doing it. i was like, you have GOT to be kidding. so we find a little stick and he holds the torch and i try to get this pin-sized bug to back out. of course the stick, just smoldering and not even burning, just killed it--it was too tiny, and the stick was too big.

at the same time, darin's focused on the tick, and all of a sudden i realize that my other hand it hurting--because the propane torch is burning it. luckily we got it moved in time, and nothing serious happened. i have a small divot on my right hand, where the end of the stick was pushed on the teeny tick and burned not only the tick but also my hand. yay hand.

free beer weekend always has a fried turkey, too--which are amazing, if you ever have the chance to taste one. the oil locks in the turkey, so it's almost like it's steamed on the inside. so tender...and probably horrible for me. but at that point i'd had beer, and too many cookies to count, etc. so free beer weekend was definitely not fat free. but what can you do, other than starve? *sigh*

thunderstorms were supposed to move in last night up by gordon, and no one who was tent camping want to be there for them. so corpse, darin and cathy, and dan and i packed up the tents. eero was sleeping in his jeep and also decided to head home. by about 415 we were on the road, and made it home by 7. got almost everything put away right off the bat--food and supplies, mainly. still have to unpack the duffels but that's not as pressing as getting the cheese cooled. (;

dan slept for a while in the car, driving home. i ended up napping around 8 or so. then at 915 darin, cathy and corpse showed up and we went to the 950 showing of the latest installment in star wars...star wars: revenge of the sith.

it's first of all a foregone conclusion that anakin ends up being darth vader, and that the jedi go into exile. you already know that anakin's wife, padme, is going to have two kids, luke and leia. you're supposed to want to see the film to see the downfall. of the three prequel films, this was the best. but that's not saying much because the first two were schlock in my opinion, and the third was just a bit darker but still schlock. hayden christenson and natalie portman had better chemistry when they were offscreen from each other thinking about each other than they did when they were both in the same room. gag me with a spoon. the emperor, darth sidious, had horrible makeup. they spent a fortune on effects, and we end up with the emperor looking like a cross between whorf from star trek and bram stoker's dracula, as imagined by francis ford coppola. either was better defined and more believable than the dude on screen portraying the baddest of the baddies.

the other bothersome bit was anakin's downfall. it just didn't fit. the whine factor was so far off the screen that i could feel my teeth shaking. he's not an intelligent bad guy, and you can definitely see where luke gets his genetic innate whine. but it doesn't make for good movie making. you don't care enough about the good guy before he turns bad--you just want to laugh and tell him to suck it up. the final light sabre duel between obi-wan and darth vader goes on far too long, and is so fantastic that i dozed off.

could have been the drive or the lack of sleep the previous night. not sure. could have been the movie, too. i'm going to blame it on georgie lucas' horribly written dialogue and action scenes that were just plain old ridiculous. have ONE battle, in ONE place, and call it a day.

oh! oh! oh! and darth vader's helmet. i just about burst out laughing when the put the whole thing on--it was a nice sequence and all, but when the helmet actually got put on, there was a small thump, as if air was compressed out of the area between helmet and skull. it sounded for all the world like tupperware, and all i could think was, did they burp the air out of his helmet. and secondly, was that whole suit manufactured by rubbermaid? cause it would explain a lot...

so after the movie we went to perkins to discuss. home by 2 and in bed shortly thereafter, sleeping happily under covers and in the same building as FLUSH TOILET. it's the little things, really...

at some point in the night the door closes. i think i closed it because shiva was being such a pest. this is around 7, i think. dan hears her scratching and whining and lets her back in. she doesn't bother him; only me. i keep pushing her away, but it was a losing battle. the door had shut again, this time because we had the window open and i'm sure the pressure just pulled it shut. at any rate, she was trapped in the room with us, and hungry to boot--so i woke up by degrees for two hours--too tired to get up and just shut her out of the room, or give her the half a tin of wet food she wanted. (i'm not starving my cat, trust me. she's just a bitch about getting the wet food in addition to the dry food in the a.m.)

thus i am awake. unhappily watching my cat, now stuffed on ill-gotten iams turkey and giblets, watch the birds outside on the patio with unconcealed glee.

i should go shower. dad's having surgery tomorrow and i've got the day off, so i might drive up and see if mom wants company tomorrow, or help getting him home. but i'm not driving up until much later, because i'm sure that after i shower and eat lunch, i'm going to want a nap.

the quickest blog ever

this has to be under five sentences. had a great weekend, wore pink and black striped shirt AND a big pink flower in my hair, wedding was lovely, reception was laid back and relaxing, and sunday we watched shaun of the dead before hitting caribou and dropping serena at the airport. so lots of fun compressed into little time! next weekend we're in gordon wi for free beer weekend, camping and all that fun stuff. and i'm on line five so i'm off to work!!!

the fashionista speaketh

so she's not speaking much, but we were on the topic of wedding wear tonight. d and c informed the guests at large that it was casual. but i just cannot see wearing casual wear to a wedding in which the bride and groom are not going to be casually dressed. it just goes against every grain of my inner diva.

i WANT to shop for some strappy shoes. i WANT to get gussied up and flit around, looking nice. and i definitely WANT to look my best because fifteen years from now when we look back in photo format, i do NOT want to look crappy. i don't want to be wearing jeans that make my ass look huge. i don't want to wear shoes that are sloppy. if there's one area of my life in which i enjoy to excercise control, it's my clothing.

