tag, i'm it...

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

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

there, i'm done! thank you broke!

the death card

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

afternoon poem

coffee

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

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

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

i am the jagged edge

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

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

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

***

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

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

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

circus circus

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

it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pretty!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i cannot wait to go again! (:

it's in the details...

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

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

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

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

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

details, details, details.

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

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

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

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

easier said than done. (;

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

it's in the details.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

it's again...in the details.

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

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

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

DETAILED hugs to all and sundry--k(:

autumn

it's autumn.

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

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

lovely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

humid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

mom was trying not to giggle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(;

home

i'm home.

not knowing that i'd be involved in the ren fest this year, i inadvertantly scheduled this as a vacation day for myself. right now i'm thanking whoever is listening that i did, because i was exhausted. last night, driving home, it felt like i was drunk--hazy vision, wandering eyes. at one point on the highway i had to swerve around someone who braked suddenly in front of me. then dinner with a host of people, and then home, more tired than before i ate. en route, the flash of gray ending in striped tail in my headlights: a raccoon, at seventy miles per hour. the image is frozen in my mind, scampering out of light.

this morning i cleaned my house some--mainly the little duties that i've put off since prior to festival. my grand plan is to smudge, as well. however after complaining loudly about the upstairs closet for the third time to townhome management, the maintenance guys showed up unexpectedly this morning to fix it. huh? a phone call would have been appreciated. they weren't sure if they'd be back yet today or tomorrow morning. so i moved everything out of the closet and hung up all dan's clothes, stacked games, etc.

i listened over and over to the shakespeare's love child cd that was my Big Purchase yesterday for myself--my reward for the last weeks of stress and sleep deprivation, in addition to my little dragonfly mug. love it.

i think about being home and i'm happy to be here, but annoyed and frustrated and overwhelmed. there is so much to do, both in myself, in my relationship with dan, in general upkeep. in the same way that my kitchen floor needed to be mopped, i am feeling neglected. i have allowed myself to slide--not eating right, not taking the time to walk or take my blood pressure--those are the main things. but secondary is all this little stuff, like ironing a few shirts that have hung on my door for over a month now, or giving myself a good pedicure.

i complete the things that appear most pressing to me at the moment, the things that are visible and require change--the floors, the cat box, the closet. i complete these and then i think, i should clean myself, too. i glance out the window and see the bird feeder, and that takes precedence over me actually applying energy to replenishing my own stores.

i always think that i will have time tomorrow. tomorrow i can devote to myself. tomorrow i can paint my toes. tomorrow i can relax in the tub, tomorrow i can start doing yoga again.

i think back to when i was a kid and shopping for a birthday present for someone, and my mother telling me to pick out something that i would like to receive, that by doing so i would be picking out something that my friend would also like to receive.

i realized last night in talking to dan last night at length about self worth that i do the same thing when i'm picking out words, subconciously, to say to others. i say things that i would like to hear, or that i have heard, or that i think will soften an imagined blow. i say these things because i do not put myself first in my own life.

why? why would i do that? i come home to roost in the home that is walls and roof, but i do not come home to roost in the home that is flesh and bone. i stray from this home. i wander in and out. the doors are always open, the windows wide. in summer this allows breeze to blow, but in winter the snow and cold permeate and i am left with damp corners and chapped lips.

why is is that i can take better care of my linoleum than i can my own feet? what is it that is worth more than my own path of joy and sorrow? what is it that is worth more than taking the time to peer inward and shut the windows, and be warm and safe in and of myself?

perhaps it is that in taking on the view of earth, i have come to understand that my life is over quickly. it is made up of moments. the flooring will be here after i am gone. the sky will still be blue and the birds will still come to an empty feeder, to see if it has been filled.

if i am at peace with that ideal, then it becomes suddenly about the rest of the world, and i lose track of the immediate home in which my soul is sheltered, and i make the world around me more worthy of time than me.

in the same breath i can see that if i honor my own spirit and the housing in which it takes cover, then i can better serve the world and people around me. if i do not find worth in myself, how am i to discover it in others?

in finding this view and recognizing it--that i am in the house of air and earth, on which i live inside a house of wood and drywall and wiring, in which i am living inside a house of cells and marrow, and that i am worth honoring--suddenly i feel as though have truly come home.

the things my father saw

yesterday i had two thoughts running through my head, like separate trains, unaware of each other. i was talking on the phone with my sister, then my mother, then cari. the whole time i was focused on the person with whom i was speaking. then i chatted with dan for a bit, and then hit the pillow.

originally, when i got home, dan was watching tour of duty, a show from the early 90s about a group of soldiers in vietnam. i sat down for a few minutes and had a sandwich before making phone calls and carrying on the things that needed doing.

and all the while, all while carrying on conversations and planning days and finding a pair of capris to wear today--all that while, i thought about the things my father saw, while he was a soldier in the same place.

i thought about his hatred of flies and enclosed spaces. i thought about the years he spent at the bottom of a bottle when he returned, i thought about redemption and forgiveness. i thought about the fact that someone, somewhere, is grieving yet for a family member that was removed from the planet by my father's bullets. i think of my father, grieving for being asked to kill in the name of country. i remember the pain in his voice when we were watching an action movie, once, and my brother was counting the bodies as they fell. "the first time i killed a man, i threw up," he said.

