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.

 

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.

 

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……..

 

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.

 

rtzggix

I found this post title in my draft posts the other morning. I think my intention that late night back on July 3, was to write about my ratty who I had discovered dead at 3 a.m. when I got up to get a glass of juice.  Wonder what I thought I could write in my sleep walking state? Oh well… that shall remain a mystery. At any rate, as those 2 of you who read my drivel know, I have had two black hooded female rats for a couple of years. Delilah came first and then we decided she needed company and bought Baby. They have been delightful creatures but I have found them to be fairly high maintenance and somewhat demanding. They’re smart, so they need attention.  I am guessing since Baby died, Delilah will probably go soon since they were each other’s world. These will be the last rodents we will own. Ever. We have had white mice, hamsters, pygmy hamsters and now rats. They don’t live long and the cemetary plot is getting full.

Scout’s ashes came back in a sweet little wooden box. We put it by a photo of him and my daughter and put his purple collar over the picture frame. The loss of  Scout still looms on my psyche’s horizon. I never fully grieved his death. And now we have Willy. Crazy Willy. He’s like a giant Scout with brain damage. It all makes for some very weird feelings.  Developing affection for a new dog is not difficult for me, being an avid animal lover, but still I feel like I’m betraying Scout in some way.  It’s as if I took my emotions and stuffed them in a bag and then just tacked them onto Willy. Weird and disorienting on some level.

On other fronts, the train keeps barrelling down the crazytracks. I’ve decided to just start chasing butterflies and give up on worrying about anything.  Besides, I hear conflicting stories about the world ending or being beset by solar flaring in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar, so if I can just keep the bill collectors at bay for a few more years I should be set.

 

Snapshots

Saturday at the library:

1. A very tall, very kind-faced older man brings his mother (I assume) into the library several times a week. She is so bent and frail he must support and pretty much carry her with a sling that wraps around her back, to hold her up as she walks beside him. He brings her into the library very tenderly, and seats her at a table, making sure to scoot her chair up close, lest she fall to the floor. He proceeds to browse the Large Print books as she sits bewildered and disoriented in her seat. From time to time he comes to her side to whisper to her that he is nearby and she need not worry. Then he whispers to her gently “but I know you will worry” and he says it so lovingly I cannot look away as I watch from the reference desk.

2. M., an 80 or older-something woman with thinning hair and a stoop of her own, comes to the library often with her mentally disabled son D., who loves to waive and say hi to everyone. He must be at least 50. They have no other relatives in Seattle. M. has other sons in far away states, but she is the sole caretaker of D. She is getting very frail and old but always has a good question for me at the reference desk and after all these years we are on a first name basis. She loves to ask for Martha Stewart recipes. But today she is asking for information on gynecological oncologists. This causes me some alarm or at least a bit of concern, but I do not probe. I simply give her the information she wants. She hobbles out of the library, these days using a walker. I ask if she needs any help to her car. She refrains from taking my help as her polyester elastic waist pants sag down below her waist. I wonder where D. has gone, but he appears at her heels within seconds, waiving goodbye. I wonder what will become of him when she is gone.

3. A young girl lingers in the Teen corner of the library for a while. I notice. Her mom is nearby. I finally ask if she’s finding anything to read. She says “you came to my school”… which in fact I did. Her mom tells me that I had “inspired” her daugher to read. That she took notes about the books I talked about, and all of the girls in her class did the same. The girl is not embarrassed or shy about this interaction in the least – she is open and enthusiastic, not what I am used to. I feel true happiness at this point. This is when things come together. They are both so nice and interested in books and reading and for a moment I feel Golden. And they are Golden. We are Golden together for an instant. And, to top it off, her name is Kenedy. One “n”.

4. A young boy comes to the desk to redeem his summer reading certificate. He has completed his 10 books and looks to me for the grand summation of the finishing. I am tired, depressed, slightly hungover and fed up with life in general. But I have to step up and be the good librarian, the enthusiastic congratulatory librarian… he has completed his Reading Record and now gets to claim his prizes!!!!.. I do this every 20 minutes or so when working the desk during the summer. It is alternately heartwarming and mind numbing. I help Henry understand all that he must now do: filling our forms, getting stickers, choosing a book, reading more books, blah blah blah. And then I realize Henry is the same “Henry” I recall as a 2 year old. A precocious 2 year old who was our favorite kid in the library ever. But now he’s 8 years old. I realize I am stuck in a time warp. I have expected my people to remain the same, regardless of time’s passage. Henry is 8? I have been watching these same patrons for 10 years and I’m still in denial that they would ever change.. that they would ever grow older, ever die, ever leave? I live in a time warp, I tell Henry’s mom.

In fact, I believe I do.