the rest of it...meh. whatever. i can live with a dirty house, with cat that poops outside the litterbox, with my bed on the floor. these are all transitory.

but clothing...clothing makes the person.

i had this totally zen moment yesterday at the grocery store. i guess it was actually monday. close enough. anyway. i'm standing in line and the lady in front of me reaches over to take the receipt from the cashier. in the bend of the cashier's arm, i see a scar.

not a big one. nothing life threatening. but a good two inch long, half inch wide scar. the cashier is blonde, and has slightly tanned skin, but the scar is lighter. not new, an old scar. the memory of something that was painful.

it makes me think of flesh, and how transitory it all is. in the end--you become bones, you go back to the earth, you become earth. the flesh and all its memories and sensations, the marvel of nerves knitted together and functioning--this is all forgotten.

that scar stood out to me. it's all passing. it's all a memory, either waiting to be had, or happening now, or already done. printed, set, finished.

all the way out to the car i thought about that scar. today, while we were discussing the merits of wearing clothing and the different levels of clothing, i thought about that scar--about how it would fade, in time. about how the girl whose arm crooked around it--how she probably could go for days without thinking about that scar and how it formed. it becomes a part of you that is so close you cannot see it.

clothing is transitory too. in the end it all falls apart and you're left standing naked. hopefully in a place that cherishes your nudity, and not in a job interview or somesuch that requires a sense of decency. gravity shreds cotton.

i think about the clothing i have. i think about the scars i have. the memories we attach to bodies and the adornments we put on these bodies. i remember the people who go before me--the bog man, the entombed, the people whose living relatives, whose future, packed them into earth with bits and peices of the lives they lead.

are we so attached to materials? i know that i can be. i enjoy them because they remind me of something i cannot quite put words around: immortality. memories are carried and made immortal only by the people who hold them. once you are gone, those immortal memories are gone too, just like the flesh.

but clothing lives on.

upstairs i have my grandfather's belt. it's a story in and of itself--if i remember correctly he did the tooling in the leather, and it's punched over and over by his awl. you can see when he made it, the size of his waist. and then by the time he passed away, how narrow his hips had become. after i'm gone, the memories of why it's punched so many times will also be gone. i can't write down enough on the back of a belt to sum up the soul i have attached to that long strip of leather.

which makes my grandpa and myself and my memories of him--transitory. passing. a breath in time. someone will use that belt in the future and think of it as theirs. they will give it new memories. eventually it will go back to earth too. but it's life will be a bit longer than mine, it's history more varied.

and makes that belt immortal.

so. in that vein. that makes what i wear on saturday quite relevant.

rain drops keep falling on my house

just when yesterday gave me hope that it'd be sunny and bright today, it's raining and wep. the upside is that it's sooooooooooooooo green. which is lovely.

last night was fun--dan's games are always fun. the only downside was that we'd stopped on the way over at dq for dinner--and the grease gave me intestinal distress. note to self: no more fast food. oy.

i had this weird dream this morning about my sister beth. i dreamed she took off to go somewhere, and we were all worried and couldn't reach her by phone. so my sister sbw and i got in the car w/ dad and started driving north. (god only knows where we were--it was nowhere familiar.) about halfway to wherever we thought we were going, dad turned into some other man i didn't know, and insisted that we pull the car over and wait out the traffic. we ended up in this place right next to the highway that had this little hill that was supposed to have been something to someone at some time--maybe like an indian mound or something. it was a dream, okay? (; i climbed the path to the top and looked out over the freeway, and across 4 lanes of traffic, in the ditch going south, there was beth. i yelled until my lungs ached and she looked over, grabbed a bag out of the car, and ran over. she was so surprised to see us there--as if we would have left her behind--and sara, too. the man who wasn't dad turned into dad again and then we had to go through this house and empty it out. i woke up at one point because the phone was ringing, and went back to the dream to finish it--my uncle jed was telling me that i had to turn off this television but i couldn't figure out how, and then mom came in and just unplugged it. i woke up then and came downstairs, only to find that the ringing phone of a few minutes before was none other than my sister beth. weird.

so today nothing much is on the docket. i have to find out how much my car will cost to get the brake pads fixed (bianca's in the shop now) and then go retrieve it. d and c were supposed to call if they needed help w/ stuff at the house today; i know they had things planned for outside but w/ the rain...who knows. we need to clean up the house in prep for serena's visit next weekend too. so we'll see. there are things to be done. but perhaps this weekend will be from inside the house, where there's no rain. (;

at this moment

i should be showered, i should be primped and i should be heading out the door. but in typical kim fashion, it's 826 and i'm in my pajamas sitting downstairs typing in my blog. i'm going to be late for work and i just. don't. care. hee hee hee.

was up late last night finishing charlaine harris' newest, dead as a doornail--which rocked! loved it. need to read them all again because they're just so nice and vampy. yummy books. then i ditzed round w/ dan on world of warcrack for a while, chatted w/ serena, and then read a few chapters of georgette heyers' the masqueraders before falling asleep. there was some poem writing in there too--i'll have to share it eventually because i really liked what i'd written last night. course the light of day may extinguish that. you never know.