in all honesty, that is something i carry with me, too. perhaps it is the catholic guilt. i think of how tender my father was in raising his children, of caring for my mother. i think of dad, mowing the lawn, working on a car, drinking milk at dinner, and it feels like it cannot be the same man and the same body that for a year walked through jungles overseas, swatting flies and balancing his need to protect with his need to serve. it's hard, to think of your father in that manner.

i know that it must be difficult for a man who values every life and every living thing on earth to think that when someone asked, he did without question. my father is a true patriot, a man who would have given his life for his country willingly and gladly, in the name of protecting that which he holds dear--family, friends, freedom.

i just dwelled for a long time, probably until now, on the things my father saw. i think about the things he saw when he was here at home, and the things he witnessed in green swooping jungle, pressed close to ground. the noise must have been unbearable.

i read a tim o'brien book again recently, "if i die in a combat zone, box me up and ship me home." and watching the tour of duty show with dan has cemented this ongoing loop in my brain about the nature of forgiving yourself for things that you have done, things that you may not have meant to do. is there a degree of forgiveness? is there a line that is crossed, at some point? i want to ask him how he can live with himself, when he learned how to do so, but i know that often it is still an ongoing process, and always will be.

personally, i can forgive anything he did, based on the simple fact that he came home. the situation in which those soldiers were put, that any soldiers are put, is one of save your own skin, or that of your comrade--kill or be killed.

i think about all the things i have seen in my short life. i think about my father's being nearly twice as long as mine thus far, the knowledge he carries in his marrow about the life he has lived. i think about all these things and it becomes a story of healing and living, and learning how to do both simultaneously.

the things my father saw include his children being born, slipping a ring on my mother's finger, dancing a polka with my sister--and all these things bring tears to his eyes as quickly as the thought of being in vietnam, and how difficult that was.

does he replay images in his mind, over and over? does he dream about combat boots and the smell of rice paddies, at the same time as he dreams of grandchildren?

is there a manual i'm missing?

i often wish that i'd been given some kind of manual on how to approach life. i think back to when i was going to college, etc, or even the on-the-job training i got when i started at adp...and the whole gist of it was that if you couldn't remember information, you still had the book in which the information was written--idea being that you could just go back and re-read the answer, refresh your memory.

but life in general, and how to deal with it, is all stuff that you're supposed to have memorized.

from day one--your behavior towards parents and other people--it's all supposed to be ingrained, something that you don't have to worry about accessing.

sometimes, like today, i hear dan on the phone w/ a friend and he says, well, who knows what's going on...and my immediate thought is akin to "where's the instruction manual for the dvd player?"

who does know what's going on? everyone has a different take on it. everyone has a different perspective. there is no one way to approach anything in life. by and large, it's all based on what you experience day to day. either you learn from it and you keep walking with that knowledge embedded in your brain, or you leave it by the wayside.

but i think generally most folks glean what they can and add to their repetoire. you start out with a lesson on how to deal with someone who's afraid of spiders and you take away from that how YOU deal with spiders, or how to cope with phobias, or something. you forget what to do when someone around you is afraid of spiders; you take from the situation whatever it is that your brain decides to.

so therefore, i feel like i'm missing a manual. i've taken from my life experiences certain things, certain ideas and morals that are my backbone as i wander along. but i often wonder if the knowledge i'm schlepping with me is the knowledge that was intended, or if in some way i have warped the original teaching.

i think back to reading epictetus and marcus aurelius, and how they were focused on the same thing--the philosophy of living, the ideas that shape your life, and how you can shape your own journey. now how diluted has the original idea become--how over time and word of mouth and translator bias even their ideals have perhaps been tilted.

of course, that is taking an epic amount of time into perspective. at the same time, if i compress that time, i think about my own little notebook about how to live my life that's filled with haphazard scribblings, words strung together like a beads, grammar knitted. it's a scrapbook in my mind of how i think other people should be treated, when i should laugh at jokes, why i should reach out my arms and hold someone, and when.

so who does know what's going on? who knows what's best? who knows what's right, wrong, who wrote the manual for life, and in what language was it written? am i missing it, or am i carrying it around, unknown because it is merely thoughts and behaviors that i learned from every relationship i have ever been in? every encounter i've had has left an imprint on my psyche, something that is indelible and more hardy than ink, but changes daily, water warping wood.

is it me? is the answer within? is the answer without--does someone else have the manual? do i peice it together, like the rest of the planet? or do i just have to look through folders and boxes until i come across it, lost when i was younger, translated from english into spanish, korean, german and greek?

letters

this is an excerpt from a letter than i emailed to dan a while back, during a day of emails. lately our exchanges have become more and more about existensial things and feelings and emotions and stuff--whereas previously it was "so what are we doing for dinner" and mundane household crud.

this day in particular i was having a real theoretical few moments, trying to comprehend and understand and find a metaphor for what was going on in my head and what i thought was going on in dan's head, too.

metaphors, for me, are sometimes an easier and more accessible way of viewing a large and somewhat unruly situation.

so here's the email, cut for length:

*********

anyway, here's how i see it.

everyone has a different key, a different time, a different place, to unlocking the juggernaut of self. eventually everyone comes to this spot where they have to turn their view inward; this is yours. i think that serena was your medium to finding that you needed to.

i keep thinking of like a messy garden. it's there, whether you tend it or not. it's growing, it's dying, it's living, it's thriving--with or without your guidance. suddenly you have been gifted with the key to opening the gate, and look inside--and man alive, you've got a disaster on your hands! everything is out of control, things are growing outside the alloted garden space, weeds have drifted in, you've got a giant sunflower and another tomato plant that you're certain YOU did not plant...