 

Mother of the Year

Spent yesterday splashing around in the backyard pool at the ex’s with my daughter and the dogs. It’s one of those medium size above-ground deals, not a real pool, mind you. But we floated around and ate hot dogs and watched the doggies chase each other and I wore a bikini, which was a sight to see, because there was no one to endure the spectacle besides my daughter and the ex, so who cares? Anyway it was pretty pleasant but the girl ended up with quite a sunburn on her back. Why this is interesting at all will be explained later in this post.

So last night, we were looking through my closet for a pair of pants I couldn’t find and she turns to me and says “Don’t worry, mom. I already found your dildo.” With her little mischevious smile these words came from her baby mouth??? I asked how she even knew the word “dildo”, to which she replied “I’m in 7th grade.” Ughhhhhhh…. Still processing the encounter. I didn’t make too big a deal of it. I guess the less said the better in this case. We did laugh a little over it, so at least there was humor in the interaction. My hope is that humor will save me from many bad parenting moments. And there have been so many, as you might guess.

Today, I am at work in my neighborhood library and she walked over from the apartment to see me here. Her back is killing her from the sunburn so I take her over to the drugstore across the street and buy some soothing spray for the burn. We come back here to the library and go into the public restroom. She takes her shirt off so I can spray her back. She can’t wear a bra due to the pain, so she’s basically nude from the waist up. I spray her back and then decide I have to pee so while she’s letting the air dry her back I’m there peeing and notice her hair has fallen into the wet spray. I hop up, pull up my underwear but not my jeans and pull her hair up so it won’t get wet. At that point the door opens (we forgot to lock it…. ) and a lady sees me standing there with my pants down around my ankles, E’s shirt is off and I’m standing right up behind her holding her hair. Ackkkkkkk! Child molester in the public bathroom!!!! We were laughing so hard and so loud, it was ridiculous.

I composed myself and exited the loo to explain to the lady what we were doing. Explained that I am indeed the librarian on duty and NOT a pervert. She seemed to think it was funny too. I hope.

 

Yuckin It Up at the Library

Actually, there is no God. Otherwise I would not be suffering this day at the library, the horror, the sorrow and the pity. Things did not start out well to begin with. After continuously hitting the snooze button on my alarm, I was awakened at 10 a.m. by a phone call from a co-worker asking where the hell I was. I threw my clothes on, made a quick coffee and sped to work, arriving within 30 minutes of the call, but still and hour late. This one will probably earn me an official write-up with the boss man. Sigh.

Upon arrival I realized it was the day for a program which was to be presented by one of the most annoying old geezers I’ve ever met.  To maintain anonymity, I can’t reveal the actual name of the program but it was along the lines of  “yowza… let me show you how funny I am.”. Mr. A  is an 80-something cheeseball who considers himself extremely witty and extremely special. He wants to share his love of laughter (it’s medicinal!!!) and slapstick comedy with the world. In the fucking library. Let’s make this clear up front: NOT funny.

So here comes Mister Show with his boxes full of stuffed animals, assorted gag props and next thing I know, he’s wearing giant orange  plastic duck feet, plopping around the library with his short-ass self, grinning maniacally, holding up a huge pair of jeans, in an effort to drum up an audience. I’m on the phone with a reference question and he’s standing in the library yelling out “did you lose your pants?” I am dying. I want to die. But first I want to pummel the old fart. Patrons are fleeing the building. He continues to circle the library looking for takers. There are none. He struts jauntily back  to the conference room, where he is supposed to be presenting this side-splitting humor.  He commences to sing Old MacDonald complete with neighing, whinnying and all the other animal sounds. He sings loudly. He is alone in the conference room. He’s laughing.  Loudly. At nothing. He comes back into the library, giant duck feet slapping the floor, with a stuffed lamb on his shoulder, waving at the few remaining patrons who have not fled but who are desperately trying to ignore him. This spectacle continues  on for about a half an hour. One of my most beloved patrons approaches me at the reference desk and tells me the one thing she learned growing up in New York City: never make eye contact with the crazies.

I’m having an IM conversation with my pal and co-worker Mike, who is safe at home today:

11:49amMartha
here he comes

11:49amMike
flirt

11:49amMartha
he’s got the side door open
and it’s freezing

11:49amMike
WTH – you can’t let him do that

11:49amMartha
he’s rounding the building in his duck feet

i’m not doing anything

i’m staying away from him

11:49amMike
cereal. you’ve got to stop him

11:49amMartha
no.

i can’t deal with him

11:50amMike
Rob will be pissed [note: Rob = manager]

11:50amMartha
i’m telling Rob and Rob is going to kick his ass

11:50amMike
his duck ass

11:50amMartha
I think he’s giving up
no takers
an hour of desperation
is almost up

ahhhhhhhhh… relief. He packs his boxes, takes off the duck feet. It’s over.  The day continues as sunshine fills the library through endless floor to ceiling windows. The Cherry Blossoms are in bloom. I hear the flutter of hummingbird wings.

