And she was

i think it’s mothers’ day today.

S.’s mom came to visit briefly. What a wonderful wondrous woman. From Vienna originally – hard to sum up quickly. And this is a quick post. A lover of nature and animals – a cultured woman of great substance. She made me love him even more. God – if I could only someday become a woman with such grace. And on that note, the daughter came here tonight to stay with me at the cabin, much against her will, but I know she wants to be with me. I miss her so much my bones hurt. My heart hurts. I am not used to this arrangement. But I helped her color her hair at her dad’s house (just a dark brown, nothing freaky) and then we came here and watched movies and had steak and she cried because she wasn’t sure she wanted to stay here but didn’t want to hurt my feelings by leaving. We talked it out and now she is asleep.

As she was attempting to go to  bed, I played  the guitar and sang  “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric (played on guitar S. bought for me)which we heard in Stranger Than Fiction, the movie we watched tonight and she seemed genuinely impressed that he would buy me a guitar and that I can actually play it.

I feel blessed tonight. It’s a good feeling. Rather unusual, but I’m becoming more accustomed to it I think.

 

getting to know you, getting to know all about you…..

OK. Let’s just state it up front. With cabin life, comes a certain loss of romance.  600 square feet call for a kind of intimacy that will jettison the newly formed couple into knowing each other’s most personal habits up close and,well, personal.  The cabin is not only small, but the bathroom is in a corner which lacks a 4th wall and door. It’s located just behind the kitchen so thank god for the refrigerator which backs up on said missing 4th wall and creates at least a visual barrier.  I used to be quite particular about where and when I did certain daily routines in the bathroom. I am proud to announce that I can now take care of business just about anywhere. The cabin, and childbirth, have led me to this accomplishment. Childbirth was many years back, but it started me on the path of thinking “complete strangers have seen my insides pop out, I can certainly go to the bathroom in a public toilet.”  But still, I carried issues about privacy which lingered to this day. Or until the day I moved into the cabin.

Fortunately, S. and I got this topic out of the way almost immediately upon meeting.  And the topic continued to be discussed ad nauseum when we were talking about my move to the cabin.  We agreed to certain conditions for use of  the bathroom and he is very considerate about following them. I’ll spare you the details.  Now there is very little, in fact i suspect nothing, that we do not know about each other’s bodies and habits.  There is no mystery.  But romance remains in a primal form. The atmosphere of woodsy comfort makes it inevitable. And, fortunately, S. is an unusual species of male who is not subject to our society’s dictates about what women should look like or how they should behave. In fact, he eschew’s the stereotypical “hot” chick and all that goes with her such as makeup, hipster fashion and killer shoes.  I suppose that is one reason we are together in the first place.

Funny, as I compose this post at the reference desk, I have counted 28 times today (in just under 4 hours) that I have been asked to unlock the men’s restroom vs. the 8 actual reference questions I’ve had. We control the lock electronically from the desk. I’m subbing away from my home branch and I guess here they have trouble with vandals in the men’s room.  My 30 thousand dollar master’s degree is, once again, put to great use. Now there’s a drunk crack addict leaning on the desk trying to figure out what he wants to ask me. Could it be “can I use the bathroom?”

 

The Cabin, For Real

 

Life in the forest is peaceful. Things are evolving. S. has become a happier, more productive person in many ways. I can see the changes in him and they are all positive. Me? I’m kind of unraveling. If I could pick up the zen that lives in the cabin it would be good. Because I’m still worried about my daughter, missing her, having major upheaval on the job and somehow finding myself flat broke only 4 days after payday. Also there is no real area in the cabin for me to properly groom myself, so I look more unhinged than usual.  I need a good mirror. I need to find my clothes.  But I wake up in the morning to the sound of rain in the trees, eagles calling to each other and sea lions barking down on the beach. A lovely quiet but for the sounds of nature.  And S. gently snoring.  He says I scream in my sleep a lot. Go figure.

S. is unusually organized and clean. If most of the men I knew lived in this tiny space it would be total chaos.  Those men live like bears in caves.  But S. has everything in its proper place, all kitchen condiments labeled and in order, all clothes folded neatly. I will confess I had to clean his refrigerator out and there was some clutter when I arrived but as he undergoes his metamorphosis, all is coming together. I left a bag of coffee in the freezer without closing  it very well and awoke the next day to find it neatly folded over and sealed with a clothespin. Now this might not seem like much to you, but to me it is a noticeable indication of order.

S. makes me laugh, he loves me, he takes care of me, he cooks for me. He teaches me about stopping to think. I can’t bear the thought of leaving him. But we went into this with the agreement that it was short term – ostensibly to save money. So far that is not what is happening but maybe with the next paycheck I can start. I have to move in the spring so that my daughter can live with me. I know it is what I must do as her mother and I miss her so much. Seeing her for visits  is not really enough  and I am no longer able to hang out at the ex’s house due to the rage he carries towards me. 

I’ve only been in the cabin a few weeks and I am already imagining how hard it will be to leave. Now that’s just not zen is it?

 

The Cabin

Now in pre-production, this hot new reality television show will challenge the boundaries of “reality”…..

Two bipolar personalities, one a male age 39, a badass cyclist who recently resigned from his city job to “self arrest” – the other, a sloth-like female librarian, age 52, come together to live in a 600 square foot rustic cabin in the woods across from Elliot Bay in Seattle.  The couple’s bipolarity is “opposite”.  He zigs, she zags, etc. So they are basically like magnets who, when flipped the wrong way, will levitate and repel each other while hovering closeby. On the other hand they stick together quite powerfully when the bipolarity syncs up.  

