Digital Cashmere

on : Ex's and the Final Blog Here

2008-01-01T17:04:00.000-08:00

I have a pretty good relationship with all of my ex's, and this makes me happy for the most part. Sometimes, something will happen which causes me to wonder if two people who are more than friends can ever be 'just friends' for real, or if aspects and feelings and thoughts always linger and sometimes bubble to the surface always. Either way, maybe it's a topic for another day.

But, my ex, whom I have never seen drunk and who is a very thoughtful person, called me last night to tell me Happy New Year. and he was drunk, like slurring drunk. And he had left a woman upstairs and come downstairs to call me. I appreciated that he thought of me and appreciate that he reached out and expressed that. At the same time, I felt kind of badly for the woman upstairs and felt kind of odd hearing him so altered. It has really had me thinking a lot today about a lot of different things. I don't know how people walk away from people that they have loved and shared intimate times with, because I haven't really experienced it. I've managed to be friendly or friends with all of the people whom I have loved...for the most part, we care about each other and that didn't change because the relationship didn't work.

But then I wonder if that's even healthy. Should I be carrying around all of this past with me, letting these people occupy space in my heart when we don't occupy space in each other's lives any longer? Or should I be severing these ties and staying light and fresh and free for the next chapters in my life. I honestly can't imagine my life without the people who have made it better. But I can't imagine my life continuing on like this, so maybe I have to change what I can imagine? I'm just not sure.

Anyway, new blog for the new year and, hopefully, new approach to life will be at ... http://lhoprovatosullamiapelle.blogspot.com/

tug of war | only one more procedure this year!

2007-12-28T02:36:00.000-08:00

admitting failure is hard. admitting that something that you're involved in is failing is such a challenge. especially when it's failing not because of low energy, but because no one is just taking it. there's tons of tug of war, plenty of offers and acceptance, but no one wants to forward the offers. or finally one will move to forward things and the other blocks. tug of war is exhausting. and all that i'm getting is tired.

it's a big world. a lot of struggle. a lot of hard, hard moments. i want to be on the same side as the people in my life, working to pull each other away from the bullshit together rather than the tug of war. i'm tired of only getting tired.

i'm totally ready to find the joy in my life. i think some things are sinking in. i'm starting to listen when i hear certainty inside myself again. it's been a long time of standing on this precipice...scared and fragile and hopeless. i'm ready for the next step. i think i finally know what it is. i think that i'm going to be okay, and then better than okay, very soon.

only one more procedure left this year!!! (and very soon, once again i can't sleep. last night was the same and a couple of nights before that :/)...but anyway, only one more!!! yay!!! then no more procedures in 2007! i'm so ready to say goodbye to this year!!

it's almost here...

i don't have it in me for the phone lately.

2007-12-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

honestly, i know that my voicemail is full. i've got 68 unreturned text messages. the voicemails are not checked. inbox is stockpiling and i've, honestly, no intention of getting to it right now.

i really just cannot deal with the prospect of saying the same thing countless times, answering the same questions, making the same explanations, hearing the same unspoken heaviness on the other end. truthfully, i'm tired. lately, i think the same things a lot...i think about how i don't want to go to the doctor/take these hormones/change these hormones, i think about how i want to hang out with someone who gets excited to see me, i think about how i want - maybe more close, i need - to get out of this lane that i'm in and travel, be elsewhere, experience newness again. i think about how i want someone to make me breakfast. i think about when i was sick the first time and things would fall apart...i think about how in that time i would start to lose it and break some, and he would come to me and grab me and hold me so tight. he would literally try to absorb what was happening, what was coursing through me, and would hold me so tight and so close until i was past anger, past frustration, past rage, past the bullshit of the moment, and had arrived safely at that moment. the one in which i was getting a hug and someone cared beyond the hug and maybe i didn't have forever, but i had those next few hours at least, so why not make them good? i think about how i want that again.

and a lot, i think about all of the deconstruction that has happened since then. how many times i have fallen apart and tried to put myself back together. how many times i have fallen apart from the effort. i think about all of the effort that it has taken to get here, and all of the effort that it takes not to let the effort show. i think that i probably shouldn't let myself fall apart anymore, because once you do that it just keeps happening. it's time to work on being strong now.

anyway...that was just a glimpse into me right now, because i know that i've been playing my cards pretty close to my chest for a minute.

if i were to call you back, or text you back, or check my email and reply, this is what i would say...
thank you. i hope that your holidays were/are great too. yes, i spoke to my doctor{s}. yes the biopsy results are back. i'm having two procedures back to back, one the first thing tomorrow morning and one the next day. yes, i'm slightly worried, but i've been starting/am starting new meds and am making promises to do what they want me to do at the beginning of the year. i'm going to be fine behind these procedures, it's just the mental heaviness of getting there...not literally, just figuratively getting to that point. like i said, i'm tired of doctors and clinical settings. i wish that the next part could start now. i'm ready for the next part.

so, i would apologize for the lack of contact, but right now i don't have a heartfelt apology in me. it's just been what it is, getting to these appointments and what is on the other side of them. soon, i'll be back. soon. be well.

if i could fly away

2007-12-18T05:11:00.000-08:00

i wouldn't come back no more.
i'd turn around just to see it all for the last time.
it wouldn't be easy.
but i'd go.

there is no fairy tale | trust.

2007-12-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

i went to a movie screening tonight, of a movie i don't really want to put here to be forever known as one i viewed in the theatre before it even was released. it's not a movie that i'd have paid to see. we'll just say that.

and it struck me that movies play a huge role in why people find relationships so difficult. movies portray 'true love' as what is felt if a man is willing to go against stereotype and convention to be 'romantic', 'emotive', to sing and dance to you, to profess his love and perform a Grand Gesture.

and i feel like a lot (not all) of women absorb this message and eat it up. they decide that this is how their significant other *should* treat them, or how their future mate needs to treat them. and they put so much value on this showy stuff that someone & something perfectly good for them will be tossed aside because it isn't the fairy tale. people want the happy ending.

the thing, to me, is that the happy ending is just where the story stops being told. fact of the matter is, this is a bumpy ride, this Life. it's rough sometimes, there are ups and downs, some of them horrendous downs, and no one gets out alive. someone is always going to have to die before someone else. someone is always going to have to be the strong one when shit is happening, someone is going to have to be the rock, someone is going to have to be the one who adapts more readily to flaws and issues. it's the way of the beast where interactions and interpersonal relationships are concerned. some truly horrid shit might happen to the strong one which reduces their ability to be strong, and the other person is either going to learn to soldier on without being spoiled, without being treated like a prince/princess, without all the romance and grand gestures, or they decide that what they want is more important than any other thing and they walk away.

but, to me, that's not love. to me, love is not something which is solidified when times are good and the gestures and the romance are there, when the sex is constant and great and the times had are always great. to me, love is solidified when things are mundane, common, and not so great. to me, love settles when someone can acknowledge that i talk too much and my sleep schedule is fuct and i'm outspoken and sassy, but place value in my myriad of good qualities which they respect and admire beyond those...and let the positive be the focus. love, for me, is solidified when i care about how he eats, how motivated he is to find the joy in his life, how much he cares about politics and knowledge, but i care more about him as the person that i have chosen to love more than any of those single things and so i can choose not to nag or snark him about things he does that i don't agree with.

and i think that a kind of love that maybe alters us is built in times of struggle, hardship and difficulty. for instance, when i got sick again not so long ago, i had been dating someone new-ish. i knew that i liked him, that he intrigued me, challenged me, made me laugh, made me comfortable, made me question things and pushed me to question myself and grow. but, i didn't know love for him then. and then, the words from the doctor came. and i expected that he would run, and run far and fast. treatments which put a young woman in hormone suppression, menopause, and do all of the physical/emotional/mood altering things which mine did would probably cause someone years into something to pause and think 'i did not sign up for this.' so, i was not expecting someone whom i had only had in my life for less than a year to absorb it and still care.

this person, however, stepped up to be what i needed more than anything right then...he stepped up to be a good friend. he took me to doctor's appointments and treatments, he hung out with me when i was so sick that all that i could do was lay and look in the direction of the t.v. & he took me for soup at weird times and brought washcloths to me when i was later throwing up that soup. when the hot flashes took over, he showed up with a fan and tolerated frigid temperatures in which only i could be comfortable to hang out with me. he endured raging hormones and constant mood swings, neediness and pushing away, meltdowns and the physical changes, and while he wasn't perfect in how he handled those things always, he was good for me far more than he could ever even know, and i grew to love him so much.

in retrospect, i have been awed by him. at the time, i wasn't able to see clearly what it was like for someone in that position. i wasn't able to think about what it must be like for someone to watch a person that they care about be ravaged by something so beyond their ability to fix, or even attempt to fix. i wasn't able to process how difficult it must be to watch all of these things happen to a person that you like - both the physical things and the ways that it altered my personality and my moods - and know that there is a chance that they could die at the end of this. i can't imagine how difficult it was to make a decision to keep being a friend to this person, which means that feelings continue to grow, and to know that there is such an uncertainty while doing so. to watch them hurt and need and lash out and not be able to do anything but absorb it.

all that i could do, all that i could think about, in that time period, was ME. all that i could do was continue on every day, muster the courage and the strength to endure it and try to hope. i couldn't see how hard my moods and neediness and pain and hunger and desire-for-something-certain were to be on the receiving end of. i couldn't see how much my pain hurt the people close to me, because my pain was all consuming. my anger was big. my resentment was big. my moods were shitty. and i wanted the people that i loved to help me to carry something which only i could shoulder. i wanted constantness because there was so much inconstancy. i wanted promises because so much wasn't promised. i wanted to be comforted and told that *he* would be there because i wasn't sure that i would be. and in the face of all of these needs and wants and desires, he was able to be honest with me about what he could and couldn't do and give, even though there probably wasn't very much of anything which could have satisfied me in that time period...and so i could not be pleased.

i realize now that no matter what happens to me going forward in this life, i will always love this person. i will always want for him happiness and health and every good thing. my love for him is something which was cemented by all of the things that he didn't do and not by the things he did do. i didn't grow to love him because he brought me flowers and candy, because he said the right thing all of the time, because he took me to romantic dinners or bought me trinkets, because he didn't do those things. i love him because he didn't turn away from the bullshit, he didn't endure a crying fit or a screaming episode or a harsh tone and walk away. he didn't stop being my friend because things got tough for me and so for him by proxy. he didn't wash his hands of me because this wasn't what he signed up for. he didn't tell me to fuck off when i called at 3 a.m. and asked him to take me to the emergency room or to get soup after being a total bitch to him earlier. he didn't write me off because i wasn't able to be perfect in the face of some pretty not perfect shit.

i love him and hope that he is always a part of my life for how much i appreciate all of this now. i regret that so much time was 'wasted' during my time of hardship, and that so much of the tone of how we interact was set during a time when i was so not my true self, but i do not regret keeping my heart open to him or growing to love him. and i recognize that hoping for the fairy tale may be what gets some people through, but i know that for me, i'll take someone who will bring a fan and some soup and sit with me during hospital visits over someone who gives flowers and jewelry but can't handle the less than perfect times any day. for me, there is no fairy tale. there is only this life, and it is hard just as much as it is good, and it is flawed and dirty and there are often tears, but it is so amazing to get to live it every day. and to have people who will be there in the valleys just as tough as they are at the peaks.

and for this amazing story of friendship, there have been far more of those who didn't maintain. who couldn't, for whatever reason, be there until the end. like i said, it is hard to care about someone who is changing so much, who is so affected by external and internal stimuli every day, whose strength and hope and humor fades as her body diminishes. it must be so incredibly hard, i can't imagine. so, losing friends as i did during that time period, my ability to trust took a hit. i started closing myself off to most people, because if i couldn't trust the people who had been a part of my life for so long to be there, why trust new people enough to let them in? or why trust those who were there to stay? but what i've decided to embrace is this...

people aren't going to earn it. this measure of trust that i hold back which keeps me from being able to fully give myself to friends or lovers or whomever, no one is going to earn that. they can't. i have to give it, as a gift, both for myself and for the people that i care about. so, i'm going to try that. the space and love and happiness that i want in my life, i'm going to try to give it to those whom i care about and trust that they will treat it with respect. i am going to try to trust that when people make mistakes which hurt me, that it isn't a reflection of how they feel about me, but rather their own internal issue which has nothing to do with me. i am going to try to trust and love without expectation.

and i am going to try to be as good a friend to the people that i enjoy as i am lucky enough to have enjoyed. i am going to try to trust enough to know that when someone isn't behaving as i think they should to me, that it isn't about how they perceive my worth but more about their desires and capabilities. and i am going to try to trust the universe enough to believe that my needs will be met even if all of my desires aren't fulfilled, and that it is for the best for me in ways which i can't see right now.

you've got to believe in something - why not believe in me?

2007-12-09T22:27:00.001-08:00

• respond/react. i just did something i so should not have done for all of the wrong reasons.

• i know that we're all here for a reason on a particular path, but i certainly don't feel like i'm on the right one right now. this detour has been hellacious. i need more determination/dedication/motivation.

• the end of the year is going to mark the end of Digital Cashmere. if you want to get at me regarding where the new homebase will be, feel free.

• it was good to be with old friends.

• even when we disagree, and freedom reaches out a hand to me, i know that i would never want to be without your company. and i mean that totally.

• postcard from s. africa received...it is the same and it is so completely different. soon. i miss it too. you know how.

it's winter aka get your cuddlejawn lined up.

2007-12-02T01:37:00.000-08:00

:/ | :| | :*)

2007-12-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

first : you should really read this http://posting.triggerstreet.com/gyrobase/Submission?oid=oid%3A1264285 by my friend Adam and comment/leave feedback/rate it. he's good. i want good things for him.

beyond that, i'm tired and sore and have to have another stupid procedure on monday, so i'm not really feeling like blogging too much lately. the one thing i do have to say is this : you can experience moments of true generosity of spirit and positivity by others, but you have to be willing to be the person who will sit and talk to the guy next to them. you have to be willing to put your hand out there first...to reach out.

that's all that i have right now. i hope that your end of year isn't too stressful.

love isn't something we feel, it's something we do

2007-11-27T03:24:00.000-08:00

even divided
our connection
was multiplied
by love
infinite (i believed)
in value

when you sighed
my chest heaved
when you slept
i was riveted
by waking dreams

you, dear one,
are closer to me
than my skin

i feel your silence
echoing in the hollow
chamber where my heart
used to live

i know your heartache
and losses, the ones
past and future and
when you cry
my throat tightens
and i shed your
restrained tears

you, confused one,
are closer to me
than my skin

i know the things
you think you lost
and threw away
and the dreams
you think will never
reach fruition

when you ache
silently yet deeply
my being quivers
and i close my eyes
breathing unspoken love
to your soul

love isn't something
that we feel
it's something
that we do

you, hurt one,
are closer to me
than my own skin

epiphanies in the gym.

2007-11-20T01:15:00.000-08:00

so, i'm working out tonight (last night now?), on the elliptical machine just doing my thing and watching monday night football, when i start to look around at all of the people surrounding me.

Monday night is the most intense night to go to the gym. everyone has restarted their promise to themselves to get in the gym and go hard. the fresh decisions made, the machines are packed, the weight room is packed, there are mad dudes playing basketball on the courts, everyone is giving it their best. by friday, there's no one there and it's easy to follow the trajectory of desire vs habit.

i see so many different kinds of people. beyond race, beyond sex, beyond physical descriptors, i see a huge variety of people. i see those who wear their discomfort with who they are on their faces. i see those who are trying so hard to have one area that they are fully in control of...damaging their bodies in order to be a master of at least some domain. i see those who are clearly happy in what they have sculpted, the ease with which they walk and smile and laugh and hit on others. and i see the truly miserable. those who feel that they are fat/ugly/not *whatever* enough/too *whatever*. they are so difficult to see.

and i realize that what i've been struggling to find is right in front of me.

you see, i've been looking for the art of being easy again.

i used to be easy. i used to be carefree. i used to be so much more able to just enjoy the journey instead of worrying about the steps along the way.

in that time, i was so comfortable in my own skin. i was not perfect...so far from it...but i was truly inspired in my life and happy for the most part. the things which were important to me...friends, live music, being able to go for walks in the park, travel, being good at what i did...i had pulled all those things close to me. i had filled my life with things and people that i enjoyed and loved. and i was able to appreciate the good in my life every day, because so rarely did the not good even enter in any longer. a huge accomplishment for someone whose early life had been full of the not good.

and then...then disease came. discomfort. struggle. the realization that my life wasn't this never-ending promise of tomorrows and that not every dream was going to come true. typing out medical directives and will & testaments. moving assets into other people's names. surgery/procedure/treatment/surgery/surgery/surgery/treatment/procedure. dis-ease.

when every day you have to think about how many you might have left, and every day you are faced with medicines which make you a different kind of sick to fight the sickness which threatens you so intensely, you become someone who loses touch with being easy.

on television and in the movies, they would have you believe that when we face life threatening illness and its treatment, and survive, that we arrive on the other side of that detour just happy to have arrived. that we lose ourselves in laughter and love and kindness and take every moment with a breezy whimsy which defies belief.

it isn't true. for a lot of us, arriving somewhere so far from our original destination...broke, physically altered, hyper aware of our mortality, reliant upon medications and doctors and tests, carrying within us the knowledge that we are now forever marked and possibly being stalked by a ravaging criminal which likes to return to the same host, having lost so much - friendships, time, the ability to reproduce, ease, a certain naivete, calcium, vitamins, youthful appearance - there is a struggle upon that arrival.

you want to be happy. just to be here. just to have arrived *somewhere*. but at the same time, you're so devastated by so much. and there is so much to reconcile now. and you go through so many phases...like adolescence all over again, almost.

imagine that you have lived your whole life inside a tire...25, 30, 50 years, and have created in that time period your ideas, your beliefs, your belongings, your friends, your knowledge base, your career...all that you hold dear, and all of these things are the air inside your tire-life. keeping it balanced and full and going.

now imagine that something horrible happens to your tire...but it isn't something which happens suddenly and it isn't something which you can fix or control. instead, it is a slow, steady leak, which you can only live in the center of as you run back and forth to every tire repair person that you can find and beg them to fix it, to save this tire because it's the only one you can have. once that air, and everything that it holds, is gone...there are no replacements.

and so, as this happening becomes a daily issue, and you watch moment by moment as the life which you have built seeps out into the ether, your life starts to fill up with all of the things which the experts are putting into the hole to try to salvage your tire. but, it isn't anything even remotely close to that which it is replacing. it is poison and last resorts and final straws, it is big words, it is debt, it is struggle, it is immeasurable and inexplainable pain, it is loneliness, it is heartache, it is despair, it is hope, it is not enough hope, it is too much hope, it is stress, it is fear...

and these things which have to go here in order to even have a fighting chance, they begin to displace some of the things which haven't been let out yet. friends, dreams, hopes, ideals, self-perception...they all begin to be moved aside so that you can deal with this crisis every day. you begin to and then continue to have to leave a little bit of the life which you have known behind in order to have a chance of the life which you hope for, until all of the little bits add up.

then suddenly, it is months or years later, and what you have struggled for is here. you survive. things settle down somewhat. and you have a chance to breathe again. and you look around, survey the landscape which you have arrived on, and realize that you have no fucking idea where you are, or even who you are, any longer.

you realize that this life that you have fought so hard to maintain isn't familiar at all any more. you realize that the people whom you thought were going to always be there have moved on. you realize that the career that you were building is actually just a noose. you realize that the body which you have come to know and rely upon and be comfortable in is a potential enemy. you realize that everything that you have saved and worked for is gone, and you are starting all over again. you realize that time is short and your pain tolerance is high, but that doesn't make any of it any easier.

mostly, you realize that you are new to the world all over again...that this suffering and fighting to get here has changed you irrevocably. and you look at those who have been still living their lives during this time period and hear them tell you of your strength and your fortune and your tenacity, and you realize that they don't get it.

you understand, fundamentally, that the healing feels as if it is going to kill you. in a very short time period, you have watched everything that you have designed and built and become be tossed out. and you get it...that the strength that it took to hold it together and tolerate the direction of those who are trying to save you was nothing compared to the strength that it is going to take to put everything back together again. to rebuild. to remaster. to replan. to reorganize.

and you wonder if you have the strength, or the courage, or even the desire, to set about on the path to 'getting there'. it took 30 years to get there before. it took courage and effort and, i believe, youth. in your youth, you are so willing to meet failure and start again, to be flexible, to learn lessons from heartache and keep going in the quest for the prize.

somehow, age changes our ability to tolerate uncertainty. it is how we all become our ancestors over and over again...how we start out so desirous of making change and end up another cog in the machine. it is how we start out liberal and dreaming and end up middle of the road and getting by.

so, when faced day by day with these dual emotions...the happiness at being here but the sheer terror at how fucked up here is, you go through all of these stages of processing everything. elation, uncertainty, fear, depression, anxiety, feeling as if it is truly impossible.

and tonight, i realized that we make it so hard for each other. we see each other through the veil of our experiences, our expectations...both reasonable and unreasonable, our desires, our over-reaching. and we see in those around us our own failures. our unhappiness. our shortcomings. and we place that perception onto them and then judge them almost as harshly as we judge ourselves.

i realized that i've been seeing the world around me and other people with this desperation and desire that i've been full of.

you see, i've been desperate to start actually living my life again. desperate to be out from under the monitoring eye of the health care practitioners, desperate to see and feel and know and do all of the things that i had ever hoped for...and quickly. before *it* comes back or any other unthinkable thing happens which ends this opportunity that i've been given to keep going. this desperation has incorporated so many desires...there are so many things that i've desired to have and do and experience.

because i don't have any other option, i've accepted that which has been taken away from me - the things that i can't do. i can't bear my own children. okay. i can't not take these medications. okay. i can't sleep through the night without hot flashes. okay. i can't go without bone scans and body scans and ultrasounds. okay. i can't ungray my hair or take the bone loss away. okay. i can't get that time back. okay. i can't undo the staggering loss or the heart wrenching realizations. okay.

and so, this has left the 'i cans'. what is there that i can do that i want to do? and there has been love...i can still love. knowledge...i can still pursue knowledge. knowledge of self. knowledge of the world around me. knowledge of others. knowledge of my place in the world. i can still try. i can still laugh. i can still dream. i can still seduce. i can still entice. i can still cook. i can still feel pleasure.

because i have felt that i am racing an unseen second hand on a giant universal clock, i have wanted everything that i can have and do NOW. i have wanted this love to be reciprocated as intensely as i can give it because 'what if?'. what if there isn't unlimited time to go patiently? i have wanted to reclaim those days when my life was made complete by books and music and not having a strict schedule because what if? what if this is my chance to be happy living for me instead of living for the idea of what i'm supposed to do and want and be? i have wanted to go everywhere and do everything and be everyone and livelivelive because what if? what if the answers are out there and not right here?

and tonight i realized that everyone is racing something. we're all struggling, not quite happy, not quite satisfied, not quite *whatever*. we're all trying to get as much in as possible. we're all trying to find our own happiness. we're all using our own coping mechanisms...even though they may not make sense to others. we're all coping...using sex or drugs or exercise or food or whatever it is to fill the voids that life is creating every day.

and being easy can be easy again. i just need to understand that 'being easy' has to be about me. i can't include everyone else in my expectations or my desires or my limits.

everyone needs room to be who they are. everyone needs clearance to find comfort in the things which give it to them. everyone needs love without expectation. everyone needs all of the things which i have found that i need. i'm not special...my sickness, my struggle, my setbacks, my suffering...none of these things make me any more special than anyone else, or any more deserving of my desires.

i need soft eyes and to reclaim what i knew for all those years...that being alone in the world doesn't limit me. that i can do and be and see anything i want to at any time, and that being alone means i don't need permission or to feel bad for following my heart's desires.

in order to survive, i had to surrender control for the first time in my life. i had to be told all of the time...what to eat, what to drink, what to indulge in, what to smoke, what medicines to take and when, when to get treatment, when to rest, when to cry, what doctors to see, what to hope for, what to expect, when not to get my expectations up, when not to push, when not to hold back, when to get undressed, when to let strangers touch me.

giving up control seemed like the most difficult thing that i would ever face. but i am learning that it is getting it back which is the challenge. learning that it is okay to set my own boundaries and my own guidelines again. learning that it wasn't my fault that i got sick. i've been scared to take control back...letting myself float out there in the world and hoping that someone would see me here, floundering and low on strength and terrified, and step in and take control. that someone would step up beside me and promise to be here with me and hold my hand to keep me steady and help me find my place in the world again.

but there isn't any ease in life like that. and you can't be easy when there's no ease. ease comes when we're being true to who and what we are, even when we aren't our best. for the first time in a very long time, i can see the path to ease again...which means that i'm once again on my own path. and i know that detours will happen, but if i can have patience with myself and the world around me, i can find my way back to where i need to be.

going Raw | words | 

2007-11-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

• so, i've decided today to go Raw for a while...the Raw Foods diet. i'd like to say that i've decided to totally commit to it 100% and live that way, but i don't know how life would be without some of the foods that i love, so i've decided to make a slow transition in the food items that i keep in the house and go more or less hard core depending on how i feel/do with it. it's a drastic change from my diet now, in that i love to cook and there are tons of things that i use outside of the Raw lifestyle (pork chops, bacon, steak...). i'm going to start a cleanse and i think that i'll feel spectacular eating this way and eventually get to a totalitarian approach, but we shall see. i don't want to make a promise to myself that i break, because i do that enough. and as i said before, it's the secret vows we keep, the ones spoken aloud are the ones that we break. wish me luck.

