You! Outta My Head!!

So, you've done your post break-up ritual, whatever that may be. You've danced naked around a bonfire of pictures of the two of you, or whatever. You've packed away the things you want to keep, but can't look at right now. THE OTHER PERSON HAS FINALLY GOTTEN THEIR SHIT OUT OF YOUR HOUSE!! You've resisted the urge to call more than once. You've even gone away for the weekend to spend time with your family to take a break from the familiar, so you aren't thinking about them.

But, then...that same family decides to go out to dinner, and despite being in a city that makes your home town look like the Hickville it is, it happens to be a restaurant you last ate at with your ex and her friend, while delivering the baby blanket YOU made for HER friend. And, joy of joys...they don't put you in any of the twelve other dining rooms in the fucking place...no, that would be just too easy. Instead they stick you in the same room as the last visit, and since you were the last person in, you get stuck in the seat directly across from the table you sat at.

No matter how hard you try, there are some things you can't do on your schedule. You can't erase that person from your brain, or somehow magically lock up your memories so they can only be accessed for fun source material when remembering why, exactly, you will never again date a musician. And there is no telling what will bring the memories to the fore, either. Certain sights or smells or sounds can be perfectly safe one day, and send you off the deep end the next. There is no rhyme or reason, no way to safeguard yourself from the unexpected punch in the gut. Just a reminder to yourself that it is okay to cry sometimes, it is okay to get and stay mad. So long as you don't stay mad forever, as long as at some point you can look back and smile.

I'm so not there, yet. I will be one day, I assume. No one actually dies of a broken heart, and plenty of people go through break ups and come out the other side, smiling. I've just never had my heart so completely broken, never lost something I thought that I could never lose. The only other significant break up in my life I knew was inevitable, even when I defended the relationship to every person I knew and told everyone we'd always be together, I knew it was unsustainable. This was different, though, and while I never wanted to get married or say "forever" I also never imagined that there would be a day that we would not be together. And, no, it doesn't necessarily make sense that I could be so wholeheartedly against "forever" and not have foreseen that this day would come. But, what in love does make sense?

At Least I Still Have the Love of My Life

Yup. He's sleeps with me, licks away the tears and only rarely changes the channel when I'm watching something good. He's sweet, and though he doesn't really like little kids, he agrees that Cassidy is pretty amazing. He doesn't lie, and I really don't have to worry that he'll run off with someone else.

He's my Charlie-Man, the little shih tzu/poodle mix that I rescued from the shelter two years ago this August. He's kind of a dork and makes me laugh pretty regularly. It's hard to be sad when he's around.



I took this picture the last time I had all three dogs out and about together. Charlie was having a grand old time running with Cera. He misses her terribly, they're best friends and he's still waiting for her to come home. He really needs to be groomed, but look at all that hair...Isn't he just the perfect match for me?

Wait...But You Left Me....

Breaking up is never a simple process. And it's never cut and dried. There is not one person who screwed up, there are almost always two people who screwed up and you can waste hours arguing about who screwed whom more, but it's a waste of time and only serves to cause each other more pain, prolong the anger and slow the process of healing.

However, while two people screw up the relationship, it's rare that two people sit down, look at each other and say, "Hey, even though this isn't working anymore, I don't want to hurt you, so let's do this as rationally as possible." If you're married, then you have lawyers and a court system that decides who gets what and who pays for what and when each parent sees the child. But when you aren't married, there are no "rules" and no real guidelines, you just kind of make it up as you go along.

Unfortunately, since there can be a lot of acrimony in a break up, even in a break up between people who genuinely care about each other, things get out of control. Every word, every tone is examined for malice and even when none is intended, it is often assumed by the other person. This is how people end up hating each other. This is how the ex girlfriend and I are going to end up hating each other. I have all of her things in my house still. I have asked her repeatedly to come get her things, and put what she doesn't have room for in our storage area. It's been a month now, since she finally let me in on the secret that she was done with me, and yet, all her things, minus a few bags of clothes are sitting here...my constant reminder of what I've lost.

I don't have a lot of energy to do things, and I'm at the point where the energy I have should be spent taking care of myself so that I can be a good mom. Those are my biggest jobs at the moment, and yet, I've got this monumental task of boxing things up, loading it in my truck and putting it in storage. I'll be honest...I've had my fantasies of re-enacting that scene from Waiting To Exhale where Angela Basset puts all of his stuff in a car and lights it on fire. I'd never go through with it, but considering that she left me, it's awfully brave of her to just assume I'll take her of her things. Luckily for her, my hurt and anger haven't dulled my sense of right and wrong enough to allow me to do it...but it's tempting from time to time.

So, let this be my admonition to you, gentle reader...If you are ever in a relationship and find yourself in the position of having to leave the other person, do them and yourself a favor...have a plan. Know where you're going, and whether or not your things can go there with you. If they can't...make arrangements for storing them some place, and don't leave it on your ex to do. Your ex should be spending post break up time doing anything but focusing on you. Unless your goal is to hurt your ex as much as you possibly can (which, is wrong regardless of what's happened and will only cause you regret in the long run)be considerate enough to take your things with you, don't leave them in your ex's possession just to rub salt in her wounds.

An Ending...

Nine and a half years ago, I was blessed with two amazing people in my life. I had just given birth to my mini me, and began a friendship with an amazing woman. Very quickly, that friendship deepened for me. It wasn't long before I noticed that her eyes changed color depending on her mood, or the lighting, that her skin was soft and beautiful, that her smile was slightly crooked, which made it all the more heart stopping...It wasn't long before I needed to be around her, I found excuses to see her. I fell hard, and fast, long before I had any idea of who she really was.