The show will inspire comparisons to The Blair Witch Project,  I Dream of Jeannie, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Let the Right One In,  and Bambi.  Thumper and Flower flee the forest as their peaceable  kingdom has been disturbed by the often off the hook  librarian who constantly talks, shouts, laughs hysterically, weeps, whines, moans loudly in carnal pleasure, and sings original and Broadway tunes quite badly.  Cyclist boy, the zen one of the duo, is in a constant state of stupor as he realizes what he has invited in the door of the cabin where he had been living a quiet solo existence for some time, much like Mother Nature’s Son.  It’s a funny show, but tragic in a nuanced style that American and the world have never quite experienced. 

The Cabin.  A love story for the new decade.

 

X Marks the Spot

I have an ex-husband. Technically we are not divorced or even legally separated. I left for good over 3 years ago. Why no divorce you ask? Laziness mostly. And taxes. And the cumbersome process when there is a child involved. But 2010 is going to be my year. Divorce will be accomplished.  I haven’t been writing in a while because of all the work and insanity caused by my move to the cabin with mother nature’s son.  The arrangement is that I will stay there until Spring and save up some money and pay down some debt. That was the plan. But there are people who like to take your plans, run them through a shredder and toss them at your feet all blood and guts.

After a long long period of  sobriety, the ex decided it was time to start drinking again. The week  the I am packing up my 14 year old daughter’s life to be moved into the house (our former family home) with him. She was not happy about the move to start with. The drunk dad has made it beyond difficult for her.  I am working nights so dont’ get to see her until day after tomorrow.  I want her to come stay at the cabin with me and S. but of course she refuses. I guess if things get really bad she will.  None of us are saints but this is an intentional act of aggression towards me and he is taking her down his slimy drain of  vengeance  in the process.

So. This is what I say to you Mr. X:  Take your anger out on me all you want you sick fuck but could you please not leave our beautiful daughter in the darkness of a rainy December night in Seattle, having to walk alone to the 7-11 for nachos for her dinner while you’re passed out on the couch? She’s a sweet girl. Still innocent on many levels. But very versed in the ways of fuck ups via the parents she was dealt. Better yet, take your anger and choke on it. You are making a black , black hole in the universe and you need to throw yourself down it. Alone.

 

Things We Have in Common, Pt. IV

Really. Not to sound negative or anything. But sometimes you gotta wonder. On the flip side,  there’s this:

 

Things We Have in Common

#3:

No clue. We have no clue. Neither of us has a clue. Together or apart. But, does anyone really?

We breathe in. Exhale. The same Idiot Wind.

PS: Love Fiona singing that crazy awesome craziness on the Today Show with Christmas decorations….. cognitive dissonance for all!!!!  NOTE:  While most people don’t bother to watch videos that others post, I would implore you to watch this one. Fiona is beautiful and this song is my all time favorite and she says “Happy Birthday Daddy” at the end!!!  Puts a whole new spin on the song…….

 

Things We Have in Common , Part 2.

I’m trying to keep this beyond the obvious. So :

2.  An appreciation for crazy people, as long as they are unarmed.

 

Things We Have In Common

A new group of posts I’m starting tonight. My love and I have decided to co-habitate for a while until I get my financial shit together (hopefully by Spring).. at any rate, in a THC induced haze tonight I decided to start a list. I love to make lists. I am the List MASTER.

So. These are the things we (my love and I) have in common:

1. Popsicles

That’s it for tonight’s installment.

Again, another Natalie Dee drawing. I don’t know you Natalie but please let me know if I am offending or breaking the law by using your images on a blog nobody reads.

 

What Does it Take to Get My 15 Minutes?

So I’m told this guy has a book and TV deal in the making based upon his Twitter.  And we are all too familiar with the other more well known insta-celebs such as: folks who procreate recklessly, that “Leave Britney Alone!”  guy a/k/a Chris Crocker, you pathetic little asswipe , the folks who caught the squirrel on camera as they posed for a picture, Levi Johnston, the dogs on puppy- cam, “New York” from Flavor of Love,  blah blah blah blah blah.  Last night on tv I saw a kid who made national news for simply singing a song about Windows 7  in his elementary school talent show (not finding a link in a cursory search and I’m too lazy to really care).

Of course, there has been much discussion of the influence of  media, including the Internet, YouTube, television,  and all that miscellany in our culture,  along with  our decreased attention spans (remember the theory that it all started with Sesame Street conditioning kids to crave learning in sound bites?), our collective thirst for escapism, our degenerating average national IQ and The End of The World. In fact, this mere act of blogging is part of the phenomenon.  Obviously, these entries are written post-haste and little time is put into the content. Either it flows well or it flows not. I am not a thoughtful writer most of the time.  As to YouTube, hell, I even posted my own stupid exploits there, but the lackluster content has yet to garner any national, regional or even neighborhood attention, unless you count the guy next door who was peering over the fence as we filmed.  But hey! I got a 3 Star rating somehow!

My few readers might suggest I write that book that is supposedly buried deep within but that takes time and talent. I want quick fame and fortune. Just a little. I don’t even care about the fame, just give me the fortune. And I’m not asking for a lot.  As a budding Socialist, I have no desire to be filthy rich – merely free of debt and able to travel the world a little, provide my kid with a decent education, maybe get a little  liposuction.

I have many ideas for insta-fame. I cannot disclose them here for obvious reasons. But I’m thinking  - fermenting scenarios in the shallow recesses of my mind.