my whole thing is that i was given the key at some point after corey died. i started my journey through my own garden, started trying to understand the weeds and the flowers and all that crap. i didn't get very far because i think i got distracted by something in the garden that i didn't plant there...or many things, or maybe just a shiny watering can...you know how i work.

at the same time, i haven't been stuffing things into my garden and forgetting about them. (; (; nudge nudge...not that i know anyone who HAS been doing that. LOL

i'm sure your garden, aside from the regular stuff, has a few things that REALLY don't belong, like an old model t car,etc. you get the existential idea. yours has been neglected; you're learning how to deal with it. you're going to unearth things from time to time that make you have to stop and see why whatever it is exists, why it's there, if you want to keep it or not, if you need to move it around, etc.

i think the problem isn't that you don't have the strength or the tools, it's that you've never had to have this KIND of strength and you've never used your set of tools.

i think in our collective garden, we haven't paid a ton of attention. mine has been growing all over yours, and vice versa, and we've got stuff in there that we have never considered or expected. i am also dealing with the idea that serena doesn't care. i wrote about that this morning in my blog, about how i need to learn when to walk away, and when to run, etc. but i don't think that i need to run as far as she apparently feels is necessary.

in other words, i feel that she's got the same problem we do, garden-wise. she's ignored a part of her garden, and voila! she still has the same plants there that were there before, with roots just as deep and just as hardy...but personally, i think she's trying to pretend that the gigantic sunflower is really just a daisy.

which as we all know does not work.

i think that she DOES care for you a great deal. i hope that she cares for me, but i'm not sure. i don't think that you are throwing anything away by caring for her, or tearing up our relationship. yeah, i think whatever mutual garden we had is being refigured and weeded, but i think that it is SO much more healthy this way, regardless.

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

that's where we were at then. i know i've had some email breakthroughs since, and so has dan. but it's up to him to sort through if he wants to share more, at this point. LOL i have to constantly keep deleting and such to keep my inbox at work manageable and allow me to actually open up other items like oh...work related emails. LOL

today at work one of my coworkers was let go. it was awkward because the cube walls are like 6 feet high, so if i stand on tiptoes i can see over the tops of them. i don't hear well, what with the deaf ear and all, so i couldn't hear what people on the other side of the wall were saying, but i could hear the noisy whispers.

it's an oxymoron that whispering can be so loud, isn't it?

anyway, i'll miss the coworker who was fired. she was friendly and a hard worker--and you can't ask for much more. of course, she missed a fair amount of work...so i'm sure that was their backup for saying "good-bye"...but the fact remains that we're coming up on year end, which is always so busy, and they let someone with tenure go.

for pete's sake! suspend her for two weeks! give her all the unpaid time off she wants! she shows up more often than not, so who the hell cares? honestly...more people are going to be leaving if they keep this up. besides the fact, with me moving into the conversion department and another associate moving from conversion back to client services, they're going to have 3 people out at the same time having babies!!! michael's wife, karen, and the new girl, maria. on top of that another coworker is going to be a grandma around the same time! at least two people are set on leaving...the word "ugly" doesn't seem to come to mind in what they're thinking. i wouldn't invite anyone onto this sinking ship--because that's what it's becoming, lately.

part of me is not liking the thought of moving into conversion because i know what happens when they get to client services -- they're neglected. there's not enough people or enough hours in a day to keep up and follow through on everything that needs to be kept up to date.

impossible. obviously from the preggers folks, it's not inconceivable.

but ridiculous beyond comprehension? yes indeed.

anyway, i'm off to primp for bed. cheers all and apologies for the epic. (;

what else...

...but the hurricane.

i find it interesting that on such a large scale, we have these kind of problems. is it because mexico and canada haven't sent aid workers? i doubt it. is it because there isn't enough money being tossed its way? nope, they seem to be scrambling for more than enough money. it's humanity that's making this into a disaster following a disaster.

the thing that's preying on my mind as i read about rapes and looting and such is that i don't remember hearing about so much of this type of thing after the tsunami overseas. i remember the death toll rising and rising, but either i've blocked it out or something but i just don't recall reading about this.

does it take a larger natural disaster for people to overcome this behavior? would it have to be tens of thousands killed? why is it that they can loot and pillage and such and not refocus their efforts on removing the dead, finding what they need to survive?

i read in an article that people were looting a wal-greens type store for things that they needed--well fine, TAKE THEM. if you need the bandages, take 'em. i'm sure that your survival is more key than the fact that you're taking it and not leaving a fiver just laying about, and i definitely wouldn't categorize that as looting.

it's the people taking tvs and crap that's looting. there's not even electricity on which to watch the tv.

maybe i've gamed too long. maybe i'm just clinically nuts.

all i know is that if this was a situation that i was facing, i wouldn't want to sit in a football dome and just WAIT. i would want to assist, to do.

organize some of those 10,000 people and have them help with the dead. i seethe at the man who said that he would not leave his dog covered with a sheet, but it doesn't sound as though he's made a move to see if he could help. humans have been taking care of their neighbors since the dawn of time, dead or alive.

i understand that some folks have problems dealing with corpses, and death itself. but out of all those people in that dome, there have got to be a few who are willing to see what they can do.