Three months after Cass was born, I "kidnapped" that amazing woman because I had grown to care about her so much and she was going through a rough time, and I was scared for her, and wanted to help her. The next year was alternately giddy and then unsure. We grew closer, and I fell even harder for her. She was such a different person than anyone else I'd ever known. She understood me, and hidden beneath her facade of anger and indifference was the kindest, most loving and generous soul. She was wounded, and understood that I was as well.

There was never an official moment that we decided that we were committed to each other. There was simply a deepening of understanding, a growing trust, a blossoming love. We went on a road trip with a friend to San Diego and shared the most beautiful moments late at night, with the moonlight shining on the ocean.

She became my partner, my friend, my lover. She became my daughter's mother and loved her intensely. We were a family and though it wasn't always easy, it was always worth it.

I have always distrusted "forever." I learned at a very young age, that love or blood or legal paperwork was no guarantee that a person I loved today would still be there tomorrow. Instead of trying to find a way to trust that this amazing woman would be in my life forever, I kept a part of myself at arm's length...swore that I didn't believe in happily ever after, in forever. I promised her that I loved her, but I couldn't bring myself to promise that my love would last. I couldn't bring myself to trust that she would be different, that she would stay when others had left. I hurt her deeply by being unable to move past my fear of being left behind. If I could do it again, I would take back all the times I qualified the love I had for her, the times I refused the level of commitment she offered.

Even though I said I didn't believe that we would be together, the love I had for her was so immense that deep inside, in a place I never let her see, I began to believe in forever. I began to WANT forever...as long as we were together. And no, it wasn't perfect, and it wasn't easy, but then, what in this life is? And every struggle, every obstacle just made me love her even more. I should have told her that I was scared to admit how much I loved her. I should have told her that I kept back that part of myself, not because I didn't love her, but because I didn't trust that I could be enough to keep her. That I could be good enough, that she would never grow tired of me.

When I got sick, I thought...this is it. This is when she'll leave. But, she didn't. She stood by me. Watched with tortured eyes when they poked and prodded and I got sicker. She held our daughter to calm her, to shield her from the pain of my illness. As more and more of my life, of the things we so loved...hiking, camping, being able to just up and go somewhere...slipped away I retreated to a a very dark corner of my mind. I hid from her, from the pain I was causing her, from the disappointment as all the plans we had slowly wilted. Going from doctor to doctor took it's toll on all of us. Instead of reaching out, instead of fighting, I buried myself away...became the illness, and gave up hope.

I can make excuses, and some of them are even valid...but I hurt her, and I scared her and I let her down. I hurt my daughter, and I scared her and I let her down. I let the ugly depression that has been my constant enemy win and I gave up on them. I gave up on me.

I can see now what I did, I can take responsibility and I'm learning to stand on my own two painful feet. I'm learning to fight again, and it's hard. All the more so because I am doing it without her. We've hurt each other so much, and it's hard to understand how two people who loved each other the way we did can end up where we are. I may have learned it too late, but I've learned that in this life, when you are given the chance at happiness, when someone reaches out to you and says..."You...I love you even though you aren't perfect I will be here." that not trusting them is in essence throwing away the greatest gift one person can ever give another. I've learned that if you spend all your time lamenting what was, and refusing to let go of the past, letting it imprison your present, you will lose everything that is precious to you. It's a painful lesson, and it comes too late, but it's a lesson I'll never forget.

To that amazing woman: As much as I'm hurting now, I wouldn't trade what we had for anything. I learned so much from you. I can never thank you properly for all that you have given me. I'm so, so sorry that I couldn't give you what we both needed. I will always love you. I will always carry you in my heart. I hope that your future is as beautiful as you are, that you find what you need and that you can forgive my failure to love you as completely as I could. Be happy...Be well...I love you.

Things I Had Forgotten About Being Single...

I've been in a relationship all of my adult life, with the exception of a three month span right after my mini me was born. And since I spent those three months crying, breastfeeding and trying to figure out whether to throw myself off a bridge or drink a gallon of vodka with a bottle of sleeping pills, it's not a time in my life I like to think about very often.

Needless to say, being single has been an ADJUSTMENT. There is the fact that there is no one to wake up in the middle of the night when you have that dream that you've had since you were six about people trying to kill you in various exciting ways. There is no one else to put gas in the car, to pick up milk or spend hours at night dissecting people we know just for the fun of feeling all superior and intellectual. On the other hand...there is also no one to open the last cold Coke in the house, take three fucking drinks and leave it on the counter as if to mock me. There is also no one to fight for control of the remote, the phone or the computer. There is no one to steal all the covers and wake you up out of a sound sleep with requests having to do with the location of a dog that isn't bothering you.

Getting over this break up is odd. There are moments of optimism and moments of bleakest despair. There is laughter through tears and quiet, unending loneliness. There is the refiguring of a life I thought was pretty well mapped-out. But biggest of all, there is that change from we to me. Decisions that used to involve two people just involve me, which is both a blessing and a curse. While it means I always get my way, it also means there is no one to blame if the wrong decision is made. I don't have to check with someone before I commit to whatever plans I may commit to, since I'm only committing myself. I know I'll get through this...I'm sure that some day I'll be able to breathe normally again, go a whole twenty-four hours without crying again, start to think about trusting someone again...but it's hard to wait for some day. It's hard to let myself just deal with this. I want it done. I want it to be months from now when I'm heading into something resembling okay.