In the meantime, sitting at the Reference Desk (an official position)  writing this post,  I noticed a patron at the circulation desk (a/k/a “not my job”to get up and help unless absolutely necessary) and, as I got up to help her, tripped on the Ref. Desk computer mouse cord which is about 10 feet too long.  I fell hard on the linoleum floor …. god, the humiliation… and now have growing pain in my neck and hands.  Holy shit!!!   Litigation? Nah, I don’t want anyone snooping about in my medical history.  Too murky.  Perhaps if it had been captured on video I could submit to America’s Funniest Librarian Pratfalls and win a cash prize.  Then there was the rest of the day and night….. more to come. Let’s just say there were no winners here.

 

Monday Muddle-Through

First trash news I read or heard about today was Ryan O’Neill “flirting” with his own daughter at Farrah’s funeral. He didn’t recognize his own daughter. She had to tell him it was her, Tatum…. And I thought my childhood was fucked up. Or my adulthood more likely. Or one gave way to the other…. blah blah blah….

On other fronts, I have many, many thoughts but probably not the chops to report on them. If you want deep, thoughtful and consistent blogging: GO ELSEWHERE.

But I do have a few things.  One is this idea of getting  A PHYSICAL. Of which I am supposed to be starting the process in the a.m.    I figure I can have all these stupid tests and they will tell me what I already know. I am dying. How many years do I have left? Probably too many. My life expectancy far exceeds my financial ability to maintain, I fear. . But that’s an old crybaby tune I’ve been wailin for too long.  “I’m a baby  with a diaper and no one to change me”  (diaper speak wanna be poet pun) was my college anthem. Either you get it or you don’t.

What? I’m not lugubrious enough  tonight? Funny. I made a conscious decision the other morning to stop being so sad about everything. Funny how that works. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But the crazier you become, the easier it is to say YES!!!!

Random: Watching Anthony Bourdain touring an underground bat habitat in Jamaica. Sliding down to a hot core of earth covered in “cockroach and bat feces” and whining about how awful it is. But no one is wearing gloves or any other protective clothing. You listen Bourdain! If you’re going underground into a sludge pile of feces, you wear gloves … at the least!

Stories. It’s all stories. And the telling…..

 

The Rules

1.  Act like you believe all that is around you and follow along.

2. Never cry in front of you enemies.

3. Don’t overthink your decisions

4. Make some decisions.

5. Keep tweezers handy at all times.

6. Give it a shot…. get up before noon.

7. Look in the mirror after you dress for work.

8. Look at all that is around you and realize you don’t have to pretend it is how it is. And you don’t have to follow along.

9. Stop poisoning yourself.  And stop poisoning your entire existence.

10. Listen to music, sing, play an instrument and don’t be afraid to sound stupid. But keep your audience small…. perhaps just yourself as audience. And a dog if you have one.

11. Eat food. Even if you think you will die from it.

12. Try to be as honest as you can, but only if you can take it as well as you can give it.

13. Cuddle some form of life daily.

14. Write trite shit on your blog if it makes you feel better. Because only you read this blog and it will remind you of what you feel someday.

15. Wish everyone would quit co-opting the song “Mad World” because it was your personal favorite secret song that has now gone viral.

16. Log off. But not forever. Because you still have options. Tomorrow you can question your integrity.

17. Don’t forget about Cuttlefish. They can tell you a lot about survival.

 

Mystery Solved: Massive Missing Librarian Found

Library officials on Monday located a Plus Size Librarian who had been missing for more than two hours after she was believed to be oversleeping or overdosing, or both, a top Library official said.

The Librian was located at her basement dwelling, in the bathroom, via cellphone, said Library Administrator Peavey Higenbotham. “The Librarian has been moved to our anti-social subversive employee holding area where she is sarcastically answering questions,” Higenbotham said.

The questioning aims to clarify all circumstances of how she disappeared and why she did not send any (emergency) signals or call her branch library to alert them of her whereabouts.

The Librarian, who often uses various aliases such as “Lefty” or “Cherry”, had not been heard from since Saturday.  When last seen she was carrying approximately 20 pounds of extra weight, several tons of excess baggage and a rather large, scabbous cold sore on her bottom lip and chin. 

She was scheduled to arrive in her branch library at 11:30 a.m. Monday morning. The news came from several bitchy employees who had immediately begun speculating that the Librarian was cavorting with a local Jamaican male, known for his propensity for late night showering. 

The U.S. military also had a report last week that the Librarian’s car  had been seen skirting the runway at McChord Air Force base south of Tacoma. She appeared disoriented and totally clueless that she was headed in the oppposite direction of Seattle where she was destined according to several sources. The U.S. military was not involved in the search.

The branch Manager, Helmut Schmidt, had previously spoken to the Librarian about her irratic behavior and ongoing acts of anarchy within the branch.  While he had considered placing her on suicide watch, he was waiting to see if her antidepressants would kick in at some point over the weekend.  

“The Librarian has now arrived at work, she is missing the majority of her hair and several bald spots are visible but she appears otherwise unharmed, unless you count the cold sore which persists and the strange rash that has appeared on her chest, just above her rather abundant cleavage. Disciplinary action could be forthcoming depending on the Librarian’s willingness to provide free blowjobs for management, once the cold sores and rashes clear up.