again with the gaming too long. i keep considering the people who are waiting for aid and food and water--i wonder, because i'm not in that situation, what the local grocery stores look like. are they smithereens, emptied already? if they're not, get a group of people together and go shopping. aid is always flown in, dropped in crates and bags. sometimes i think you have to make your own aid, and businesses have got to have insurance that covers this, don't they? i guess that's a question for dan or other insurance experienced folks.

all i know is i read about this, and i think: the thing that's going to be remembered is not going to be the size of the hurricane or the massive efforts to assist. i have a feeling it's going to end up being the way people acted after the hurricane. yes, it's a natural disaster to have a swarm of wind and water destroy things on land. but i think it's just as much of a natural disaster to have humans who could be helping other humans causing more harm and destruction.

all this said from my living room 1200 miles north. i know i'm not there, i don't have the ability to drop everything and assist physically. but my inner italian grandmother needed to chastise the rapists, the looters, the people who are desecrating the good name that everyone else--all the rescue workers, the national guard, other people who are doing everything they can to help-- have given to humanity.

i'm doing what i can, from this distance: praying.

yes, it's a christian prayer, but i just love st francis.

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

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

anxiety

so using the theory of coginitive behavior therapy--in which you try to give yourself time to process things both emotionally and logically, instead of allowing your limbic system to run amok--i had a good practice this afternoon, and this morning as well.

perhaps it's just rationalizing and i didn't use it at all. but it helped me stop and think, instead of just blindly hurrying into despair and fear, which is my usual mode of panic.

so why the panic, you ask? well, i got worried because i emailed dan and he hadn't emailed back. this was late morning, when i had my first "attack" or whatever you'd call it. so i'm sitting there getting sick to my stomach, the tension is building, balloons are popping and my nerves are shot. i think, wait, he's probably at lunch, he's probably very busy, why am i worrying? i know why i'm worrying: it's because that's what i do.

i worry about everything--things i don't need to worry about are usually at the top of my list, ie, other people, and a future that i cannot control.

so i micromanage the moment, and sometimes i let the moment micromanage me.

which sucks ass.

so i started to rationalize. perhaps that's not the healthy way to do things. but it's what i had to do. by lunch time around 130 i was doing just fine. i kept thinking, he'll email, he'll let me know that he's okay, etc. so naturally by the time it got to be later, i was in full panic mode. no emails, the phone's off at the moment so no phone calls...the list goes on. i left work and pretty much ran home, trying to shed this anxious skin--to no avail. my only salve for the panic that was racing through my veins was the fact that he was going to see thaddeus tonight.

and now i am trying to use up the adrenaline that's been spurred onward and upward by my spiralling brain by doing something to release it: writing about it.

is that healthy? who the hell knows. i think it feels good, because i'm letting it out. but at the same time, it prods me into worry over a whole nother set of items that i cannot control: how dan is doing now, while he's with thaddeus. what my parents are up to. why my sister hasn't emailed me back. what serena's up to.

i worry about teresa and jeff, and how they're holding together. i worry about the price of gas and how much it costs, i worry about why my stomach isn't feeling good.

mainly, i spend my day avoiding thinking about things so that i don't have to worry. and then sometimes you can't control it, it grows beyond your comprehension, and suddenly you've got godzilla coming out of the ocean and you're stumped.

who do you call? the ghostbusters?

it's always a surprise to me to see this happening. as if it didn't happen two days ago, or a week before that. i can be the most level headed person during large events. but the little things are the things that are my great wall of china between me and life.

thinking about this makes me try to understand it, because that is the best way to disarm an angry, hungry thought--learn about it, comprehend it. then it's not so scary.

so i break down why i'm panicking about not getting an email from dan, or from anyone else, for that matter:

1. it makes me feel forgotten.
2. it makes me feel left out.
3. it makes me feel that i am not worth enough to be remembered. which is the easiest part to rationalize, because i have a poor sense of self worth.
4. i'm concerned about the person in question. i want to know how they're doing.
5. i feel the need to keep tabs on things.

i think about things from the point of epictetus, who says that you have to realize what you can control and what you cannot.

1. i cannot control that i am not getting an email or a phone call, etc. i can control WHO i call and email, however.
2. i cannot control it if others forget me; i can only remember me, and know that i am not really forgotten.
3. i can be concerned about another person, but i cannot keep tabs on them. nor should i work myself into a fit of emotional knots over any of this, because the only person it's harming is me. and i'm no good to anyone else if i'm in panic mode.

so that brings me to now. i have to take stock of where i am at, what i need to do in order to live properly at the moment: let it all go. if i don't, i won't ever accomplish any of the items on my list.