I'm Fucking Fantastic, Thanks So Much For Asking

I feel nearly positive that I've discussed my feelings about the question "How are you?" as it pertains to my physical health. However, as annoying as it is, it's nowhere near as annoying as when you are going through something hard and some well meaning person asks you "How are you?" in the most syrupy voice they can muster. I know it's well-intentioned, and that people genuinely want to know, but nine times out of ten, I'm trying to hold it together anyway, and all that sympathy just starts the tears.

Now let me tell you something about me. I don't mind crying when I'm alone or even with a select person and I'm sort of in the eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's and wallow mind set. However, when I'm functioning and trying to go about my day, crying pretty much derails that sort of thing, not to mention that it embarrasses the hell out of me. I'm not one of those girls who can cry in public...I make weird monkey faces and the oddest sounds come out of me. And then, as if all that wasn't enough, I get all blotchy and my eyes turn red. Not exactly my best look.

Well, and what's the best thing you can say when you're trying to turn your world right side up again? That you're hanging in there? Basically, if I'm up and dressed or not just laying in bed all day...I'm hanging in there. I'm not going to be okay today or tomorrow, but I will be at some point.

So, yeah...enough with the sympathy. Being single sucks. Losing your dog sucks. Being sick sucks. Try combining all three and see how you feel. The sympathy just brings it all to the front. Tell me a joke instead or something. I've got enough tears...let's shoot for some laughter.

I Won, I Won, I Won!!!

Okay, so I'm a big Boston Terrier fan. Scout was the best and most wonderful dog I've ever met...shhh don't tell my other dogs. Once Scout became part of our family I became obsessed with all things Boston Terrier. One of my favorite sites is Little Beasts. They have lots of great links to all things Boston and fantastic pictures of the little beasts, Bergamot and Emrys.

They also have a weekly photo with a caption contest. I stalk the site and have been trying to win the caption contest for awhile now, and I finally did!! I will get a snazzy Boston Terrier sticker to put on my 4Runner.

Anyway...check out the picture here with my fabulous caption.

Notes from my subconscious

My good friend, the Archaeogodessess' comment on another friend's blog, Craigorian Chant that reminded me of a recurring dream I have.

I've had it in some variation for years. But, basically it follows the same theme plotline every time. In the dream I get a phone call from Erin telling me she is going to some foreign country and that she wants me to come with her, but that we're leaving tomorrow. I get excited and pack my bags and get ready to go and get to the airport before I realize that I don't have a passport and cannot therefore board the plane.

I think it's an important dream, in that I think it's something I'm guilty of doing in real life. Not literally, of course. But, I tend to get excited and jump immediately to the "trip" or whatever ideal I'm looking for, and forget to do the stuff it takes to get me there. I've referred to it as "First Day of School Syndrome." You see, every year I would start school with a resolve to be a good student and do everything right.

And I would, too. For about a week and a half. And then, I'd start putting things off, getting behind, staying home from school and getting further behind until it was two weeks from the end of the semester and I realized I was about to fail. Then I'd bust my ass and do just enough to get me that "C" or whatever, and swear to do better the next time.

It takes more than making a resolve. I need to look at what stops me from doing things, what keeps me from really being able to get what I want, because it's not ability or intelligence, it's something else.

I've got a lot of work on myself to do. I have to stop hiding from reality and work on changing things slowly and figuring out why I let fear stop me from sticking to things. I'm going back to therapy, for lots of reasons, but this is going to be the most important one. Because if I don't figure it out, I won't stay in therapy long enough to deal with the depression that caused me to shut down over the last year and a half, or the other issues in my life that keep tripping me up. It's rough enough being sick without getting in my own way over it.

I Couldn't Say It Any Better

Oh what I'd give for a hundred years!
But the physical interferes
Every day more--O my Creator!
What is the good of the strongest heart
In a body that's falling apart?
A serious flaw--I hope You know that

-from Waltz For Eva and Che (Evita soundtrack)

Barren

you and me against the world
and we knew it all
and we would last
outlast and endure
but here i am
an empty house, empty mind
empty heart
mopping the kitchen floor
the last thing
you said you'd do
before you left
so many broken promises
between us
so much pain
in the she said-she said
the obstacles between us
a loss of forgiveness
trying to breathe
in this barren world
where we don't exist

Wondering....

To whom is she referring in her Myspace status?

Good Things About Chronic Illness...

So, I spend a lot of time bitching and moaning about all the negative things about chronic illness, so I thought I'd take some time and make a list of good things. Something to remember in the middle of my pity parties...

1.) Bra wearing has become a "special occasion" (i.e. I'm leaving the house) event.

2.) No one ever asks me to help them move, and I can say things like..."If only I felt better, I'd help you move." Knowing damn well that I wouldn't, but also that no one is asshole enough to call me on it.

3.) Drugs...I get them. Fun ones, too, sometimes. Nothing like a shot of demerol to perk up your day.

4.) I don't have to remember my name, date of birth or any of that nonsense when picking up prescriptions because I am on a first name basis with all of the pharmacy techs at Safeway.

5.) Any effort on my part to be dressed and presentable is applauded with the same amount of enthusiasm usually reserved for people reaching Everest's summit.

6.) Naps. I used to lament that no one ever told me to go take a nap. Now, not only is that frequent advice, it's advice I usually feel no guilt for taking.

7.) The vast majority of my wardrobe is made of pajama bottoms, thus fulfilling a lifelong dream.

8.) I have watched every single episode of Charmed...at least twice.

9.) I have a well stocked and frequently updated Gaia account.