 

When a man becomes an obsession… or – There and Back Again

I am once again revisiting  the eternal struggle to wash my brain of  the boy.  To find the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The ups and downs of  this relationship have been documented in this blog for a long time.  I am not clear on why I cannot get over him. It’s been 2.5 years of continuous and alternating pain and joy.  It’s like fucking Brokeback Mountain for heterosexuals.  We’ve gone from being sorta together (boy don’t do monogomy), to being totally cut off, to being fuckbuddies, to being homemade porn stars, and now back to crazytown.  He has a new fling. A freaking 26 year old. Not that hot, but obviously she’s got something he wants for now.  I am having fucking NIGHTMARES about it all. 

While the boy is charming and funny and smart, his life is a total trainwreck.  I should be glad to let someone else deal with his drama for a while.  Would I really want him if he was mine to have? Why am I so attached? So obsessed?  There is obviously a connection there that strikes a deep and primal chord in me. The only way I can explain it is that pain and drama are so heavily ingrained in my psychological makeup, that he is the perfect fit for that very self defeating, masochistic chink in my brain.  He fills a part of me that thrives on this stuff and it makes for a very powerful addiction.  Add to that:  I just love being around him. And the sex is perhaps the best I’ve ever had. The perfect trifecta for addiction. I feel like it is going to kill me. I cannot let that happen. What the hell?  I need electro shock therapy. I need to move to another country. I can’t believe I am back here again. I guess I never really left.  Writing about it is therapy for me. In which case, I should be doing a lot more writing……..

 

WTF?????

Good Lord. Lost my mind for  a minute or a few years. Whatever. Reading back over this shit blog makes me feel like a smart misguided idiot.   I think I got it now. Thank you karma, thank you pain. Thank you joy. Thank you for letting me hate myself forever. Thank you for the nonstop challenge. Thank you for lettin’ me be mice elf again…..     thank you for life.

 

Giving up might be the best thing

If you give up and surrender then change can come into your life. I have to give up all of my beliefs, all of my concepts, and start over. Re-learn the world. Like a toddler, I will simply stumble around in a gleeful blissful state of not knowing anything. Because everything I have learned, everything I have believed in, everything I thought I knew has been wrong.  I believed I had a chance of  an increase in my hours at work. I believed that I might be making more money and be able to improve my living situation, I believed that things couldn’t get worse, I believed that I had a chance.  Well I’m not getting more hours at work, I’m not going to be making more money. In fact, I’ve even had an hour cut from my schedule. It’s just an hour, but still.  I believed that I could pull myself out of this hole of depression and madness. I believed that I was funny and attractive. I believed that I could carry off faking it a little longer.

It’s all off the table. I’m going to surrender. And I think surrendering to some form of god is the only thing left for me. I don’t know which form of god. But I have to give myself up to something bigger than myself. Let someone or something else take over for a while. Cleanse my mind, my soul, my body. Wipe the slate clean and start over. What am I talking about? I don’t know . I’m on the reference desk and slightly sedated with the help of some valium in order to make it through the day without a constant stream of tears running down my face. Crying is cleansing but it also wrecks your makeup and makes you look like a crazy person on the reference desk.  I bought some Lotto tickets.  I’m taking my dog to the rescue people next week. I’m going to have my paycheck garnished by several creditors. But in the end it’s only money. My daughter has relatives who can care for her if I cannot. We’ll just wait and see what happens.  I like valium.

 

Dreamblog

I have a separate dream blog but the dream I just awoke from was so powerful and revealing I have to share here. Basically I was back in South Carolina at the beach with friends, old and new. Lifetime friends, a new man who was extremely hot and promising.. indeed the dream was sex filled and left me longing upon the several wakings I had during the night… I also woke up crying a couple of times. The South Carolina coast, Pawley’s Island, Litchfield Beach and Murrel’s Inlet in particular, are the most beautiful, peaceful and genteel places on earth. Right here in the old USA. I must admit I say that having never traveled outside the US other than to Canada and Mexico. At any rate, having grown up vacationing at  those ” elegantly shabby” beach towns I have a special place in my heart for them. Although development is continuously threatening to encroach, last time I checked (and it’s been a few years)  the beaches remained pretty under-developed and natural.  Clean sand, warm water in the summer, flat, rock free beaches. I mention rock free cause here in Washington the beaches are brutally unfriendly with their rocks, boulders and frigid waters. Pretty yes, but not meant for swimming or getting in to and having the sensual experience of being in the water, being with the water and the waves… at least not for this east coast native.

In my dream coastal towns of SC, the inlets have marsh grasses, crabs, fish, shrimp. Long docks out into the waterway where you can sit in the little gazebos at sunset and tie chicken necks to a long string, drop them in the water and come up with a crab dinner in about a half hour.  In the morning, take the shrimp nets and drag them through the more shallow waterways and have a fresh shrimp dinner after an afternoon of “heading” them in the shade of  a huge moss draped oak tree.  Take a jon boat to one of the small  inland waterway islets and sit in the silence with nothing but ocean birds and waves lapping at the pure white sand.  Get a hammock and a screened porch and have a cold beer at sunset.  It’s pretty much paradise as I recall.

But I digress. The dream was the usual combo platter of me looking for love, looking for a coffee cup and coffee, looking for a private place to shower (we were all staying in the large, luxurious but still a lovely kind of rustic beachfront house of my childhood friend Christina) and there I was  looking , looking, longing. At one point my friend Barb and I were in some public waterfront place , a marina perhaps, and looked out the window where a crowd had gathered to watch a spectacularly weird occurrence of a huge school of dolphins swimming in the canal out front while the Seattle Mariners and The Sounders where also doing some choreographed routine along the bank of the canal. The Mariners, the Sounders and Dolphins!!! All at once?? I had to have pictures, but had a hard time capturing the dolphins on camera, they were always just out of my lens view. Why a baseball team and soccer team from Seattle were in there,  I have no idea. I don’t even go to the games or consider myself a fan in any way .