1. probably eat something for dinner.
2. pay bills
3. watch last week's sg1 and battlestar galatica
4. drop a book off at the library
5. go and get tomatoes for the taco lunch tomorrow

so i'm going to TRY to move through the panic. i'm going to TRY to eat something, which might help my stomach out. i'm going to TRY to continue, and i'm going to TRY to avoid my own internal melodrama, because it's not helping me in the least.

so there you have it. acts one, two and three of kim's very own opera of anxiety.

exhaustion and ideas

while sitting backstage at ren fest, i have copious amounts of time to think and consider. for a few hours of morning and afternoon, there's no one back there but people who're napping and such, and it gives the the opportunity to write, or read, or play solitare.

none of which i've done thus far, mainly because i'm lazy. i think. (;

anyway, the time in which i've been mulling has been informative, if not interesting for me. i've come up with a few main ideas that are rolling around in my brain, some of which make sense and some of which require further thought.

first of all is that i am sick of the games and drama that have evolved. after the other day when i talked with the crisis team in our county, i know i have options, and so does dan, if he wants to take them. i can support him and i can show up with him, but in the end, it's once again his decision, and not mine, and i have to keep that first in my mind. because otherwise i end up feeling as though i have enabled behavior that i don't think of as healthy.

part of my issue is that dan is going through all of this, and he needs to learn to deal with emotions that hurt in a healthy way, instead of hiding from them in a bottle, etc. we talked about this last night; i realize he is trying his hardest, but sometimes my inner taskmaster wants more. and there is only so much i can ask of him.

so i guess my thing at the moment is that i have to learn when to walk away. yes, this sounds like a kenny rogers song: know when to walk away, know when to run. but it's harder to apply than learning some other habits.

the second thing is that i'm not angry with serena any more. if i am, it's not for what she did in may, it's for what she's doing now, because to me, it feels childish. my sister beth gave me the silent treatment when she was 13. i'm a bit older now, and so is she, and so is serena. perhaps, in serena's world, this is her kenny rogers moment and this is when she had to walk away. that's fine. but it would have been nice to get some notice. it would have been nice to know she cared.

doing what she is doing makes me think that she does not care, that she never did care. i'd like to think differently, because she was my friend, and there are still a number of years of living left to be done, and she's generally a great person. perhaps, like dan, she is having a hard time forgiving herself. i haven't got the foggiest, and at this point, i'm not sure if she ever will share any of it.

but instead of dwelling on the fact that she's not saying anything, i have to focus on the fact that by doing this, she is also missing out on things. if she was talking i could tell her about the ren fest, and how highland fling was last weekend and she missed the kilt contest, and how they had a t-shirt this year that said "official kilt inspector."

course, she's also missing a lot of basic bipolar drama. i can say in all honesty, though, that you have to take the sweet with the sour--there's no way around it. that's what life dishes out.

i tried to be angry yesterday, when i was driving home, and i realized that i just wasn't. i was annoyed because she's removed herself from the board, but i wasn't angry. i've had to grow a set of cojones to deal with what's going on; so has eero. dan's having to deal with all kinds of emotions he never recognized before, and has had to develop tools to deal with them. i'm feeling annoyed because despite the fact that i was ticked off at her about the affair, i forgave her.

which makes me then wonder if she ever did care, and then i'm back to square one, not angry, just wondering, and trying not to. the saying goes that actions speak louder than words; i read her letter, where she said she cares, but then i'm not sure how to interpret her actions. which at the moment, are telling me that she really doesn't give a damn, when i hope that she does.

so i'm trying to deal with what i've been thinking. about knowing when to walk away so that i'm not enabling, about how i'm feeling about serena's actions. i'm trying to find a way to make it all work properly and sometimes i fail and sometimes i keep going. all i know is that i'm tired, and when i'm tired, sitting in skirts and a bodice and being sweaty and warm, and dozing in my chair, the ideas flow like honey.

off to work, hugs all.

leo the lion

i forgot how much i enjoyed reading leo buscaglia until last night. i'd loaned the book to dan, who wasn't in the mood to read it at the time, and just skimmed through it again last night while he was reading. it's always interesting to read because no matter where you are on this journey of life, it applies. the name of the book, since i seem to have left that out, is Love. buscaglia actually taught a class on love, and traveled around much in the manner of many other mental prophets trying to let the world know about his particular insight.

i was thinking about him yesterday, after reading nathan's blog--he was wondering where all the mystics have gone. i think there's a wealth of them out here now--just depends on your version of mystic.

but this book is something that moves and fits. one of the main ideas is that love is a learned phenomenon, that you learn it from your family, that if you didn't learn a good version, it doesn't mean that you cannot keep learning, or find a new way to view the life you have.

the last poem here isn't a leo buscaglia quote; i was trying to find the one about the plum and the banana, but to no success. i found this while searching for more information about christine quintasket, the first published native american woman. (don't ask, i got distracted on a quotes page...) of course, this isn't a quote from her, either. but it's interesting to me because it goes in the direction of leo buscaglia's works and ideas, but it's not his.

i think mysticism is shared out--everyone has a piece of it inside, waiting to be revealed. leo buscaglia is just as much a prophet or mystic as this unnamed person quoted below, just as much of a mystic as anyone i know. just my two cents on that subject. (;

***

"I think over again my small adventures
My fears, those small ones that seemed so big
For all the vital things I had to get and reach
And yet there is only one great thing
The only thing
To live to see the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world."