I was going to put more things on this list, but when I went to add that number 10, I realized I'd have to do some fancy layout stuff to keep it from looking all wonky and since today my ovaries are attempting a coup and even my eybrows hurt...well, suffice it to say that nothing fancy shall occur today.

Missing...

The smell of place where her neck meets her shoulder.

Contemplating Singledom

So, the news here is that the gf and I are "on a break" or "in a separation." Basically it's like hitting the relationship pause button. I have no fucking clue what the future hols and if we can make it work again. I don't know if that's even something she wants to do. I asked her to move out while we were going through this because I can't sit next to her without trying to talk about the situation and my hormones are so damn wonky that everything escalates to screaming, crying drama.

I'm trying to process my own feelings about what it will mean if we do not reconcile, how it will feel for the first time in my adult life to be single. To know that there is no fucking chance that there is a relationship in my future. It's scary. I've been in a couple for so long that I don't remember how to function independently. It's terrifying.

Last night, I was doing some small household things...taking out the trash, doing laundry, feeding the animals...and it occurred to me, this has all been on me for awhile now, so this is not new...Cass and I will work all this out, it's not like we're depending on her for this sort of thing.

Financially is a whole other story. I don't have the money to make this household work without her. My sister is coming down to stay in a couple of weeks and that should make a heck of a lot of difference there, anyway. Plus, having another adult in a thousand mile radius I feel comfortable talking about all this with will, of course, be a big help.

I don't know what to do. What are the rules of separation? Is it like being single or is ir more like having a partner that's deployed or something? And how long do you allow it to go on before you demand answers and make a final decision? I'm definitely in foreign territory here.

Ways to Fucking Piss Me Off...

I am dead fucking tired of all the Fibromyalgia medication commercials and the lies they are telling. I'm sick of seeing this active, happy person who is "living happily" with Fibromyalia thanks to "Bullshitadone" a new treatment for Fibromyalgia.

Because you know what? It trivializes what Fibro is. And it makes people around you treat you like dog shit because you aren't doing as well as the people they see on t.v. Those commercials should show a woman running around in her clothes on backward with bags under her eyes, limping with a cane and having to hear how exercise is the key to making everything better, but no one tells you how to do it. No one has a way to give you the strength to face the additional fatigue and pain that starting an exercise regime entails. It's simple...you exercise, you're a good person who has worth and you will magically feel better...you don't exercise, regardless of how you feel or what the effort costs you and you are a worthless piece of shit that deserves all the pain you are experiencing.

And since my Fibro doesn't live in a vaccuum, I get to have the added complications of hormonal disorders and sleep disorders and god only knows what else that they haven't figured out yet. I don't have any of my conditions even under a margin of control, and it's somehow all my fault. I'm to blame.

And you know what? I have fucked up and not done what the doctors told me to do, but some of the things that doctors have told me to do would have literally killed me if I had done them, so how do you know what advice to take and what advice to ignore? And how do you find the courage and strength to keep fighting when all you want to do is curl up into a ball and make the FUCKING PAIN STOP ALREADY? How do you fight the crushing fear, guilt, anger, and grief long enough to brush your fucking hair, let alone contemplate some convoluted treatment plan that works for a whopping 33% of all Fibro patients who have no other complicating factors?

How do you stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to fight back for what you've lost?

Best Laid Plans

Which I never have, by the way...My standard MO is scattered bits of ideas that pass for some semblance of a plan.

Anyway, I supposed it surprises no one that the last post was a month ago. I'm never good at sticking to my plans, and much less so when facing any kind of adversity. I'm really good at zombie-ing (yes, it's a word...if I say it's word, then it's a word dammit...whose blog is this anyway?) through the day to day, but really bad at anything outside of basic survivorship.

The last month has been rough. Adjusting to losing Scout, trying to help Cass through the grief, dealing with the fact that my girlfriend has finally gotten a life, something she richly deserves and has deprived herself of for far too long on my behalf. And of course, the amazing ends to which my body will go to keep me from getting too bored with it's repertoire of wacky symptoms that range from annoying (constant ringing in the ears) to unsettling (an accumulation of fluid in my neck and lower face....I'm so purty) and of course, to painful (pressure headaches from all that fluid build up). And I'm fairly anemic at this point as well, so staying awake is even more of a chore than usual, unless of course, I want to sleep...then tiny invisible elves come and tape my eyelids open and then scamper about beating me with really large sticks.

Jamie is going out this weekend to Faces. I'm at once envious and relieved that she is allowing herself to go. She holds back from doing stuff because she feels guilty for leaving me at home. Yet, when she's here odds are I'm either half asleep or in too much pain to talk. She has a group of friends that she's been spending time with and they all wonder why I "let" her go out without me, and why I don't call every two hours like their partners do when they're out. I'm always kind of surprised that people would think for a second that I could question this woman's commitment to me. She's sat up with me holding my hand during too many ER trips to count. She sees me at my worst...unshowered, the same pajamas two or three days running, grumpy from pain and dead stupid from brain fog, and she still comes home, and has for years. By all rights she should have run as far and as fast as possible some years ago, but she sticks. Luckily for me she's a stubborn bitch and doesn't give up on me.

Cass is slowly coming to terms with losing Scout. I read her the poem about the rainbow bridge (google it if you're unfamiliar, I'm too lazy to try to remember how to imbed links) and we talk about Scout often. She has cried at random times, little things will set her off, but she's coming through it. She doesn't treat Woody (our newest dog) as a replacement for Scout, but he is helping her heal.