today looks like it's going to be nice, too. the grass is all green and the sky's a happy blue. i'm practicing that buddhist ideal of living in the present--trying to not consider too much yesterday or today or tomorrow, but instead, just right now. but i think i better consider it from inside the shower stall. late might be my middle name but a paycheck's nice too. (;

action/inaction

i have this obsession with fear. you could call me a fraidy-cat. i know that in the end, things will work out. but in the interim, while waiting, i get nervous. i quake internally. i shut down.

it's usually not the something i can put my finger on; it's something i cannot locate. yesterday, when dan asked me what i wanted to do, i wanted to watch a movie. that is the epitome of inaction for me--sitting and watching. but i could think of nothing else i wanted to do. everything seems insurmountable right now--putting away clothing is too large a job to complete, cleaning the grill is mt everest. i have to get these things done. i need to pay rent. i need to DO something, some chore that will wake up the sleeping inner dragon and make me move.

i often feel like the deer in headlights. something shines over me, some unnameable or even familiar fear, and i freeze. i wait for it to pass and shine on some other tree, some other beastie, because once i'm in the dark again, i'm safe. it's just that those seconds stretch on for me into far too much time. inaction becomes a way of life, i adapt and it's okay to not do anything.

which goes against the grain of my existence. my mom never sits down unless she is done with everything; i have the same drive to finish things before i rest, but i'm at this point where i feel as if i will never be done with anything. so why bother? i don't have the equipment together to climb the mountain, so i better just stay at base camp.

it's not something anyone else can change, either. it's something i have to change. i've done it before. it's like dragging a car out of a coke can--you just keep pulling and pulling and then the fear is in the light of day and it's not as awful as i imagine it is, and i can handle it, and i can move again.

so don't mind me at the moment. i'm just trying to de-hibernate. melt. thaw. once the light moves on, i'll be fine. my house will be clean, my life will be un-stuck; just give me the gift of time.

gainful employment

dan said to me yeterday that he wished he was "gainfully employed." i understand this issue because he's been looking for a long time and being more and more frustrated by what he's found--about zip, right now. i'm a practical person by nature; i would rather work at a job i dislike than go without funds for bill paying, food purchasing, book buying, etc. but lately i can see his point.

my dad's been gainfully employed for 30 plus years of his life with the same company. what has he gained? a house, a truck, retirement eventually, part of all of his childrens' college educations, funds for my sister's wedding. every payroll he STILL puts a dollar into an account for all four of us kids. the man is my epitome of a good man, and i'm SO blessed to have such a loyal and patient man as my father.

but then turn the tables. what has he lost, what has he sacrified for this company, in order to remain "gainfully employed." he lost a lot of time being my dad. he lost time being my mom's husband. he gained stress that added to his heart disease and eventually pushed him over the edge and into 6 bypasses, and a change of life involving exercise and diet that was, in a word, radical. i remember when mom turned 50 dad got her a snowmobile suit. they don't snowmobile. he got it for her because she's always cold, and he inevitably was away at school in canton, oh, during every massive blizzard we ever had.

i just got an email this morning from dad. they've changed his schedule again; now he's supposed to have weds and thursday off, instead of his normal sat/sun or sun/mon. recently his schedule was "revised" due to the doctor's note requiring him to work no more than 50 hours a week--his new schedule is 11-8 monday thru saturday. it's ridiculous for a man who's up at 5 and feels the day is "wasted" if you haven't done anything by 8 am. it's hard to change this many years of habit. so he's already stressed about that. my mother apparently has had enough. she wrote a scathing (for my mother, it's scathing) letter to dad's immediate boss at work, one that hopefully will change something. dad's retiring at the end of june, and it's not a moment too soon, but maybe, just maybe, they'll see that they need to accomodate their employees.

who wants to be gainfully employed like that? no one i know. i feel lucky to have the job i do--i dislike it a great deal of the time, but when i think about dad's job, and how they've yanked his chain over the years--it makes me sick. dad was raised in a time when you stayed with a company for your whole life, when they cared for you when you retired, and where you were loyal beyond a thought.

times have changed; dad's morals have not. he is still the patriot who risked all in vietnam. he is still the dad who wept at my sister's wedding. he is still the husband who is proud to be with his wife. he is still the loyal employee who doesn't look for recognition or accolades at work, just wants to be appreciated enough to have his views and his needs be taken into account. he smiles when he could be frowning, plods forward when he could allow life to drag him down.

i always think about how my childhood would have been different, if he'd been a dad who came home every night before we went to bed, and if he hadn't been gone for a few months of the year training, and if he hadn't been on call every other weekend. when i was a kid we always took two cars everywhere, not because we couldn't fit in one, but because at any given time, dad might have to leave.

gainfully employed. i think about those words, roll them over a few times, and shove them out the door. employed is what most people are. gainful employment implies that you are getting something out of it other than a paycheck. for most of the world, that's just not true. you muddle through and you dislike your job, you pay the bills and fund your retirement, you buy your own coffin. along the way, at some point, dad had to have decided that the sacrifice he made for his company, to be employed, was gaining him something. i am sure and certain that dad saw putting food on the table and roof over our heads as more important than anything in the world, a gain that cannot be measured.

i just wish that he hadn't felt he had to do that.

a day off...

today i don't have to go in to work. which is good because i'm being walloped by allergies and coupled with the blood pressure tablets, i'm woozy. yay, pills. also yay, fisherman's friend cough drops. if you've never had one, you have no idea of what you're missing--they're awful, but they do twice the job of halls and actually alleviate some of the pressure in your sinuses without the loads of sugar.