- Unknown Inuit

muscles

so i took this gig weekends at the renaissance festival, west of here, being an assistant stage manager. as with all other things involving theatrical people, the drama was palpable the moment i got there, and just got worse the longer i remained. but it's something that i'm used to, either at work or at home, for the better part of my life, and something that i can handle.

i hauled water and ice, moved tables, took out the huge garbage can. it's more of a support position and janitorial duty than really being any kind of stage manager. in fact, my stage manager himself, sonja, doesn't seem to be terribly involved at all with what is going on. which is disheartening and a bit annoying.

i guess when i was a stage manager, not to toot my own horn, i ran a tight ship. it's a tad frustrating, now.

but it's good to get out of the house. dan's trying his hardest to keep his chin up despite adversity; i do understand that. wander over to his blog (wastedscenes.blogspot.com) and check it out--he's come up with his own version of his own tao, his own philosophy on life. some of it is very profound, some of it is just like that ship that's no longer my own--frustrating, because i cannot change his mind.

i keep going back to epictetus' ideal, his philosophy that we often cannot change the situation in which we find ourselves, but we can change our reaction to the situation.

it's like flexing a mental muscle.

my shoulders are hurting; it reminds me of what i did this weekend. it reminds me of all things festival--the front that's put up, the characters assumed, the smell of food frying and the sound of the cannon, booming over all manner of laughter and cries.

sometimes when you flex your muscles, the impression stays with you for a while. you get cramps and aches in places you'd rather not consider. it makes a dent in your psyche, i think, to do manual labor. stimulating your whole body, in my opinion, stimulates your whole mind. it's the idea of blood going all over, rushing, rushing. you're focused on something other than what's roiling in your head, so you can focus more clearly on it. you're removing yourself from the situation, merely by raking the yard or hauling planks.

i think too that once your body is exhausted, once it is fed and watered and brushed down in the manner of a draft horse, your mind can unwind and stretch, and that is when the real thinking can begin.

i'm learning that there are many ways to move through life--some are sedentary, like this typing motion in which i'm moving now, and some are active, like scooping ice into silver pitchers. both occupy your hands, and both allow your mind to continue thinking along other paths. some of my best thinking is done while i'm driving. but that's just me. i also know that after doing something very manual and basic all weekend, it allows me to flex things that aren't flexed on a daily basis, muscles that i normally ignore, like these aching shoulders, which is nothing a good heating pad, time and the odd back rub cannot solve. it gives me something else to focus on, something active.

it doesn't mean that i won't go for a walk tonight; i need to keep that up, too. so tie your shoes, bam bam, just because we're doing laundry tonight doesn't mean that you're getting out of a good walk. (;

off to work. hugs all.

nicknames

i've had quite a few nicks in my life, mainly due in part to genetics. i blame it on my hair--which is red. i really prefer the across-the-pond "ginger" because it sounds so much nicer, and is actually more true to the color. my hair's not fire-engine red, it's orange. but orange sounds all wrong, and ginger sounds classy.

i think.

anyway, due to my dna, i've been nicked quite a few things--red, rusty, pebbles (yes, from the flinstones) but none of those stuck. i had nicks in high school that weren't particularly fitting--walter, the kgb, kimmy jean--and some in my family that i just can't share (hee hee hee), but it wasn't until college that i had one that was glued on:

kimbo the destroyer.

i don't remember doing anything memorable that had people thinking, she just destroys everything, doesn't she? no one was walking in fear of their lives when i was around.

in the same breath, i've grown into this nickname. i've become something of a destructive force, when it is required of me. now, i don't mean that i'm a wrecking ball, but if the tub needs to be cleaned, i will destroy those bad-ass soap scum molecules. i also have a tendency to make computer systems frizz, time fall in on itself, and baking disasters just reproduce in my prescence.

i mean, cleaning is good destruction, but setting goals in more of a genghis khan sort of way, rather than an, i'm-wandering-in-some-direction way. i just need some focus, and i think genghis was pretty damed focused. maybe i need a different, less bloody role model...nah. (;

i didn't know what i was up against (kim's lack of goals/kim's behavior v. kim) when i was young--i didn't know how to deal with anything, in fact. i still do a lot of things out of fear--the only reason i emailed to find out about credits for my college degree was because, as dan pointed out, i was petrified that my psychologist was going to be furious with me if i didn't. "you're not paying her to be angry at you," he said.

the same thing goes for disappointment--i despise letting people down. but for some reason, the people i care about the most--family and friends--i let down often, by dropping the ball or just not completing things that they see as normal.

normal is a setting on my rice steamer. normal is something that means "i vacuumed my house last week." normal is boring, normal is just plain old unrealistic for someone who answers to kimbo the destroyer.

yeah, maybe it's "normal" for most people to have finished their degree, gotten married, bought a house and/or had 2.3 kids by the time they're my age. all i know is that my life has been normal for me, and that's all you can ask.

part of me is learning to like the fact that i'm just ME--perpetually late and perpetually giggly, wandering, distracted by shiny objects and pretty colors. part of me is trying very hard to see that the place i'm in is the place i need to be--living, laughing, crying, surrounded by a group of eclectic friends, with nicknames that are just as fitting and strange as mine--bam-bam, lunchmeat, corpse, spoon, terror--to name a few. i need to step back and see me experiencing my version of mundane, not anyone else's.

i am at such a different spot than i was in 2nd grade when my math teacher told my mother that i could be such a good student if i just applied myself...but i just keep thinking of that song, not sure who sings it, but the line goes something like "i'm looking at the world/from the bottom of a well." doesn't mean i can't do something while i'm at the bottom of the well, now, does it? perhaps i don't have everything i need to get out of the well right now. but perhaps what i need is something that no one else can give me--the power to change my attitude, and become attuned to the vagrant thinking pattern that i've lived but not been aware of for my entire life.

my mantra for today, and what i'm going to have to keep trying to do, is what dan is trying to do every day too--be constructive with what i have--my relationships, my health, my goals, my patterns. there are so many things about which i can be constructive, where previously i've been destructive.