• my roomie's cat chewed through my power cord for my MacBook and i had to buy a new one today. it was $90 all in and that pissed me off. annoying.  is the money making God though. the store in Pasadena was packed.

• someone wrote a testimonial for me & he said this : "Where beauty is more than skin deep, and courage stretches beyond risque exhibition, and affection becomes more than an affinity for loveliness embraced - You are there, fantastic woman. Hold your head high in the realization of your wonderment. You are Beautiful in all ways." ... & i think that those are beautiful words to be said about me and i am smiling. so nice. :)

• I am strong. And life is getting better. one day at a time. patience strength resolve tolerance flexibility adaptability perseverance desire. these are all the things that i strive to keep in the forefront of my mental toolbox as life continually throws curve balls and skews results. i try. hard. to maintain. I finally feel that i'm doing a good job again.

i have a feeling that you aren't made of iron but you seem to be as forceful like iron.

2007-11-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

That day you used a piece of red cloth to blindfold my eyes and cover up the sky You asked me what I had seen I said I saw happiness

This feeling really made me comfortable made me forget I had no place to live You asked where I wanted to go I said I want to walk your road

I couldn't see you, and I couldn't see the road You grabbed both me hands and wouldn't let go You asked what I was thinking I said I want to let you be my master

I have a feeling that you aren't made of iron but you seem to be as forceful as iron I felt that you had blood on your body because your hands were so warm

This feeling really made me comfortable made me forget I had no place to live You asked where I wanted to go I said I want to walk your road

I had a feeling this wasn't a wilderness though I couldn't see it was already dry and cracked I felt that I wanted to drink some water but you used a kiss to block off my mouth

I don't want to leave and I don't want to cry Because my body is already withered and dry I want to always accompany you this way Because I know your suffering best

That day you used a piece of red cloth to blindfold my eyes and cover up the sky You asked me what I could see I said I could see happiness

© Cui Jian

time moves on. it stops who you are. i was wrong. there is no. this is no. modern romance.

2007-11-12T17:56:00.001-08:00

i still wish music could adopt me. :/

it's been a shitty weekend in sports. the steelers = meh. the cowboys = meh. the colts losing = incomprehensible, especially after those 21 unanswered points and that drive down the field with less than five minutes left. and that shitty call??? wtf was that??? ugh.

monday night football better do me right tonight, 'cuz there's some ground to catch up.

...

all i want is sleep and salt...because i can't have anything else that i want.
:/

A warrior dies the hard way. His death must struggle to take him. A warrior does not give himself to death so easily.

2007-11-11T00:43:00.000-08:00

*gas face*,

so i was feeling weird saturday morning. i hadn't slept for a while...the insomnia is backbackback, so i thought that could have something to do with it. i'm stressed...that could as well.

but i'm just feeling mad weird. meh. scheduled to go deal some cards in the evening...just trying to get through the day.

and then Bam...it's more than weird. it's bad. pain. meh.

so, after too much time spent dealing with more doctors...the fibro is flaring up. :/ the insomnia was a precursor. tonight, i've had a migraine from hell and my entire body feels like pins & needles, with numbness too. nothing is helping. meh.

i called everyone i know who could possibly come smoke me out but it's the weekend and everyone is out. ended up talking to my friend in seattle b/c even though he's out and drinking, he will try to say supportive things to me when i'm hurting.

and sometimes, when the pain goes from moderate to geezus.fucking.christmas...i feel like being a warrior, dying the hard way, not being able to be taken out...it's some bullshit. b/c it would be soooooo much easier to not hurt sometimes. like i could deal with regular life shit with even just a portion of the medical bullshit that i deal with behind what that disease did to me. but everyfuckingday is a question. waiting to see how my body handles the stressors and hormones and new patch and bloodwork being askew.

and frankly, i don't give a fuck about anything right now except for this thundering pain in my head that won't reside, and the fact that i haven't slept since waking up on thursday morning, or how cold my fingers are and how my shoulders feel like they're pulling in towards the middle of my back and then being rammed into my neck and skull.

nerve damage and fibromyalgia can eat.a.dick.

:(

you can make a promise it will kill you to break and find what is real and what isn't.

2007-11-09T03:22:00.000-08:00

i failed.
i'm giving up
my love for him.
lost, i am lost.

and now it is him
who is lost to me
maybe it is both of us
who are lost.

nothing is ever
as perfect as you want it to be.

in my quite ordinary life
is this extraordinary pain
that mixes with the mundane
my loss feels huge
and yet can't be explaiined.

maybe you are afraid
that if you found the perfect love
it would chew you up
and spit you out
separate your armor from nerves

i lost my love for him
but it is me who is lost.
nothing is ever the way
i want it to be.

i was afraid too.
i tried not to hurt
but everything became a wound
open and seeping
i tried to salvage things
which can't be salvaged
i tried...
maybe foolish, maybe clumsy
to rescue what simply
cannot be rescued.

i failed.
and now he is elsewhere
and both my night
and his night
are drained.

it would be perfect
if love could be found
brought home again
but nothing is ever as perfect
as i want it to be.
...........

life is hard, even when it's easy. when you are alone, you must do anything to believe. when you're abandoned, you have to speak with everything you know and everything you are in order to belong. if you finally have no one to turn to, you have to claim your aloneness. and when all the things you love pass away, and the great family of things and people that you've made around you see you go, you can feel them living on in you.

when one thing dies, everything has to die together and then live on in a different way without it. when one thing is missing, everything is missing and has to be found together in a new whole. and everything wants to be complete. everything wants to go home.

life is like a slow river...it turns suddenly and there you are, at the edge of the water, with everything else. the fire carrying the feast and laughter into the darkness. away from the fire are the unspoken griefs that still make togetherness. but then, just as suddenly...it's a fireless, friendless night again. and you're alone. and you have to speak to the stars, or the clouds, or anything at hand to find your place.

these are the things that i have to tell myself. rather than ask myself...why do i prefer that face to another? why do i weep?

you carry around with you all of these emotions, attached to people and events and memories. things shared. words spoken.

and they feel so heavy sometimes...the weight of the responsibility that you feel to the people that you have pulled close to you for this journey. the knowledge given to you that some who test you the most are those whom you have known in other lives and that it is your job to be with them in whatever way in this life now.

you let your love mean that you extend the olive branch multiple times. you let your heart decide things that your brain is telling you completely different actions for...all in the hopes that you are getting it right. or something close to right.

and there are loves that you feel that you think can never be altered. friendships that you feel are for always.

and then, you feel something which means that you can't pretend any longer...that you can't trump the head for the heart anymore.i just don't know how to make my heart be still, to not pump this love through me.

what i do know is that i've been struggling with figuring out how to just let go of whatever feelings are attached to the feeling of love that i have for them and just release them from my life, without being bitter or undoing the positive that was there. and i've been finding it incredibly hard.

tell myself over and over again that things don't have to end badly, they can just end. you decide...those who don't feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don't want to change, let them sleep. this love...it's beyond search and study and knowing more, beyond trickery and hypocrisy, and so if they want to improve their mind that way, you let them sleep on.

but it is hard to believe these things which my mind repeats. hard to still the heart and brain and longing.

i've given up on my brain. torn the fabric of that knowing to shreds. thrown it away. no longer wrapped up in the beautiful robe of words, i'm completely naked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don't turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.

Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen

nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.

By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,

it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.

Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you

and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,

that way you'll find
what is real and what is not.

I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing,
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your
aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning on the desk,
facing up,
a poem of Kavenagh's
celebrating a lost love.

"She was the sun," he said,
lives in the fibre
of his arms,
her warmth
through all the years
folding the old man's hand
in hers
of a Sunday
Dublin morning.

Sometimes reading
Kavenagh I look out
at everything
growing so wild
and faithfully beneath
the sky
and wonder
why we are the one
terrible
part of creation
privileged
to refuse our flowing.

I know
in the text of the heart
the flower is our death
and the first opening
of the new life
we have yet to imagine,

but Kavenagh's line
reminds me
how I want to know
that sun,
and how I want to flower
and how I want to claim
my happiness
and how I want to walk
through life
amazed and inarticulate
with thanks.

And how I want to
know that warmth
through
love itself,
and
through the sun itself.

I want to know
that sun
of happiness
when I wake
and see through
my window
the morning color
on the far mountain.

I want to know
when I lean down to the lilies
by the water
and feel their small and
perfect reflection
on my face.

I want to know
that gift
when I walk
innocent through the trees
burning with life
and the green
passion
of the pasture's
first growth,

and I want to know
as lazily
as the cows
that tear at the grass
with their
soft mouths.

I want to know
what I am
and what I am
involved with by loving
this world
as I do.

And I want time
to think of all
the unlived lives:

those that fail to notice
until it is too late,

those with eyes staring
with bitterness,

and those
met on the deathbed
whose mouths are wide
with
unspoken love.

Every year
they keep me faithful
and help me
realize there is more
to lose
than I thought
and more at stake
than I could dream.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hostility.

2007-11-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

my life has been a circle surrounding vastness for so long now.

i have these points that i continually re-visit, a neverending track of getting back to where i have been countless times before, with the scenery in between changing only minutely. i'm so tired of it, bored with it, frustrated and hurt by it, but i don't really know what to do to jump-start something new/different.

i am working towards giving up desire...i feel like my desire for certain things and people is what is restraining me. the desire for him to want me. the desire to not have to think about hormones and the desire just to get 'there'. the desire to be balanced again. the desire to be willing to give someone who wants me a chance rather than holding out for someone who doesn't. the desire to not feel guilty about not being enough for so much and so many, no matter how good i am.

my days are endless blurs of the same scenes, the same conversations, the same arguments, the same doctors, medicines, pharmacies, phone calls, paperwork. neverending frustration that never goes away. and increasingly, hostility.

i am learning that when you love someone who doesn't love you back, and you stay in the situation expecting so much but accepting so little, choosing to have only a part of them in lieu of none of them, you become hostile. you become hostile at the situation, the secrets, the others, your own desire, and eventually at them. there's this always present loathing of yourself for even trying when you know already that nothing you do matters...you are simply not enough. there's this constant knowing that the day is going to come when you're dropped for the one who is good enough, which is going to be devastating when you have put in so much time & energy into this interaction. there's this pain that taints every soft/kind word, the unspoken "but ________" at the end which keeps you from enjoying them. and so, after so long of this, this undercurrent of hostility weaves itself into the fabric of your affection, and suddenly *you* are the major person that you're hostile with...and you're hostile when you care, hostile when you love, hostile when you reach out, hostile when you try, hostile when all of this goodness that you are is given to someone who is indifferent to the depth of your love.

there is only one thing worse than being mad at someone who is indifferent to your anger, and it's wanting someone who is indifferent to your desire.

lately, i'm so hostile. easily offended. easily angered. easily hurt. and all of these things lead to - hostility. aggression. the desire to learn the fine art of not giving a fuck. and i'm exhausted. from trying to accept something that hurts me. from trying to cope with the change in hormones, the trying to cope with pain and still live a fun life. i'm so fucking sick of this shit. of being tired, angry, sick, worried about being sick, hormonal, angsty, in love. i'm so over it. i hate being hostile. i hate feeling like this. :/

i am one of the dumbest people that i know.

2007-11-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

i missed 8 doses of hormone medicine. i put myself in a place to be damaged and then act as if anyone else should care that it's happening.

i can't believe that i did that to myself, again. i have maybe 3 doses before things start spiraling out of control suddenly & out of nowhere. if i don't take care of me, there is no one else who will step up and attempt to do so. i know this and yet i continue to not take care of myself even in the ways that are the most important.

i missed days of hormone medicine. i didn't take my contacts out since wednesday. i got myself all worked up over something that is never going to be any different. again.

i get myself to a place of stability only to let myself come unhinged again.

irresponsible...longing for the days of carefree life that wasn't dictated by hormone replacement therapy and menopause, i try to live life like a normal 30 year old woman when i'm anything but. i'm not normal. i'm never going to be 'normal' again. gone are the days when i can be out and about without worrying about dosages of medication to keep me hormonally balanced, gone are the days when life had simplicity and ease.

i'm so tired of the compromises that i have had to make simply to stay alive. simply to still be here, i have had to turn my life over to the medical gods, to prescriptions and medications which alter me and injections and tests to make sure that the beast isn't back.

it isn't fair. i simply want to stand outside in the darkness and raise up my fists to the sky and scream at the gods. it isn't fair. it wasn't supposed to be like this. all of this hardship just to be. all of this up & down & all around simply to know that although i remain here, i don't relate here.

it's exhausting to have to reconcile who and what you are with who and what you want to be all of the fucking time.
it's more than too much to have to know that there isn't anyone who understands truly in your sphere.
it's more than i can tolerate...all of the effort that it takes to be me now and all of the effort that it takes not to let the effort show. and the moments when the effort is uncontainable, and i crash & burn.

i'm so exhausted by simply living the life that disease and hrt have left me with...always tired and yet never sleeping well. even in my dreams, doctors and cancer haunts me, even in my dreams i undergo medical procedures and talks of medicine and hormones.

i feel better and then go out and live my life and miss my meds and come crashing back down.

it isn't fair it isn't fair it isn't fair.

i'm so fucking over my life as it is.

and i wonder...is this as good as it gets?

the Aquarius Woman

2007-10-31T09:58:00.001-07:00

But Alice had got so much into the -way

of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen

that it seemed quite dull and stupid

for life to go on in the common way ...

Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea- And welcome Queen Alice with thirty times three!

The safest way to enter into romance with an Aquarian female is to remember she's as paradoxical in love as she is in everything else. That way, you won't be expecting Priscilla Alden and get Pocahontas.

This girl has all the faithfulness of the fixed signs when die's in love, but she also has the detachment and lack of emotion of the air element. It's possible to have a happy relationship with the Uranus woman if you leave her free to pursue her myriad interests and circulate among her friends. Never try to tie her to the stove or the bedpost. Ask the man who's tried. She can suddenly decide to study ballet, meditate in the mountains or join the Peace Corps. Remember the story of the princess with the long, golden hair who lived high in a tower? That's the Aquarius fe–male. Cutting off her flowing tresses won't change her any more than it did in the fairy tale. She dreams different dreams than you or I. She hears a distant drummer-and follows a star most of us have never seen.

She belongs to everyone, and yet to no one. Her love can be tender and inspired, but there will always be a vaguely elusive quality about it, like a half-remembered song. You can hum the melody, but the lyrics keep slipping away. The Aquarian girl's demand for freedom is insistent, but her allegiance to anyone who can accept romance with–in such limits is boundless. Here's something you'll like:

She won't be terribly interested in your bank book (unless Cancer or Capricorn or Taurus is on her ascendant). Money is never the prime consideration of the typical Aquarian woman. She won't care if you're not the richest man in town, but she'll expect you to be respected in some way for your intellectual achievements. Dr. Christian Bamard and his heart transplants or Wemher von Braun and his rockets interest her far more than J. Paul Getty and his billions.

When you set out to catch this butterfly in your net, remember that she'll never spend her unpredictable life with a man who isn't true to himself. Her own code of ethics may be as weird as anything you've ever come across, and quite different from the accepted codes of society, but she lives up to it totally. She'll understand that your rules may also be highly individual. That's fine with her, but don't compromise those rules. If you're looking for a passion flower, you've picked the wrong daisy. Passion is not her forte if she's a typical Aquarian. She'll think physi–cal love is pleasant enough, if it's not overemphasized. In other words, she can take it or leave it alone. Uranus fe–males can respond to lovemaking with a haunting, deep intensity, but if you prefer to keep it platonic for long periods of time, that's all right, too. Like all Aquarians, she may have an unconscious fear that desire for one per–son will imprison the spirit in some way, and keep her from being true to her one great love-freedom. Freedom to ex–periment and investigate and freedom to give time to hu–manity. Also freedom to pursue her rather kicky, off-beat fancies.

She's an ideal girl if you're planning a political, scientific or educational career. You couldn't do better, unless you happen to run across an Aquarian girl with adverse planetary positions in her natal chart who enjoys shock–ing people by walking barefoot down Main Street or smok–ing big black cigars on buses. There are some pretty wild, way-out Uranian females here and there. But the average girl born under the sign of the water bearer is a social delight. She's graceful, witty, bright as a penny, and ex–tremely adaptable to all forms of society, high and low and in the middle.

Her lack of suspicion under normal circumstances is a special bonus. A traveling salesman should find his dream girl in the typical Aquarian female. If she actually catches you being unfaithful, it will cause a deep wound to her sensitive nature. You'll know it the minute you look into those strange, dreamy eyes. But she won't suspect you without cause, and she'll rarely doubt your word. The typical Uranus woman will never check up on you after you leave, phone you at the office, inspect your handker–chiefs for lipstick stains or look for blonde hairs caught in your cuff link. Deception will have to be brought forcibly to her attention; she won't go out looking for it. Before you give her too much credit, consider that her lack of pas–sionate jealousy is due to something more than strength of character. First of all, she probably dissected your psyche under a microscope before she gave you a second glance. Besides, she has so many outside interests and so many people who turn her on to talk with, there's not much time for her to worry about what you're doing when you're out of sight. Out of sight can often mean out of mind for Aquarians of both sexes. Absence seldom makes the Uranus heart grow fonder. Occasionally, an Aquarian woman will suffer a promiscuous or flirtatious mate, be–cause there's something she needs which she can find only with him, so she looks the other way. On the other hand, if she doesn't really need you, that moral strength will work in reverse at the first actual proof of infidelity. Shell simply walk away. Don't try to kindle the embers, they're stone cold dead. Of course, you can still be friends. Why not?

She's willing. It never embarrasses an. Aquarian girl to be chummy with ex-lovers or husbands. She's forgotten the past and wiped the slate clean of memories.

There is one peculiar and notable exception to the rule. Like the Uranus man, the Uranian female will remember the first true and honest love for a lifetime. Only the first, however. Are you wondering whether that Aquarius girl you once knew still remembers you? The answer lies in her definition of love. It could have something to do with the first boy who gave her a bunch of sweet peas when she was nine-the boy who walked her through the park in the rain-or the one with the funny ears who knew the clown at the circus, and used to feed her peanuts.

Uranus women involved in extra-marital affairs are rare. They can be tempted in exceptional situations, but a dis–honest relationship goes against their chemistry. It won't be long until an undercover romance is broken off for good. Yet, there are many Aquarian divorcees. There's a reason. If a situation becomes intolerable, the Uranian nature turns cold suddenly. They can disappear overnight, and never look back. They don't seek or enjoy divorce, but it isn't the shock to them it is to their more sentimental sisters. Uranus rules change, you know. Since she's such an individualist, with a list of friends several miles long, the Aquarian female never hesitates to make her way alone if the need arises.

Expect her to probe into your heart until you haven't a secret left, or a dream that hasn't been analyzed. But don't try to dissect her private thoughts. That's not the way the game is played with Aquarians. She'll keep her motives hidden, and sometimes take a perverse pleasure in de–liberately confusing you. She'll usually be truthful to a fault, but remember, with an Aquarian, telling a lie is one thing. Refraining from telling the whole story is another.

It's comforting to know that an Aquarian girl is pretty cagey with a buck. That is, it's comforting to know unless you're planning to hit her for a loan. She might say yes a time or two, but if you let your credit rating slip, she can be colder than the guy at the bank when you skip your car payment. On the rare occasions when she ac–cepts a small loan herself, you'll get back every penny with no stalling, excuses or feminine wiles, if she's a typical Uranus female. As for every man's nightmare of charge accounts, you'll have little worry on that score. Aquarian women are uncomfortable about owing money. Bad debts don't fit in with the Uranus code.

Her appearance is puzzling. Most Aquarian women are lovely, with a haunting, wistful beauty. But they're change–able. They can give an impression of smooth whipped cream, then suddenly switch to salty pizza as quickly as a bright, blue, zig-zag bolt of Uranian electricity. Next to Ubrans, Aquarian females are often the most beautiful women in the zodiac. At the very least, they're interesting-looking. The Aquarian manner of dressing can stop you dead in your tracks. There are a few of them who could grace the cover of a fashion magazine, but the average Aquarian girl is anything but conventional about her cos–tumes. She can wear some outfits a gypsy would envy, and her naked individuality can produce some mighty unique combinations. She'll usually be the first to wear a new fad, no matter how zany it is, yet she can also stick to Grand–ma's styles-even great-grandma's styles. With typical - Aquarian indifference, she'll mix yesterday's lace snood with today's metallic jump suit, and the effect can be a little startling. She'll wear her lace nightgown to a formal ban–quet, ostrich feathers to the supermarket, bell bottom slacks to the opera, sneakers to the theater, diamonds when she visits the zoo-and top it all off with a faded Mother Hubbard she picked up in a thrift shop.

Your Aquarian girl will probably have an unusual way of wearing her hair. Her tresses are as unpredictable as her personality. They can be worn braided, pig-tailed, pinned in a bun, flowing down like a waterfall, short as a marine's, in Mary Pickford curls or as straight as a poker. One thing you can depend on. Her hair won't look like the hair of any other female on this planet.

A conversation with her can be remarkable, to say the least. She has charming manners, and usually behaves in a timid, almost reserved way. Then comes one of those sudden Uranus urges, and out will pop a remark with absolutely no relation to what anyone is saying. You'll be talking about the fluctuations of the stock market, and she'll interrupt out of nowhere with: "Did you know that Woodrow Wilson, Jack Kennedy, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Calvin Coolidge, Benjamin Harrison, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley all have double letters in their names?" There's only one way to answer a question like that. Tell her she missed Millard

Fillmore, Ulysses Grant and Thomas Jefferson. Then gen–tly, but firmly, lead the discussion back to the stock market. Other minds may progress in fairly logical steps, but hers rigs into tomorrow, then zags back into today with no more sense of direction than a flash of lightning. Now and then she'll toss off an unexpectedly poignant phrase. You'll ask her what she thinks of space travel and she'll answer, "When I was a little girl, I thought the stars were holes in the floor of heaven where the light shone through." If she's in a different mood, you'll say that melted snowmen make you sad, and shell counter with: "A melted snowman is just a pile of slush, Charlie." First misty-then practical. First timid-then rowdy. Aquarian women will rudely ridicule flying saucers, then tell you a story about a polka-dotted elf on a windowsill. Never talk down to an Aquarian female. She'll resent not being considered your equal, and an unsympathetic attitude will cause her to retreat and become unapproachable.

Since Uranus rules the future, you might imagine that these girls would be natural mothers. Children do, after all, belong to the future. But the average Aquarian woman may be bewildered by motherhood in the beginning. She has to adjust to devoting all her attention and energy ex–clusively to one human being for a period of time, when she's used to spreading herself far and wide, and this can take some practice. Her natural aloofness may make it difficult for her to demonstrate warm affection outwardly. The typical Aquarian mother is devoted to her offspring, but also somewhat detached toward them. But shell prob–ably be the most willing PTA worker in the neighborhood. She'll talk happily for hours with their small friends on their own level without patronizing them, and she'll give up her afternoons to work for a school project. The chil–dren will learn the lessons of brotherhood and humanity from her by observation. Aquarian mothers are never fiercely protective of their children. They take a tolerant view of the most startling confession. A Uranus woman will seldom punish a child for telling the truth, no matter what he's done. With her unprejudiced viewpoint, she'll gain the complete confidence of her little ones. She's great at reassuring young minds about everything from monsters hiding under the bed to the pain of being ignored in the playground. She can turn their tears to laughter in minutes. Your children will find her jolly fun, a little helter-skelter, relaxed about housework, helpful with homework and gentle when they're ill. She won't smother them with affection, and she'll seldom nag. Maybe Tommy didn't wash his hands the third time he was told, but she's more interested in what he learned in science class.

We may be a little ahead of ourselves. Even though Uranus likes to reverse the existing orders of things, before your Aquarian girl becomes a mother she has to become a wife. And before she becomes your wife, you'll have to convince her that marriage isn't synonymous with Al-catraz. She won't exactly rush into matrimony. She's in no hurry to take your name until she's weighed you, sorted you, tested you, and found out what makes you tick. The opinions of her friends and family will mean nothing, though she may ask them what they think out of curiosity. She has her own yardstick for measuring you. Assuming you pass her test, marriage to an Aquarian girl can be confusing. She'll listen pleasantly when you give her advice, but there's something in the Uranian make-up that prevents her from following directions explicitly. She can't stick to the recipe when she bakes one of her angel food cakes anymore than she can park the car exactly where you told her to. There's some kind of a snag in her thinking that causes her to believe just a little twist will improve any–thing. But shell smile agreeably as she goes on her own sweet way. There's a constant urge to experiment with a different way to make the coffee, fill her pen, fasten her ice skates or cross the street. She'll wear a sweater back–wards, mix her brandy with milk, arrange flowers in a fish bowl, rinse her hair in shaving lotion or make a rock garden on your desk. But don't ask her why. She doesn't know herself. The unique and unusual is her wave-length, that's all.