anyway, i have to get ready--tony and cari are on their way down for a stopover with dan and i prior to jumping a plane to st maarten for the next week. i'm very excited to see cari (and tony), as i haven't seen either of them in at least a good two months. they need to be at the airport by 330. then tonight we're gaming over here, which is not in honor of dan's bday but just so happens to fit perfectly. tomorrow is cathy's wedding shower, and then sunday is a day of rest before next week starts all over again.

i found this in my inbox; forgot i'd even written it. it's from april 6th, and apparently i was having a foggy comprehension day at work. i write a lot of poems at work, mainly to escape the drudge but also because inspiration strikes at odd times. today i'm missing the Big Meeting, during which i'm sure bombs will be dropped and hopefully confronted. they're actually turning off the phones for this one, so the whole team can get together. i don't know if our supe eavesdropped on the online chat we all had going, or if he just overheard the dissension in the ranks, but for this job, turning off the phones is HUGE. it's just plain old unheard of. but i sure as hell am not driving up for an hour when i could be lunching w/ cari!

anyway here's the poem:

they ask
is your head
in the clouds?
no, the forecast for today
is fog
fingers wrapping me
some peices of skin are so
clear
i can see pores while others
drift
i think of that day we drove
through denver; dad wanted to climb
pike's peak
but it was partially swathed
the trees at its base so vivid
the top, hidden.
***
maybe i'm camoflaged so well
you can't see me
hiding in plain sight
i'm not even trying
my my said the big bad wolf
you didn't notice me
in my dress

speaking in tongues

for two days
we've spoken
you in icelandic
me in whatever language they use
in morocco
two days of me not comprehending
you
frustrated by my inability
to translate
i curl in
on myself i wonder how deep down
i can go
before i hear your gutteral whispers
and they finally make sense
to these ears.

***

it's like the sun
hiding behind
clouds manufactured by disney
puffy and soft
i know when it is revealed
the slow sink into blue
i'll be blinded
but for now i picture it round
like a giant pillow, rays pointed
little triangles along the radius
one of those drawn
with your left hand
when you're five.
suddenly
i understand--

***

pass me my sunglasses
i can hear every word you say
all the syllables, grinding bright
against my cornea
i blink
hard
trying to shut out the noise
songs being sung in tongues
i don't recognize
am i buddha cool
in my shades,
burned by nouns--
i have to admit
i'm basking
in the verbage,
yours and mine.

again

once upon a time there was this girl who didn't sleep well on sundays. she tried and tried but it was just a flop. every sunday she had to be coaxed into bed. and this sunday in particular she just could not sleep, despite being groggy already and toasty warm. she had to fight with her significant other because he thinks, nay, knows that his life is over at the age of 29, because the dreams he had for himself are not coming to fruition.

now this girl's a dreamer. she dreams all the time about coulda, shoulda, woulda, and sometimes even dreams with glass slippers and knights, just for spice. but she never would think of her life as over. ever. she has too much to live for--family, friends, the next book that comes out, the next thunderstorm, her cat. you name it. last night she wanted to give up, because if all you're living for is a goal, then what is the point of the journey?

anyway last night this girl dreamed that she was living in an apartment building, and that her cat had gotten out of the apartment and the college girls upstairs had a party and shaved her cat. they left long strings of fur and braided those. the apartment was crowded and awful, dirty and bug-ridden. the girl wanted to know why she was living in such filth--it was like waking up or something and realizing this, just in this dream. this girl didn't want to take the stat answer of "well, it was all we could afford, and you'll just have to let the cat's fur grow out," which was her mother's answer, shouted from a different room. she stomped into her room and slammed the door, saying, i'm so angry i could spit.

which she is, mainly because no matter how bad life is, there is always someone who has it worse, and this mantra keeps her happy for the most part. it's the line she heard as a kid about eating the food on her plate because there were children starving in africa. those kids, now they've got it bad. this girl, she's got it pretty good. and she thinks her significant other does too--sometimes paring down your life will lead you to a different window, one you didn't see prior to that because you were staring out the front door. this girl has yet to find hers, and she's pretty sure that he has yet to find his, too. but sometimes all you can do is wait for the window to open.
the moral of the story? this girl should have gotten more sleep.

me, a name, i call myself...

...far a longer way to run...i've had that song in my head since last night, when my cousin therese was putting her son sean to bed--so adorable in his little red footie pajamas. he's got therese's big blue eyes and her dark hair, but apparently brian's appetite. such a mix.

yesterday i drove up to minneapolis to see the whalen side of the family. i always think it's going to be more difficult than it is. i don't know why. it's like i build myself up for this horrible, horrible experience and then nothing happens that's horrible. strained, sometimes, but more often than not you just have to confess how your job is going and if you're buying a house or whatnot. there was a good portion of my family actually there--i think the only ones missing were my cousin steve and his sig other, elsa, who live in ny, ny, and my uncle dan, who i think is either in ireland or germany right now.

the reason behind the gathering was my uncle, jed, who was up visiting from ca. always good to see him--he's got a delightful laugh. but the stroke, and i think coming out even tho it's been six or seven years now, have changed him a great deal. he's not the person i remember. he wanted to give me a hug, but didn't seem to want to talk to me. kind of standoffish. i talked to dan about it on the way home and he agreed, but he said it's been like this for a longer period of time. i don't know if he feels alienated or what the deal is, but it was just awkward. i'm a huggy, chatty person; it's difficult to think that someone would feel uncomfortable around me. dan pointed out that it seemed to be everyone, not just me, and wasn't an isolated incident. that did make me feel better.