Bottom line. The coast of SC is where I have always planned to retire. My life is currently at a crossroads. I woke up mumbling and crying “I have to go back. I have to go back.” As in, I have to leave Seattle and return to my home. I think I do.  This could be part of the alcohol free, new antidepressant, good night’s sleep cocktail I am enjoying, but I think not. I think my core psyche comes out when I’m not smacking it down nightly. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Now I must start looking at how to realize the dream of heading to Pawley’s Island. The only thing I have in Seattle is a job (a hot commodity these days, I know), a few friends and a reputation. Stagnant. Inertia. Much work to do.

 

Wherein She Became an Old Woman in the Basement Watching Porn on the Internet

Is this what is to become of me? Granted, I was coming down with a cold and thus felt extra crappy last night. But I found myself IM’ing a young (and I mean 20 years younger) man about all the sex we are going to have and then sending him naughty pictures taken on my cell phone and then watching free porn on the net. All alone in my basement apartment. I wonder where I will end up. What is the term for IM’ing sex talk ???. Sexting is for texting, but IM’ing….. Instant Mutual Masturbating???  ….. stroking the keys….. conjuring images of things that will probably never happen…

Willy’s last act of bad puppy behavior before I surrendered him to the Doxie rescue place? See the picture above….. my rabbit…. my rabbit…..

 

Cold hard floating

I took a blanket and a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes to the beach. I was determined to walk into the icy waters of Puget Sound and either freeze or drown or both. It was past midnight. I chose the most beautiful part of Alki beach.. the very private and lovely Lowman Beach. On a very secluded street, I parked in front of the Rubber Ducky Museum, which is a favorite landmark amongst locals and my daughter especially.  It is extremely precious. Sidewalk fountains adorned with rubber duckies of all styles, tiny water slides into a little pool, a shrine for  the rubber ducky. …. amazingly never touched by vandals.. I thought of how my daughter loved that place  as I parked there planning my exit from the world.

I sat on the beach for a while, drinking straight from the bottle. Smoked a cigarette. And then proceeded to walk into the water. It was amazingly NOT cold. I swam out pretty far from the shore. I turned onto my back and floated, looking at  the night sky and the moon. It was beautiful. Then I remembered why I was there and tried to force myself below the water. I could not. I kept emerging. My self wouldn’t let myself annihilate myself. I floated for a long time. It seemed like hours. Time was frozen. The tide carried me down the beach. I became disoriented. I swam to shore but I was now in an unfamiliar place on the beach. Nothing but rocks and craggy sharp edges. I could not stand. I think my muscles had frozen from the cold. I kept falling and cutting my hands and legs. Hitting my head on the rocks. I tried to crawl. I was getting nowhere. I laid there and decided I would just die from exposure. Then I started crying out for help. There were houses up the hill. Nobody was around. I was alone and cold and wet and bleeding.  I gave myself one last push to find my way back to where I had started and somehow crawled and stumbled back there.

A couple was sitting on the beach by the driftwood logs with bottles of liquor. The girl wanted to help me. The guy seemed incapacitated – he could not get up either…funny…and he kept telling me to come lie down by him. I just sat there crying. The girl had a cell phone and asked who she could call to help me. I had her call my ex husband. I tried to find my purse and blanket which were nowhere to be found. I had no cell phone, no nothing. I figured the tide had taken them out to sea. Time had no meaning. I was lost.

After making the call, the couple decided they’d better get the hell away from me. Certainly I was trouble. They gave me a towel and left. I was freezing. Frozen solid sitting on a driftwood log. I decided to try to go to the street to see if my ex was looking for me. A resident of the hood  was walking down the sidewalk ,  all well dressed and handsome. I can only imagine what he thought seeing me stumbling around the sidewalk with soaking wet sandy clothes and a towel wrapped around me. He asked what I was doing and I told him I had tried to drown myself. He called the only two numbers I could remember. Again the ex husband and the ex boyfriend.  No answers. He called 911. He called his wife to tell her he had found a woman who had tried to kill herself and he had to stay  till help arrived. I went back to the shore to look for my stuff. I couldn’t see or feel my limbs by this point. My glasses had somehow managed to stay on my face but I still could see nothing in the dark. There was nothing.

Eventually my  husband arrived and explained to the good Samaritan that he would take me home. No 911 needed, although they were on their way. He drove me home. He left me alone in my apartment. I took a really long steaming hot shower and then put on my warmest pj’s. It took hours to warm up.

I brushed myself with near death. Stupid. Selfish. Self-centered. Wanting out of the struggle. But then I couldn’t do it. I am still here. And write here for your entertainment. Feel my pain. I want you to. Things will be better in the morning. I’m sure of it.

 

Reprieve

A good night’s sleep.  A new school year. A new morning. A beautiful daughter. A fresh start. A grateful nod to the Universe.  And to friends and family who never let me down.  9/9/09 !!

9 = forgiveness , compassion and success.