Final thought for the night (I think I'm almost ready to actually fall asleep)...If you haven't heard All American Rejects new song GivesYouHell, you should check it out. It's my current obsession...

And Then Some....

Today was supposed to be a happy day, a day filled with hope. And while I am still quietly happy for this historical day, we here in my little universe have had a loss that will haunt us for quite some time to come...

In June we adopted a Boston Terrier from the Sacramento SPCA named Scout. I don't know how he ended up at the shelter because quite frankly, he was the best dog I've ever known. He had so much personality, was so loving and loyal...He became part of our family immediately. We loved him and he loved us and we couldn't imagine life without him.

He was accidentally run over in our driveway today and passed away in Jamie's arms seconds later. The grief I feel is compounded by watching my daughter grieve over her beloved friend (Scout was her dog). My heart is broken...

Agony...

You know how they tell you that narcotics and alcohol don't simply have an additive effect, that they actually multiply each other? Well...chronic illness and any other illness interact the same way. Especially when you consider all those missed doses of medication and the dose thst simply did not stay where you put it.

We are in agony, here in our little universe. The midget and I followed up our fantastic Saturday at the zoo (more about that when we feel more human) with a killer stomach virus that hit last night and is still making it's wretched, painful effects felt. Send sympathy vibes our way.

Platitudes

A new poem. Spent the night reading my favorites...Plath's "Daddy" and "Mad Girl's Love Song" Cummings, "I Carry Your Heart With Me" and "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town", and "The Red Wheel Barrow" by William Carlos Williams. While I'd never consider my work amongst these greats, they do inspire me...



Platitudes

i would revel in your platitudes
if i could find some grain of truth
close my eyes and trust in tomorrow
but today is yesterday’s tomorrow
and it feels the same
static and unchanging
and you will spout your rhetoric
Time the great hero, the whitewasher of our sins
speak to me of future peace
but the present is the past’s future
and nothing is new
and i have not changed

Someone, Somewhere

I always feel I have to
take a stand
and there's always someone on hand
to hate me for standing there
I always feel I have to open my mouth
and every time I do
I offend someone
somewhere

-Ani Difranco (What if No One's Watching)

So, not being an out in the world kind of girl these days, I've found a couple of online forums for people with similar interests, my favorite of which is the rat forum www.goosemoose.com to which I've belonged for nearly two years now. We spend a lot of time worshipping our fuzzy little rodents (nope..the rattie obsession hasn't dimmed, it's still going strong), and an a little time talking about ourselves, our lives, and the world at large.

Anyway..I managed to get a thread locked today, and in just three posts, which is a record for me. But the person I was yelling at had it coming. She pulled the same sort of crap that racists who don't want to admit they're racists always do...you know..."I have a black friend so I know all about black people." Look...let me tell you something. The second someone mentions their black neighbor, their gay aunt...I'm pretty sure whatever else is coming out of their mouth is going to be complete bullshit. It's always something like..."Look, I don't have anything against gays, because I have two gay neices, but I voted yes on Prop (h)8 because I don't think activist judges should overturn laws voted on by the people."

Now, the whole point of this post is...yes, I'm sick. No, I can't leave the house most of the time and yes, I'm turning into a hermit. And yet...I still find a way to offend stupid people who insist on holding on to their racism, sexism...etc. There's a lesson there, I think. Something to hold on to when my tendency towards maudlin self pity laments all the things I've lost.

Oooh...and I'm dropping the midget off with her stepmother after school today, so maybe I'll get a chance to offend someone else...

Little Things

I miss the little things I took for granted when I was healthy. I miss that going to bed meant going to sleep. I miss being able to wear a ring all day because I could know that my hands weren't going to swell four sizes daily. I miss being able to make a plan and stick to it.

A good friend is having a baby. (Yay!!) And the baby shower is this weekend. Saturday in fact. And I really, really want to go. But, I've been having these quasi-seizure episodes, I've been in more than usual pain, and last but by no means least, I'm swollen like a beach ball. Not really presentable. I don't even look like myself, not even vaguely recognizable. So, who knows if I'm going to make it. Especially as the girlfriend works that day which means driving myself and having to rely on myself to make it home.

Ugh...so I'm going to rest (wait, do I do anything else...ever?) as much as possible betwixt now and then and hope like hell I can make it. Because I've missed a lot of crap over the years...but this is one of my girls. One of my favorite girls in the world. One of my pint of Ben and Jerry's and chick flick girls. Whose pregnancy I've been eagerly awaiting, because I know she is going to be the cutest pregnant lady ever. So, yeah..going to super pissed if I miss this.

If I Pee On It...Will That Make It Mine Again?

Okay, so my general slothfulness aside, I'm sure it's obvious this blog was by and large abandoned, drifting quietly into cyber-oblivion. The truth is, I've spent the last few months pretending this blog didn't even really exist. When you have something personal taken and used against you by a person for whom you have nothing but disdain and contempt in the most damaging way possible, it's a complete violation. And that's what happened here. A person, who for various reasons shall remain unnamed, that has expended considerable energy into creating trouble for me, the Queen of self-induced drama (thanks, but I don't need the help creating drama in my life), took what was written here and used it to endanger the one thing that for me should be inviolate, untouchable...my daughter. And so, I couldn't even come to this page without feeling that stomach wrenching anger, and then I thought...What the fuck am I doing? I'm tied to this person for the foreseeable future and this person, for whatever reason, will always find a way to use whatever possible weapons to hurt me. So, why on earth should I give up something that is cathartic for me and occasionally amusing to at least one other person in the universe? So, screw it. This is my truth. And if you don't like what I have to say...then don't fucking read it.