 

Dry

It’s been 15 days since I last consumed alcohol. I find myself aternating between mania and narcolepsy.  But I’d have to say I feel pretty good.  There’s certainly the boredom that I face nightly between the hours of 5.-10 pm when I would normally be swilling wine and telephoning friends, blogging madly, or going out to look for some form of excitement. Now I find my moribund entertainment  in actually cooking dinner and eating it, watching tv shows and remembering them and god forbid, actually thinking about my future (which is not really entertaining).

Where is it that I want to be in 5 years? Just laboring part-time in the library only to pay down my ridiculously high consumer debt? Let’s not even think about the grad. school loans.

There are ways to break this shit down.  My friend Mike is working on a Master Plan for my life but for some reason I’m not sure he’s the one to do it,  as the first thing on his agenda is that we take ballroom dance lessons together.  Considering he is partially crippled and gay, this could be the thing to do … perhaps it will crack open another little chip in my facade and let the rainbows come spilling out from deep within me where I am sure they must be hiding.  He also insists that I get my piano back from the ex, which is something I really need to do. And then there are those divorce papers I have to file, or find, or at least look at. I might have mentioned that the ex is somewhat impaired in the brains department so the burden falls upon me to get those wheels in motion.  It’s only been 2.5 years since we separated. Let’s not rush into anything okay? Besides, I’ve been impaired myself for quite some time.

On the good news front, spring is slowly coming to Seattle although today it is snowing lightly. We are all anticipating more daylight hours as our vitamin D deficiencies are taking us to new depths of despair. I have to answer a questionnaire for a “profile” feature on the library’s teen blog and the questions are impossible to answer. “Why Teen Services?” Truthfully? I think I was hired by mistake. There was a rush to hire a stable of Teen librarians back in 1999 and somehow my resume got thrown into the bunch. I was looking for a Children’s Librarian job, but then got a call that I was in – just like that – for the job that I currently inhabit.  I never even wanted to be a Teen Librarian. But I have to come up with something a little more positive I guess. Something cheerful and chirpy. “Teens are awesome! Especially the boys between 17 – 18… hot!!!”  Then there’s the “What’s the best thing about living in Seattle?”  Even harder to answer. It’s where there’s a job and I’m kind of stuck here. I don’t like the weather, I don’t like the beaches (cold, rocky, uninviting) I don’t like the way the city has extorted money from taxpayers for projects that never pan out (monorail…… how much money did we throw down the drain on that one? – sports stadiums we voted down but still they built them). The best thing I can say about Seattle is there are no giant flying cockroaches here like there were in the South.  I’m not into hiking, snow sports or kayaking so,  really, what can I say?  I like sailing and there’s a million sailboats out here but the water is so fucking cold you would never want to go in it… even in the deepest summer month that we get.  I said “month”.  Also,  I have to provide a photo of me “then” (as a teen) and “now” (as the Mary Kay Letourneau of the library).   I’ll scan in my first high school dance photo. Oh the sheer innocence!!! The hope!!! The hideous date!! With a name like J.T. Bigalke, yes he was a football player, how can you go wrong??? The 70’s!!!!  I’ll update here later with a link.  Sorry J.T., wherever you are today. I’ve got the entire other story to write about you. Later…..  “Mamie and I Race to Lose Our Virginity”…..

 

Flowers

14 years ago today at approximately 8:00 pm, after a mere two martinis were consumed at the Uptown China Restaurant bar, my lovely daughter was conceived. No, not in the bar. In my cozy Queen Anne apartment. My husband describes the scene as “having had a gun to his head”… as I forced him to abandon our natural birth control methods (trying not to be too graphic here in case the daughter reads this).  Every year on Valentine’s Day we remind her that it is the day of that momentous conception, and every year she screams in disgust about how gross the whole thing is. Believe me, I know. I was there, kid. Not to say that the end result was anything less than perfection,  but thinking about doing the deed with the ex kinda creeps me out as well. Still, her conception does indeed make Valentine’s Day, an otherwise useless day, special to me.

On other fronts, I have been reading Jonathan Lethem’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet”, which I am loving. Already. This novel is much sexier than  “Fortress of Solitude”,  the last Lethem I read.  I’m going through a phase of constant arousal lately (menopause hasn’t taken me yet!!!) and reading this book is keeping me on edge, to say the least.  From Amazon:

“Fans of Fortress and Motherless Brooklyn may find this novel’s levity too drastic a shift, but even though Lethem is having a great time here with wordplay, a motley cast, and Lucinda’s sexual meanderings, You Don’t Love Me Yet is anything but a simple entertainment. “

Rather than attempt to divulge the plot, as I am only about a third of the way through it, let me just titillate you with my own moist approval and the blurb above.  I like what Lethem is doing with his one dollar stories as well.

Pic via http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/zogg/zogg1.html which I discovered over at Lethem’s links.