 

Late and Later

The question was posed. “What are you afraid of?”  As in, what am I afraid would happen if I was stripped of all my pretense and all my walls, and all my bullshit?  I would be exposed. Naked. Unsure of who or what I am. I’ve been running for so long I have no idea what it means to rest. What it means to sit alone with myself and actually find one little bit of information about who I am.OK. That’s not totally true.. I have an inkling….  but still I run. Like a dog in the desert. Parched, starving, bones exposed, still running toward a non-existent horizon. Because I am afraid. If I stop, I will have to feel. The pads of my paws are raw. I have many scars. I’ve run through rivers, valleys, barbed wire fences, over ragged hills, past the blazing fires on the side of the road. Shotguns roaring in my ears. My legs buckle, my lungs collapse. I am sprawled on the side of the road panting and desperate for air. But here I am. And the sun is rising. Hot. Unrelenting. I gather my strength and pull myself up. One more dash for home. A home I have to build from the ground up with the last ounce of resolve that remains. Digging, clawing at the ground. No longer able to run. Clawing back to the embryonic state of unlearning all I have learned. Blank. Fresh. Searching for a bit of water and a respite from the sun.  When will it begin? Now? Seems like a good time.

 

Le Sigh

This is where I’m at. Flat ass broke again. Living in this basement apartment underneath a very loud family. A very hefty family. A family that wears clogs. On hardwood floors.

The pretend boyfriend is having his 26 year old girlfriend of one month move in with him. I think he’s found god or something approaching sainthood in his mind, having suddenly decided it’s time he quit drinking and settle down. Which it is, most likely. I had just hoped it would be with me for a bit.  I suffered mightily when this news came to me via a third party. But now it’s’ sinking in that this is the best thing to happen to me in a while. God doing his thing again. While the boy moved with astounding speed at bagging and establishing cohabitation with the young lady, God moved – I should say crept- at a dying snail’s pace in getting the message out to me. The message being that the sick and destructive relationship with the boy was clearly  wrong on so many levels. I mean it was painfully obvious to everyone around me and I’m sure God tried to get my attention about the problem before, but I’m a stubborn masochistic bitch and it took this final nail hammering for it to sink in.  I don’t believe in God if it matters.

Neighbor lady is on one of her continuous telephone conversation tirades,  tromping around in her Danskos as I keyboard away down here trying to get tired enough for sleep.  I do not exaggerate when I tell you that she is on the phone every minute that she is home, talking loudly and stomping in and out of the house so she can go outside and smoke and keep not only me, but the entire neighborhood, awake with her conversations.  Because she too has a Southern accent, the neighbors told the landlord that it was ME  keeping them up all night with said smoking/stomping/blasting rants.

Without boring you more than I am already boring you with this crappy post, I won’t go into too much detail about my housing dilemmas, but….. the pitifully few options I once had for moving into super cheap living quarters which wouldn’t require first/last/ass kicking deposits are gone. I will have to move in 3 months max. As it stands, due to the week without pay from our fabulous library “furlough” (layoff) I am 300 dollars short for October rent, never mind things like food and gas. I am talking to one of my best girlfriends about camping in her guest room. Not ideal but better than living in my car…. hopefully. Just until I can save up deposit money. I guess my daughter will have to stay with her dad and then he will demand child support although he has never given me child support. We’ve never really had a schedule or any established system for her care during this separation, which should have turned into a divorce a long time ago. But the paperwork has proved too daunting a task for me t0 complete the “do it yourself” divorce because we can’t agree on much of anything, he’s delusional, I’m lazy and I’ve been busy wasting all my time and effort on fixing up someone else’s life (see above).   In 3 years I estimate the child has slept at his house a total of about 3 weeks. He has her after school and gives her dinner the 3 days that I work each week.  Thus, each of us feels cheated by the other when it comes to establishing a supposed “joint custody”.  . I don’t really see this ill-defined arrangement as a joint custody at all. But that’s just one of many issues I’m having on the man front lately. Men, money, metabolism and menopause.  You can assume a pre-existing condition, but I also have mental malfunction at sky high levels at the moment. So much for alliteration. I suck.

On a questionably positive note, I did recently meet a new man who is rather interesting and sweet (like for real???). But that is another blog entirely.  He’s a 30 something, cute, eccentric type with great legs. That’s all I’m saying for now. Tonight I’m just going to go to bed and hope for some nice dreams and a good night’s sleep, provided neighbor lady has decided it’s time to turn in now that it’s midnight.  So I leave you in true Southern Belle style, saying wistfully  “Tomorrow is another day”……  tune in later when you can find me standing in a ravaged dirt patch, wearing tatters and clutching a scrawny raw potato in my trembling fist, swearing something or other to God.

 

Feh

Doing some more obsessive reflecting upon the recently reported final nail in the coffin of the drawn out  melodrama of  the boy, I have  come to realize that maybe our sex life was not really all that I built it up to be.  Don’t get me wrong. It was hot sex for sure.  In a relatively short time it evolved into a fairly demented submissive fantasy that I really wanted and needed to work out of my system. There were some good moments there but the real turn on was his willingness to totally dominate and objectify me .  Not a lot of tenderness or romance involved. Not that there is anything wrong with this kind of relationship. Obviously,  it hooked me pretty deep as he reeled me along and I gladly followed for a very long time. Problem was,  I mistook it for love.  Confused it with love. I wanted it to be love, but it was not.  It was” like” with a hefty dose of sexual chemistry.

But now there is a chance that the gentle boy I met recently ( not quite sure how to refer to him really.. it’s too speculative)  is one of the tender ones - again I say this quite tentatively. I’m in no hurry.  But I think he might be one of those who likes to talk without the bullshit, who likes to kiss deeply and sweetly and look into my eyes  as he pushes into me. Like he’s really there with me and it means something other than simply getting off. I know I am projecting, again fantasizing, but it’s a whisper that’s been tapping in my head for the past week.  A little kink is cool once in a while but real tenderness could be a nice change about now.  I think I will explore the situation a little further and get back to you. Best not to over-think it.  I’ll just proceed and see where it takes me. Like I said, I’m in no hurry.  So. Tomorrow really is another day.