So, yeah...I'm back. And that tiny (okay, maybe not so tiny) little part of me that dances around with petty, vindictive joy at being a general nuisance to those who dislike me might actually override my inherent slothfulness and keep me around.

Yeah, so I've been up all night....and I'm damn tired. But I really need to go have blood drawn, so that I can proceed with a few other tests that the dr wants to perform on me. Fun, fun, fun. My body, with it's charming sense of humor has thrown a new symptom into the mix...a seizure that isn't really a seizure. See, when people have those seizures where their eyes roll back in their head and their body flops around, they lose conciousness....me? I'm aware the whole time, but can't control my body or force my voice to work. It's like a really bad nightmare...but I'm not asleep. It scared the crap out of me, and even moreso the girlfriend who got to witness one of these fun little episodes. It even scared the best friend who didn't see it, just heard about it. So, while the upside is...hey not really a seizure the downside is...What the fuck is it? What the fuck does it mean, and most importantly, how the fuck do we get it to stop?

On a positive note, Christmas is done. And I survived. And the kid had a great time. Who could ask for more?

She's Safe

If you're reading this blog, you likely know some of my history. I was severely abused as a child from the age of 4-10. I endured beatings and sexual assault and starvation and any number of things I wouldn't do to someone I hated, let alone a child I was required to love and raise.

The person who did the abuse never had to face justice for what he did to me, my sister, my step-sister, my mother and various other people. He never had to sit in jail, or face us, his victims, and let us have our say.

Because of my history I am emphatically against child abuse. I have spoken out when the occasion warranted it. I have educated other people on the warning signs of abuse. I have wrestled with my fear of repeating the cycle with my own daughter on countless sleepless nights. I had nights when she was a baby that I handed her to my mom, or my sister and walked away because she wouldn't stop crying and I was afraid of what I was capable of given what I knew about the cycle of violence.

I have erred always on the side of leniency. I do not hit my daughter. I do not use food for punishments. I walk away for ten minutes when she does things that anger me so that I know I am parenting out of responsibility and not out of anger.

I, of all people, know the scars that are left behind when parents discipline through fear and shame. I know that shame never goes away and that fear is immobilizing. I have gone to therapy, I have read books. I have turned to people I love, trust, and admire for advice.

I can not say that I've never made mistakes. I cannot say that I'm a perfect parent and that I've never yelled, that I've never said things I wish I could take back. I cannot say that in 20 years she won't be sitting on some therapists couch talking about how my being gay and being sick ruined her life. But I can say with one hundred percent honesty that I have never, would never, could never abuse or neglect my child. She is so precious and wonderful and the single most important thing in my life.

So to be accused of endangering her...to have to explain to a social worker that she is safe...to know that she was pulled out of class to speak to a social worker without the benefit of knowing that everything was going to be okay...to have to defend my home which is a loving and safe environment, not one she regularly leaves in tears or begs to be taken away from...to have to feel the absolute terror that for some reason some county worker could take this precious person away from her home with her two moms who love her and place her with strangers who could do god only knows what...I have never been so angry, so sickened, so horrified.

And for the person who made these false allegations...I feel nothing but disgust and contempt. How dare anyone use a dangerously overloaded system to wage their contemptible war on my innocent family? How could anyone take valuable resources away from some child who is actually being abused? How can you face your reflection in the mirror when your filthy lies could have ruined my child's life? This is not a game. You didn't win anything by making your false allegations. All you did was reinforce my low opinion of you and prove me right, yet again.

Why you should be jealous of my life.

I just pulled something sticky and crumbly out of my daugher's hair and I don't know what it is and my dog wouldn't eat it...eh? Eh? The stuff dreams are made of...

So....

Have you ever been sucker punched, by someone who had sucker punched you 84,000 times before, and yet been surprised that they sucker punched you? Yeah. It's just like that.

Well...I guess he's good for something...

This one here is about and for the one person who inspires my poetry the way that no one else ever could. You know who you are. I guess as long as you're around I might as well get something out of the biggest fucking mistake I ever made.



Regret


Just when I thought I was free
and I'd given up on everything
you were supposed to be
I find myself waiting for the sun to rise
on this sleepless night that isn't mine

After I thought you had done your worst
and I'd gotten through somehow
I'm wide awake and wishing
it was me you were hurting now

That sweet girl whose heart you're breaking
deserves so much better
than to follow in my footsteps waiting
for you to be the man you should be
deserves more from you than this latest cruelty

Each day it becomes more clear that
I should have let you walk away
because my biggest regret in this life
is that I actually convinced you to stay

The New Annoyance

My newest annoyance, okay not really a new one, but one that's being really worked the last couple of days is this need to label everyone as the new...whatever. It's annoying enough when people talk about some irritating new fashion trend (boys...I'm begging you...enough with skin tigh stretchy pants and studded belts) is the new pink. It's far more annoying when we say someone is the new someone else. It trivializes whatever it is you're trying to complement them on by saying their acheivment is fleeting and nothing special.

It's also an insult to the person who was the "old pink." There isn't now, nor will there ever be a new Madonna, or a new U2. And the Miley Cyrus, bless her little over exposed soul, is not the new Britney Spears. Often the person we're trying to compare them to is perhaps an inspiration, or blazed some new trail that others will follow.

But, while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it's neither new or groundbreaking. And that's what make the greats great.