because i can see the destructive tendencies that i have--they're not always present for others to view, but i can see them. most of them are thought processes, but some are actual habits that affect others. it's harder work than i've ever done, and i'm undermining my own progress if i don't actually attack what i see as a destructive pattern, in the manner of mr. khan himself.

there's going to be setbacks; i can see that, because i've experienced them, and i can see dan experiencing them too, in a much different manner, because he's up against a much different version of reality than i am. again, i need to see my version of mundane, not dan's, not anyone else's, but it helps to know that others are trying to be constructive with their tendencies, too, that i'm not all alone on this path of self-exploration.

different song, by stabbing westward: "i cannot save you/i can barely save myself."

please note: this is not, i repeat...NOT an invite to be re-nicked kimbo the constructor. cause that just ain't happening. i don't want to sound like a building block or any kind of union laborer.

anyhow, the positivity of this blog is nearly clogging my arteries. i better get to work in the world of apathy, to counterbalance this preachy attitude. (;

(; cheers, k

it comes to this...

i'm trying to leave the house and get up to the st paul farmer's market. it's the locally grown, organic sister of the minneapolis farmer's market. i got online 20 minutes ago to pull up the directions again because i can't remember what street to turn at...and as luck would have it, i've been so distracted by the flickering screens of yahoo! and other assorted email stuff that i have yet to print the directions.

*sigh*

i had this ridiculous hope that i'd do this prior to 7 am, too. but i could not fall asleep last night, and dan and i chatted until past 12...and then my cat head butted my nose at about five and i was up for a bit...so i slept way past 7 am.

however, i am craving minnesota grown potatoes. they taste different than the taters you get at the grocery store. it sounds picky, and it probably is. but minnesota grown potatoes taste more tender.

i don't know, ask my tongue.

today is also the day i get to clean the restrooms in the house. it's my turn, and as usual i'm not looking forward to doing so. but at the same time, it means they'll be clean, and that's always wa good thing in my mind. my only complaint about housekeeping at the moment is the kitchen--which is always in a state of flux due to the whole concept of three meals a day, especially on weekends.

hi, my name is kim, and i'm anal about cleanliness in the kitchen and bathroom.

clutter, whatever. but clean is a must.

so it comes to this--i have to get my ass out of the chair and truck up to st paul and get my tender taters, and then come home and clean my bathroom to the nth degree.

and then i can watch battlestar galactica...which was my biggest media purchase yet, season one. lovely. (; more shiny screens to capture my goldfish-sized attention span...heh heh heh...

5 minutes

i haven't set a timer, but i've alloted myself 5 minutes to type this morning. we'll see what i come up with, or rather, how much i come up with, or how far over i go...

right now, it's 743 am.

yesterday i was half an hour late for work. i think the apathy is getting worse. i'm tired today, but not nearly as tired as yesterday. i just feel like i'm plodding along, no end in sight, when i could be skipping or running or something. i'm not even meandering, i'm just plodding.

745 now.

i keep thinking about the homework that my tdoc assigned to me, and it still seems insurmountable. i think my secondary issue is that i feel like i don't want to put pressure on people who don't care about me. i'm trying to change that attitude because i dislike the thought that i am being a hypocrite--it's difficult for me to not care about someone, so why should it be so easy for someone to not care about me?

delusion, i tell you, is a beautiful gray place. 746 am.

i only have one more minute before i have to disconnect. i'm trying to drum up some motivation to do anything--last night i got home and dan and i did go for a nice walk in the newly-unhumid outdoors. but i'm trying to stir it up so that i do more than just walk. there are things i need to complete--not just moving the dresser upstairs, thank you dan, but maybe moving some things INTO the dresser. not just airing out the trunk, but actually cleaning up the outside, too. not just ruminating on the homework, but actually completing it.

anyway, it's 748, and my time is up.

balancing act

sometimes i lose my balance. it's not just because of the deaf ear thing, either; it's because i let myself get really skewered by the day's events, or because i worry myself into a hissy fit.

i'd like to say that i'm a very balanced individual, but i'm not. if i'm doing something, it's either all or nothing. there doesn't seem to be a happy medium. things run through me--to explain, i think of it in terms of my reading habits. it's very, very difficult for me to sit down and just read one chapter of a book. i want to just read the whole thing, or read until my eyes close because i'm too tired to keep reading.

which i think is why i have so many books by my bed.

but it leadeth me down strange paths, to be this way. last night i should have been reading my payroll book, for class tonight. but instead i watched family guy w/ dan, ran to the store, ate dinner, and then nearly finished a book before nodding off around midnight.

someday i'd like to be one of those consistent people who reads a chapter a night, and has the self control or whatever it is to STOP and then just read the next chapter the next night.

do i hang on because i'm afraid? i know that one of the reasons i enjoy books so much is that the future is all contained in that one handy little fiber-laden binding. the people i'm reading about have a pre-ordained existence. it's all very safe, no matter what kind of book you're reading. it has a beginning, a middle, an end. i quake, thinking about this, because it reminds me that i had a beginning, i'm at the middle, and somewhere in the hazy future is my own end.

yesterday at work i couldn't focus. i was worried because i hadn't heard from dan much, but then my own emails in return were sporadic. got home to find that he'd cycled from manic over the weekend to depressed today, for good reasons, all of it. sometimes i envy his cycling, as he goes from optimistic and engaged in things to tired and listless. i just always feel tired and listless; i have to really force myself into action, when i know it's required.