NOTE:  I am writing this post at the reference desk where I am continually interrupted by small children looking for books. I’m trying not to act annoyed but don’t they know I”m blogging about my fucking sex life here??? Such cognitive dissonance……   it’s a little disconcerting. Thus,  the possible lackluster eroticism I was aiming for. Although I’m finding myself strangely aroused as I search the catalog for the latest in the Junie B. Moon series…..

 

The Truth

I did fall in love with the waitress. I do not have any men in my mind any longer. Men are sorta bad. I think I’m switching teams. Now just to find the right woman. Still the same problems…. just different. Women seem to love me more easily than men. At least at first glance. It’s all a joke with everyone but the joke seems less of  a parody with the women. Here we go!!!!! Jumping off now…. I’ll always report back.

Because I can.

 

Crashing crushing running burning

Like a freight train full of something  wild and on fire. I don’t know what this is. But I think I’m just gonna go with it for a while.  No long explanations here, but suffice to say there were reasons S. did not respond to my e-mails last week, which had led me to believe he wasn’t interested.

The situation has been rectified.  He is intense and mystical in a way. He is not into much of anything I’m into except that he reads a lot (and what am I into – who knows – television and blogging my guts out) and he likes to be affectionate. Otherwise, he seems to be a bit of an adreniline junkie – an outdoorsy athletic luddite, shunning many of our current day societal norms a/k/a crap like television and computers and cars and the rat race.  And I say outdoorsy and athletic in a “Mother Nature’s Son” kind of way. Not a big jock kind of way. 

Me, I’m kind of a slug. My sluggishness increased exponentially over the last year.  I’m hoping maybe this whatever it is (this freight train ?) will inspire me to be less slug-like.  It’s rather frightening actually.  Terrifying. But let the train roll on brother. I’m going for the ride.

 

The Pebble in My Hand

Seriously. There is a pebble in my hand. Not a pebble I am holding in my palm,  it is embedded there. It’s a reminder. I’m not sure if I like it or not.  It’s Monday. The week is going to be a good one. My girl is with me and I’m being productive. I’m starting to wonder about the way I spend my time. I refer you to Jonathan Lethem’s piece,

The dreaming jaw, the salivating ear

from the latest Harpers Magazine. You can’t see the whole text unless you subscribe online , but check it out if you can get your hands on a copy of the magazine.  It is fairly indecipherable to me, but I would have to read and dissect it with a little more effort than the first reading, I suppose. I kind of get it and I kind of don’t. Lethem is one of my favorite authors but WTF????  I want to have dinner with him.

 

For Secret Keeping. For Love.

I found the paper we wrote on last week in the late night hour. It is ours, I won’t quote it here. I found you without really looking. You were there. There you were.  If I lived in a jail, you would be the security guard with the crazy key that alternately fits and doesn’t fit into my  Felliniesque dream. Take it? Yes? Unlock it? Yes. Remember? Yes. I would like to write more but I am afraid to betray our secret. Our private……  (not privacy, yes I know the difference) . Our hiding place.

Our discovering. Yours is yours and mine is mine but I like the way it fits the lock and the crazy lovely dream.  Crazy = opposite of not .  Calm. Honest. True.  The new crazy.

I’m really starting to loathe that word. Thesaurus anyone????  OK. I’ll just take a Dictionary. Straight up.

Crazy… now known as

1. Full of cracks or flaws; damaged, impaired, unsound; liable to break or fall to pieces; frail, ‘shaky’. (Now usually of ships, buildings, etc.) 1583 STUBBES Anat. Abus. I. (1879) 51 If Aeolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his stormes chaunce to hit vppon the crasie bark. 1595 SPENSER Col. Clout 374 Or be their pipes untunable and craesie? 1612 T. TAYLOR Comm. Titus i. 16 As a crazie pitcher which is vnfit to hold water. 1748 Anson’s Voy. I. x. 151 With a crazy ship. 1776 ADAM SMITH W.N. II. ii. I. 310 The house is crazy..and will not stand very long. 1844 DICKENS Lett. (1880) I. 119 The court was full of crazy coaches. 1868 FREEMAN Norm. Conq. (1876) II. ix. 336 An old crazy ship.

One of 6 meanings (with at least 8  sub-variables) of the word “crazy” from the Oxford English Dictionary.

 

Cloudy With a Chance of Fuck

My beloved is beginning to show signs of self destruction. It hasn’t taken long has it? I give my heart to someone and they start nailing in the thorns one by one. At first they’re tender thorns attached to beautiful flowers. Slowly (well – quickly in this case) the thorns begin to lose control and grow ripping and ragged as they tear at your soul even though they don’t mean to.  They are just thorns after all, they don’t know what else to do with themselves.  Nature’s way. I should know by now that love is an illusion. It’s a little carrot that the evil forces concocted to make us feel like there’s some damn point to living. Well. There’s not.  And if there is, romantic love has nothing to do with it. I love my child. I loved my dog. I don’t think I will ever love another human being again. As soon as it starts, it begins the ending. It’s a set up. You have been warned.

 

Where Them Wild Things At?