Because her nature is so impersonal, expressions of deep feeling won't come easily. Except for those sudden remarks that sound likes a combination of Robert Frost and Yogi Berra, she has few words with which to express her love, and her pattern of physical passion is woven closely with threads connected to the mind and soul. Although the unique Uranus outlook leads some Aquarian girls into peculiar attachments, once they find the right mate their marriages are usually models of happiness.

Your Aquarian woman can float through her days and nights with all the grace of a proud swan, but she may behave like a clumsy bear in romantic situations. The line between friendship and love is often all but invisible to Aquarius. Love songs about people who only have eyes for each other strike her as silly. There are so many miracles in the world for eyes to behold, it seems to her a terrible waste for two pairs of them to do nothing but gaze into each other's depths. Shell be glad to let you take her hand and walk beside her as she looks with happy delight on the sunrise, an antique car, the milkman's horse, a yel–low garbage pail, a stuffed owl or a red balloon caught in a church steeple. But don't distract her with too much to-getherness. Let her wander through her wonderland alone when she chooses, and she'll never question your pinochle games with the boys.

The quickest ways to lose her are to show jealousy, pos-sessiveness or prejudice; to be critical, stuffy or ultra-conservative. You'll also have to like her friends, who will come in odd, assorted sizes and shapes.

She's susceptible to sudden flashes of inspiration, and her intuition is remarkable. Her judgment may not seem sound or practical at first, because she sees months and years ahead. The Aquarian girl lives in tomorrow, and you can only visit there through her. What she says will come true, perhaps after many delays and troubles, but it will come true. I suppose, after all, that's the most special thing about your February woman. She's a little bit magic.

my clock is all wrong...inside.

2007-10-31T02:13:00.000-07:00

so yesterday i awoke from sleep at about 3 in the afternoon. i didn't do anything that made me need that much sleep...nor did i do anything that should have made me sleep through an alarm so loud that everyone else in the house was freaking out about it and someone else had to come upstairs into my room and turn off (without me even noticing).

my roomie said i was moving and talking in my sleep, but very much not awake.

so then, i was up. i remember seeing six o'clock come on the telly this morning, but don't remember falling out or going to my room and getting a sheet and pillow and coming back down to the sofa. but, there i woke up at about 2.30 this afternoon. so now, my internal clock is all askew. right now it's my evening, and it's two something in the morning. i've been cleaning and doing laundry, after looking for dining room furniture and being in contact with most of those i needed to be about halloween.

it's no fun to be awake alone in the middle of the night. i'd rather be hanging out with someone, or have someone give me reason to go to bed...because heading there alone right now doesn't seem like the move. lol @ needing a reason to be in bed, but if you're going to be awake, reason is needed!

so, instead i'm still cleaning, organizing, chatting on instant messenger...catching up on things i'd rather not be doing but which need to be done.

i could go for a walk right now but streets aren't safe for womenfolk at this time. so instead, i'll clean and organize some more. wait for the sun to come up before my energy goes down, i guess.

mehhhhhhh. bored and boring!

i want sushi | nicknames. | friends that know all | scriptage

2007-10-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

i want sushi, but i finished at the gym too late & everything was closed. damn, moments like that i miss hwood, yummy, and all the other conveniences of my old life.

instead, i'm making miso soup, rice & salmon. it'll probably be better and cheaper if i make it myself, but i want sushi dammit!!

so...everyone in my life has a nickname, if only in my head. i have a couple of friends that know all of my nicknames for everyone & it always makes them laugh to hear them when they get assigned, especially the men that are trying to holla. they always get hilarious nicknames that usually make fun in a subtle way. recently, i've started changing all the names in my phone to the nicknames & it's hilarious to scroll through my missed call list (b/c i don't answer my phone evAr hardly). it's more fun to have nicknames for people.

i believe that we all should have someone who knows every single thing about us, even the things that we don't tell the people that we're 'intimate' with (especially when we're intimate with multiple people), and who loves us anyway. for me, that person is someone that i appreciate so much. he's my honesty box...lol. he's the place where i put everything...he knows everything i'm doing, everyone i'm doing, all of my dates, all of my shit in my health crisis and relations with my family and friends. and he loves me anyway. he laughs at my jokes, he finishes my sentences about the why i'm doing what and who i'm doing. he understands me in a way that maybe no one else does, and he keeps me in check by being honest and by asking me the hard questions & demanding that i answer them. he knows when i'm not telling him the whole truth or the real reasons behind my answers.

it's nice to be known like that, to be understood and appreciated. it's nice to have long conversations with that person. today i talked to my friend for forever and it's so nice to have someone to talk to...to really dialogue with and joke with and talk about movies and music and politics and life. i'm a lucky girl where friends are concerned :)

•• so i'm reading the script for American Gangster and i cannot wait to see it in the theater!! mad excited. (thank you for giving me the script bebe :)) - also, i saw Gone Baby Gone today and it is a really great movie (thanks Adam!! you're the best movie friend & know my taste so well!!!). i'd say GBG is better than Michael Clayton, and i really love how Clooney's character was the anti-hero and they all lived in the gray zone in MC. GBG had me way more than MC did, though, i'll admit.

...also, i'm still addicted to Last One Standing & still listening to Kenna...i bought my friend Kenna's disc today b/c the music store only had 2 copies left! it's that goot!

life, love, the gym & other stupid shit.

2007-10-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

these past days have been more full of bullshit than i care to even think about, but it's all that i can think about.

everytime that my phone rings, it's more of what i can't tolerate right now.

acclimating to a doubling of estrogen in my hormone replacement therapy has been hard. right when i thought that i was getting adjusted to my moods and how the medicines alter them, i'm right back to edgy, hormonal, irritable, easily hurt, the place where even to leave the comfort of a storm is too much.

and then my grandma calls to tell me that she's picked out her casket and her tombstone and arranged for it all to be taken care of with her life insurance, typed up her funeral instructions to the minister, set up the Power of Attorney and Living Will, and she's ready now. she picked out everything so that i wouldn't have to. she appreciates me helping her pay for her life insurance policy and she doesn't want me to have to do the rest. and she's ready. jesus. okay. just breathe through it. hide the tears and accept it. tolerate. breathe. absorb. apply more cream.

and then lose your best friend. accept that the compromise isn't going to happen. try not to lose my temper and say heated things when my hormones are raging in me and i'm already at the limit to what i can endure. tolerate. breathe. accept. hang up and sob. take more pills.

rent the truck to go and pick up the furniture. go to the gym. dump all of my hurt and anger and frustration there. focus. go agro on those machines. heart rate climbing. sweat. cry while doing cardio. push myself past all pain and hope to reach numb.

and then, while on the machine, notice that i'm being stared at...hoard. and notice that the person staring is an actor. a very attractive working actor. stare back because fuck it, what else is there to do. when my legs feel that they can't go any more, heart pounding, every inch of me sweating, climb off. and go upstairs to do strength training and weight machines. and he goes upstairs too. places himself across the room on machines where he can stare blatantly at me. and when i move to ab machines, he comes to the machines directly behind them and starts doing reps with ridiculous amounts of weights. staring. smiling. even a wink. trying to pull me into something that i don't have the energy or strength of heart to do. but he stares. and i stare back. i won't be broken by another person today. i won't admit defeat, my weakness, my inability to relate, to another person today. and so when i come off of the ab machines, having pushed so much and so hard with so much weight that my workout partner can't keep up, he stands up, takes out his iPod, and tells me that he's enjoying watching my sexy ass work out so hard...to know that i'm being watched. i laugh and go to the mat. plank, 8 minute circuit training, plank, side plank, other side plank. at other side plank, i look up and see that he has placed himself at the machine where he can see everything that i am doing and is making, yet again, no bones about the fact that he is enjoying what he's seeing.

and so, i stand up and walk over to him. say, 'i'm angie. i hope that you're enjoying watching me try to break myself.'
and he tells me that it's my fault, for being so sexy, and that his mind is wandering, thinking of all of the things he'd like to do that tattoo. has anyone ever licked the ice cream cone? has anyone ever traced it down? how sexy my legs and body and the tats that i've chosen to adorn myself with are, and what they make him think of.

he is a sex symbol. he is attractive and oozing sexuality and confidence and in those moments, it is more than what i need that he has chosen me. while staring back, i have seen the other women approach him and try to talk to him, and watched him be dismissive as he reaches his head around to keep me in his line of sight. i have watched them walk by me on my machine after that and stare me down, and watched him laugh about it. i have listened to my workout partner talk about how fucking fine he is and how it's obvious he wants to fuck the shit out of me. i have watched the light reflect off of the massive diamond that he wears. in my place of rawness and hurt, trying to push my body to its breaking point, i have seen and heard everything, i have maintained eye contact, i have not waverred.

i have decided to offer myself up to the gods of helping me forget the things which are causing me to ache and want and cry and hurt. i have decided that whatever it takes to keep living, keep breathing, keep knowing that i am alive and desired, i will do it. i will do as i have always done and evolve past the moment of everything and everyone that i have loved falling away from me, choosing to propel themselves in a different direction. and so, when he reaches for his phone and demands my number, i give it to him. as he dials and lets it ring, i tell him that my voicemail is full and so when he hears confirmation, he tells me his number and to program it in because i'll be hearing from him again. i smile the smile of cynicism and 'uh-huh'. he laughs and tells me that i am funny & beautiful, that in a land of the bitch who won't eat and won't engage in sarcasm, i am what he has been looking for, and that he is glad that this is the gym that he was close to tonight and so, out of his pattern, stopped there. that it is the universe.

it is rare to meet someone so candid, so frank, who also speaks of the universe. even more rare that i would have the benefit of knowing who he is and so therefore have the knowledge to doubt him. i know his world, have been a part of it, and so do not believe that someone with access to the kind of women that he has access to truly would desire me, but i go along with it. pretend to believe that he is sincere. verbally spar with him, tease him, finish my workout and leave. as i'm leaving, he makes it a point to call to me across the room...every woman who has been staring and trying to talk to him or get his attention now even more angered that i am the one that he has chosen. i have come in braids like pigtails, no makeup, cotton shorts and a tiny shirt, no appearances, no faking it. everything that i am, raw, unaltered, undone, visible. and that he has chosen this fucks with them.

by the time that i have gotten back to my phone, he has text me that he's still thinking of me, that i am perfect cuteness and that he can't get his mind away from the places that it has wandered while watching me go hard in the gym. while i'm at the grocery, he calls me. he tells me that he is grown, tells me his age which is a full decade over what i believed it to be, and that he is at the place in his life where he doesn't fuck with not going after what he wants, and that what he wants is to spend time with me. do i like italian food? do i like soul food? he's from the east coast and is a cat that wants someone who likes what he likes, who will be an intelligent date and eat good food and be down for being woken up at 5 a.m. to spend some time before he leaves to shoot his movie. and it is flattering. i talk back, let myself be carried away into the feeling of being chosen by someone that everyone else wanted. he laughs and laughs, tells me that i am funny and sarcastic and smart and perfect. he wants to see me. will i see him tonight? when i tell him no, will i see him tomorrow? when i tell him why i can't, he laughs at my plans and tells me that he will wake me up on friday morning then. to expect to hear from him again. that he is not easily put off from what he wants.

in his words, there is the promise of distraction, of a steady stream of compliments, of probable physical gratification. it is flattering. it makes me feel good to be so desired, so blatantly admired and wanted. but also, there is the danger that would come with giving myself even remotely to someone when my heart lies elsewhere. as much as i want the distraction, i do not want to fuck with someone else's head or heart. i know the danger too much of having head and heart fucked with, and i feel that i can't even begin to do something only for my own pleasure, my own distraction. that i must remember that he is a person with his own thoughts and feelings, and be responsible for that. even though it is hard. because what i want to do, what i am tempted to do, is say fuck it and let him be a distraction for me, let him make me laugh and cum and feed me dinners of italian and soul food and tell me over and over again of my cuteness and my sexy and my beauty.

and so i breathe. accept. focus. continue. go to get the furniture...finally. finish the laundry. make the seasoning mix to toss the scallops in, cut the potatos, sautee the spinach. all the while, crying. being easily flustered. and yet continuing on.

life and all this stupid shit. the desire, the ache, the sadness, the loss...it all remains. and so i just soldier on.

tootsie pops and working out.

2007-10-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

i love both tootsie pops and workouts...so today has been good b/c its included both.

i also got to go to the tea room for proper tea and i made pork tenderloins and sauteed spinach & string beans...so yummy!!

it's been a good weekend and start to my week.
things are going okay...even though my hormones have been intensified and i'm hungry all the time and moody moody moody.

i'm maintaining.
that's all i can hope for.

day by day.

that new Kenna is awesome btw!

<3

Day 2 of Operation: I don't want to be the fat bitch.

2007-10-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

ooooohhhhhhhh, day 2.

day 2 was when things got good.
for anyone watching me sweat.
because it was funny.
not 'funny i'm laughing with you'
but, 'funny, you are looking to me right now.'

morning = hike in the mountains for a very long time (i put someone who has been training for a while to shame though, so my endurance isn't that hit!!).
afternoon = apple store & new swimsuits for swim therapy prescription.
evening = salad with chicken & then the gym for cardio (elliptical), abs, and upper body.

now i'm home, showered and about to do laundry so that i can do it all again tomorrow.

i will be one point five inches smaller in the waist by halloween.

oh, and saturday i'm getting a trainer for free :)

my measurements didn't make me upset at all and i thought that they would...i didn't really gain much, i just lost tone. easily rectified?

you tell me.

i'm hungry again!!!

Operation Two-A-Days aka no more Pushing Maximum Density has commenced.

2007-10-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

i'm a thick girl.
not fat at all.
especially compared to how i used to look.
but, i'm borderline.
i get Mad Holleration, no doubt.
and not even stunting, it's just true.
i leave the house and i get attention.
it's not attention that i want...
i just want to feel good about my body All The Way again.
surgery has changed my body.
Hormone Replacement Therapy has changed my body.
treatmments have changed my body.
some things...
a Perfect stomach,
a Flawless stomach,
youth, maybe,
i will never have again.

i have beautiful eyes.
i have a beautiful smile.
i have, amazingly after the hormones and treatments, long beautiful hair.
i have, more importantly, intelligence.
i have strength of character.
i have a razor sharp wit.
i have a fabulous sense of humor.

these are all good things to have.
and maybe should be enough.
but i want The Body.

i don't want to Push Maximum Density any longer.

my doctors tell me that i can't do it again.
that i can't get my body back there.
that a hysterectomy and HRT have altered me,
in a way that means that i will have to accept my limitations.

i call bullshit.
my entire life has been about disproving the Powers That Be about what i can and cannot do.
this will be another way that i prove them wrong.

i have started operation Two A Days.
hiking in the morning.
gym for alternate cardio w/upper body and cardio w/lower body in the evenings.
it feels good to be on a mission again.
tonight's workout was an hour and a half.
cardio...elliptical for 40 minutes.
lower body strength and toning on the weights.
i was stronger than i thought i'd be.

soon, i will be an even lovelier vision!

and the funny thing...
i got mad holleration in the gym
from the trainers
while i was working out.
laughing, i am.

i can't wait to be my next evolution.
i can't wait to prove them wrong.
i can't wait to sleep tonight!!!

Make Sure They See My Face.

2007-10-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

Kenna's sophomore album, Make Sure They See My Face, is finally out. (Fucking Finally Thank You, Interscope Motherf*ckers).

Anyway, if you know about Kenna, then you know that his first album got completely and totally fuct with by the Powers that Be in the Music Industry and we almost never got the release. That album, New Sacred Cow, was leaked on the internet and getting mad play on radio stations and internet radio shows long before it was finally released by Interscope.

The same thing, unbelievably, started to happen for MSTSMF.

The thing is, I think, Kenna defies classification and stereotype. Born in India, raised in Virginia, looks black, music isn't gangsta' rap...none of these things matter if you like his music, but if the Machine doesn't know how to package you up pretty and put you in a niche, then chances are that you'll never get to decide that you like the music. We just won't hear it, because it doesn't fit very well into the societal concepts of who = what, even in 'Artforms'.

{Newsflash to the Music Industry - Music is still an artform. Kthxbye.}

Anyway, I could go on and on about how Clive Davis killed the Music Industry and how the machine is a beast that chews up talent and spits it out while less-talented-but-more-marketable aholes are putting songs like T-Pain's shit on the radio and MTV.

But, I won't. I'll just say this...Make Sure They See My Face by Kenna is out now...buy it. Because even though he has the beast/machine/industry behind him, all they're doing is fucking him back there and he deserves better.

A video clip of Say Goodbye to Love, by Kenna and directed by Pharell - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-ysBuRVQA

And a final tidbit for you - Radiohead is saying goodbye to the beast and stepping out to independence now that they got stadium status. Their new album, In Rainbows, is being released by them directly to fans - for the price of however much you think it's worth. And you can pre-order the Disc Set for the album, including wax there as well. www.inrainbows.com

Let's take music back.

i am, indeed, somehow still about faith...