it makes me think about how people change, how one time you see them and they're a totally different organism the next time you see them. it seems like they're consistent, that their personality is a constant, and then three months pass and you see them again, and something in their environment has served as an evolutionary force. i still love this other incarnation of my uncle, just like i still love my grandma even though she has changed greatly. you don't stop that part, that's the constant. it's like this equation, or worse yet, word problem. your relationship changes based on the individual changes in the other person; you make changes in your reception and your conversation based on something minute, something the other person perhaps does not realize they have done.

i think about when i was a kid, how my sister and her friend got angry because they'd found one of those spots you claim as a kid--down by a drainage ditch, nice little stream. me being bossy little twelve-year-old kim took it upon herself to move rocks out of the stream, so that (in my opinion) it would better flow. sara and amanda threw a fit; why change what was working fine already, etc. in retrospect i've no clue as to why i thought those rocks should be moved. it was just a general nudge to do so, and when you're 12, you don't consider consequences in the same way you do ten years after that.

did the rocks i pulled out of that little stream affect somthing broader than my sister's attitude? probably not. it's a drainage ditch, right? but it affected her to this day. she still remembers that whole scene as something where i was standing on her toes. i think back on it and i don't remember my sister's reactions as much as i now think about the cellular level and any frogs i may have impacted due to my "assistance."

something small that turns into something larger--something more broad. dad's stress test turned into six bypasses, and 50 lbs of weight lost, a diet changed, a treadmill bought. he is a different person than he was prior to that february day--different, but not entirely different. still dad. grandma whalen, despite the dementia, is still shaped like my grandma--now with regrown hair. she still smells like grandma, she still acts like grandma. when i think about it in those terms, the erosion of brain tissue--it makes me want to know how *i* have changed over time. what things happen to make you less of an open person. has it been the slow build back into having high blood pressure? will this half a pill i take nightly impact my personality? has it already? what is my guide for knowing if it has? there's not a chart or scale i can use.

i wish, oftentimes, that there were. that people had hanging around their neck some kind of code that told me how best to interact with them. perhaps jed didn't want to have a heart to heart discussion, or even a how's-the-weather chat. but the only way for me to know that is to ask, and the only way to learn is to experience. it would make a life a lot easier if it was simplified--i could just walk up to someone who WANTS to chat and chat with them, as opposed to trying to feel out your conversation partner and getting snubbed.

which i'm sure jed didn't feel like he was doing. who knows. he will fly back to ca with whatever impressions he gathered, and i will remain here, with what i have.

it was good to see the family, though. colin and sean, the under-5 set, grow so quickly. kids are just plain cute when they're little. interesting too to see my cousins, kelsey and ericka--i remember when ericka was just born--she was at grandpa whalen's last christmas in 1988 and was just a baby then. and now she's driving and getting ready to graduate high school in a few years. or less. yikes.

time goes faster, exponentially, the older you get. it's like you walk to the top of a very big hill--most people run, i think, really--and then when you get close to 30, you sit down, and it hits you that you're maybe more than a third of the way through your life expectancy. but instead of time returning and being a further climb, you lay down, and you roll down the hill. i'm just starting to gather speed, i suppose. you measure your life in the size of children around you. those long and bored afternoons of your youth are shorter and filled with adult crap like paying bills and cleaning the oven and filling the birdfeeder. it will be interesting to see people at the whalen reunion this year, measure the old tree and see what rings have changed and what rings have grown.

anyway. i'm off to fill some time before nathan calls with more stuff that i didn't have to do when i was seven--hose out the bathrooms, clean up the kitchen, vacuum, laundry, mundane stuff that i should be able to wish done. *sigh* so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, good bye.

the skinny

that's been my phrase of choice this week: here's the skinny.

so here it is for this week.

monday i felt like my head was being split in two and finally made a dr's appt for tuesday. tuesday found out i have a sinus infection and was given stuff to combat said infection, which makes me a bit dizzy. also had my blood pressure checked and once again it's doing that spiking thing it did years ago, so now i'm on this blood pressure medication that makes me want to sleep. a lot. a fucking huge lot. yawn...

weds we had friends over and gamed, thursday dan got a job (not something he was hoping for but a job's a job, at this point.) and we went to half price books. now it's friday. i'm supposed to be going in early in order to make up for the hour i'm short this week but it might be more like half an hour early because i'm feeling slow this morning. tomorrow i have to find a good salad to make for the whalen side of the family, and then we're having a whalen picnic tomorrow night. so that will be enjoyable, as much as it can be on that side of the family. (they're pokers; they like to poke at you as if you're on display. blech.)

the blood pressure thing has been just gnawing at me since i got the perscription. but as the dr said, they're a bit more agressive than they used to be.