Some Things

Some things must go unsaid
Unrequited love and unforgotten grief
Some things must be unremembered
Aching emptiness and numbing loss
And everyday it gets harder
To forget what once was all that mattered
Time has done nothing to dull this pain
It has healed nothing
I am still broken without you
Every day another reminder of words I never said
Of a girl I’d give anything to know again
What I see now is only half the story
Only half the person I was meant to be
You are still the focus
The center around which I have built the facade
Grief is my most relentless and constant companion
Thwarted by nothing
It gnaws away on the substance of who I was
Leaving only the rawness of exposed nerves
Each yearning towards the yesterday
I can't recapture
And the memories I can't surrender
Some things though left unsaid
Have the power to mold me
Into a shadow of my potential
And I'm still searching for the path
To relieve this relentless ache
Some things are everything

-Laura McConnell 08/09/08

Don't Let Just Anyone Knock You Up

In the newest chapter of the book I'm going to write about being smart about who you let knock you up, the midget's biological father has now made our financial situation even crappier. See, for the last three years the midget has had health insurance through her step-mother because her father is required to provide health care if it's available through his work. At the time, it was available through his employer, but it was cheaper for them to go through his wife's employer.

Fast forward three years and he's quit his reliable, good paying job with benefits to go work for minimum wage and no benefits, and due to the state's financial woes his wife has also lost her job. Normally I wouldn't care, and might even feel some petty, malicious glee, but this means my little drama queen loses her health insurance.

Now, because I'm sick and can't work, I do get Medicaid through the state, and so does she, so it's not like we'd have to wrap her in bubble wrap to keep her from breaking an arm or something. She still gets to go to the doctor and the dentist and would have access to emergency care and all of that. It wouldn't be the best care, but she'd have something.

So, where's the problem? Well...the midget, brilliant, beautiful, funny girl that she is also deals with ADHD. Not like the kind of kids whose parents just don't want to parent them, but the kind of kid that is really, really smart but she can't just can't sit still or stop talking or actually focus for more than a few minutes. We had a really hard time with the idea of putting her on medication. It was the last thing I wanted to do, especially before the pediatrician talked us through it and I did the research.

Now, everyone's heard of Ritalin and lots of people have heard about Adderall. They're first generation drugs and have tons of icky side effects, not the least of which is heart disease. So, her doctor recommended Concerta, which is the same class of drug as Ritalin, but more refined with more even results. It's also extended release which means its effects last for the whole day, while Ritalin requires two to three doses during the day.

So, Cass has been on this medication for over two years and is doing really well with it. She hasn't had any bad side effects, and it's worked wonders for her in school.

Well, this being a great drug, it's fairly new and of course there is no generic and therefore it's not covered by Medicaid. Which means either we pay the $147 for a one month prescription, or we start going through the medications that Medicaid does cover, all of which have the same side effects. And all of which are as likely to work as not. And school starts in three weeks, so we'd have to start the school year with her trying new medications to see what works. Not fun.

Now, getting back to where it's the sperm donor's fault we're facing this issue. He told me two weeks ago that her coverage ended on the first of August, but that we were going to work on something to get her covered. So, a week and a half went by with me saying, "What's the story on her insurance, what are we going to do?" And he kept saying, "We'll get her covered through a private plan. I'll look into it." Then on Sunday, he tells me that he can't find coverage because of her pre-existing condition, ADHD.

Except that the insurance company's website (her current insurance) makes it clear that so long as the "pre-existing condition" has been covered by a credible insurer. So, since I wanted to go through that carrier, anyway, I pointed this out. And of course at that point he decides to finally tell the truth, which is that he never meant to insure her at all, that we could put her on Ritalin or whatever works and that it's not his problem or responsibility.

So, I talked to the insurance company about the situation to find out what our options were in terms of continuing her coverage and of course I find out that if her insurance lapses for even a few days she will become uninsurable because of her pre-existing condition. So, we really can't have her go without insurance, because what happens when I get better and go back to work and have to get her insurance, but I can't because of this pre-existing condition. She's only eight, we're talking years where she can't get sick or injured, she can't have her medications, (because she also needs prescription allergy meds).

I explained all of this to her father, and he just doesn't care. It's not his problem. I finally lost my temper and told him that Jamie and I would take care of it just like we do everything else in her life, and that he could go on playing at being a part time weekend father and stopped talking to him about it.

We went ahead and filed the paperwork and applied for insurance coverage for her. It's going to end up costing us more than we can really afford to spend, but I just can't see not having her medication, or face a future where she may be not covered by any kind of health care. In all likelihood we'll have to stretch our dollars farther than is possible. Jamie is talking about selling her drums to finance the first six months of her insurance.

This idiot we call her father would rather keep his drums, guitars, guns and play time and money rather than care for his daughter. I could happily say "Screw You" and we want nothing to do with you, but that would be highly unfair to her because seh loves her dad.

So, we suck it up, buy her insurance and just make the best of it. I hope her father come sot her senses, but I'm not holding my breath.

Great Books?

Lifted this off of my dear friend The Archaeogoddess' blog. She's read a few more of them than I have, and I have to say the list is oddly lacking in several great books and there are a few I question being given the title of great books.



Apparently The Big Read thinks that the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books on their list.