2007-10-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

faith that the universe has meaning.
that my little human life is not irrelevant.
that what i choose to say and/or do matters.

~~~~~Revelation Must Be Terrible~~~~~~~~~~

Revelation must be terrible
with no time left to say goodbye.

Imagine the moment staring at
the still waters with only the brief tremor of your body
to say you are leaving everything
and everyone you know behind.

Being far from home is hard,
but you know, at least, we
are exiled together.

When you open your eyes to the world
you are on you own for the first time.

No one is even interested in saving you now
and the world steps in to test the calm fluidity
of your body from moment to moment,
as if it believed you could join
its vibrant dance of fire and calmness
and final stillness...

as if you were meant to be exactly where you are,
as if like the dark branch of a desert river
you could flow on without a speck of guilt
and everything - everywhere would still be
just as it should be,

as if your place in the world mattered
and the world could neither speak nor hear the fullness
of its own bitter and beautiful cry without the deep well
of your body resonating in the echo...

knowing that it takes only that one terrible
word to make the circle complete,

revelation must be terrible
knowing you can never hide your voice again.

- David Whyte

there are certain people you just keep coming back to...

2007-10-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

she is right in front of you

you begin to wonder
could i find a better one
compared to her
now she's in question

and all at once
they all begin to say
sometimes the hardest thing
and the right thing are the same

maybe you want her
maybe you need her
but maybe you've started to compare
her to someone out there

looking for the right one
you light up the world to find
where no questions cross your mind
but she won't keep on waiting

for you
'without a doubt'

waits no more for you to
sort it out

and all at once
they all begin to say
sometimes the hardest thing
and the right thing are the same

maybe you want her
maybe you need her
but maybe you've started to compare
her to someone out there

maybe you want it
maybe you need it
maybe it's all you're running from

...all at once,
they all begin to say
sometimes
we never know what's wrong
without the pain

sometimes the hardest thing
and the right thing
are the same

maybe you want her
maybe you need her
maybe you're still comparing
her
to someone out there

maybe you want her
maybe you need her
maybe you had her
maybe you lost her

somehow.

a break from cleaning - my dad died when i was 9...

2007-10-06T05:35:00.000-07:00

My father was not what most people would call a good man.

He was a criminal, a felon, a convict...prone to violence with a moody disposition. He was a bad man to be on the wrong side of...he ran organized crime and not-so-organized crime. He was a fighter...he wore cowboy boots and carried knives and guns.

When I was a baby and a little girl, I didn't know these things. I only knew that he was my daddy and that I loved him, craved him, wanted him like I wanted no one else.

It was an often told story to me by my grandma that when my mom, at 16 & married to my dad, was pregnant with me, my dad spoke constantly of his coming son...his Jr. He absolutely-without-a-doubt knew that I would be a boy, his legacy. When my mom went into labor with me, and the family gathered, they waited anxiously for the phone call from the doctor (I love envisioning how different those times were, especially since my son's adoptive parents were in labor & delivery with me, and the father video recorded the whole messy affair). When the call finally came, my dad answered eagerly, and she tells me, he jumped into the air and let out a 'Whoooooo, a girl - JUST WHAT I WANTED A BABY GIRL!!!!', while clicking his cowboy boots together.

And I became, in those moments, exactly what he had wanted. He never treated me like I had disappointed him from my arrival into this world.

From as early as I can remember, even though they were both terrible parents who caused me trauma due to their abuse of each other and their inability to see how their actions were not just affecting them any longer, my father was the one with whom I bonded. When he was with me, he was my heart and soul. He truly understood me.

Also from as early as I can remember, he started telling me that he was going to die when he was 30. I remember calculating what this meant for me...how old I would be when he would be no more. I remember never doubting him...he was so convincing, I think because he was so convinced.

I witnessed terrible things at my father's hands. I suffered terrible things due to the neglect of both my father and my mother. And it was my father who, after a night so horrible that I have recounted it only two times in its entirety in my life, drove me through the rest of the night, across states, to my grandma's house with one paper grocery bag of belongings. He urged me out of his El Camino and onto her porch and he rang the bell. When she answered the door, he said to her..."If you don't take her, I'm giving her to the state. It's not right, what's happening to her there. Do you want her?"

Of course my grandma took me. And ultimately my sisters as well. And for so long, I waited for him to come back. There would be times when he would, times when I would get to spend time with him. And always, when I did, I felt as if I were spending time with the other part of me. Of course, I didn't feel that then...I didn't know how to articulate that feeling of 'connectedness' that I felt with him, how much I felt that he was the only person who truly 'got me', but all that I knew was that I ached for him in a way that left me broken.

I spent so much time trying to figure out what I had done to cause him to want to give me away. I had tried my best to be a good girl. I had learned to read early, learned the songs he wanted me to sing for his friends, learned to tie my shoes, learned to give my sisters their bottles and later their food...learned how to set my alarm and get myself up and off to school when no one came home to care for me - never telling anyone the horrors that were happening at home. I didn't understand why he could so easily toss me aside when I had tried as hard as I could.

My mom had always been the abuser - the beater, the berater, the hater, the one that I couldn't please. And so I had stopped hoping for her affection, her praise, her love. I knew that no matter how well I did anything, there would be something that I didn't do well enough and so I would get beaten for it. I hoped that it wouldn't be bad enough that I had to miss school - school was my respite, my happy place, and so when she beat me so bad that I couldn't go because they couldn't see the results, I was broken up about it.

But, he had been the rescuer. In a home life as twisted as ours, having someone who cared enough to beat the person who had left you beaten and bloodied made them your hero. And that had been him. Even though their relationship was tumultuous at best, abusive, and I witnessed horrors by him, I was never frightened *of* him...he was always the one who scooped me up and showed me love. He was the only place where I felt any gentleness, any love. And so even though I knew what he was capable of, I didn't flinch from his hands. He was my tamed lion. My protector.

As I grew older, our relationship grew more close. He would take me fishing, riding horses, to his job sites. He took me on long hauls in his semi-rig. The stops along the way...the huge lollipops...the pulling of the horn for women who raised their arms and pulled down on the interstate...the getting to stay up all night and listen to country music and talk on the CB radio...those were the moments when he was my dad and I was 'yes, the girl that he had always wanted'.

I honestly always felt that my dad was the only person who understood me even though I guess I understand that he probably understood very little. But whether I wanted a horse, or a motorcycle, or a frilly dress and matching hat for Easter, he never batted an eye - he never questioned it. He never said - 'but you're a girl, you can't do that.', or 'but you're a tomboy, you really want That dress?'.

My dad was always happy to let me be who I was, and to teach me whatever he could. He was happy when I wanted to know what he knew. He taught me how to use tools and was happy when I would hammer and saw on my own pieces of wood, listening to music and singing to myself, while he worked in the garage. He taught me how to ride a motorcycle when I was 7 years old - bought me my own tiny little 50 cc dirt bike, taught me the brake and the gears in a huge field and then let me go crazy while he would build fences and work on trains. Also when I was seven, he started teaching me cards and pool and taking me to the pool hall with him for late-night poker games. The old man, Hoppie, who ran the games said something to him about it only one time - everyone was afraid of my dad and the 9 of his brothers who 'ran things' with him (he had 12 siblings!) and so it was a big deal for him to be ballsy enough to say something at all. My dad let him know that it was in his best interest to mind his own business and it was never mentioned again. I was - and loved being, as crazy as it sounds, but I didn't know any better - the 'bartender' for the games, and would pour the guys their drinks...half whiskey, half soda.

I would sit on his lap and he would point to me the cards that were important and give me pats on my leg when he was winning hands. Always, those nights, my grandma thought that I was spending with him at my other grandma's house baking pastries and playing with my cousins. If only she had known the kinds of activities that I was really being exposed to. It was also in my seventh year that my dad started really immersing himself in drugs. Cocaine had made a huge splash in our small town, and he being what he was, he was all up in it. I remember being 15 and learning what cocaine was and telling my grandma that my dad had done it in front of me copiously for the last 2 1/2 years of his life...the reconciling as I figured those things out.

But, I loved it...I loved nothing more than being with him the times that he would come for me. I loved going fishing with him before sunrise and sitting in the boat in total silence watching the sun come up over the water. I loved how proud he was that I could bait my own hook and dive off of the boat with absolutely no fear - I always remember wondering why he thought that I would be afraid of anything when I had already known the most physical pain that I could imagine at my mother's hands. I wonder now if he ever even thought about it, or considered that one had to do with the other. I loved that he was so proud of how great I was in school - in kindergarten I was getting praise but as I progressed, everyone knew that I was different, that I was smarter than the rest, and that I was destined for different things. He was proud of me for a variety of reasons, but my intelligence was number one. He would come to the awards ceremonies at my school every year - out of place from all the other dads in their suits in his Wrangler's and cowboy boots, and hoot & hollar, as my Grandma would say, at every trophy and award that I would get. He told everyone who would listen - and he wasn't the kind of person that people didn't listen to - about his daugther the genius.

For my 8th Christmas, not long before I was going to turn 9, he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Like always, I named something really small and told him that he should get my little sisters something really great. My grandma also likes to tell those stories - how I would give my money and my gifts to my sisters and the other kids in school who didn't have much or who wanted/needed/threw fits for more attention...how I always just wanted things to be copasthetic and I thought that I could sacrifice my way to peace. But, that year, he wasn't having it. He sat me down and explained to me that it was our last Christmas together - that in case I didn't remember, he wasn't making it past 30, and he was going to be 30 in July, so he wouldn't be there to see Christmas for a nine year old me. So, he wanted me to tell him what I really wanted...what would be the one thing that would make me the most happy.

There was a Radio Shack about two blocks from the apartment where my grandma was raising us...and I was *known* there! My love for things tech/gadget started early, and I had long been buying broken things at the thrift store where I worked for a quarter and taking them apart to put them back together. My grandma kept my hair short and permed to my ears, and the men who worked at Radio Shack called me 'little orphan angie'. I think, now, they felt sorry for me...they let me play with everything that came in, they would even open new stuff to let me tinker with it. Then, I thought they liked how smart I was with the stuff. Now, I realize that everyone in that too-small town knew my story and they probably felt a mixture of pity for me and fear of who my dad was. I would buy things with the extra money that I put away from my babysitting after I paid my tithes to the church (mandatory per my grandma) and gave my grandma the contribution for the house, and they would always give me a discount and let me know when new things that I would be excited for were going to be coming (remember when Radio Shack was the ultimate in technology?). Anyway, I knew that the new Tandy piece-it-yourself computers were going to be launching that holiday season - *sidenote, on Christmas & being Jewish...my family still celebrates the Roman holidays instead of the Jewish ones, the fear that my great-great grandfather had instilled about being Jewish keeping them held into Christianity in the Midwest*, and so I told him that that, a computer, was what I would want if I didn't have to think about how much something would cost.

And so, for Christmas that year, in lieu of the $75 in an envelope on the tree that I usually got, I indeed got my computer, and all of the coding books to go along with it. My dad watched on in awe as I hooked everything up, put it together and powered it on...and opened the book and started typing away. He was frustrated for me to learn that I would have to type in hours of code to generate my own games and programs, but I was enraptured with the glorious world of MS-DOS. Along with books, I had a new escape on the nights that I could not sleep...which at eight were already too many to count and my grandma had come to accept that my nightmares were too terrifying to force and so she let me have my night~world.

When I got the games up and running, and my dad was around, he would play with me for a while. He never understood why I didn't like the Atari better, but there was something I loved more about a game that I had created with all those lines of Commands and Functions. We were doing other things less...the fishing and hammering and sawing and card games had all pretty much ground to a halt. He had discovered Vegas and he was around even less, and flashier when he was. And then came the night that an argument when he and my mom both happened to be stopped by - the dual visit rare but the argument when both of them there not so rare - resulted in him pulling a gun and aiming it directly at her. When my grandma stepped between him and my mom, her daughter...and even though she recognized my mom's many faults, and often took my dad's side when it came to myself and my sisters, in that moment she was a mother...he didn't falter with it at all.

My dad loved my grandma, my mom's mom, more than he had loved anyone else ever. They were close, and there were many times that he would show up at our house in the early twilight hours and she would make him coffee and biscuits from scratch and he would pour out his heart about my sisters and I, and his frustration with my mother, and his life in general. His love for her, and the lengths that he would go to to get her the things that she needed for us, was something that intrinsically I knew about him from as early as I *knew* anything about relationships and the human condition. Because life had forced me to grow up quickly, because I had been an adult for almost as long as he had known me, he had never treated me like a child...he had never sent me from the room or edited his conversation when I was present, and so I knew more than I should. And this moment was heartbreaking for me...

It wasn't the first time that I had seen my dad wield a weapon. The summer before, he had come to take me out of school early, and had asked me if I knew where the man that my mom was seeing lived. When I told him yes, he asked me to tell him how to get there. When he pulled up in front of the man's house, he (the other guy) knew he was and most likely what he was there for, and to his credit he faced it head on, emerging onto the porch with a baseball bat in his hands. Unfortunately for him, the time of chains and batons - which my father and his brothers & sisters had at one time been known for - was long gone, and with the cocaine, a whole new kind of weapon had made its debut in my dad's life. My dad told me to stay in the car, which shielded me from nothing as he only walked five feet away, they exchanged words and my dad then drew his gun and shot the man and got back in the car and drove me away. He stopped at my favorite diner and tried to get me to get an ice-cream, and then he took me to the police station where his brother was the mayor...he gave me to my uncle and told him to get me to my grandma and then told him what he'd done. I'm not sure how they made that go away, what they had to do or say to that man and his family, but my dad came to see me in a week...bringing me a huge stuffed animal and taking me to Wal-Mart to 'pick out anything I wanted'. Because my grandma had been complaining about the phone in our house, I got a new phone, a cordless one, and refused anything else. It was the first time that I didn't know what to say to him, how to be.

This second time seeing my dad with a gun in his hand was a whole new kind of terrifying - both because I knew that he had the courage or the don't-give-a-fuck to use it, and because I knew that as much as he loved my grandma he hated my mom and the drugs that he was on were consuming him, fueling him, by then. He wasn't the same dad that he had always been. In a short period of time, things had changed more than I knew how to acclimate to. Now, I see that he was rushing towards what he saw as his coming end...he was going to have it even if he had to create it. But in the wake of his self-destruction was the ruins of my idolization of him.

I knew what could happen when and if he pulled the trigger. And seeing it aimed at my grandma was freaking me the fuck out. And somehow, I still believed that in there was my daddy, the man who had always wanted me, his little baby girl, and a part of me wanted him to recognize me in all of the mess that was swirling around me...and so, I screamed out to him and ran towards his outstretched arm. I wanted him to put it down, maybe walk away, but I definitely wanted this tension and conflict and fear to be over, this looming feeling of terror and chaos. But, he never dropped his arm, and even more shockingly, he grabbed me and pulled me close to him and then put the gun at my head. And he used me to terrorize my mother, he asked her why she would cry while he did that when she was the one who had beaten me and left me bloody all those times, who had whored around and left me uncared for in the apartment that he paid for, alone to feed his two younger daughters.

I remember only getting incredibly calm in those moments. Feeling and hearing everything, and being so afraid, but locking in to my grandmother's face and getting so insanely calm, not allowing myself to cry at all...knowing how much he hated tears. And I remember that my grandma stopped crying and became calm as well, as she stared into my face. And she started talking to my dad like nothing at all was wrong, like it was any other time that he was there, and she was maybe at any second going to put some coffee on and start to make some biscuits. And when my mom started to speak, my grandma made her shut up and then told her to get out of her house, told her that she was making everything worse. And it seemed that this was the stance that my dad wanted her to take, once this happened the tension started to ease, and he let my mom leave. And he got hysterical, explaining to my grandma why he did what he did, but not letting go of me, and telling her how he had fucked up my life, how he had probably fucked it up the minute that I was created, that there was too much that I had seen and known and felt and experienced already, and probably the best thing that he could ever do was end it now, stop the hurt right there, and keep me from ever having to hurt again.

Somehow, my grandma talked him down that night. She told him that there was no telling what kind of spiral this would send my mom into and so she was taking us away for a while, and she hurriedly packed us some things and put us in the car and we drove away into the night, leaving my dad crying on the sofa with his gun sitting on the coffee table in front of him.
After that night, things weren't ever the same. I still loved my dad very much - that's the thing about our parents, we never stop loving them, or wanting them to love us, or approve of us, or be proud of us. But, I was finally scared of him, of what he had become. My grandma kept trying to impress on me to remember all the time before and not this, because this wasn't him, this was something and someone else completely, and so I have lived my life trying to do just that.

That summer, on July 25th, my dad had his 30th birthday. On August 8th, my grandma woke me from an incredibly intense dream of his death with tears in her eyes and I said to her, 'He's dead, isn't he?'. He had had a terrible accident on what is ironically called 'Dead Man's Curve' and been ejected from the sunroof of his car. He was going so fast, and was so not sober, that the damage done to his skull and brain was massive and he suffered brain death along with various other extreme injuries. His passenger was ejected from the car and hit a tree and suffered a broken neck. Fortunately, the passenger lived and no other cars were involved.
They kept him on machines for 6 days but finally let him go.

Just like he had always told me he would, my dad left this world when he was 30 & I was 9.

My mom has continued to play the role of the abuser, I just haven't had a rescuer and so I have forced myself to be my own. I worked hard in school and even though we were poor, and everyone knew the story of my family the criminals, and my mom the loose-piece who danced topless on tables in the bars when she was drunk, which was often, and who slept with my friend's married father's, and who was married and divorced more times than I could count on one hand by the time I was in high school, I believed that the world was mine and that I could go anywhere I wanted to and be anything I wanted to and do anything I wanted to.

I had the grades to graduate after my Sophomore year but I stayed and took Advanced classes and some classes at the Jr. college in my town. I was in National Honor Society and Drama and the talk of the school, and at standardized test time, I got the highest score ever scored by anyone at my high school in over a decade. I was accepted into a Summer Program for the health sciences at a major university for which there was over 500 applicants and only 79 people accepted, and I got the scholarships needed to spend the summer there. While there, I did work on a Science test of the local bodies of water that had political reach and I came to be familiar with my local State representative. The next year, my Senior year, I was chosen to be a Page at the House of Representatives and was also given financial aid for the time there. While there, I came to know a lot of the Representatives personally because I had the kind of fun and funny personality that people were drawn to, and there was also a Bill passed about me on the Floor - put to vote and everything...one of the funniest stories of my life still to this day.

There was a local journalist who had taken my photo when I was five years old and a cheerleader with a local super-jock football player who was breaking all kinds of records and seemed poised for an NFL career. When I started accomplishing things, he remembered me - I think because of who my family was which was probably why he had taken my photo with the football player and run it in the paper anyway - and he started following my scholastic achievements. He would come to my school and take my picture and write stories in the local paper for each of my new things done...the Health Sciences Program, the scholarships, the House of Representative. He called our Representative to ask him if he had a comment about my tenure as a page for the story that he was doing and the Rep told him this story - 'She became a joy to everyone that had personal contact with her through the days on the Floor. She made us all laugh and smile. She is smart and witty and funny, but more than that, she is fearless. Most of the other kids were kind of taken aback with everything, but she seemed as if she had been here her whole life, she never broke stride...let me tell you what kind of girl she is. We pay the Pages with checks from the H.O.R, and apparently, she hadn't been cashing hers. Well, she happened to go to a local mall and find a dress that she wanted to buy for prom, but she needed to cash some of her checks. So, she came back here to the cashier's office in the House to do so, but the cashier refused to cash them for her because she wasn't an actual employee of the House. So, Angie comes up to my office and tells my secretary that she's my Page and she needs to see me, so I have my secretary send her in. And she comes in and tells me this. And I ask her what she wants me to do. And she says, straight faced, "your my Representative, Represent me. Go down there and vouch for me, tell her to cash these checks. I need to have a dress that no one else is going to have and this is the one." And so I did...I got up and went down to the cashier with her and had her cash the checks. She was sincerely grateful but also triumphant as the cashier handed over the money, which you could tell she didn't want to do...I'm sure it was hard being shown up by an intern from High School. But, that's the kind of person Angie is...not afraid to at least ask for what she thinks she deserves in this life, and that in and of itself will get her far. I told her before she left that as charming as she is, she should consider politics, I'm sure she'd be a natural.'

My grandma was more proud of that story than any other, she must have bought at least ten copies of that paper and clipped it out. But the final moment of pride for her came when I graduated - with honors, and in honor of her, choosing to say the prayer to bless our class at the start of our new lives in lieu of speaking. My graduation came with a commendation from the Governor of our State for my accomplishments, my GPA and my grades in Science. It came to be that because of extra-credit questions and assignments in Physics, Advanced Physics and Advanced Chemistry Classes, I graduated with above 100% in Chemistry and Physics. These days, it's not uncommon to have a higher-than-100% average due to the change in grading scales, but back then it was still on a 90-100 for A, so above 100 was unheard of, and the journalist did a story on that as well. He came the day that they handed out all of the Letters and awards in our school and took pictures of me surrounded by my Letters, awards and my Commendation from the Governor with the State Seal. It was a great accomplishment, coming from a family that didn't graduate from high school much, and I felt good...but I had done what I had always known I would. I had always known that my smarts and education would be my way out.

It was not for me. It felt good because of how good my grandma felt about it, because of how proud she was to see me walk with the special color of ropes for NHS and other honors. I don't remember ever seeing her more happy than she was that day (even though I broke her spirit by insisting that I wear shorts and a tee-shirt under my robe!). It was nice to make her feel that her sacrifice had merited something...that giving up her middle age to raise another set of kids had been more beneficial than the first time had been.

It's been a long time, and a lot of struggle and mistakes and obstacles and hardship and lessons learned, since that time. I've lived a whole other life and become a whole new person - shaped by a whole new set of circumstances and situations - then I was when I left that town to further my education. I thought that I had learned so much, and that I knew so much, and that I was about something. I thought that I couldn't be told.

Some things were true - I was fearless. It has been both an asset and a detriment, but it is something that I'm grateful for because it got me here. If it hadn't been for my fearlessness, and my tenacity, I wouldn't have survived my childhood, much less the struggles that adulthoold and disease have brought. Everyone thought that I would go into the world and Be Something, Change Things...but I have been only my own worst enemy where that idea was concerned. I am learning that I have changed things, and I continue to do so, only I do it on a smaller scale then I imagined back then. My life, my story, it matters to people, it helps some people, but my reach is so short.

I wonder, a lot lately, who and how I would be if I had had my father to continue to be my rescuer. I think that maybe I think about this for several reasons - the dreams are back, it's been almost a year since I last spoke to my mother and she's reaching out again, but mostly, I think that I think about him because my son is getting to be the age that I was when he died. And it seems so young except that I remember how much I understood, how much I absorbed and put on myself, how much I questioned without ever saying a word. My son shares my dad's birthday, and in the circle of life he looks exactly like me - but I look exactly like my dad - so looking at him is like seeing a vision of my father reflected in his face. But, innocent, childness, perfect still.

I wonder how much damage I have done simply by trying to give him the best possible starting place that I could. The best parents, the best socio-economic status, the best everything that I never had. He lives in a mansion, in a gated community, and goes to a private school that costs more per year than my grandma raised my sisters and I on when I was young. He has every advantage, every benefit, every toy, a huge family who loves him immensely. And I wonder if he thinks - 'Why didn't she want me? Why didn't she keep me? Why wasn't I good enough to keep if I'm good enough to come and see?'. In essence, I wonder if he thinks to himself all of the things that I thought to myself at his age. And, I wonder if there's any way to save him the years in between then and now that I went searching for distraction, numbness, things to fill the void. I wonder if there's a way to really make someone "know" love. Because I know that it is still something that I feel so unfamiliar with, when I am honest.

I know that some things I know and some things I don't. That I have tried to come back to the middle...to find a balance between the longing and the floating adrift. I have tried to set myself right in a path that makes sense to me, to find my own spiritual peace, my own happiness even though I don't feel that I will ever truly know love the way that I envision it, my own place of 'good person, good friend'. But, I know that there is a lot that I regret and there is still a lot I hope for. I know that when I sit and give it thought, I still believe that the world is mine...that I can go anywhere and do anything, I'm just not so sure about how happy I'll be once I get there or once I'm doing it. I want to be happy, I just don't see too many people who ever get there...and it take so much energy to be strong, to be fearless, to keep healing yourself, to keep killing the you that has evolved and starting again, that happiness always seems to be just on the back burner and just a little out of grasp. And I know that sometimes I think that my dad was right, and maybe right then at 9 I had seen and felt and been exposed to too much bad already in the world...maybe that was the moment of truth for me. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

But, more than anything, I know that I keep trying. I know that as I live my 30th year, I want it to matter, I want my survival, my fight through these medical obstacles, my will to live, my tenacity, to be what I am known for. I do not want my son to think that I chose leaving him without someone who would be willing to come and rescue him. Or someone who could answer his questions or tell him the story of when he was a baby in the belly. I don't ever want him to think that I didn't understand how much he thought about me, and how much I was or wasn't willing to sacrifice my quest to forget so that he could have good things to remember. These things matter so much more than I could possibly have ever imagined.

when i have nothing, i still have music...

2007-10-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

and i'm grateful.

because i can't sleep. again. and i'm lonely in a way that isn't about needing company, because there's plenty of that to be found...but if i could just have the comfort of someone with whom i feel safe and warm to curl up next to, perhaps i may be able to relax...my body might be able to find a place of solace...and i might be able to drift away, if only for a short time.

but that is not an option.

and so i have my music.

the voices which have, through the years, been there for me when i had nothing and no one else. and it will be enough. because it has to be.

because that is what you do. there isn't anything else. no other options.

you just go on. any way that you can.

ants marching...

Bugs

2007-10-03T21:51:00.001-07:00

New story on 365tomorrows by submission on October 4th, 2007, Titled Bugs - author is a great person and a great friend to me...

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Cycling & Coping Mechanisms {i love to cook}

2007-10-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

There's a lot to come to understand and absorb when who you are has been turned upside down by medicine - by the giant world of Medicine...Science, Treatments, Therapies.

When hormone suppression and chemo turn you inside out, and the add-back therapy alters you even more. When you are watching the person that you've been for so long be turned inside out by things which you cannot control.

You stand helplessly by, even more frustrated and bewildered than those who love you...because they want you to be the you that you have always been. They see your strength as something that should maintain the 'you' in all of this...but each moment, each obstacle, each impediment on the journey alters you a little more.

Until, finally you are standing in the wreckage, a changed person. And then, there's the hysterectomy at 30. There really aren't words - which for someone whose gift has always been with words is a whole other thing - to describe adequately the way you feel about who and how you are anymore. All that you know is that you're different. How you relate, how you percieve things, how you are in a world which has a harsh need to change you anyway...everything that you have come to understand and rely upon in your world becomes something unfamiliar.

And, the coping mechanisms that you have used for most of your life are failing you. Suddenly, the things to which you have always turned to alleviate stress and pain are providing no outlet, no reprieve. There is no mercy to be found now.

One thing which still helps me is cooking. I love to cook...I love the art of it - bringing together flavors and consistencies. I love the beauty of it - the response that can be generated by making something delicious. I love the passion of it...how delightful it is to make something so nourishing and enjoyable for someone or someone(s) that you care about. I love how you can take so many basic things and artfully place them together to create something grandiose and delicious. I love flavors...I love the skill that it takes. Not just anyone can create something magnificent out of not much in the kitchen. Not just anyone can see the art in the hobby. I love the sheer delight that can be heard in eater's voices when telling you how much they like what you have created.

And, I like cooking for me. I cook even when alone. I like the routine of it. The choosing of the herbs, the cutting, cubing, dicing...love watching how all of the colors come together...love the smellls. I love creating something nourishing for myself...not having to measure, not having to refer to recipes, not needing help to give benefit to my body.

In a time when not much is helping my body, I like to know that there is something I can do to help sustain it...and do it creatively and with pleasure.

I enjoy cooking. It is one of the few things left, from my old life, which still gives me a feeling of peace and serenity in my new life. I'm happy to have a part of the old me to hold onto.

And soon, I'm going to be happy to have this herb encrsuted pork chop and broiled vegetables in my mouth!

i need to be surrounded by the ones who care for me...

2007-10-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

it is so very nice to be loved and to know that you are loved.

it is nice to be cared for...to have a meal prepared for you, to be held when you are feeling 'ich'.

it is rare for me to experience this, but i am grateful when i do.

i had a rough day yesterday, very challenging to keep facing what i do with the doctors and the meds...but it was nice to feel safe and warm and taken care of, if even for a short time.

it is so much more appreciated then i can ever convey, but it matters in ways that i cannot express.

it is nice to have a few friends who care deeply....who understand that while i am not perfect, i try so hard to be as good as possible...and who give me the space to be me and still be a loving friend beyond my flaws.

i am lucky to have the friendships that i do...often times, i focus on the negative. but, i do have a few really good friends who care very much.

{i am} Rhiannon...

2007-09-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

Rhiannon rings like a bell thru the night
And wouldn't you love to love her?
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?

All your life you've never seen
A woman , taken by the sky
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?

And he says Rhiannon... Don't go
And he says Rhiannon... Stay
And he says I still cry out for you, don't leave me

She is like a cat in the dark
And then she is the darkness
She rules her life like a fine skylark
When the sky is starless

All your life you've never seen
A woman..taken by the wind...
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Will you ever win.....?
Will you ever win.....?

And he says Rhiannon... Don't go
And he says Rhiannon... Stay
And he says I still cry out for you, don't leave me

Dreams unwind
Love's a state of mind

Rhiannon rings like a bell thru the night
And wouldn't you love to love her?
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?

All your life you've never seen
A woman , taken by the sky
Where you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?

And he say Rhiannon... Don't go
And he screams - Rhiannon... Stay