to sum up: about six years ago, i was scheduled to have my wisdom teeth removed. this was in march. in february (i think) i fell and hit my right cheek on some concrete stairs (ice + kim = hospital visit). i thought it might be broken so we lumped out to urgent care. where they took my blood pressure and asked: are you feeling all right? because you should be having a stroke... etc. did a bunch of tests (ultrasound was the coolest) to see if they could find a reason it would spike (it was like 200/100 or something painful; i felt fine.) but there was nothing and i was walking more at that time, so the dr decided that i just needed to watch my salt intake. i guess the old body still does the spiking thing when it gets nervous (like at the dr). who knew. not me. anyway that was the same year that i had a sinus infection (after the fall) and found out i was allergic to penecillin (large platter sized hives, a shot of adrenalin and a shot of benadryl, and i was down for the count.) and sulfa drugs (smaller hives, benadryl pills, also down for the count.) and my wisdom teeth had to be put off until the week of easter.

i can't remember when that was that year. it was in 1999; i know this because all of this happened directly prior to corey passing away. it was just like a marathon of being in pain, in one form or another. i think that this week, when the dr asked if i would mind trying a perscription, i just flashed back six whole years.

it was corey's birthday on the 11th--a celebration of life. we're rolling up closer to the 18th, the day he passed away. anniversaries are always difficult; you never know how you're going to react to the day, the month, the time frame. it's always hard; i don't think you realize how dulled you become, over time, to the pain. it still hurts. you always wish that person alive, you wish for a different outcome. but wishing doesn't change anything.

sitting in the dr's office on tuesday, waiting to pick up my perscription, i was transported back. i remembered all the ups and downs, and then that phone call. i remembered driving frantically to duluth on a sunday morning, no wallets, no purse. i remember seeing the sun come through the clouds outside of duluth, the silence that we carried in that car. i remember the song on the radio--grateful dead's a touch of gray--and how right after that song ended it started "don't fear the reaper" and dan leaning over and flicking the radio off. his dad's face when we pulled up outside the house, shaking his head.

they say you can't remember actual physical pain, that your brain cannot hold it, that this is why childbirth can be so horrible and women still want another child. i don't think this is true. when the dr handed me my perscriptions, he gave me a free pass into time. i literally felt as if i were reliving those months again, like they were starting over. being on the blood pressure tablets is a bit like moving through a dream, anyway. you're sluggish, tired, slow. i keep feeling like crying, and i do not know if it is because of all the things or just one--is it the fear of that spiking pressure? exhaustion on the part of the sinus infection? memories of that week? happiness to be alive?

being a catholic, or being raised catholic, has sludged into mountains of guilt. i feel i ought to confess that i am glad to be alive, to have it as good as i do, and still be depressed right now--as if this is a sin, something for which i should do penance. i remember feeling guilt when corey died--why him, why so young, why not me, or anyone else. today's rash of guilt is sponsored by this week and the slow peeling back of layers around myself, by my blood pressure tablet and the fear of seeing my family on saturday. memory, fear, love. i would willingly relive those months, if only to see you again. or rather, see you with dan again. it is not that i miss you less, but that i would give anything to see you two banging around outside with the basketball, walking into the house, flushed and sweaty, smiling.

so today is also sponsored by the sun, shining bright outside in a blue, blue sky, when corey's not here to shoot hoops with dan out in it.

for whatever reason, i am here. something yet to be defined, perhaps. maybe just to feed the cat, or maybe something yet to happen today, tomorrow, next week. maybe the something has already occurred, or was passed fleetingly without a backward glance, or maybe it's just that we are all here for an alloted time period, to live our time in the sun to the fullest, and i ought to be glad the curtain's still up.

still sleeping

finally slept for more than 6 hours...only to be woken by the persistent beeping of my alarm, reminding me that it's monday. and i have to go to work.

i didn't do anything strenuous this weekend and yet i'm so exhausted. it's either one of two things: a sinus infection or my period sneaking up on me again. blech, either way. if it's a sinus infection, it means i have to go to the doctor. if it's my period, same thing. you know the post the other day, about being on time and being immune to time for the most part? my inner workings are apparently also blissfully ignorant. it hasn't even been 25 days and for some reason ye olde body is gearing up again. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. it's probably why i'm tired and just want to hide somewhere. i dislike this feeling, but at the same time, if your body is craving something--salt, sugar, sleep--you sometimes have to cater to it.

which i wish i could do today. i just want to crawl upstairs and cuddle into my blankets again. listen to dan snoring, softly. feel the cat curled up by my shins. listen to cars rumble by over the whirr of the fan. and sleep.

i feel like i've been pushing the snooze button lately on my life--procrastinating to the nth degree over everything. i still haven't had the brake pads done. it's not that i don't want to. it's that i worry that if i do, they'll find something else wrong with the car. and if it's not that, it's monetary. who knows.

gotta shuffle if i want to be on time. (:

these dreams

i keep having strange dreams. i know, to the heels of my feet, that it's because my period is creeping up on me, and i always have weirdo dreams around that time, but honestly. last week i had this ridiculous dream about a chicken and a crockpot and one of my coworkers and his wife wrestling. it was unsettling. last night it was something about how i had done graffiti on a wall or something, and very vividly was denying it despite the fact that they had video.

i guess the reason they're strange isn't because of the content. or maybe it IS because of the content. usually in my dreams the wild and ridiculous factor is taken to a new level of what-the-hell, from which i can usually force a wakeup, or elict a change in the direction of the dream.

lately i'm so involved in the dream, because all the aspects of it are so vivid and fucking normal, that i just get caught up in it. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

also i'm having problems sleeping more than 6 hours a night. thank you to my brother--i had to pick him up at the airport on tuesday and on monday night I COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP. read until way too late and then slept badly for about 4 hours. i have yet to recoup or sleep longer than 6 this week. which might be due in part to this morning allergy thing i've been having, or may be due to the fact that i have an almost-finished pile of books near my bed.