right now, i need to force myself out of the chair for numerous reasons--mainly because it's almost 815 and i have to be at work in 45 minutes, 15 of which i should be driving. i still have to shower, dress, primp and make lunch. and clean the litterbox, quickly, as well, from the odors wafting about the house. and yet i type.

i feel like the family reunion, about which i'll write more later, was the last thing on my list. i feel a bit at sea, because i'm not looking forward to anything large and event-related. it's down to the minutae, which aren't a bad place to be, but at the same time, aren't exactly fun all the time, either. there are things about which i am excited--the ravenloft game, autumn rolling in, seeing my therapist, sci fi fridays... sometimes it just gets difficult to hang onto optimism when the cloud of pessimism over my head starts to rain.

but i'm trying. i'm going to get ready in record time and speed to work, and go to class tonight, and smile the whole time. home around 8 and then in bed by 10. it just doesn't sound like what i want on my menu today, but it's what's there, so i guess i should try to make the best of it.

cheers (:

32 ounces

so yesterday was my busy day. at 8 i saw helene, my psychologist, who's on the verge of a diagnosis of ADD with dysthymia. nice to know that it's natural for me to be feeling this way, and to have felt this way, for years. i think the most interesting part was when we started chatting about my childhood, and i remembered having panic attacks as a child, and mom giving me a paper lunch sack to breathe in.

last night class was cancelled, which was good because i had to call home as there was panic on the homestead monday, mom tore her retina in a few places and had a heck of a time getting it fixed--in ty pical whalen fashion, she went one place, was sent another place, got all ready for the surgery, and the machine broke...so then got sent to the er because the surgery HAD to be done yesterday to reduce the risk of retinal detachment...and now is on bed rest until tomorrow. my mom's an active person, and the bed rest is driving her somewhat batty, as she has to lay there with her eyes shut, flat on her back. she said that she's tired of listening to the television and stuff...so is hoping that someone will drop off a book on tape, or that dad will locate one, so she has something to do that doesn't make her want to open her eyes. she's also worried about the health insurance--as discussed by me previously, healthcare SUCKS ASS and the fact that she got sent from one dr to another probably won't go over so well with their provider. which in my opinion is pure and utter bullshit. but that's just me.

anyway, i asked mom about the paper bag--she doesn't remember giving me one, but she remembers her dad having to breathe in a paper bag because he had panic attacks. we also talked about when i was younger and teased, and mom explained that it went a bit further than just name calling. apparently the girls on the street would ask for me to come out and play, and then boss me around to a ridiculous extent. i think i must have been their personal living doll, that type of thing. mom remembers them making me walk a certain number of steps behind them, and all kinds of random crap. i don't remember that much at all. mom also talked about how she wondered, when i was as young as 3, if i'd been molested or something by a boy, as i hid when they were around, or didn't want to go outside.

it makes me wonder. i don't remember anything happening. i don't know that i want to, either. i think about the fears that drive me, the worries that have been installed by time, and i'm not sure i care from where they spring. i just want to be able to deal with what i've got now. which is closing in on a diagnosis, and therefore, a treatment plan.

i guess i matched 6 of the 9 ADD attributes--two of which i had adapted in my life so that i don't go completely over the edge. one was listening--helene asked if i was ever accused of being a bad listener, and for the most part, i've not. but i have to wonder if that's due to the whole half-deaf thing--i'm so focused when someone is talking, due to my physical deficiency, that it makes me wonder if i have made up for the mental deficiency. the other thing i don't do a ton of is lose items--at least the important items. i think that is also adapted--i have a hook for my keys, a basket for mail, a place to put my purse... i'm sure we'll go more in depth, and she has 3 tests she wants me to take, to confirm things.

ADD and dysthymia go hand in hand; i remember talking to my nathan about that, too. it's interesting to think about that in terms of my childhood, and school, and then college and the after college years. i wonder how long i've been stuggling with this type of issue--has it been since i was little, and mom used to accuse me of making mountains out of molehills? has it only been getting worse?

at least now i feel like i have some kind of direction. working with helene has given me that much, and i'm sure that as time goes on and i get more homework, i'll feel better about where i am and what i'm doing, where i'm going, etc.

after my mental probing, i went in and had an ultrasound, as my doctor was afraid that i possibly had an ovarian cyst. i adore ultrasounds, and most stuff dealing with healthcare and viewing the inside workings of my body. it's absorbing to watch the little screen and see organs working, arteries thumping away. so far, per the technician, she didn't see anything cyst-like, or any scar tissue or endometreosis, and said i could come back at any time because i was, and i quote: "set up like a textbook." yay for me. (;

the bummer part of ultrasounds is the water. about 45 mintues prior, you're supposed to drink 32 ounces of water. which is an ocean, for me. i get teased already that my bladder is the size of a kiwi, so drinking that much water and having to wander around the clinic after that--check in at radiology in the lower level, only to be told that i have to go to 3rd floor ob/gyn because all of radiology's ultrasounds are in use...troop upstairs and then have to wait, which isn't bad except for the fact that i'm about to pee my pants, and dancing around in my chair like a 7-year-old... but the fact that the tech thought things looked good was a nice relief.

my only big fear right now is the medical bills. they're going to pile up rapidly, at this rate. ugh. which means i should be getting ready for work, right this minute. but i'd rather be typing, and thinking about how much 32 ounces of water actually is, and how that affected my body yesterday, and made my kidneys run a foot race...