And he says I still cry out for you, don't leave me

She is like a cat in the dark
And then she is the darkness
She rules her life like a fine skylark
And when the sky is starless

All your life you've never seen
A woman..taken by the wind...
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Will you ever win.....?
Will you ever win.....?

And he says Rhiannon... Don't go
And he says Rhiannon... Stay
And he says I still cry out for you, don't leave me

Dreams unwind
Love's a state of mind

i know a man who met a woman, can't remember where

2007-09-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

big beautiful hips and dark brown hair. he was from the suburbs, she was from the wrong part of the wrong city...this was back when everything was still shitty.

two different worlds apart.

but the world is just a small town. we all know how people like to get down.

he told her to bring everything...

bring along your ethics and your issues and your taboos.

what he meant was...I'll take you any way that I can have you.

the player met a temptress, they made a perfect storm, called it love.

each one giving just enough to not be at risk.

each one holding back just enough to make the other know that they weren't really Loved. not the kind of Love that will keep you when you are ass-out, sick, exhausted, needy, worn thin.

they were loved...do not get it twisted. in the way that each of them could, they loved the other. but, there were always Positions to be Played, playa.

there is always a position to be played.

...i am exhausted from playing my position. Life is the ultimate player. and for so long, i have had to stay jockeying for my position. i'm so tired. of the games. the drama. the bullshit. the people who can only love you when you fit inside the box that they have created for you. the friendship that can only be if you are maintaining your role.

long ago, i took away the boxes. people are what they are. and ultimately, if we keep boundaries around their roles in our life, they will disappoint us. they will let us down. they will surprise us. they will make us feel that we never really knew them at all.

i have let people be what they are and tried to love them accordingly. i have stayed friends with people who have cheated on me, lied to me, hurt me, walked away the moment that i opened my arms and said 'i'm weak, can i lean here?'. i have turned aside to find the strength to smile when i turn back around, welcome them back, cook for them, joke with them, laugh with them, stay loving them...trying to overstand where their actions were coming from.

some people do not have it in them to be needed. some do not have it in them to be desired. some do not have it in them to be loved unconditionally. some people fear safety and run from it. some people stay fucking up a beautiful friendship. some people see someone who loves them defiantly as inferior. some people see kindness as weakness.

for so long, i have remained static. letting those whom i love leave and come back again. fill up at what seems to be the neverending trough of my admiration, friendship, love and 'thereness'. i have done my best to remain strong even while i was falling apart so that my 'friends' didn't have to hear about my pain, my fears, my weakness. i have let them tell me that i would be okay, because that is what was easiest for them...not because it is what i believe. i'm just too tired to do it any longer. i'm too tired to play my position. too tired to choose by default.

i'm going to do a few things. one, i'm just going to be fucking happy. i'm still here, so i'm going to start fucking living it. i'm not dead so fuck the shit that 'might' kill me. i missed smoking. i liked being a smoker. i'm smoking. fuck it. i'm not actively doing anything more than i am right now to push me closer to time in diapers. i'm going to start doing the fun shit again...having fun, being happy. playing hard. life is about having a good time for me now.

and i'm going to start being real again. just say what i think, do what i want to do - do Who i want to do, pursue pleasure and contentment. and i'm going to make ME happy. i want to be happy. too much of what i've been doing has been about other people being happy. fuck it. i'm going to make me happy now.

and i'm going to do some of the shit that i've been wanting to do but have been too wrapped up in my sickness to push myself to do. it's time to start living again. death is stalking me...i'm acting accordingly...i'm on the move. i said a lot of the things that i needed to say through the night last night, into the morning...both because they needed to be said, but also because i needed to hear them i think. giving them voice woke some things up in me (so thank you, for spending all those hours on the phone with me - when i'm on the East Coast in a few weeks, i owe you crab cakes!)...things that i knew but which i was sleeping on. i'm awake again.

i'm awake again. i do not want my life to be what happened while i waited for the moments that never came. i'm going out and getting my own moments. it's time.

postcard from ,

2007-09-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

received...

I think of you, too and it is nice to know that life is good. It is nice to know that less pain is possible.

I don't know why it makes me happy to think of you there, but it does... - so far away, a different country, a different world.

When it suits you, reach out again. The itch is upon me too, and I'll be scoping new things very shortly. but as always... you know how to get to me.

everybody here wants you.

2007-09-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

song on a mixtape.
message?
attention is sometimes unwanted.
hair up, hat on, old jeans, logo tee.

i'm only here for this moment.

i don't think that everybody here wants me, that everybody here thinks he needs me.

someone is always waiting right there just to show me...

everyone is a stranger, no matter how well they think they know me.

i'm free with everyone, they think it means something.
i'm only here for this moment.

maybe everybody here does want me. maybe everybody here does think he needs me.

but i'm only here for this moment.

the sea of fools parts for me because i stay pushing through.

phone full. email full. inbox full. everybody here wants outer me.

i'm waiting for someone to want something different.

they all look so good from a distance.

maybe?

2007-09-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

i would like to live like anybody else, in one place?

i could be happy and fulfilled in one place?

i got the map out and drew a line through where i've been. it goes through seas & skies. too many places, and it's only my 30th year.

i wonder if i could live like anybody else...in one place. if i could be happy and fulfilled in one place.

i've felt that i'm happiest weaving from town to town. I've said that I should keep moving around...but maybe i've gotten too tired down. I don't know. I don't know if I'd ever be 'happy to be home'. i know i'm happy to be home (still alive).

i think in the end, if you take care, you can be happy or unhappy anywhere.

i think we may all rely too much on one place.

Girl W/Reproductive Disease Can't Get General Relief B/C Doesn't Have Child

2007-09-11T19:18:00.001-07:00

Girl who has suffered cancer twice, had hysterectomy by 30, still having medical treatment, financially bottomed out...all instant aid state programs she is being referred to require that she have a child or be pregnant, but her disease have been reproductive.

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Asking for Help...

2007-09-07T00:39:00.000-07:00

I am a two time cancer survivor who also battles endometriosis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, nerve damage, chronic migraines due to Hormone Replacement Therapy because of a hysterectomy at age 30, multi-anemia, calcium deficiency, insomnia and more. Before my Hysterectomy, I also had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and would have periods which would last up to 8 weeks. During my treatments, which were experimental, I suffered acute calcium loss which caused my teeth to try to suck the calcium from my body. This necessitated that I have $26,000 worth of dental work in the 4 months before my hysterectomy, while I was undergoing chemotherapeutic treatments and hormone suppression (forced menopause). During this time, in additon to the symptoms of forced menopause and exerimental chemotherapy drugs, I had up to 5 dental procedures and surgeries a week and could not eat solid food for 4 and 1/2 months. I also worked the entire time because I needed the money and the insurance. I stopped working the week of my Hysterectomy. My Hysterectomy was my 5th abdominal surgery for my diseases in 2 and 1/2 years. My Hysterectomy, a surgical castration - the removal of my reproductive organs - as well as the removal of my endometrial adhesions, the scar tissue on my intestines, liver, pelvic floor and bladder, as well as the removal of endometrial implants from inside my bladder and the separation of my left fallopian tube from where it had grown into my intestine, it was discovered that at some point, my appendix had ruptured and healed itself. While this had kept me from dying, it also meant that my appendix had slowly been leaking toxins into my bloodstream and gut. The fibrous mass that had sealed over my appendix had become cancerous from all of the toxins passing through it, and the steady leak of toxins into my system had caused extensive damage to my nervous system as well as my other organs. Because of this, my medical struggle continues. I continue to have at least 3 doctor appointments a week, and often times more. I currently am receiving very expensive treatments to help flush my system of toxins and try to help my body maintain nutrients, as it is not doing so itself. I also get iron infusions for my multi-anemia and vitamin treatments for the chronic fatigue caused by the Fibromyalgia. I receive Trigger Point Injections in my face and cervical spine because my headaches are so intense. The suffering that I feel every day from the chronic pain and nerve damage in my body is almost unbearable some days. I am unable to work...some days, I am unable to sleep because I am in so much pain. It is so difficult to feel this way when I remember how active and incredible my life was once...and I know how desperately I want to live that way again. I currently have a Disability claim pending with Social Security. I applied for Disability as soon as I was able, meaning as soon as I was no longer employed the week of my surgery. Because I did not have a child and was not pregnant, I was not eligible for the majority of programs. The Disability program is currently 5 months behind and the Immediate Assistance program that they referred me to requires that I have a child to be eligible. I pay $600 a month to carry my insurance. The co-pays for my doctor visits range between $90 to $300. My monthly medication cost is at $1,000. My total medical debt, my portion to stay alive, is currently at over $400,000 and rising. To stay alive, just to be here...not knowing how I'm going to pay to get my medicine next month. I have finally reached a place of dead ends. I have exhausted all avenues. And so, I'm asking you, a stranger, for help. I know that I have given strangers, charities, people on websites that I frequent, money in times of need. Because they have been willing to ask for it. This is me being willing to ask for it. If you click on the Donate button on the right side of my blog, it will take you to my Paypal page and you can donate directly to me. I am asking you to donate what you can. One dollar, five dollars, twenty dollars...it all helps. I truly have reached a point of not knowing how I'm going to eat next week. And my desire to ride this wave out, see where life takes me, is stronger than my pride. I hope that you will find it in your heart to Donate if you can and to simply navigate away if you can't. There isn't any room for any more negativity in my heart or life at this time. And, whether or not you Donate, may the Universe bless and keep you, tonight and always. XOXO. AM

it's decision time again...

2007-09-04T03:20:00.000-07:00

i'm going on a mission to lose the hormone weight that i've gained in my middle.

the doctors say that it can't be done. the doctors say that it's my body packing on around the area where my reproductive organs used to be in response to the HRT and that i should know that based on how little i eat {less than 1000 calories a day} and how much i sweat {i can't even type about it, it's so disgusting}...but i've decided that i will win.

i got my body in the shape of my life while getting chemotherapeutic treatments and having multiple surgeries & procedures a week - AND being unable to eat solid food for nearly five months. i worked, hiked and worked out through that to maintain my strength because i wanted my body to have every advantage while healing during the fight of my life after that surgery.

and it was a good plan, because what was supposed to be a 2 hour surgery turned into nearly a 7 hour surgery and they found and did some crazy things inside of me. and i weighed in at 130 the morning of my surgery and they filled me so full of gas and fluids that even though they took out organs and cancer and blood and adhesions, i went home at 172. i walked the next day, and demanded that they take i.v.'s out and start me on oral meds and water and take me to the bathroom and discharge me that night.

i am strong. i am amazingly strong. and sometimes, i forget my own strength. sometimes, i hear the voices of my doctors and call myself being limited by their words in my ears. but i'm not. i'm not limited by their words. i'm not in a box of their limitations. i'm not a body limited by Hormone Replacement or any other medical structure.

i can be me again. i can fight this out. i can be who i am comfortable being again. i can be who i feel beautiful being again. i don't have to be overweight and justify it with this bottle of {H}ormone {R}eplacement {T}herapy. and i want to start sleeping again. and i don't want to lose my temper, be short with those i love, cry, be tempermental and mean. i want to take control of my moods to the extent that i can, my weight to the extent that i can, my 'Me-ness' to the extent that i can.

and i'm going to do so. starting just as soon as i eat this cake that i just made from scratch!!! LOL!!!

...but for real...i did just make chocolate cake from scratch, baked in plant potters, and with mint sprigs coming out of the top, making it look like dirt with plants growing out of it. sooooo cute!!! i love it!!! i can be pretty creative when i want to be... :)

No More "I Love You's"

2007-08-31T04:44:00.000-07:00

the language is leaving me.

i used to write - short stories, essays, novels, poetry. i used to be moved by emotion to pen love poems. when those stopped i thought for sure that they would be back one day.

as the conversations slowed, i thought that my written word would progress, my thoughts have somewhere to channel. it wasn't the case. all of my, it seemed, was receeding. pulling in closer to the center. i still said "i love you" sometimes. only sometimes. the situation had to be right. the mood altered on the receiving end. it had to seem offhand, no pressure, no desire.

by the time it was safe to say "i love you" again, i was suffering a drought at my fingertips. i type and type but i don't say much at all. i certainly don't have the gift of the prolific that i used to, my arial ten point doesn't bring the sighs and "where is the book" that it used to. but, not even noticing it, there's a difference to how your fingers dance when your lips are free to utter "i love you's".

today, as the puppy rolled over and i breathed "i love you", it wasn't until i questioned the source of the tears stinging at my eyes that i realized...no more "i love you's". the language is leaving me.

i am a woman who says "i love you" in ways unspoken. growing up in a home where love was rarely vocalized, rarely given physical gesture, i have strived in my grown life to show love to those who win it from me. if you are someone to whom my heart responds, chances are you listen with more than your ears. if i know you on a physical plane, i tell you with my eyes...my lips...my tongue...my nipples...my skin...my thighs...my pussy...my toes. i can tell you that i love you with eggs, herbs, lasagna, biscuits. i communicate love through service...you won't get your own water, turn on your own television, fluff your own pillow. my friends who are loved know that they'll be over-made-to-feel-at-home when in my presence...i'm always asking about their thirst, their hunger, if they're hot/cold/comfortable, if i can get them juice, a snack.

when i love someone enough to want them, i stay wanting them. i crave them, and when in their presence my reaching out for them is only my body's desire to show them my affection. it isn't a concious action. i don't think about reaching out to stroke an arm, to graze a leg, just like i don't think about washing my hands before cooking or how to ride a bike. i don't decide to deeply inhale when someone that i'm attracted to enters my space, i don't decide that i sleep better with someone with whom i feel safe is sleeping beside me. these are things that fondness, affection and love dictate to me.

today, as i rubbed the tummy of the dog who gives me unconditional love and shed surprising tears, i considered my life as is. i am currently without love. not solely in a relationship sense. but, i'm in a place of foundational uprooting. i have begun completely over in almost every sense of the words. everything in my life seemed to be red hot...burning up, but upon closer inspection, it was only smoke and ashes. and in those smoke and ashes were the ruins of my 'friendships' and most of my relationships. in some places, i was leaning too heavily on places where the foundation wasn't solidly built. in some places stood a mirage. in some places, the fault was my own - i had created something out of necessity that wasn't at all what i wanted it to be. in some situations, i pushed becaused i feared what i saw as an inevitable pulling away on their part.

the reasons, i guess, don't matter in the end. now as they say, it is what it is. and i feel more alone than i have ever been. i know that i have typed that before. probably i have typed that on these very pages before. but now i feel it more truly than ever. there are no more i love you's in my life right now. i don't say it. i don't have someone eager to be in my space, in my smell, in my arms. i don't know with certainty that if i can't sleep (like tonight), that if i get sick after eating (like now, again), that if i feel ill at ease (again), that if it would be so much easier with someone who makes me more at ease beside me, that that someone will come. i know that being in poor health doesn't mean that i deserve it more. i know that just because my body is suffering what it is doesn't mean that people should be more gentle, more tolerant, with me. but sometimes i feel like it isn't fair.

i know that life isn't fair, that i don't deserve fairness or ease or any other thing...i don't deserve anything. but i wish that it could be easier. i wish that my health could catch a break, that my body could catch a break. i wish that there could be a constant for me...that there was someone here to say i love you to, to cook for when i'm stressed, to feel safe to reach out and touch when i'm hurting and in that place of needing to not think about it. i just wish that i could have some ease for a minute.

my body feels stiff now...as if it is forgetting the language which it used to speak with such ease.

i know despair.

2007-08-27T03:25:00.000-07:00

i used to think that i was prepared to live in this world, with it's harsh need to change me.
that i was prepared to live day by day with the consequence of love and the bitter, unwanted passion of my sure defeat.

it doesn't interest me if there is one god or many gods. i only want to know if i belong or feel abandoned. if i know despair and can see it in others.

i am falling into the center of my longing.

i don't want to drown anymore.

i want to live. i want to be happy. i want to be healthy. i want to be all of the things that i dream about, to do all of the things that i dream about.

every day it seems that the healing is the fiercest part, the healing is what is going to kill me. and it seems that my intuitions are correct.

why can't i find my balance? why can't i get better? why can't i find contentment, well being? i'm trying everything.

she said that she watched me sleep and that i tossed and turned, restless and she thought to herself...isn't this girl ever comfortable?

if i am, i don't know where it is.

this is the day when i realize how easily the thread is broken between this life and the next. this is where i ask my friends to come. this the house of my adult aloneness.

it has taken me my entire life to learn how to love.

sometimes it takes darkness, and the sweet confinement of your aloneness, to learn that anything and anyone who does not bring you alive is too small for you. how do i grant life to my life?

...

the dark will be my womb tonight.

isolation.

2007-08-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

i have managed to create a place of complete isolation. i don't remember that being my goal, or intention.

i only remember getting too tired to deal with certain things, certain conversations, certain shit any longer...and so pulling into myself more and more.

i remember reaching out, and thinking that there were a few people who were different and who, even though i'm difficult to know and insanely difficult to love, that they would always be my people.

and then certain things happened with them...these moments where i thought that i was breaking and i realized that none of it was going to save me. and i felt this despair. and i remember times when people wanted something from me that i didn't have to give, and so i pulled further into the cave inside of me that my anger and pain and frustration and sadness and pain and pain and pain and pain have been creating. i remember that people pushed and maybe it was for my own good, but at the moment when it happened, i was like a wild animal backed into a corner, and i either slithered away or threw punches in response.

now, i have created a place of total isolation, where there is no one who will push me into a corner because there is no one. i have created total isolation for myself. i don't know if it was intentional. i honestly don't feel like it was. i just feel like i didn't have the strength to try any more, or be told how disappointing i was any more, or whatever it was that i was failing at in my relationships or friendships, however i was annoying or demanding or hormonal or crazy or three much...

maybe it's just easier for me to not have to worry about disappointing anyone. maybe it doesn't matter. but i have created a place of total aloneness, where there is no one left who knows how i was before i was this mess. however it happened, this is where i am.

i never was very good at chess...

2007-08-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

lately, life seems to be a pretty intense game of chess. the problem is that i never was very good at chess. i don't know why, and everyone always assumed that i should/would be, because it's a 'smart person game'. and i was deemed a 'smart person'.

i have friends who think that i'm a know it all. i have one friend who says to me...'you know everything' when i imply that i know more than i'm being told.

my response, my statement to the world is - I don't know anything. I'm fucking clueless. I have no idea how to do anything in my life that I'm supposed to be doing right now, no idea how to figure it out. I don't know. I don't know I don't know I don't know. And I admit that it's probably for the best, because everything that I do know, that I've come to believe, has been wrong so far. I'm so tired...of trying to convince people that I really don't know. That under all of this tightly wound and intensely hard to please exterior is someone who is just looking for something real enough for me to hold onto for a while. There has never, ever been a safe place for me to be vulnerable or sick or broken and know that someone else was going to take care of things, or pick up the pieces. For my entire life, I have had to be okay, no matter how not okay I am. This month was the 21st anniversary of my dad's death. I don't know how not okay I'm allowed to be about that, but I've been pretty fucked up inside about it but haven't spoken it aloud to anyone. This month, my son who lives thousands of miles away packed up and left for his very first summer camp and he was so excited and desperate for me to know about it and all that I could think about was how much it hurts to always ache for him no matter how much I get to be an acitvely involved birth mother.

I don't speak aloud how much it hurts, not only to see pregnant women and babies and toddlers but also 8 year old boys who are similar to him and know that no matter what or who I find in this life, I'll never have that option again. I don't choke people who say, 'well, at least you know how rewarding adoption can be.' and I don't break nearly as often as I'm breaking inside, even though the people who know when I am breaking would be sad to hear that.

I don't speak aloud how tired you get, how literally bottomlessly wiped out you feel, when you constantly have to think about your pain and your health and your insurance and your lab work and your iron and vitamins and calcium and cancer and oxygen and fucking always be hurting and thinking about your body. I am so fucking tired. I am so fucking tired of being in pain. Of being tired. Of dealing with doctors and medical procedures far more frequently than I do any other thing. I am tired of taking pills to make me feel better.

the thing about chess and all of this other stuff is that, on top of life shit, there's People In Your Life shit. and it's so much worse most of the time. to me, relationships are proving to be more and more like chess with each passing month. and honestly, I don't have the wherewithall or inclination to strategize my interactions with my 'friends' out. i want people with whom i can be honest, vulnerable, me...just fucking me. i don't want to have to think three conversations ahead, stay on top of the back and forth of balancing someone who knows your weaknesses with your own neediness. i don't want to deal with people who would take me any way that they could have me, or who need me to fill a role for them, or who see friendship as a synonym for 'endless niceness.'

i'm tired of people who mistake my kindness for weakness. who act as if my sincere love for them makes me worthy of suspicion. i'm just so tired. so very, very tired. and i just want to go out and do the things that a normal girl my age would be doing...but then that takes days to recover from. :( i'm so tired.

everyone knows that i'm in over my head...

2007-08-16T13:07:00.001-07:00

even though i didn't know that everything was falling through,
everyone i knew was waiting on cue
to turn and run when what i needed
was the truth. that's how it's gotta be?

it's coming down to nothing more than apathy.
i'd rather run the other way than stay and see
the smoke and who is still
standing when it clears

everyone knows that i'm in over my head.
there's 8 seconds left in overtime and you're on my mind.

that i should rearrange.
i wish they were a stranger, i could disengage
just say that we agree and we'll never change
and we just get along...

disregard. find another friend. discard.
as we lose the arguments and a canyon comes between.

everyone knows that i'm in over my head...

suddenly, i become part of the past.

i'm losing them and it's effortless.

8 seconds left in overtime...and everyone knows what's on my mind...everyone knows i'm in over my head...

••it's coming down to nothing more than apathy••

The Little Nothing By My Friend Adam

2007-08-12T00:02:00.001-07:00

New story on 365tomorrows by submission on August 12th, 2007, Titled The Little Nothing

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lying | omission | misconstruing | context

2007-08-09T03:58:00.000-07:00

i am so exhausted by my words being taken out of context, intentionally misconstrued, lied on...and all of this based on me being lied to in the first place.

i am worn out by those who only want me any way that they can have me.

tired of being lied to. of having important parts omitted. of what is told to me, represented to me, and what is represented to the world being so completely different.

i don't want to be a part of it any more.

who are these people? who am i?

i just want to be left alone now.

earthquakes still make me nervous...

2007-08-09T03:03:00.000-07:00

the earthquake this morning (early, early a.m.) was 'only' about a 4.5 - but, it was in chatsworth. since i live in the valley now, that means that i'm much closer to the center of where they happen now.

it was intense for me. they used to wake me from a dead sleep in the hollywood hills...here, the jolt sent me standing up and walking in circles.

i knew what it was as it happened, but it was loud, shakey and scared me. my plants rattled, books came off of he shelf, and my water glass fell off of my night table. :(

i don't want to be here for the Big One...or even the Little Big One.

i thought that i had gotten used to them, but this one made me so ich in the stomach that i think that i may be wrong.

some people are saying they felt it in santa monica. eep. i don't like the earfquakes...

50 Years From Now - Our Shared Future

2007-08-07T15:54:00.001-07:00

...and they say that there's no talent left among us, the youth of Amoreikkka?...

http://50yearsfromnow.blogspot.com/

http://50yearsfromnow.blogspot.com/

http://50yearsfromnow.blogspot.com/

http://50yearsfromnow.blogspot.com/

Wall Street Journal?!?!

2007-08-03T01:32:00.000-07:00

somehow, On July 30th, this blog was on the Editor's Picks for the Wall Stree Journal website.

this is both fascinating and perplexing. how did this happen? i'm so confused!

anyway, i have blood transfusion tomorrow, and iron infusion. i slept until 6.30 tonight and i still feel so tired. i'm just so tired.

life with a body that has had the trauma that mine has is very exhausting.

my appendix burst and healed itself. but leaked toxins into my system for a very long time. how odd. how very odd.

Pics of a completely abandoned village in Italy

2007-07-28T00:29:00.001-07:00

i found this pretty interesting...aerial, Google earth images and ground view...

read more | digg story

?

2007-07-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

i don't know what it means. or what i'm supposed to feel. this word that they have thrown at me. new meds. this team. these men.

i hate that they will never know even the beginning. i hate that i have reached a point where they see even the beginning of my tears.

i am so exhausted. i am so scared. my tears, just like my kindess, do not only represent weakness.

i am still here.

from the hospital today...

2007-07-23T04:09:00.000-07:00

the disease may be back, according to early tests and some symptoms for the past week.

rapid weight gain of 21 pounds. :(

infection. i'm so tired. i don't know if i can do this again.

procedure on tuesday. that's where things are here. just fyi.

just things an insomniac types with another morning here

2007-07-18T03:55:00.000-07:00

with the sun, and the pain and the world peeking in. the words are like burdens at my fingertips again. i don't want to look at this screen or type any more than i want to participate in another day of pretend. of emails and phone calls and fake laughter. of knowing that just like me, they are needy and that we wear each other out and need each other to hold each other high. one of us has to be on, to leave in order to support the rest of us who are hiding from the world. there are a lot of us who are scared of what is out there, and a lot of us who understand. who bolster up to do the bad things that pay the most in the quickest amount of time so that we can leave quickly and come back paid. it is a community that we forge and we know our place. we are not fond of the non group players.

i only want to sleep at night again. eat sometimes. stop this hurt.

not dead, burning up...the fever is consuming me

2007-06-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

just not doing well.

the thing, it's inside me now. it's big. bigger than i could have imagined. and i was shocked when i saw it and knew where it would go. anyway, it's caused problems. pain. infection. the like. hot from the inside out and been in bed for quite some time now. back again, after leaving.

always leaving and back again.

there was danger of being in trouble...there still is. if they want to find me, they will. the hiding is pointless so i stopped. the code everyone was pretending not to get was relevant. i'm hot and tired.

one more trip in the near future...less than a week from now, for less than a week. and then some moments of solitude. again.

i'm not sleeping until the sun comes up. i start my day with help to motivate and focus. i end my day with help to slow down and rest. this is me now. distracted. pained. medicated. struggling.

Power Napping: How To Fall Asleep Anywhere

2007-06-20T18:20:00.001-07:00

The trick is the use sleep MP3s. They are essentially MP3s that play white noise for the duration of the nap, and then slowly wake you up by playing a variety of sounds. What's great is that you can play them on your computer speakers, or make them portable by putting them on your iPod or cell phone.

read more | digg story

help, i have done it again

2007-06-20T02:55:00.000-07:00

i'm tired. and struggling. and saddish. i don't want to fight this fight anymore. i don't want to want for health and just some moments to rest. i'm so exhausted. i'm falling apart. need rejuvenation. help.

Soldier Who Captured Saddam is Sick, But Left to Rot By VA

2007-06-18T07:02:00.001-07:00

Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. In public, he stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. The VA which is supposed to help, however refused his request, saying there was insufficient evidence to prove he engaged in combat.

read more | digg story

for now, my dream place.

2007-06-18T02:29:00.000-07:00

townhome. top floor of townhome. private bathroom with jacuzzi tub. large bedroom with not one, but TWO studio lofts, one for working out and one office space. private entrance from rooftop - with amazing view of mountains & patio furniture for 'having breakfast or coffee or whatever.', fireplace, amazing kitchen, front and back lawn, trees, insanely nice neighborhood, washer & dryer, studio for music & lighting for photography.

amazing.

and, unbelievably affordable. like, i almost cried when she told me the price...and then, she said, 'are you interested?', and i said, 'yes.' and she replied - okay, i'm giving you a free week, you can move in _____, you're perfect and my favorite. you can give me rent before i leave, just call me. and we shook hands. that was it. no grueling jumping through hoops. no bs. just, i like you and i like you too, i like your shoes i like your stuffed animal. boom. and she's ocd about cleanliness too!!

i'm so at peace right now. :) yay me!

my work

2007-06-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

featured on the flickr blog here...

as well as Now Publichere :)

...the shock sets in, the stomach acid finds you...

2007-06-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

i need a good run, a good workout, a good exercise, a good 'being bent over and fucked the shit out of' session, something.

anything.

let's get these two hearts beating faster. faster. or at least mine.

i haven't had sex in too long. i haven't felt like what i was doing meant anything today. everything is too easily voided, the cleaning too easily dirtied behind, the words too quickly spoken over, the screaming too often assaulting my ears today.

i'm just fucking hormonal, annoyed, cannot find my center of gravity right now.

:(*

the hammock diaries: on ampleness

2007-05-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

there is this feeling of completeness, almost like nothing i've ever known, in lying in the hammock, basking in sunlight, trees, birds of many kinds in the feeders and bath singing like crazy and building homes, foraging food, for their families. my laptop, an apple, water, pops on the porch researching my tummy thing (a doctor in the house sure is handy), mom resting after taking me shopping and to lunch, my son on the computer caring for his webkinz and coming out to give me stats, my 'other son' out front playing trucks with the neighbor.

there is peace, stillness even amidst the activity, fullness, family. i am happier than i have ever been. even though it has been a long period of losses, i am happy with who i am becoming, with my strength in this transitional period. i am slowly peeling back the layers to find my true wants and what i'm willing to be and do to have them.

and i'm spending lots of time at flickr, enjoying the glimpses into other people's lives and vision of their daily activities, their perception of the moments that we take for granted. i think that what i love most about photography is that it is us acknowledging how special a lot of these moments we take for granted as a whole really are, how lucky we are - as well as the fact that our personality influences our perception of the shot. you can give 4 photogs a camera and have them shoot the same thing at the same time, and the pics will be different. i love that - that the different angles, views, etc, that can come from a moment.
a lot of people i know who take pics have been through some pretty traumatic stuff, and i wonder if that influences our desire to shoot the way we do, to really focus on these moments and encapsulate them, because we know how easy it is to not have it as an option...we've been so close to the end of it that we want to seek out the beauty in the mundane, the joy of the eccentric, the brightness and color and smiles that comprise this world. maybe?

anyway, i've been looking at pics from people in places i dream about, far away, south africa, maldives, europe...and the thing i notice is how they celebrate family and see beauty in things differently than here in the states. the women that they hold up as beautiful are ample, curvy, generous hips and breasts and thighs, not very much makeup, if any. and i love it. it's rare to see a painfully thin woman in their pages, the sharpness of hip bones sticking out, and i find these people beautiful. i think, so much because, they are so happy with who they are...you can see it in their faces and body language. mostly on their beaches they are topless, some nude, everyone comfortable...pregnant women with stretch marks and hairy armpits, curvy women with big hips and small waists, small breasts, short hair, gigantic breasts, no breasts, no hair...and everyone looks content. they are not focused on hiding themselves since birth, the puritanical fascination with denying our sexuality, the aren't striving to look like kate moss or reach a size 4 no matter how much pain it takes, how much it's not their natural size. they are them, free to be who they are on the beaches and at home. and that culture, that perception - there's something beautiful in it...in acknowledging the beauty of our physicality/sexuality, the beauty of the differences in our commonality, there is such a freedom. such a large space in the range to find where you are on the spectrum and the people who appreciate what you have to offer.