maybe that's the problem. maybe it's the content of my reading material of late. for a while i was on an all-fantasy, all the time, kick. but i've gone on a romance novel bender, and most of what happens in a romance novel, esp. regencies, is pretty mundane. i'm thinking of what else i have at my bedside--smilla's sense of snow, which is pretty scientific but so beautiful...and frances mayes' under the tuscan sun, which is very different from the movie, but wonderfully written all the same. and another book i don't know that i'll finish by an author with a good name but not very catchy writing skills (graham houghton. don't know why the name sticks with me but the plot does not.)

i think that may be my problem.

but for now i'll blame it on the time change (which should have no effect on me, as for the most part i shrug off the boundaries of clocks much in the manner of superman flexing through five feet of steel chains.) (of course, there would be an anomaly...)

today i'm going to go shower. then i'm going to drive around and see if i can rustle up a rummage sale. then i'm going to...clean my grill? i think. not sure yet. and there's talk of a concert tonight in hudson, wi--13 screws, a band darin and cathy heard that was quite good, apparently. but that's up in the air.

arg, activity upstairs, must run to beat other possible shower-er!

muted

yesterday while on the phone with nathan i had a flash of insight. it was after dinner, during which dan and i watched this amazing new thing they can do for deaf children who are missing the fine hairs inside their cochlea--the ones that allow you to hear nuances like a bird singing, a drum beating, you mom's voice yelling about leaving the toothpaste out. anyway, they can do this thing now where they insert a wire into your cochlea that stimulates it in close to the same manner as the hairs. it's not perfect, but amazing for someone who has never heard anything. of course i cried a little during that. how could you not? this child was just given the opportunity to explore her world in a new way.

i wished, for a few minutes, while watching that girl on television, that i could hear out of both ears. that's not the insight. i'll let you know when it hits. (note: the damage i have is at nerve level, and there's not much they can do about that quite yet.) i wished that i could belong to that set of people. why? who the hell knows. there's beauty in every aspect of every illness or disorder or handicap--it's just a matter of seeing it. the beauty of being deaf is that sound is a gift, and that the way you perceive the world is so different from the person sitting next to you.

i talked about this with kari, one of my now former coworkers, and karen, another coworker, who are both in different stages of being deaf. karen's got one good ear, like me, and kari's got two bad ones, which can be enhanced with the use of a hearing aid. however, since her daughter is also deaf and needed two, kari's only got one.

it was so interesting to finally comprehend that i was first of all not alone in hearing "the charlie brown teacher" voice when i wasn't focused on someone. refreshing and for some reason reassuring to hear that after being in a social situation in which there are myriad voices, you're exhausted. you can't keep your eyes open because the whole time you're so focused on the other person. also reassuring to know that for the most part, we all rely on body language a LOT more than our significant others and friends, just because you're so afraid of missing something.

just plug your ears ometime. see what happens.

i thought it was hysterical and confusing, the first time i saw a jackie chan movie, that i had no idea of what was going on. the little faces on screen were moving and talking, but the words were all dubbed. people in the room were laughing at jokes and i didn't know what the joke even was. i had no idea how much i relied on lip reading. (which reminds me of a day at work: our supervisor came down the aisle and said something amusing to a group of us loitering there, half in and half out of our cubes. everyone laughed. so kari and i laughed too. you do these things to fit in. someone who missed the joke asked what was so funny, and neither of us had any idea. we decided it was a deaf chick thing, and THEN we laughed and no one else quite got the joke.)

i've learned to put up with and love subtitles in movies. my friends and family all walk on my right. i drive because then i can hear the passenger over the road noise.

THIS was the insight i had: i think for a long time i wanted to be a part of the deaf community. but i'm not totally deaf. i don't have to wear a hearing aid, i don't have to sign in order to communicate. i'm part of the hearing world. i told dan once that i wanted to learn to sign because it almost seems like it would be a relief to not have to worry about missing a word or two, having to extrapolate constantly during a conversation and then plead inattention because if you reach into your purse for a peice of gum you miss being attentive to what the other person was saying. course you'd do that if you were signing, too, i suppose. the grass is always greener.

for a long time, too, i wanted my deafness to be something that defined me. i mean, for all intensive purposes, it has; nothing shapes you like a deficiency. but the deficiency in the auditory area has opened up room for other things to take shape and grow. i think about dan's cousin, who was born with one lung. he's almost 20 now, and after all these years, his one lung has grown and expanded and taken up the space of his other lung.

i think about the void i have in my life because i miss so much, and i think about how that has opened other doors for me--the doors that are sensitive to others' moods, the lip reading and body reading that is unconciously done. i think about how wanting to avoid situations in which i might be construed as "stupid" because it seems i'm missing screws have levered me into reading more books, writing poetry, taking pictures.

mostly i think about how the world is filtered differently for each of us. some people are able to go through the world tall enough to reach the top cupboard but unable to see the turtles. i think about stephen hawking and how not much has stood in his way, despite what the rest of us see as a handicap. i think about what sark said in whatever book it was: they never say anything about a fat elephant. or a fat tree. if a tree has a bole that malforms it from the norm, it's a thing of beauty.

how come we cannot see that the disorders and deficiencies of the world are things to be cherished and relied upon?

