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

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 *****, *****

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.

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?

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

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...

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...

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"

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.

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.

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...

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...

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

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

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lying | omission | misconstruing | context

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...

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

...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?!?!

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

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

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?

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...

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.