we let our physicality, what we see as our lack (even if it's the lack of excess, not being stick thin) dominate so much of our lives...not being comfortable enjoying the beauty of an amazing day on a clean beach and warm water because of stretch marks or excess weight, not wearing clothes we love, not being comfortable accepting love b/c we don't feel deserving and most of it stems from our dislike of our physical selves - 'i'm fat', 'i'm gross', 'i have stretch marks', 'i have scars', so many things that really tell our story and yet we see it as reasons we don't deserve what we want...comfort, love, freedom.

i'm so saddened by it yet struggling every day to delete this from my life, from my personality. my physical 'flaws' are the testament to what i've overcome and what i've contributed to this world. and i don't want to punish myself and deny myself because of these testaments of my strength, courgae and learning.

i am sad that as i learn to embrace the good and change what i can of the bad, there are people who see my claiming my positive attributes as being arrogant or selfish or other things. i am a kind and generous and good person, often times hurting myself to make the people that i care about feel good, better - and being kind to people that i encounter in the world. but, i focused on the negative for so long, and it did nothing but make me feel bad and change nothing. now, i say...i have worked hard to lose weight and be tone and most importantly, healthy and strong. i am strong. i have good skin. i have pretty hair. my stretch marks signify the healthy child that i gave the best of everything by enduring the pain of choosing a family better for him than i could be, my scars signify my strength and endurance and the diseases that i have not only beaten, but chosen to be bettered by rather than hindered by, my extra weight signifies my persistence rather than my laziness, as it used to be more and i have shed a small person from my body.

i am choosing to focus on and vocalize my positives rather than my negatives, am choosing to state my self-love rather than self deprecation. it is a sad society when people are okay with us denouncing ourselves and yet are uncomfortable if we state the reasons why we are good, why we love ourselves, our own bodies.

i am not arrogant, only awaking.this life is only going to be as good as i let it be.

and all that i'm trying to say is this - no one else can love us if we don't love ourselves first. how can we expect unconditional love and acceptance, forgiveness of our flaws, appreciation of our good, if we're not willing to accept those things from ourselves? how can you expect someone to show you appreciation and kindness and love when you deflect it all the time? answer statements of your beauty and compliments by listing your flaws? how can you expect someone to always the see the things that they love if you are constantly pointing out your flaws?

i've been there but i see it for the unhappy and desolate place it was and i'm not going back there. i am now striving to love me as much as i want the amazing people in my life to do so, to appreciate the results of the things i work hard to maintain, to be able to accept compliments and praise when they are sincere and deserved as well as constructive criticism in the same way. i want to project self love and self confidence and pass that to people that i meet and know...i want to be able to give myself compliments the same way that i do people in the street.

the only person who is ever going to truly suffer if i keep myself locked in a bubble of self loathing is me - others will move on, find happiness and perhaps miss me initially but eventually i will just be someone that they knew once. and i will carry the hurt of pushing away sincere love because i couldn't see my own value. i don't want to be that woman.

and so - i am strong, and kind and patient and loving and beautiful. i am a good person, a good friend, a good lover, a good girlfriend, a good mother, a good aunt, an awesome baker, a tireless worker and cleaner, a fun and funny buddy. an open minded person who is tolerant and encouraging of differences, happy for the success of my friends and family, willing to accept my lumps and admit my mistakes. i strive for betterment and will sacrifice to make the lives of people that i love better. i will take the smaller side, defer to the preferences of my loved ones and to their wants as well - as long as it is acknowledged, reciprocated and i do not feel put upon.

i am intelligent, a verociouos reader and great conversationalist. i try to be as broadly knowledgeable as possible so that i have things to contribute not only to social situations but to the world around me as well. i am helpful, friendly and generous with my time and forgiveness.

but most of all, i just want to be happy. to feel at peace. and i want that for everyone else too...and if we don't find happiness in the same way, if our journeys are different, i wish you all well on yours and hope that you reach your destination. take care of you!

on: love, life and family

2007-05-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

i haven't talked about it *really* on here, because i've just been basking...but, i reconciled with one of the kindest people that i have ever known. a man who is kind, nurturing, generous, loving, appreciative, affectionate, intelligent and so many other things. he was great to me and i was fucked up and falling apart. i, while talking to my therapist, realized that i had made a mistake by pushing away and fearing what was probably the best and purest love that had ever been shown to me. and so, i decided to rectify that...

so, we're at now. he came to see me this weekend - took some time off from work so that we could have more than a few hours, and made the cross country trek to visit me in my place of healing.

everyone adored him. two people that i love very, very much were celebrating their 22nd wedding anniversary & her birthday. and so, as our gift to them, we kept their kids for a long time and let them have time away for some friend time, a romantic dinner, a drive and some time on the beach at night, and then a morning sunrise on the beach as well. it's strange, how well this situation works for us & how many other people either don't understand it or don't even acknowledge it as an important part of my life when i talk about it. there are those who question it, doubt it, are perplexed by it...and then those who choose to pretend that i didn't say anything at all when i speak on it...

but, the relationship that i have with my son and his family - his brother who is also my 'other son' (more on that later), his parents, and most of his extended family - is so amazing. and how incredible? that they would let me keep their kids, one of them my biological son that they adopted, while they go out to celebrate? but we understand and love each other, all of us, and they know that my love is pure, for all of them.

so, they went away, and my boyfriend and i kept the kids. it was so much fun. we took them to see Shrek 3, which was great! they got kid packs, which have nerd rope, popcorn and i got them slushies!! then, we played video games, and we took them to McDonalds for happy meals so that they could have the Shrek toy! we went a couple other places, then came home and changed and rode bikes to the swim club. so funny, it was cold in the evening b/c a storm front was coming, but they begged us to get in the pool and i finally did. they climbed all over me and we wrestled and raced. then, we mapped out a plan for coming home. we got home and undressed in the laundry room to keep things clean, then while i ordered us pizza, they all took showers and picked up the bathroom. i cleaned the kitchen and gathered up laundry. then, when the pizza came, we went all the way up to the 'secret' 3rd floor and had a picnic on the floor - pizza, sweet&saltys, milk - while watching Night at the Museum. i let them stay up late to finish the movie, then let them sleep in the same room in the bunk beds and kissed them to sleep!

then, my BF & i hung out in the gathering room and watched the office & grey's anatomy on the big(ish) screen until we were tired - and he gave me a foot massage with Arbonne Sole Pampering peppermint foot rub creme the entire time!!

it was unbelievable in so many days...then we got up early the next morning and went to the beach and played Team Awesome swimming in the high tide and dug in the sand and played and had fun in the sun. and during that time, i concluded the thoughts that i've been having lately with a firm decision...i *am* ready to have a family. to be a wife and a mom. i'm ready to settle down and make dinners and take care of the people that i love. i've been thinking it for some time and wasn't sure if my longing for it would translate to the willingness to make the commitment to do it.

but, i surprised myself by loving the challenge. and the kids here love me - not just the ones that are my 'family', but their friends, her friends small kids, the kids that i babysit. they love me. the get happy when i show up. their parents love me. i'm good at it, at the mommy aspect of it. i'm nurturing and fun and kind. i play with them, and instead of yelling or arguing, i try to speak logically to them. and it works.

and so, i talked to my boyfriend to ascertain whether he had been serious when he said that he knew that i was his one true love and that he wanted to plan a future with me and love me and be good to me. and he means it - he knows what it means to me and he means it. and so, i told him that i want a family. i want to move here or somewhere like here, somewhere clean and green, where the people are nice and friendly and it's safe. where there is water and clean air and parks and animals and private schools and low cost of living. and i want to foster and adopt. i'm ready for my own family.

and he wants it too. he wants us to be happy, he wants me to be happy and he wants to have a family with me. he loves me, all of me, and thinks that the strength that i have gained from my disease and battles makes me even more beautiful and does not begrudge me the barrenness that my disease and treatment caused...he is happy to adopt with me. he is so great.

we talked about so many big things and spend so much time in each other's eyes, and got to see each other in action as a 'parent'. he was so great with the boys and they absolutely loved him and argued over him, and he was enjoying watching me be a mommy - he would come over and kiss me and tell me how awesomely i handled certain situations. :)

and so - we're going to make a family. and i am so excited. i'm so glad that my therapist has been working with me about accepting love and being less rigid.

i am so happy for my future and for my right now. i am happier than i have been in forever and getting happier every day!!

tired but can't sleep

2007-05-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

again.

my sleep is suffering this week. it's troublesome and annoying and so many things i don't want to deal with right now. i'm not handling stress well, falling apart a bit & have been arguing with the people who are important to me. :(

it is hard to be hormonally challenged. my meds are making me have vivid nightmares and that sucks, but most of what sucks is i fell off the top of a ladder and landed my lower back on a door knob so that pain is pretty intense.

grrrr.

but - my weekend is going to be fantastic and i'm holding out for that! yayayayaya!!

migriane is a bad word

2007-05-11T03:08:00.000-07:00

i awoke at 4.19 with a bad one. i can feel them, in my eye and my gut before there's even any real 'pain' to speak of...it's the aura.

the precursor to the pain. like appetizers are the food you eat to make you hungry (™Cartman), these throbby little sensations are the signals i feel to make me scared of the impending pain.

my life is a constant cycle of one pain or the other. Pelvic Nerve Damage, post-surgery on everything abdominal, intestines that don't work right...

and still i hike and treadmill and yoga and swim. i want my body to condition, to strengthen, to feel better. except at this point, and i'm mostly serious, i don't know how much physically stronger i could get. my body is prime, in the shape of my life almost. the muscles that i have built from pushing myself so hard so that i didn't think about the pain anymore because it's all there ever was...the hiking for another hour because i still felt the cramps in my pelvic floor, the crunches even though i wasn't supposed to because i still felt the pain in my pelvic floor...

everything pushing beyond the pain. the internal reasoning being two-fold. 1) if all that i feel is pain on the inside because of this external pain, i'm going to make it a monstrous external pain to match the consuming internal pain, and 2) the stronger my body during all of this ailment, the stronger i'll be to recover, the less the muscle mass will matter as i lie for weeks and weeks.

my psychic and spiritual advisor told me that my recovery would be long, much longer than i expected...but that it would be an encompassing recovery. one of body, mind and spirit, but that my physical would take the longest. that i would ail beyond when i thought that i would. i almost forgot about that, since the morning after my 6.5 hour major abdominal surgeries and organ removals and organ revisions and the rest, i grabbed my morphine drip, stood up and walked to the bathroom when my nurse told me that i couldn't get out of bed. i looked at her like she was the anti-christ, and then i cried on the toilet from the pain.

i dried my tears, went back to bed and told them that i wanted to walk. they said no. so when my surgeon came, i told him that i was going home and that i wanted to walk. he told me after the surgeries i had had, i wasn't going home...i had to walk for a long time, pass gas and poop to go home and it wouldn't happen. i said - i want to walk. i'm going home tonight, i've hiked during chemo, i've worked 80 hour weeks during chemo, i'm a machine...a machine that feels pain, but i'm going home tonight. so, he called the nurse in and said for her to walk me. i held my morphine drip and walked and walked, pushing the button that did little good but walking.

i made them take the drip out and put me on oral meds. i put sweats on. i walked. everyone in the world knew i was waiting for my intestines to work, so they kept asking - pass gas yet?? poop yet?? finally, i passes gas - willing every cell in my body to create that one function.

they brought me down to the sunroom to talk to women who had had lesser surgeries than me and who were still in bed...sad about the state of their reproductive organs, about their fate, refusing to move, to act...choosing instead to lie in bed hooked up to the machines.

they brought me in and said...'this is A, yesteday she had a hysterectomy, appendectomy, double oopherectomy, double salpingectomy, intestinal revision, scar tissue/adhesion removal, kidney stent, bladder revision and abdominal revision.'

everyone's jaw dropped - 'yesterday?' they asked. 'and you're walking today, answering your cell today?' 'but i only had myomectomy last week and i feel so bad', a couple said, still on their morphine drips.

and i said - 'of course you feel bad, i feel like shit. every cell in my body is screaming pain pain pain pain. it hurts, i hurt. i want to curl up in a ball and put the morphine drip back in and watch t.v and go to bed, and they would let me. but i'm not. this is my life, i've been 30 for ten days and i had these surgeries and it hurts but i'm going to live. i'm going to live my life while i live. i eat organic food and i've worked and exercised and kept my body primed through the pain of getting to this moment, and i'm going to live my life now. i'm going home tonight. i'm starting hormone replacement today. i'm going to hurt, but i'm going to do it on my own terms.'

and so i have.

i still hurt. a lot. a lot of the time. which is surprising and hard for me to accept...how slowly the body heals from such trauma, how much i thought the surgery would be a fix it all when right now it is a tool. i know that i will gradually feel better, have a lessening of the other pains, but i'll always have the nerve pain and the migraines from the HRT, so they're a part of my life i have to deal with...i can't ask the sun to stay down while i hurt and am out of pain meds, so the day goes on and so do i. i live, i type, i answer questions from my biological son and find moments to be completely happy depsite or beyond the pain with the people that i love.

living is my only motherfucking option, stopping's not.

and so, i'm sitting here full of abortive medicine for the headache which isn't helping, drinking coffe which isn't helping, all of the things that are supposed to help not helping, with a dog curled up by my feet, the sun coming up over the water, the bluebirds back nesting for their eggs...

and i live.

somewhere along the way...

2007-05-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

somewhere along the way, i became...

something different than i have ever been. somewhere along the way, i became light on my feet, a hiker, someone who works out, someone who people refer to as tone. i became honest and willing to say the things that are and have been hard for me to say. i became strong and aware and confident and so aware of how fortunate i am to be alive that i've decided to live every single moment as if it's on loan, to do what i feel that i need to to find happiness.

but also, along the way, i became a mom. someone who babysits 3 eight year old boys. someone who makes cupcakes for baseball games and screams "Don't forget to have fun out there!!" and who gets angry when the coach reprimands My Boys! somewhere along the way, i became wifey and i didn't even realize it was happening.

somewhere along the way, i sped up and slowed down at the same time, which sounds impossible except it's happening to me.

i got tired of things that i thought i was fine with, angry about things i thought i had resigned myself to, willing to have the things that i want, the things that will make me happy - without sabotaging myself.

i don't know who i am anymore, this new me, but it's kind of interesting figuring it out every day.

surprises

2007-05-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

when i got to the airport, my reservation had been mistakenly cancelled...by the airline. so, i didn't make my flight due to the mix up...i had to wait 3 hours for the next one. i was rerouted due to this, far out of the way. then, my flight was over half an hour late taking off...the exact amount of time i had to catch my connecting flight. a woman was walking crazy, she smacked me in my face and then looked at me, mumbled something incoherent and passed out face first in the aisle.

i had to take a bus to catch my connecting flight. it barely happened. then, super small plane - 26 people. the stewardess was fucked up and serving minors and laughing about it. i was in the last seat, right next to the bathroom. i hadn't eaten anything besides luna bars, i didn't plan for this kind of day. tired and hungry. he came to get me, a change in plans b/c of the change in timing. i wasn't expecting it, because it was so late with the time difference, but the other he was awake when i arrived.

it's been almost 2 years since i've seen him. i wasn't expecting to see him tonight. tired. disoriented. hungry. just not prepared. on the drive here, his dad started crying telling me about him, about how amazing he is and about how sometimes, when he is talking to him, he closes his eyes and it's me that he hears. how he says words exactly like i say them, how he talks like me, has the same personality. how he's a mini-me.

when i came in the door he shouted 'is she here?' and came barreling down the stairs and into my arms.

my son. my nearly 8 year old son. a human, a person all his own. no longer a toddler or small jealous boy who dislikes me taking his parents time and attention, but an 8 year old man child in my own image excited about seeing me. he's an athlete and won his ball game tonight that i was supposed to see - told me the details of certain plays and asked me to see his room.

i tried to act as if it were no big deal, something i was accustomed to, this feeling in my chest.

he is beautiful. amzing. perfect. he's a mirror image of me. the face, the eyes, the neck, the shoulders. small hands and feet that look like mine, skin the color of my skin, shoulders that slope like my own. you would think that i made him alone, that i cloned myself in male form and was solely responsible for his genetic make up. you would think that i had raised him, the way he makes the same faces that i do, puts the same emphasis at the same place in his sentences.

my son. they have always called him that, calling me and saying 'your son...'. but i have never allowed myself to think of him as such. it was too hard, always so much easier to not think of him possessively. because he's not *mine*, not really. i don't see him every day, see the subtle changes, laugh at the moments, cry at his pains, comfort him when he needs it, hug him every night.

sometimes, it is easier not to think of him at all. when i think about being 30 and post-hysterectomy. when i think that he is the only one that i will grow within me and present to this world, and how he is not *mine*. but, because i did something in my life perfectly, better than anyone could possibly imagine, i realized someting tonight. he is my son.

because i chose the perfect people to be his parents, because i chose for him what i had always wanted and never been even close to having at all - loving, good hearted people as parents, mom and dad, because i found him that and formed a relationship with them and gave them their dream, he can still be my son.

they are more incredible than i could ever know. i cannot have children any longer. i am at a tough place in my life. and they have made it possible for me to come here and hug my son. they have given me the opportunity to see my son's first communion. to watch him play baseball. to take him to the beach and watch him eat ice cream and hear him sing songs and watch him play video games. i gave to them their impossible, and now they have given it back to me when it became my impossible as well.

they are willing to share with me the gift that i gave them. he's not their son. and he's not my son.

he's our son.

it is the most amazing thing. and now i'm typing this before i force myself to sleep, because he has promised to jump on my bed in the morning. tomorrow, against the odds and despite the impossiblity, i will be awakened by my son.

headaches

2007-04-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

i'm in a headache {migraine} cycle again.

i don't know if it has to do with antibiotics, or infection, or allergies, sinuses, stress...

probably a combo of all of it. but i keep having headaches. it's time to change my patch. my bladder is still not right.

grrrrrr. i just can't handle the physical downside of this taking forever to heal thing.

in other news, things are going well for me in areas other than the hurting. i'm happy with the progress that i'm making in therapy, with the people i have chosen to be close to & honest with, with the progression of my emotional/spiritual self and my interactions with people. i'm having some great self-awareness time every day, meditating, praying, striving towards becoming emotionally healthy. and working hard to figure out why i always think that if someone knows me for who i really am, they will not want me in their life anymore, and so i keep my 'real stuff' so close to my chest.

i'm working on being completely honest with my support network and figuring out who my support network really is. and being honest with myself about some of my co-dependent relationships.

life is hard, even when it's simple. i just want some healthy love in mine.

and i'm finding it, first in me. i'm learning to love me. and to accept the love of others. and, to be less rigid* (this is by far the most difficult for me and what my therapist works on the most, my having less rules and interacting less with people that hold emotional stuff at bay and keep it easy for me to be emotionally distant and less at risk.)

but anyway. less rules for me.

now i must go be exposed to the smog. my head is so excited. :/

Seen on Flickr

2007-04-22T03:10:00.001-07:00

Day 105 Reject - USDA Grade A Prime
Originally uploaded by ardruna.

this is seriously awesome...

this just in...

2007-04-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

i am in love with Michelle Malkin and Donny Deutsch is a Douche - http://gawker.com/news/lies-well-disguised/lies-well-disguised-donny-deutschs-makeover-252875.php

anyway, here's the thing. i've been holed up. thinking. thinking thinking meditating praying thinking.

changes are happening. big. structure & restructure. the building up of me is coming in the form of the tearing down of me.

i have officially lost everything. been humbled, brought down to zero.

but this is not the end of me, it is only the beginning of my story.

a new story.

as my roommate has reminded me, i would be homeless if it weren't for her. i am, almost literally, penniless. i await the decision (lengthy bureaucratic bs) of state and federal agencies regarding disability. it will be retroactive, but still...

in the meantime, i cannot work. physically & mentally, i am not capable anyway. i have done what i can and given the rest to the universe. i have heard the positive words and the negative words regarding my current status. i have absorbed advice that i neither asked for nor was in the position to take. i have reached the point of realization regarding many things, the primary one being that i do not have to feel guilty for where i am emotionally/physically/mentally.

i'm doing the best that i can - everything that the doctors tell me. taking all my meds. going to my sessions. exercising. but, i am also very recently post-major surgeries, recovering from a year of hardcore physical illness & major trauma of the surgeries. and, i'm menopausal, depressed, anxious.

this is me. i'm broke. and sometimes i feel broken. but, i'm not worthless. sometimes, some people in my life imply that other people in my life do the very nice things that they do for me for reasons other than that they care about me. and this makes me feel that they are implying that i'm not worth it, somehow. that i'm not the kind of person who warrants that kind of attention or affection or kindness, but that people who have something to prove are using me to prove it. that implication angers me, because i do not feel that i am beyond love. i feel very much worthy of love.

because we are all flawed. we are all on the edge of something. we are all damaged goods in some way. but at least i am owning up to mine, seeking a path to betterment all the way around. not just for the acute, immediate issue. but for the deeper issues as well. and i strive to be a good person, a kind person.

there is no such thing as perfection, therefore i do not strive for non-mistake making me. i want to be known as the me who will own her mistakes. who will apologize & do what is possible to fix them. i want to be honest. i want to be a better person. i want to only be a benefit to the lives that i am a part of and not a detriment.

the thing about other people in your life is this: Nice is overrated. everyone talks about how they are looking for a nice guy. but, anyone can be nice. nice is easy. I like considerate. Considerate shows effort. Considerate says: i know that you don't like being late so i will be on time, i know that you like comedies so i will see this movie with you, i know that you get up early for work so i will go to bed earlier, i know that you are sad so i will hug you, i know that you like cookies so i got you this...

Considerate says: I pay attention to the details and, because I care, contribute to them in small ways to show you that i want to be a positive force in your life, i want to be a source of reliability and happiness and contentment.

Anyone can be nice, few are truly considerate.

I have been fortunate in my life in that I have known some truly considerate people. and in the world of dating, i have also been fortunate to know considerate men. men whom i am still friends with because they made/make my life better. and i am lucky enough to have met one when i was about to go through what is, to date, the most trying time of my life.
my grandma says that i have a 'problem letting go of relationships', but i say that people come into our lives for a reason, and i can either see it for the positive & cherish that person for the good that they were/are in my life - or i can spend my time being a bitter, resentful woman who has poor relationships with men and negative viewpoints on previous relationships and creates negative new relationships because of it.

you will not catch me on the Men Ain't Shit train. it has never been my steez. and now, i believe that we create our own destiny in this life. so, if i bring my previous baggage about being cheated on or lied to or betrayed or whatever into a new something, and i expect that the same thing will happen, then eventually i will create that dynamic. eventually, he will live up (or down) to my expectations - even if only in my head.

so, i'm deciding to a) Love Me. flaws & all. scars, stretch marks, issues, ethics, taboos, history. i am worthy of love, especially from myself. and b) Bring Positive Expectations & try not to let past issues effect current situations.

somewhat like an addict, i am taking every single thing one day at a time. and i'm pursuing happiness, positivity and serenity. i am making the changes, pursuing the things & people that bring me contentment and smiles.

and, i'll take Consideration over Nice any day.

to everyone in my life who reads this and knows where i am and what's coming, the sun's gonna shine in a mile...

in a mile we'll be feeling fine...

...you will close the door behind you,

2007-04-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

go your way.

not for the first time i'm looking back on my first love.

i was old, by any standard, for any culture.

unable to think or speak or think or move. hand in glove.

taken aback by the ferocity with which my heart could betray me and love so completely another. ache so much for another. want so much to make another happy - with my intelligence, my conversation, my laughter, my body, my moans, my mouth, my everything.

where is he? he once meant so much to me. i was told love should hold old friends...

not for the first time i'm looking back on all those years.

names ringing in my ears... a time when there was just a bunch of us, around the playstation, the softball field, the waterpipe, the pool table, crawling up the street carrying vodka bottles with nipples screaming HAPPY NEW YEAR!

where are they? they once meant so much to me. i was told love should hold old friends...

...you will close the door behind you, go your way. time will make amends to me. life has moved on.

all of the borderlines have been redrawn...

no more fucking news for me

2007-04-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

this is a blog for grown-ups. i should say that now. (a year later, right?)

i curse, i vent. i say ridiculous shit. i deal with my issues at therapy, with a couple of select friends, and in this space. so yeah, no kiddos here.

anyway, i'm not watching the news any longer. i can't take it. it's so depressing, how they target in on something and just pound it to death. mediabistro started reporting almost immediately yesterday that everyone was on their way to Blacksburg to do their reports from there today. people are doing special hour long reports from there. it's ludicrous. how many times can you say the same thing?

he was fucking crazy. he was actually, probably up until then, on the edge. we're all on the edge of something. he was on the edge of psychotically killing people. and whatever was going to push him over that edge happened. and it's terrible. a terrible, terrible thing. but i can't digest any more of it. there's no more to know. it makes my stomach hurt. it makes me sad. for all of those families, all of those young lives.

i have lived the heartache of watching a young life, my best friend, be taken away. in the blink of an eye. body parts torn asunder. blood, cellular stuff, i have watched and touched and felt life end. young life. it is horrible and there is nothing that can ever ever ever match it and every time that i know that it is happening, traumatically, bloody, horribly, i hurt for the people who will have to identify them, who will have to know that that is how they went, who will have the what if's and the questions and the not understanding.

i am still friends with her mom. she still asks me questions. it's been almost 13 years. she still asks me questions. she had a nervous breakdown. i was the only one that would go see her. i live thousands of miles away, we write, i call her. i loved her. i love her mom. i will never stop being there for her. but there are some questions that have no answers. that what this situation has created for so many families, so many people...so many quesions that have no answers.

ugh. this day is challenging. it started with 3 hours of therapy. meh.

the eyes i see with

2007-04-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

things that don't need to happen, in my opinion:

~you don't need to tell a dog 'up'. they're smarter than us for a reason. they had to brave the 'wild' for a long time & i think that they may have learned to jump when necessary. this is all, of course, subjecture on my part. maybe dogs don't know when to jump up on a sidewalk. maybe they have no idea that they need to Poooooo Pooooooooo or Peeeeeeeee Peeeeeeeeeee outside. maybe they are merely here to be our pick-up toys for the opposite sex.

~protein bars don't need to cost more than a dollar each. what the eff are they putting in those things that they cost almost $3 each?

~people don't need to go on to college campuses wielding guns and killing random people. what the fuck? seriously. i'm stressed out all day now. i mean, when is something like that going to happen in los angeles, i wonder? a city this big, as many crazy people as i meet and see. i know it's only a matter of time before some psycho pulls out a weapon in my therapists office or on the bus or some shit. damn. or in Whole Foods because they don't have his beets. or the post office. i'm never going into the post office again. ugh.

~i don't need to wake up suddenly allergic to oxygen. my eyes swollen and my throat closed and not able to breathe. having never had allergies, i'm pissed to the max about this.

~i don't need people reposting my All Rights Reserved Flickr photos on other websites. fucking jackasses.

i do need to just stop participating! ugh.

where do i go?

2007-04-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

lately i've felt like i can't find my words. my tears are here. but i've felt lost on the inside. my meds are keepin me relatively calm on the outside, i only lose my cool about 30% of the times that i'm actually feeling it. but i don't necessarily think that that is a good thing.

but i don't know either. maybe it's fine. maybe other people shouldn't suffer just because i'm all fucked up. maybe i should just take the drugs and be sedated and be fine on the outside and be forced to fake a smile that lasts every day of my life.

today, my doctor said to me...'tell me. just because i can't fix it doesn't mean that i don't want to know what's going on. tell me.' and then he said, not once but five times, 'i want to know what's going on with you always. please stay in touch with me. please drop me a line. if i can do anything for you, please let me know. i want to know what's going on with you.'

he could tell that something was wrong and that i was going inside myself. he told me of the major trauma that my body has undergone, not only the surgeries, but also just the years of pain and disease. and my strength to have endured it. he told me about how all of the data that they have is for women 63 and up, whose bodies were menopausal and therefore there is no data for women who are 30. i'm in unchartered territory here. he did invasive internal exams and took samples and they did lots of bloodwork (and i almost passed out in the sun waiting for my bus :( )

so, he's a good doctor. he told me that they rarely have a 100% success case as far as chronic pain goes and that he knows that once i get my mood stabilized and my depression dealt with and my anxiety handled and my hormone dosage levelled (most of it comes from this), that i'm going to do great. he cares. that was nice.

i just am so stressed out, about so many things. it hurts to be so confused, in so muc turmoil, and feel as if no one gets it, or really even cares that much. as if i have to pay someone (my psychiatrist) to care.

i'm just exhausted, maybe. it's been a long week.

a really long week. my first one.

this is the place i live

2007-04-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

but so does everyone.

i'm not special.
my sadness. my pain. my aloneness.

nothing special.

been had before, by many before me.

i'm not special.

i keep forgetting that.

life is just one humiliation after another...and we should just get used to it.

hormones teach you humiliation. your place. crying in public teaches you humiliation. your place. anger. rage. hormones. loss of control. they teach you humiliation. your place in the world.

am i prepared to live in this world with its harsh need to change me?

this moment...i don't know. i don't know if i have the strength to know.

exhaustion. i'm exhausted. but rest is not healing me. i'm not whole hearted. i can't find me. i have to find my ability to make friends with the unknown.

life sans disease is almost as scary as life with it.

maybe my moment's gone

2007-04-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

i'm not the same person i seem to be.
all of this depresses me...

i won't listen.
i won't talk.
my life is weightless.
i mean a lot.
i mean a little.
i'm brittle.

maybe this *is* me.

i have to go back on the anti-depressants. i have to take the sleeping meds as prescribed. i have to, once again, be me under the influence of fucking pharmaceuticals.

because i am ill equipped. my body can't handle it. my head can't handle it. my heart. the trauma. the slow eeking of my stability that has occurred over the past few years. the see-saw of illness & my battle to claim health. the financial burden of a long-term illness. of chronic pain.

so, i keep thinking that this isn't me. and i want to find the me that i was before. but maybe this is me.
maybe i am depressed and anxious.

i'm taught by experience and therefore worse, i know that much. just a fucking version of the truth of me.
and everyone wants a piece of me...energy, pills, advice, help, conversation. and i don't feel like i have anything to give. not even to myself.
maybe my moment's gone.

i need an escape. a way out of my head. i am not equipped to deal with life & the people in it. i am not equipped to deal with being responsible for the how my actions affect others on a daily level because in a large sense, i really don't give a fuck. not about them, per se, but just about all of it. life. the things that are happening outside my mind that is racing and my heart that is pounding and my pelvic floor that is still having pain.

i am not equipped to deal with people who can only see me in relation to them. who cannot even try to step out of the box that 'we' are in and try to see or imagine the depths of where i am, the mental anguish that brings me to a place where i would say that i cannot reign in control. that i must cry. that i must seek aloneness and healing. that i want to be left alone.