the cat is close enough, right now, that i can hear her purr, if i turn my head one way. if i look back at my monitor her purring is gone. edited for sound. muted.

dawn

there's a con trail across the sky, out side the window. it's one of those left-hours-ago trails that is starting to resemble cirrus clouds. but the shape is unmistakeable. david's car is outside too, reminding me that tomorrow morning i need to be at the airport at 6 to retrieve him.

if i turn to my right, shiva is giving me her morning stare. she gets wet food every morning and if it's not done by the time i scurry out of the house, there's yowling for the masses.

upstairs i thought i heard the rustle of eero getting ready for work but there's just silence. not sure what's up. i came downstairs to check the weather, and am now thinking of rethinking today's wardrobe choices, as it sounds like it'll be a balmy 72. the shower starts and i probably should get ready for work.

but i really, really, really don't want to.

i'd rather replay yesterday, or the day prior. another weekend day, something to keep me distracted from truth and reality...ie, work. i also have to have new brake pads put in this week, which means calling for prices, so on and so forth. ugh. i wish they were easy to replace and that i could just snap them in like windsheild wipers. *sigh*

yesterday was a great deal of fun. drove out to shakopee with corpse, kiya, d and c and played 18 holes of frisbee golf. then dan and i stayed at d and c's for movie watching (saw, which was interesting but not something i'd probably watch again) and dinner (yummy chicken and taters, thank you cathy). and then home again to get ready for bed. it smelled like rain last night but i guess that's holding off until tomorrow or even tonight, if we're lucky.

off to trade in pajamas for something i can wear to work. cheers all. (:

imdb: independent movie doing beautifully

so yesterday i drove over to river falls, wi, to see if i could help out at all with a movie that my friends sarah (better known as spoon to the general populace) and her bf josh are filming. it's called "cope: a small film about a big decision" and it's going to have more documentary than film, i think. which is the beauty of an indie film.

it was just so nice to belong. and see the bright lights of some kind of theatre, and smell ben nye makeup again. *sigh* so lovely.

stephen (aka daddybear) was also there, doing lights and general guidance, as he's had lots of experience with filmmaking. i ended up doing a variety of things--makeup, holding the boom (that mic on a pole), script and shot supervision, gofer. (hey, we need some masking tape to mark the floor. could someone grab the powder for chris' nose? et cetera.) i think that was what got to me the most--it reminded me SO much of being in any theatre production i've ever done, wherein you're acting during one scene, but then you also are doing props and calling light cues for part of the show...so on and so forth. it reminded me, as i was standing there holding the script and shot list, of just how much i missed stage managing and theatre in general.

as a bonus, i got to hang out with some laid back but artistic people, which is always a pleasure because i despise being rushed and pushed and coerced into hurrying. by the end of the shoot (at which point it was realized that there would have to be a reshoot of the night scenes because josh and sarah both appeared in the sliding glass door reflection like ghosties. which was better than that morning, where, after filming for how long, we watched the dailies and everyone about bit it laughing over daddybear, who thought he was out of frame but really wasn't. colie (the "heroine") is saying good bye to chris ("hero") in the BEDROOM and all you can see the whole time over colie's shoulder is this florid blue and yellow hawaiian shirt, a leg with shorts and a wool sock and sandal, and an arm on top, clearly holding another camera. turns it into an entirely different movie. LOL) anyway by the end of the shoot everyone was beat, myself included. i sat down for "a minute" on the couch with noah, an art major who brought these fabric squares to decorate one wall of the living room--amazing what you can do with thread and fabric if you're an artist. so we sat there discussing this poem that chris had been reading by i think charles norse, it was called the priest and the matador. and in the kitchen they kept shooting and reshooting this scene in which chris' character has to respond to colie's character:

colie: it's just tea.
chris: it's never just tea.

but it kept sounding more like: it's never justy. or it's never justine. so there was a chant that erupted at one point, something annunciating "it's never just tea" but we couldn't get the other videocamera ready fast enough to make a difference. so then we digressed and discussed the monkey who played a nurse on the soap opera "passions."

speaking of names. after shooting and shooting this scene in which chris pours cereal, daddybear pointed out that we couldn't use the cheerios box unless general mills was funding some part of the film. after we got over the "well, shit" portion of that moment, we realized that BEHIND the cheerios box there was a nicely displayed bag of starburst. so that whole scene will need to be re-shot as well. *sigh* but it was a learning experience for everyone, and a valuable one, too.

i also got to have some fabulous homemade spaghetti for lunch, and then steve's pizza (small pizza joint, great pizza) for dinner--we had a greek and it was divine. course we were pretty much starving at that point so it went very fast. one minute there was a pizza on the table and another minute we were asking for the check. snap of the fingers. i think i got home around 1120 or so last night, and by that time i was totally exhausted.

blue skies and sunny today. i feel like writing. or going back over to help film some more. but they're not starting until 8 tonight and that's a bit late, if i want to get up at 6 for work. blech.

so yeah. that was my saturday. i don't think i even told you what the film was about: a man who is OCD; mom wants him to start taking his meds again, new girlfriend has no idea that he's OCD, etc. i'm looking forward to the screening portion, and the "behind the scenes" that is going to be part of this. in theatre you're usually a long ways away from the actors, when the performance is in progress. in film, you see the scene, and you think: my god. there were how many of us in the room at the same time, redoing and redoing the scene.

interesting.