Haven’t seen the movie nor do I care to. I think Hollywood is really stretching for material these days. Give me a good Almodovar film any day. Even when he’s dipped his toe into Hollywood he has remained phenomenal. Not that you can compare a spare children’s book adaptation to his work (nevermind that the usually great Dave Eggars had a part in Wild Things  – WTF??) , but I’m just saying the crap H’wood spits out and the sheeple who flock to it are somewhat disheartening. But I don’t really care. Just an aside.

On the home front, I have my own wild things. A forest dwelling enigma of a man who brings a whole new concept of primal to my world.  Fundamentally flawed, the both of us. Yet alarmingly honest it seems.  I like hiding out in his cabin in the woods, ignoring the rest of  humanity to the extent that a working mother of a teenage girl can.  I find myself living in two worlds. My week of custody is the week of the girl. Staying home, making dinners, watching tv, being with her, talking about our crazy life. She has her own wildness, her own secrets that surface as she grows into a woman. My week of non-custody is the week of primal matters. Eating, sleeping, taking long hot baths, discovering the secrets in his head, the trust required to give myself over to him emotionally and physically. Still having to go to work but in a bit of a stupor from the surreal world on the other side of the job. My prior post denied love. I don’t think I need go that far. There is love. And yes, there is a “BUT” coming up here…….  I just have to keep it in perspective.  I cannot change anyone but myself, nor do I want to.  But (aha!) when the thorns start to get out of control, again-  as thorns tend to do without meaning any harm – I must step away. Disentangle. Tomorrow I will see my shrink. I predict she will counsel me to disentangle permanently but I will not. I might have to disentangle from her, actually.  If I am not working toward our agreed goal, then why waste each others’ time?  I feel I have failed her.  But I guess it’s myself I have failed at least on a few points.

At any rate, I think we all go down paths by choice. And I have chosen this path for now. If it was perfect and without some potholes, I would be suspicious.  I’ll leave it as is.  Unfolding and winding and entangling me.

 

The Stupor of Love

Really. I should be working being that I am at work. But I have a problem concentrating and staying awake.  I can make some busywork for myself but I’d rather just sit here and pontificate.   I swear this will be the last sophmoric act of blathering for at least the next few days.  I was chatting online with the ex “boyfriend” (loosely termed)  and noting how for all those years I never felt that he returned any of the love I was giving him . He simply did not. It was quite frustrating to say the least. It lead me to do many self destructive acts, and now I marvel at the power he held over me.  As in “what the fuck????”  Anyway, his response? “Sorry. We were just looking for different things. “

Yes. Yes we were. I could say I regret having wasted all that time but then if I had done things differently I might not have ended up where I am now; things work out according to their own plans.  We make choices and we have power to make choices but still there is a randomness that oversees everything we do. Which was the thought that was ringing in my head as my body melted into S. yesterday afternoon…. all of those moments before, everything before, comes crashing into this moment – it all disappears and here we are right here, right now.  Having someone return my affection is pretty amazing - the heady first glimmer of connection, intense.  Thus, I walk around in a stupor associated with the emotions, the lack of sleep, the excitement, the raw physicality of it all. Raw. Open. Juicy. Head floating off like a balloon. Everything seems so much more.

Incoming Reference desk phone call as I sit here writing:

The lady we refer to as “the reference lady” just called.  She always opens with “Reference please” and then asks the weirdest or most mundane questions (never know what she’s going to ask). She then uses the question as a jumping off point to start digging into the personal lives of the poor saps who get her calls – she calls all the branches systemwide – she is a legendary figure. The last time she called here I passed her off to our poor student assistant, David.  I couldn’t deal. He took her question which was a mundane phone number request but then she segued into asking him if he thought it was proper for family members to fart in front of each other. Her exact question to him was “Did your father pass gas in front of you when you were a child?” “Do you think that is acceptable?”  Poor kid. He tried his best to be polite but he was visibly shaken by this interaction. Fortunately, it was closing time so I told him to cut her off and tell her he had to go.  Just now she simply wanted the definition of “ora pro nobis”.  It’s Latin for “pray for us”.

Oh, and if Pablo Escobar wasn’t dead (zombie maybe???) I’d swear he just walked into the library.  Pablo wants help creating a restaurant menu – he does not know how to type or how to use a word processing program and speaks little English.  I set him up on a computer as he eyes my cleavage which is out in full force today… ughh. In the end,  I help him above and beyond what is expected of me because he seems like a nice person who needs that little bit of extra help to open his pizza restaurant and pursue the Great AMERICAN DREAM!!!   Just doin’ my part here.  Holding out my hand to the masses, offering to lift them up and into the light of “how things work”…..  These are nuggets – maddening nuggets – of work in the public library.

 

This is Fucked

Seriously. Can’t go on. Must keep thoughts to myself. If I have a piece of writing I think is worth sharing, I might. Otherwise the diary is closed. “Self Masturbatory” is what someone once called the blog. It’s true. Time to stop. Unless there’s something worth saying.  We’ve all heard about the ups and downs of the day to day life of a madwoman.    Good night and good luck.

What the birds see.

What the bird said.

 

Swim

I look up at the sky. It’s dark and threatening. I think where else would i be if I could just point myself there? And there I am. On the side of crystal clear blue waterfall pool. I’m young. Thin. Tan. Toned.

And I could actually care less about that. I am happy. I am ready to jump into the pool. My young psyche, lovely body, and relentless energy innocently taking me over.  I jump. Elegant and frozen in time. I hit the water, plunge under into a cool, bottomless place. And then I know I am ready. I can  swim back up to the place I want to be.  I think there would be a sunstreaked sky at this point.

 

Where I’ve Been

art by Ben Heine