i need to take time to catch my breath and choose my moment. i'm sliding. i think my pain belongs to me but forget that it's happened to so many before me. i'm sliding. i forget to remember that i'm only human, it's okay to make mistakes and not have it all figured out. i'm sliding.

i am trying to be a good girl and give everyone what they want, but i got nothing.

...sometimes, you have to let go, close your eyes & let it crash.
lonely isn't a strong enough adjective...
words are my enemy now.

I lack the necessary tools to help me get right. I can't poke a hole in my chest and pull my heart through, and though there are some that would take me any way that they could have me, I don't want to have someone take their place as my temporary savior. I bring along everything - my ethics and my issues and my taboos. i'm heavy now.

there's a documdrama on - sometimes in italian

2007-04-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

about how expensive a major &/or long-term illness is, about how it can cost all of your money and more.

it is poorly acted.
the actors are not attractive.
the doctor makes me feel like i am watching my life over the past years.

then, it cuts to this commercial for Insurance, of some kind. the difference between HMO & PPO. before this was a drama, all in Italian.
before that, i don't remember. i took pics. i ate crackers. i cleaned & read. i am learning that 39 million people in the U.S. do not have health insurance. that sucks...almost as much as how much i have to pay to have health insurance.

i can't sleep. the back and forth of hormones and insomnia is killin me.

i have therapy *group* in a few hours. ***yawns***

i can't believe that i brought Pudding Pops. that's awesome!! yay!

i want to nap.

if no one calls & i don't speak at all,

2007-04-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

do i disappear somewhere?

i don't understand anything. nothing. at all.

what is it that i think i need?
is there love in me that wants to be free?

or am i selfishness and ego? is that what i carry with me everywhere i go?

...this feeling that my life is incomplete.

i only know this...i start to cry. i can't tell you why. i stumble. i can't let people in. because i don't understand anything.

there's this pain in my chest all the time...beyond the physical pain. it's the pain of not knowing what the fuck is going on.

of knowing that everyone is watching me stumble and trip, of my fingers losing my grip, of me being down on my knees. and wondering if this is what they wanted to see?

sometimes, i feel gripped by fear and doubt.

my spiritul advisor said this today : Whenever you are about to achieve something major, a great breakthrough, cross a giant threshold, the dark side of your nature will bombard you with fear and uncertainty. ...it is only with total certainty in your power can you hope to dominate the sabotaging aspect of yourself.

i feel like there is a miracle waiting for me...that all that i need to do is focus on the problem and walk towards it with total certainty. i'm just too attached. i need to detach, and focus on the outcome and not this journey, this oh so difficult journey, that i'm on.

sometimes, i want to say to people...am I bothering you? You wouldn’t be bothered if you knew what I’ve been through.

i know that all the good reasons i have to be mad at people vanish once i take a peek behind the curtain. i have to remember to ask the light/the univere/the gods to help me understand the pain that drives a person, so that i can see their chaos and their pain and their reasons. because that is what i want from them.

i want them to see the pain that drives me, my chaos, my conflict, my struggle.

today, starting today, i want to resist holding onto the bad feelings that i feel. i want to open my heart and focus the beam of my compassion onto the people in my life. i know that i need compassion, love and forgiveness.

i am prepared to give what i need. i am asking the universe for patience in the receiving of what i need.

i am asking the universe for guidance. for the strength to love myself, to forgive myself, to find the knowledge of what i am worth in this world.

i don't know what i'm worth in this world. i'm self-deprecating. i expect so much and accept so little. i want to know with absolute certainty what i am worth in this world.

my meditation tonight was really good. i met someone great today, a great lady, whose daughter is going through the beginning of what i have lived for the past years. it was all so random, but i feel that the universe placed me in their lives to help her...i honestly didn't even know why i was walking there. and then i was telling her my story. then BAM...she said, i can't believe you said that, about that, because my daughter has all that you have just said and i wasn't going to say anything but when you said ________, i knew for sure that you have really lived it b/c i watch her do that every day. will you help me? will you share with me what you know?

and so i took her info and told her i would contact her tomorrow. i won't leave my bed or my self-suffering for me, but i will do it for others who can benefit from my suffering, and maybe the universe knows this. maybe i'm supposed to start a group or something.

i just know that i'm back to walking the city late at night. i'm restless. i am in transition.

i need a tapeplayer walkman.
i need to prepare for tomorrow.

Happy Passover.

Good Pesach | Happy Passover

2007-04-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

since things fall apart, I'll be having my Seder tomorrow night (which is still totally acceptable).

i have a lot to think about with this Pesach, because it is the first time that it means so much to me.

it is also me acknowledging to my friends that my Judaism means more to me now, when i for a long time eschewed religion.

i want to know that i am in the place that the creator intends for me, the universe, the gods. that i am giving the energy that i need to to get the life that i want.

there is so much that i want.

i feel like i am waking up after a long coma, and there is so much that i haven't known or dealt with for years that is pressing in on me now.

i walk the city late at night...does anyone here do the same?

i want to be the things i claim.

more later, i have to run out.

i'm not a psycho i just cry a lot

2007-03-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

New hormone replacement patch day one. it keeps being day one again. day one sucks. jeezus.

fuck fuck fuck.

i got mail from social security today. at least i showered. and had a very, very short walk.

the things that are weighing on my mind are very heavy.

which sucks, behind my head hurts so badly.
this migraine...it won't stop.

or even abate a little.

throb throb throb.

patch = eat all day. cry. crave. but today's headache / hunger / craving / all of it / has included vomiting since 3 a.m. as well.

i know that i will adjust. need to adjust. i think maybe this is a virus or food borne illness on top of it and maybe just bad timing, but it has made the hot flashes and stomach/digestive things far worse.

i cannot focus. i am hurting incessantly. what the fock?

depression is a hell of a thing to battle.

:(

it's decision time again

2007-03-31T00:13:00.000-07:00

one thing - i've said this before, my standards have been, at best, undemanding.

i'm still here, but what if i weren't? where would any of the rest of anything be, that falls in relation to me?

i feel like a lot of the love in my life, a lot of the love that i have learned, depends on geography.

i feel like, for too long, i've given too much of myself to people...even the people who matter a lot, matter the most. like i forgot to remember that I matter THE most!!

when i say i've given too much of myself, i mean i've been too complacent, forgiven too much, accepted too much, not been willing to stand up for myself even on the small things because i've been so unwilling to have confrontation.

i don't want to do that anymore. i'm not sure exactly what my future holds, but i know that one aspect of it is me evolving into a woman with a stronger sense of self. which is different than being a strong woman.

i'm not sure how to feel about some things...

except to know this: i can only be responsible for me. i can only ask others to be responsible for themselves and hope that that responsibility reflects one that mirrors my own, therefore their presence in my life doesn't hurt me. not everyone is like me - not everyone wants to be featured in my blog just because they are part of my life but that doesn't mean that they don't love me, and it doesn't mean that the people who are willing to jump into the public forums of expression are necessarily any *more* better suited for me or love me more or better.

we, or i, try to quantify things that don't necessarily always need to be quantified.

i don't even know what all of my thoughts are about, i just know that my brain is full. it's decision time again.

PICTURES: MRI Porn (Possibly NSFW)

2007-03-29T08:56:00.001-07:00

Dutch researchers recruited several couples (including a pair of street acrobats) to have sex in an MRI. They produced highly detailed pictures of human anatomy during coitus, and found that Da Vinci's early illustrations of coitus in cross-section made some critical mistakes.

read more | digg story

you don't have to shovel sunshine.

2007-03-28T23:48:00.000-07:00

today i...

...saw my pain management team & neurosurgeon. i had a panic attack there. my blood pressure was too high. the voices/conversation/people in the waiting room were too much.

...had my final dental surgery & scheduled my free 1 hour Zoom! whitening (as seen on Extreme Makeover - Personal Dental on Wilshire ladies & gentlemen!!!)

...made friends with two men from Europe, here for a month and staying at a hostel, who let me take their photos on the bus.

...found out that one of my photos won a photog contest!!!!! i will be inducted into some guild. lmao, but still, how effing awesome!!!!!

...got a free 2.5 hour reading and 1 hour body work session from my psychic. and now my friend. who told me many things. but told me something about someone in my past that was interesting.

...took a walk. took some photos. had some pain. fought the truth.

a- out.

Mad Windy.

2007-03-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

today, it was Mad Windy on my walk in the canyon with mr. blue. after the rain.

and i thought to myself, it's Mad Windy. and when i did, i smiled.
and i watched this whole sequence of events that weren't happening happen in my head.

i saw myself tease a gay man (i wish i could remember his name, but i know that he has a YACHT at a MARINA & DOGS & A MILLION DOLLAR CONDO & RICH PARENTS).
i saw myself swim and float and play with this little girl. i can't remember her name either, damn.
i saw myself play volleyball with a beach ball and say Mad Windy Mad Windy Mad Windy and probably be Hella Annoying but i giggled and laughed and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
i saw myself in the corner of the pool as the sun went down. the hot of my tears against the cold of everything else.
i saw myself get dressed in the green halter dress and sit there and laugh and pose for pictures...still some of my favorite of me from that time period.
i saw myself order and eat appeteasers and be covered, hand to elbow, in wing sauce - also some pretty funny stories.
i saw myself record the ring tone.
i saw myself laugh everytime that it rang...Mad Windy Mad Windy Mad Windy...my phone would scream it out, and that day would flash while my phone rang, and i would laugh, and people would look at me like i was insane because my phone was yelling Mad Windy over and over again, but those words meant something bigger than just the moments than they were happening.

and i'm in the canyon, with the winds whipping me every which way, and a monstrosity of a dog dragging me straight uphill, and i'm crying and saying, 'it's Mad Windy, Mr. Blue, we gotta slow down.'

it's Mad Windy in my life right now. i spend half my day doing/saying things to apologize for, the other half apologizing. trying to serve things up and then chasing them down because the wind has blown them askew. i have not yet made friends with the unknown.

it doesn't interest me if there is one god or many gods

2007-03-27T01:40:00.000-07:00

in an instant, my mood goes from ok to horrible.
i cry. i pace. i become angry, unsettled, restless, confused, unable to cope with my life as is.

this happened at about 6 p.m. and hasn't stopped. i have taken and posted pics on Flickr.
i have paced. eaten soup. more soup. had tea. written. plannered. (like there's anything to write in my planner these days, really. i could write...wait.).

i want. i don't want. i push. i pull. i hurt. i ache. i hurt some more. i'm angsty. i reach for what i know. i reach for solid ground. i reach for familiar in all of this unknown, in all of this that i don't recognize. the breadth and textures of life...

it has taken my whole life and my whole existence to understand that i am one step away...

one step away...

reaching. reaching. reaching. one step away...

The Journey...by David Whyte

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes, i listen to it over and over again and try to calm myself. I hear...how do you move the pivot of your existence away from the constant human experience of leaving and to the experience of arriving? Even slightly? How do you cultivate a daily experience of anticipation and meeting and conversation? How do you move the pivot of your identity away from trying to put it all together yourself, more towards the conversation itself? Away from the feeling of besiegement in life towards engaging creation in such a way that I realize that this is a place of revelation and healing?

That the healing is sometimes fierce, that the healing sometimes almost kills me. But, that the world somehow is constantly telling me that I belong to a much larger home than I can build for myself at any one time, than I can imagine at the moment. So, when I feel like I am constantly through going through these cycles of building a home only to be orphaned again, but that is b/c I need to make friends with the unknown. If I can't make friends with the unknown, life will always seem like it is an enemy.

I keep feeling like my foundation is being swept away, in the moments when my hormones rage. I keep forgetting to cultivate my friendship with the unknown. I keep forgetting about the healing quality of the unknown.

Life is a constant cycle of making a home in the world and being outted. Finishing the final touches, the comfort pieces, and the knock on the door that rousts me. Difficult transitions...the moments where I don't know how anything is made or done or anything anymore. Maybe it *is* when I'm willing to learn. Those moments. But, I feel like I have had more than my share of the difficult transition moments. More than a liftetime's worth.

...sometimes, everything has to be enscribed across the heavens, so i can find the one line already written inside of me
...sometimes, with the bones of the black stick left when the fire has gone out, someone has written something new in the ashes of my life
...i am not leaving, i am arriving.

sometimes, i am tired of carrying my mask. sometimes, i don't want to know the things i know - my responsibilities, the people who owe me things, the people to whom i owe things, the people who love me, the people who love me.

the world was made to be free in.

...sometimes, it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn that anything or anyone that does not bring you alive, is too small for you.

when your eyes are tired, the world is tired also. when your vision is gone, no part of the world can find you.

...sometimes, it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn that anything or anyone that does not bring you alive, is too small for you. ...sometimes, it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn that anything or anyone that does not bring you alive, is too small for you. ...sometimes, it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn that anything or anyone that does not bring you alive, is too small for you.

i am not beyond love. i am not leaving, i am arriving. the world was made to be free in. i should have a place in my day where i don't have to carry my mask around with me. it doesn't interest me if there is one god or many gods. i want to know if i belong or feel abandoned. if i can know despair or see it in others. if i am prepared to live in this world with its harsh need to change me. am i prepared to live day by day with the consequence of love & the bitter unwanted passion of my sure defeat.

i have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of god.

am i prepared to live in this world with its harsh need to change me? am i prepared to look back with firm eyes saying 'This Is Where I Stand?'

the world was made to be free in.

news of death

2007-03-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

has made its way down the chain, to me.

it is still morning for me, and i have to go walk the dogs.

i have read the email, and reread it. i have spoken nothing aloud. i have to get dressed now. and go walk the dogs.

my bio is up at 30 Voices. my 1st post. i have new pics up at Flickr. i'll Scrobble new music when i get home.

news of death has made its way to my eyes, but i will speak nothing.

i have to go walk the dogs now.

i can't take any more heartache this year.

i cried all day yesterday. i have nothing left to give.

there is life and love and air and mountains and sea outside.
i have to go walk the dogs.

post secret

2007-03-25T02:18:00.000-07:00

i finally finished my secret, the real one, to Post Secret. yay!!

tonight we saw The Namesake, and then the Q&A with Kal Penn afterwards. it was good and i'm glad that we went. we got tix for the symphony!!!! It's Star Wars Dark Nights, Yosemites Bright Lights @ the Wadsworth Theater. I'm really excited about it!!

i'm going to type out something that makes me embarassed even to think...hahaha. but, it's been weird to be away from OKP. it was such a huge part of my life for so long, the decision to step away has been weird. sometimes, i almost type it in and then remember that my login doesn't exist anymore.

i got im'd a link and clicked it b/c it was about me and when i was reading it and getting pulled into the drama, realized that that is why i left in the first place - the fact that i was getting emotionally wrapped up in what people who had never even met me said about me. and that it was silly. and pointless after all these years.

and i have such real shit going on. like i'm probably going to have to file bankruptcy due to my years of serious health crisis and my very expensive surgery. i am responsible for 30% of the cost of my surgery and my first two bills total over 160k. so yeah, that's serious. and i'm handling hearings for disability, and adjusting to hormone replacement therapy, and battling major depression.

so, i don't need unnecessary extra stuff. that is all. i just have to guard who and what i let near me during this time.

i am lucky to have a pretty fantastic support system. i am also lucky to have a man in my life who is understanding of things even when i probably wouldn't be when in his position, honestly. these hormones...ugh. i just had a rough day today. the depression/anxiety part of it was bad today. and i had a freak out in the store, and started wyling, and crying. and he handled it like a pro, like he was designed to take care of me in that situation. and he's just generally a good dude. and he oh so cutely pulls me closer even in his sleep...he's so amazingly fascinated with my body. he loves my shape, my legs. he tells me that i am beautiful, that he loves how my waist blooms into my hips.

he makes me feel pretty and sexy and just good. and he spoils me. even when i'm hormonal and up and down and kind of not really the best of me, he sees the best in me. and he comes over and gives me foot rubs and back rubs and shoulder rubs and leg rubs, b/c he knows that the hormones are causing me to cramp up and also because he likes to touch me! i really enjoy his touch, i really enjoy being touched. i wanted for so long to be touched, to be treated with affection and love and genuineness.

i always thought that if i ever got it, i would probably have to sacrifice something. that if i got the brains, the conversation, the affection and attention, i wouldn't get the physical attraction or the forearms. i thought i would probably have to compromise some desires in order to live others. and so i started deciding which things were the ones that i could live without, and which were the ones i had to have. and i knew that the sexual attraction, the chemistry, the being touched and being wanted, was a necessity after living without it.
but i also wanted conversation. and movies. and someone who read books. lol.

and now...now, i have a man who works out on the regular, lifts weights, runs, has great forearms, can lift me up and carry me to the shower or the pool, who reads the books that i read, who likes the movies that i like, who shares the same political viewpoints as i do, who engages me in discourse on current events. i have a smart, attractive man who works in finance and loves Discover magazine who begs me to rub me, who comforts me, who licks me until i am sleepy, who licks me awake, who touches me in a way that makes me know that i am special to him.

i am lucky. lucky lucky lucky. even when things are bad, and i am sad, i know that i am lucky. even when i can't sleep, like now, and i can't hear anything except my fingers on the keys as i type and his breath and the fan fighting away my hot flashes, i know that i am lucky.
i am here. i am closer to me every day. i am planning my future with the people that i love and who love me.

i am lucky. *rinse and repeat*

a- out.

there's more to life than what makes you cry

2007-03-24T03:28:00.000-07:00

today was good.

the walks with the dogs were good, and annabelle has decided that i am friend and not foe. this is good news...primarily b/c annabelle has very sharp teeth. lol.

i only had to spend 19 minutes on the phone with apple tech gods before my problem was corrected - i think that's a new record!!

and, i got to see a movie that i've been looking forward to at my favorite theatre with my dude & have a hebrew national hot dog! yay!! tonight, we saw Reign on Me. it was good...surprisingly so. i cried a lot (bear in mind that i'm on hormone replacement therapy). but, the dialogue is good, the music is good, the chemistry between the actors *especially Don and Adam* is surprisingly good. overally, very good flick.

tomorrow night, we are seeing the namesake and then the one hour q&a with the actor afterwards - & then Rareform!! *lol - shoutouts to Tara, whose JUST LOVE AND SUPPORT RAREFORM AND SHUT UP, runs through my head about three times a day, but usually with a different word substituted for Rareform. lol.

anyway, things maybe will be level one day, where i can foresee a future of good days. but, until then, i will enjoy them as they come.

today was a good day.

(i didn't even have to use my AK)

you knew i couldn't resist the ice cube moment.
have a great weekend my lovelies.
and thanks for the email support.

a- out.

My First Post on 30 Voices

2007-03-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

My first post on 30 Voices is up!!! I'm very excited about the project, it is one of the most compelling that I have been a part of in a very long time and it thrills me to share my words in the same space as so many other talented 30-something women! Yay!

My first post... http://thirtyvoices.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/sunrise-for-an-insomniac/#comments

a- out.

...the problem is, most men waste her grace

2007-03-22T17:23:00.000-07:00

they take her kind and adoring mien for granted, and force her sooner or later to hop the first streetcar out of 'town' - but despite being grace personified, forgiving endlessly, mercifully understanding his faults and foibles, seeing past his problems to his unadulterated good, and being continually disappointed by the men in her life...she will not cease and desist from her signature of giving selflessly to her relationships.

She has an altruistic and ungrudging vision of love, carrying a seemingly bottomless loving cup. And because she doesn't compromise these things, because she is willing to pour herself fully into the man she loves now despite the disappointment of the man she loved before, she will ultimately happen upon the man who will appreciate the joyful affection that she gushes - without taking her own needs lightly.

She is programmed to give, mainly in the form of lending her infamous understanding. And in finding a man on whom she can spew forth her feelings withou having them trampled underfoot, she experiences rapture. Sometimes, it so happens that a former flame will have learned his lesson about her goodness and will try to woo her back. If anyone could forgive the past, it is her.

When it comes to relationships, She asks for little. She is a low maintenance mate whose idea of a perfect evening would sooner entail pizza and beer than caviar and champagne. She run the proverbial party pad - a startling symptom of her lack of concern for materialism. There will be the effects of the endless string of her notorious hobbies, there will be knickknacks and memorabilia, minimalism not being her default. She likes the lived in look - and nowhere in her house will that be more in evidence than in the bedroom, where both in decor & sexual philosophy, she isn't above making a mess.

Sex should never be a laminated, sanitized affair - but rather a releasing of all inhibitions. Her attitude is laissez faire. She is spontaneous and loves to be taken abruptly by a man - she would relish being jumped by her partner from behind while she was washing the dishes. It is the bestial side of men that attracts her most. - if any woman were to take an impromptu plunge with someone blue collar like the plumber, it would be her...which is ironic given her sunny & nerdy disposition. She seems the last female one would expect to do so.

She likes to be manhandled with a certain degree of roughness..it doens't have to be meaningful but pure physical pleasure is fine. She wants all of her buttons pushes, preferably all at the same time. She is unplugged - giving many nods to toys. She has zero hang ups, nor any trace of emotional or religious guilt surrounding sex. She is a nitty gritty character in the bedroom. She is especially comfortable with artificial stimulation either as enhancement to sex with a partner or as a happy solo substitute for human contact.

She likes to document her bedroom shenanigans, wither with photos or videos in which she stars as the vixen. It floats her boat - part sex and part conceptual art.

One would be hard pressed to find a more empowered individual...she is a beacon of confidence and self-confidence when she comes into her prime.

~~ she is me. and this is my sextrology reading. and wow. wow wow wow.

which means it is pretty right on and i'm shocked. lol. shocked enough to type it out. b/c it's spot on. wowsa.
sextrology. bam.

the doubling of hormones

2007-03-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

So, the hormones have been doubled. This is...

good news? In some respects, this is good news. Some of the things that were a problem with too few hormones are now not so much. Now though, I am angry. Or maybe, on edge. I think on edge is the better way to adequately sum up what I am.

In a lot of respects, when it comes to actual contact, I just want to be left alone, because contact always involves the same things - people telling me what they are doing/did and asking me what I'm doing/what I did. And chances are, I'm not DOING anything.

Chances are, i'm sitting in front of my computer doing another freelance project, writing another things, uploading another photo that I took either in my house, off of my balcony or in the park by my house. I'm not allowed to really DO shit. And frankly, I'm getting frustrated hearing about all of the great and exciting things that everyone else is doing. Hmph.

So, I'm angsty/on edge. I just want something that I can't identify. And food...I'm hungry all of the damn time. Good lord.

I'm planning my first Seder for Passover. And we're still having the Go God, Whoooo party. So at least I have things to look forward to. And, I got invited to the VIP Fashion Show tomorrow night (looks at clock - tonight I guess), so I'm going to try to talk my doc into letting me go to that.

He says that I can't be trusted to do things minimally so I just have to be not allowed to do things. :(

that dog that i walked bit me today too. motherfucker. grrrrrrr.

that's that.
a- out.

Redefining Beauty

2007-03-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

JPG Mag, with the Suicide Girls, is having a photography contest themed Redefining Beauty.

I have submitted a Self Portrait (with piercings!) into the contest and would like to ask for your vote...

the photo can be located at http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/98134

and thanks!

how much of yourself do you give away?

2007-03-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

so, there's 30 Voices...
and my ex-boss wanting me to come back to work for him as a consultant (just LOL bitches)...
and the the book...
interviewing for the movie...
planning the trip to Bmore for the Wire...
maybe Puerto Rico?...
(i really wanna do PR)...
there is Slade and the puppies...
Julia aka Uli, the one and a half year old marvel who likes to rub my leg...

there's so much to do yet. and i'm still in bed. cranky. sore. crying tonight :(

i'm ready to be ready. to stop being so goddamned moody all of the time. the incredible crying machine. the fight starter. taker of things literally, seriously, meh.

i just want to laugh and relax and not be so high strung.

hormones are a motherfucker.

dental surgery is a motherfucker too...i can't believe i have to finsih up!!! good thing i got told i was too skinny and so i've been eating pizza.

and omg, i even had popeyes the other night. blech. lmao. and girl scout cookies!!! hahaha. yay!!!

awww shit.

on the dark side of the moon & i have no coat

2007-03-16T16:04:00.000-07:00

i don't know what to do about how i feel right now...

my hormone replacement isn't enough. my doctor wants to wait to increase it, give it some time and see if my body will catch up or adapt, because any increase in dosage is an increase in the risk of side effects and i'm the youngest person he's ever done this to.

i'm 30 and have to be on hormone replacement therapy for the rest of my life. this is major. so, they have to start slow. i get this. i truly do. but damn i feel like i'm drowning. like i'm all alone in this shit.

i don't know anyone who knows what this is like. i upset my roomie this morning and i didn't mean to, it's just that i was having these horrid dreams - i've been having them for four nights. and i couldn't pull myself out of it. and just like when i'm awake, i felt like i was falling into this dark hole - the abyss. and everything bad could possibly happen was going to. and i'm scared - terrified, but i don't know of what.

it's all darkness and hormones that are so much bigger and stronger than me. body chemistry that i can't control.

so, i call my grandma hoping for comfort and she tells me that 'you need to get on top of this, take control, stop it.'

stop it? uhm, i'm trying. i push myself to take walks and go for hikes and smile and laugh and make jokes. it's only been 3 weeks since this invasive, traumatic shit happened to my body. for real, stop it???

i am falling apart today.

this is the worst day that i have had since the surgery...if there are peaks and valleys, today is the lowest point in the valley that i have encounered. i have cried spots into my glasses. i have cried myself into a headache, a runny nose.

i don't understand how to make it better when it's something that i can't fix...there's no magic potion. it's body chemistry and hormones and it's not just something i can *decide* and it's better.

over and over, i try to just pick up the pieces and be focused on being positive. but today i don't have it. whatever i need, i don't have it.

today i want to throw things and today i want someone who understands and today i want everyone to shut the fuck up because they DON'T know what this feels like. they don't get it. i don't even get it.

i'm so sad. i'm so hurting. i just want my normal back. :(

bedrest again :(

2007-03-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

i have a pelvic infection...it was a possibility and it has happened and it hurts very badly. between that and it being 81 degrees and me feeling unable to breathe, i feel like i'm losing it. i am snappy. i'm in pain. i'm moody. my hormones are going crazy. ich.

but, the two days before this have been magnificent. he played hookie on Friday and we hung out and went for a hike. then, we went for unique ice cream at Mashti Malones (i had a scoop of Mango and a scoop of Ginger!) - then we went to the 12.30 a.m. opening show of 300~! I snuck us into a different line and we got into the theater before everyone else and got amazing seats before all of the rigamarole. it was a great movie and i really like seeing movies with him. we have the same taste in movies, but we also like the same parts. and he was really enjoying my enjoyment. lol.

then, he took me to the all night store to indulge my hormonal craving for sugar and salt.

before that, though, before the movie and everything and while waiting on dinner - all of the sudden i felt like i was tumbling into a black abyss. like everything was wrong and nothing was ever going to be right again. like pain and despair were closing in around me. and i just started sobbing hyserically. out of control. i felt like i had reached the worst possible place ever.

and then i realized that i was late on changing my hormone patch, so i did so, and i ate some food and started to breathe. and things started to get normal again.

but while i was crying like that...he came in and laid there beside there, and held me, and told me why i felt like that (hormones, only 2 weeks past major surgery, etc) and just comforted me. so amazing.

the movie was really good. on Saturday, we slept in. we got up and then, he laid beside me in bed and read my gossip blogs!!! lol. and then, we went for these pancakes that i've been craving (Sow Your Oats - pancakes with oats, cinnamon and honey, no syrup!!), and picked up my medicine. then he put the top down and drove me over to this Mansion with open grounds in Beverly Hills.

he walked the entire grounds with me and let me stop for pics, took pics for me, let me take pics of him, and didn't mind that i wanted to take lots of pics of him. it was so nice...but i started hurting really badly and i felt like i needed to come home.

i came home and took my medicine and then got more and more sick - just laying there moaning and saying i didn't feel well, and then i started throwing up. he took such good care of me while all of that was happening - rubbing my feet and getting me water and making me tea and just being so amazing. he even painted my toenails for me when i felt better enough to need to be distracted. :)

i have an infection and i don't feel good. today i slept almost all day and stayed in bed for the rest of it. i am hoping to feel better tomorrow.

but i am lucky to have goodness in my life despite the bad.

i took a lot of photos of our walks this weekend - they are on my flickr page!

Black Snake Moan | Modeling | Big East Tourney

2007-03-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

i'm really disappointed with this movie. my doctor let me go to see a movie last night...he & i both wanted to see 300 but i thought that it had opened already and didn't realize that it doesn't open until the 9th. so, we settled for both of our 2nd choice - Black Snake Moan.

my first issue with it is that they took an approach that made everyone think that they are actually going to address the issues and then they just ignore them or gloss over them. mostly, they gloss over them. like when SamL talks about how 'she's a half-naked white woman that will fuck anything'...that's where they leave it. ugh.

and Justin Timberlake can NOT act. at all. ugh. so hard to watch. :( so hard. meh.

i got a call back from the only agency that i sent my digital look book to. they are going to use me for print modeling. they love my face and my skin. lol. so i'm meeting with them on Monday to look over the contract and talk about work. we've been conversing and i think this is going to be what i need it to be.

are you ready for the Big East Tournament?? *gets my position in the pool ready*

i'm so glad that my doc is letting me do some stuff!!! and i'm starting to feel better. yay!!!

The 2 Week Report

2007-03-06T17:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, I just saw my surgeon for my two week visit and here's the news for those of you who have been vigilant in following up with me...

~the pathology came back highly abnormal and completely fucked on all reproductive organs, so they may be able to get me out of the entire 30% of cost that i'm supposed to be responsible for b/c it was so intensely warranted and those results basically show that even though he's out of network, he's the only surgeon that legitimately could have done it with all of those obstacles!

~he has never seen anything like it, but my appendix pathology came back proliferated and damaged - which they know mean that it was most likely about to burst *at any second*, but also that it was possibly the first pre-cancerous appendix that he has seen. they have never seen anything like its pathology on an appendix and they are studying it.

~i am healing amazingly well b/c i did so much good to prepare for my surgery and i have continued to utilize my holistic methods post-surgery - i need anti-biotics but he is going to let me use probiotics first and see if it works.

~even though he is not releasing me, i have been so good that i can take some walks and go for swims on my roof b/c it will be good for me to start engaging my muscles since i'm taking such good care of me.

~he is going to testify for my disability.

~he said that 'you're so out there...not in a bad way, but you'r so positive and just *you* all of the time. you don't care, you don't owe anyone explanations, you're funny and nice and you're taking your life and your health into your own hands. it's really amazing. you're my favorite surgery patient ever and i think that you are going to have a fantastic and amazing life now...i'm happy that i could do this for you, but you're doing it for you too.'

that was so nice to hear - renowned surgeons don't say things like that and he's a genuine guy so i know he meant it!

~he took me over to the surgical floor and i saw all of my nurses and they were so excited to see me and i'm going to start volunteering on that floor - talking to the women who have had similar surgeries and aren't dealing well - once a week.

~i get to scale down to only 3 meds now!!!! from over 30 pills and shots a day to only 5-7!!!!

i am so happy!! i'm exhausted but i'm happy!!!!!!

how are you?

all that any of this is is a successive series of acts of faith (thx Adam)

2007-03-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

this life, our interactions with people, knowing what is the right step, the wrong one, the right place to put your trust and love, the right gods to worship, the right person to give your vulnerability to...all of it,

it's about faith. and softness...being willing to see intentions and character rather than solely an action that you disapprove of or disagree with, being willing to see intentions instead of solely your past and your perceptions...

A Successive Series of Acts of Faith. that's all.

~~~~>

i've got a red hot heart/if the talk is true his is the same/we should be together/let our passions fan loves flame

i've a got a red hot heart/say there's fire down below/say it's only smoke and ashes baby...

sometimes a person can show you something amazing when you're standing of the middle of what you think is you being broken by your decision to let go and let love...

sometimes, you have to stand and look when someone is showing you what you maybe never would have learned otherwise about their character.

sometimes, even though in this life it is hard to imagine based on experience, sometimes people man the fuck up and own their mistakes and then stand there and tell you that you are worth fixing their mistake for - sometimes, without any kind of asking, someone will want so desperately to correct what they have done to you that they will say the most articulate, intelligent and genuine things about something so much deeper than just this situation without even realizing that they are.

so - those of you in the know.

there was/is a this thing...and you know me enough to know that for me, this was a dead end sign. already. and all of the signs were pointing to something deeper and more amazing than i ever imagined possible in my life.

and so, i was genuinely feeling the beginning of a heartbreak, and sincerely questioning the gods. b/c why? i mean, seriously, why? after all of the shit that i have lived in the past two years, this too. aaaaagggggghhhhh.

but, i talked to my therapist last night via email (she loves me even when she's in Pakistan!!) and i talked to a very trusted older confidante, who has managed to build a successful and loving ten year relationship with someone that he respects and trusts, which we all know is so rare, and i didn't let the anger come in.

i let me hurt, but i did not allow the mad. and i took the advice of the people that i trust. and so, today i searched for the truth...

and i believe that i have found it. i believe that it is possible to make a mistake that you don't know how to fix for the right reasons. i believe that i have made the same kind of mistake. and, i believe that so much of it comes down to intent.

i believe that what was there was genuine and amazing and possibly this is part of the plan, to teach us about ourselves and each other and how we handle the difficulties that are always going to present themselves.

i know that on a planet of billions of people, the term soul mate is disgusting...i've always hated that term. but, i also believe that sometimes the gods give us exactly what we deserve and are asking for, and that can make you feel like using words like soul mate.

because it's delicious and wonderful and you feel like you have to use words different from the ordinary to express how magical you feel. and you know that it hurts to live honestly, but you've found this place where it feels safe to do so. and you reconcile that the risk is inherent - it is hard to let go and fall completely because what if it ends? what if something happens and it hurts? no one wants to be more vulnerable to hurt than we are already just by being, but does that mean that you push away the things and people that you find ...just so that there is no risk of losing it??

yes. for some people. yes for all of us at some time maybe. yes for me not very long ago. i was content to stay in something that was providing me absolutely nothing that i truly wanted or needed for true happiness, and that was actually harming me, because there was no risk there. i knew that i wasn't going to get any of the magic, which made me not susceptible to the risk of it being ripped from me and me feeling that pain. that searing pain.

i have known the freedom of that kind of love and the searing pain of it being changed in my life. i have known the pain of feeling a year later like, 'if he thinks of me, if he misses me even once in a while, then i'll go back there and fill that place in his life. if he dreams of me like i dream of him, then i'll go back.'

i know the warmth of feeling like you can feel the beating of someone's heart, walking around every day feeling their warmth and their smell even when they are thousands of miles away. that feeling of pleasure that even longing for them brings. and then the immeasurable pain when all that that was is represented by a hollow space in you, the actual physical pain that their absence provides.

and you spend so much time thinking about how all that you ever wanted was for their arms to be the place where all of your journeys ended. and wondering if they're holding a place for you in their heart like you are them in yours.

but anyway - in him, i felt that my prayers had been answered. i had been asking the universe to provide me what i felt that i deserved. i named everything that i wanted, needed, hoped for...i put it out there like my psychic and spiritual advisor told me to do. and then i kept hope alive. initially, that it was going to come from where i wanted it to even though my psychic told me that he was pretty sure that it wasn't, that that was a lost cause. and so finally, i changed my prayer to 'i'm ready for what i want from where you are ready to provide it', instead of 'i want him to _________________', because i am ready.

i didn't expect it to be that soon or that instantaneous. i didn't expect it to be a birthday present, lol. but when i stood up to meet him and shake his hand and we were standing there looking into each other's eyes and shaking hands and him telling me how beautiful i was and how he was so happy that i had let him come to my party b/c he had been wanting to meet me for so long and us just standing there all mesmerized and shit until Angela had to finally say something about sitting down (lol!), i was taken aback by the pull. that was something that has never happened to me before.

and as the night progressed and there were so many others vying for my attention (that night was bizarro, i got told that i looked beautiful and asked out several times, and a perfect stranger sent over a drink and told me happy birthday b/c he had asked my friend who i was and what the occasion was when she went to the restroom b/c he thought that i was 'superbly beautiful'), i kept finding myself being pulled back to his eyes. and smiling that smile that i know that i give when i'm locked onto something that i want to pull closer to me. i'm not slick! lol.

anyway, at the end of the night, he offered to give me a ride rather than me take a cab home, and i accepted. and as i was wrapping up and saying goodbye, he collected all of my things and as i came to join him, he held out my coat for me and then as i buttoned it, he wrapped me in my pashmina.

now - i have to tell you that everyone is always shocked about this, but i am huge about gentlemanly tendencies. like, if a man doesn't open the door for me, there is no second date. i notice shit like if he doesn't walk on the outside of the sidewalk, if he starts to eat before me, if he grabs and holds open my coat, guides me with his hand on the small of my back if i have to walk in front of him, these are things that i was raised by my grandma to believe were the only acceptable way to be treated. and yes, it's old school and i've accepted less, but the older and more deserving i get, the more i know that i *won't* accept less.
because i am the woman who deserves it. to the man that i want it from. from day one.

so, this coat thing is something that i've watched my uncle do for my aunt my whole life...and there's always just been something really intimate and *shiver* about it...in the way they look at each other & their bodies react when she would turn around and face him as she put it on...that looking in their eyes on each other as he was doing this kind and completely extra thing for her. i don't know, but something about it kind of sums up what i want in a weird way.

and when he was holding it for me arm to arm, and then i turned to face him and he looked me in my eyes and wrapped my pashmina around me, something went 'uh oh'. b/c i probably knew that if that was for real, i could maybe fall.

so, when he expressed his interest in getting to know me more, i was really excited. and when we went to the museum and he said - 'well, let's see the photography exhibit first b/c i know that you are a photographer and that that is the one that you want to see.' snap. i was so excited - it's been so long since i've been treated like a woman whose desires were important, fuck it, like i've been treated like a woman at all. it's been so long since the person that i'm spending my time with has recognized it as an honor that i was doing so and treated me like he needed to deserve it!

and he would come up to me and give me attention and then walk away. and the more that we talked the more that we have in common, the more that we smiled and laughed, the more that it was clear that we were both feeling the same way...

and it continued. after the cookies. after the first few interactions. the points of time when things usually change - no, we were staying the same. and it was all happening so fast and so intensely b/c life was forcing that for us. when you start dating someone who faces a life-threatening surgery very early in your relationship, i think maybe it's hard on you too. maybe it forces you to think about this person as someone who may not be there - when we are used to taking people for granted - and you think about things you normally wouldn't about them. and DO you want them to not be there...b/c that's what not dating would be like? and if you decide that yes, you do want them there and there's the possibility that they may not be and not by choice, then you treat it with the utmost respect and care. b/c you want there to be no question in the universe of your intentions for this person and this thing that you find yourself in the middle of...

maybe? that is just my interpretation.

but, anyway! ~i was falling in love with this man. he treats me better than i ever imagined possible EVERY DAY. he is consistent. he is affectionate. he is caring. he is helpful. he is physically fit and attractive. he is strong. he is sexually interested & interesting. yes, these things are all almost equally important. and he is these things that i want.

and then BAM. something happened that threatened all of it, out of nowhere, when i wasn't feeling well. and this is my chance to practice what i have been learning. to look to the universe. to meditate and pray on it. to listen to my heart and follow what i 'feel' instead of what logic tells me. to take every single important thing into consideration rather than jump off of the launchpad of my previous experiences and hurt and make a decision that may ultimately not be the one that the universe had planned for me.

i can be the me that i have always been - but am i willing to keep living the life that i have always lived?
or, i can do something different and new - and hope for newness and continued greatness in my new life.

and so, i am following my heart. i am taking all of the information into consideration...i have spoken with my therapist and my friend who knows me and has my best interest at heart and i am taking a giant leap of faith and choosing love.

lol. this is so not me but i actually feel more content and at peace than i have been - especially in the past few days.
i am choosing comfort and affection and the pursuit of building something worth us. i am being the change that i want to see in my life.

i am putting my faith in him to be the man that he has asked me to let him be to me, and in so doing, i am saying that i too am letting him put his faith in me to be the person that he deserves in return. no bullshit. no half-effort. no using this thing to penalize him for the next thing.

i am at the top of the page of a new chapter in my life...

(to be continued)

although my pride is not easily disturbed,

2007-03-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

you should be quiet when you kick me.

i'm just going to distract me

2007-03-05T01:09:00.000-08:00

by just free posting.

there is lots of new music lately - first, Regina Spektor. really liking this one. DL'd one song on my own and then got the hookup on the disc for dg. Yay!!!

next, The Avalanches - my friend Robert hooked me up with this (one of the many gifts i got from him, including Gucci!) - anyway, it's different but i'm totally liking it!

also, i'm listening to a lot of the Strokes right now as well.

Books - i'm reading the world is flat (http://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-Updated-Expanded-Twenty-first/dp/0374292795/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7877176-5353466?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173086376&sr=8-1), which is really interesting - and i'm also concurrently reading The Laws of Evening (http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Evening-Mary-Yukari-Waters/dp/0743243331/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7877176-5353466?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173086553&sr=1-1).

i'm still addicted to Blind Date, but also - 30 Rock is quickly becoming a contendor for my #1 comedy, although The Office is still maintaining for right now. Workout is coming back on!!! yay! i still love horrible reality t.v. - lol.

movies lately - This Film is Not Yet Rated - documentary about the rating system used for motion pictures. it's really good. The Devil Wears Prada bored me and i got up and did something else. Clerks II - funny but not as funny as i expected. i rewatched Best in Show (we know how much i love my Christopher Guest!!). Street Fight is a really great political documentary. i also bought Super Troopers on the clearance rack at Target and laughed my ass off last night watching it!

i'm once again in love with Vice magazine - i finally found a place in l.a. that has it!! yay!! and of course, still my gossip blogs...

www.wwtdd.com
www.idontlikeyouinthatway.com
www.asocialiteslife.com
www.teddyandmoo.com

so, those things along with my friends who inbox and PM me during the day are what is getting me through this time. this time of incredibly lonely and ugh.

i have a lot of thank you cards to write.

i'm crying again. :(