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Loved the book, loved the play!
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling Last I checked, this was seven books, not one.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible Been meaning to get to this for a long while, but haven't yet determined which version I want to read, I know I don't want to read the King James version, but that rules out only one version of many.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Must say I second the Archaogooddess in my hatred of all things dickensian
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare I've read Hamlet, Macbeth, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew and many of the sonnets...so I'm not there yet, but I will be.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy I have tried and tried to read this and just can't do it.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen Here the Archaeogoddess and I differ greatly. I love Jane Austen while she...erm...doesn't.
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis This not being included with the Narnia series perplexed me as well as the Archaeogoddess
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell I have no idea how I missed this book. Seems like everyone I know (Archaeogoddess aside) read this book, how she and I missed it is beyond me
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown I read it, but I'm not clear on why this is considered a great book.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding Loved, loved, loved this book.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy I was ready to slit my wrists to get out of finishing this book. I hated this book with a vengeance but was forced to read it by the most frightening sophomore English teacher ever. There was no getting around her assignment of books for book reports.
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker I'm not sure why this ia a great book, why everyone loves it so much. It was boring, verbose and pompous.
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett I have no idea how I missed this book
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens The only Dickens novel that didn't make my brains leak out of my ears.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker The Color Purple is a good book, but if you're only going to read one Alice Walker book then I recommend Posessing the Secret of Joy...it is indescribable.
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad Way better than Apocalypse Now
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute Should have read this, but chose not to, as did another of member of the same class who then originated the term freak shampooing accident
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare Wouldn't this be part of the complete works?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Hmm...so 38, which is two more than I told the Archaeogoddess, of course counting has never been my strong suit.

Still, I object to some of these books and question the lack of others. For instance, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, or Wizard of Oz, Role of Thunder Hear My Cry

I've spent my entire life with my nose stuck in a book, so it's hard to believe that I've only read about a third of these books.

I'm already trying to brainwash the midget into reading. She reads well, but doesn't have the passion for books that I have. A lot of that, I know, has to do with the quality of her childhood versus the quality of mine. I needed books to escape into, and she doesn't.

So...if you've only read six of these books like the "average" adult, then get out there and start reading. Because while this is not the list of books I find essential, it's a good start.

A Change of Tune

I have always lived too much in my own head. My mom is fond of saying that I overthink things to death. Nobody faint, now...but I'm going to agree with her (actually both of them as both of my moms have made that observation more times than I care to count).

Never before have I had so little to distract myself from picking myself to bits. The last six months have been more of the same as the last few years, but amplified. I am more alone, more often than ever before in my life. A lot of that has to do with my illness, and a lot of that has to do with the midget getting to a point in her life where not only is my entire attention to her not only not entirely necessary, it's also entirely unwanted by her. I swear, the child can sigh and roll her eyes in a way that irritates me more quickly than overt action or speech by anyone else on the planet. (And here I pause and offer an apology to both of my moms because I know damm well from whom she gets her brand of hardheaded sarcasm.)

So, I have this here inactive blog and many empty hours on my hands. It stands to reason that assembling these thoughts in some sort of order would give me something to do, if nothing else. Besides, it might keep me from strangling this child who becomes more like me with every day that passes.

In fact, this is really all that separates our personalities. Even at her age I was given to an overabundance of introspection. Which clashes oddly with that need I have to throw myself under the bus wheels without thinking things out. I tend to overthink everything but that which is in my own best interest. It's a personality trait that makes me difficult in my own charming manner.

So, my goal for myself is to write daily about whatever it is that I'm mulling over that day, whether it's stuff in my own head or stuff about the outside world. I can't say that it will make for the most interesting or comfortable read, so I'm not sure that I'm going to invite tons of people to come read what I've written. So, if you're here reading this it's likely because what I wrote in this blog prior to now was mildly entertaining, or because you know me well enough to know that I'm given to fits of action in amidst all my inaction. Either way, you are certainly welcome to read and comment or not as you see fit. It's not like I've got all that many secrets. Most of what I'm ashamed of has had witnesses aplenty, so hiding now serves me no purpose.

Which brings me to my favorite quote..."If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning."

Juno: My New Favorite Movie and CD

Okay...saw this last night, yeah I know it's been out for awhile. Jamie and I actually saw a movie in the theater without a child in attendance. Loved, loved, loved it. She (Juno) reminded me of a more sarcastic version of the youngest Callison-Burch and the boyfriend reminded me of Ryan Quinn, it was kind of odd.

But, seriously, if you haven't seen this one, go now I say. It's fantastic, and the soundtrack is awesome. It had me and Jamie making a late night trip to Folsom to hit Borders, because, of course, Wal-Mart the only place to buy music around here didn't have it. And do you know what's right next Borders? Petsmart. And do you know what they carry at Petsmart? Yup...rats.

So, we go into Petsmart five minutes before they closed to "look" at the ratties. And they had the cutest dumbos...We might have been able to resist them, but then the Petsmart girl shows us this little dumbo guy no one wanted because he had pink eyes. Which is kind of strange because lots of rats have pink eyes and I never really thought bout it. They only time it creeps me out is when they're hairless and have pink eyes, and even those guys are kind of cute.

So, two came home with us and became Badger and Bleaker respectively. They are set up in the spare cage...partly due to lack of room in the boys cage, but mostly because Popkin, our agouti rex(think big sewer rat with a perm), is a complete punkass and tried to kill poor little Bleaker on sight.

But I digress. I was talking about Juno. The soundtrack is just as fantastic as the movie. Very fun and folky-guitary. My new favorite song is Tire Swing by Kimya Dawson.

Oh and I voted today, and Jamie and I cleaned out the laundry room which was a chore and half. I'm feeling fairly good, obviously, which is a nice change.

Only Me

In the latest chapter of the only Laura saga, I had a tick bite on Friday (gosh, I just love living in the woods) which by Saturday had turned into a raging infection in my leg. That, combined with the fear of Lyme disease prompted a late night emergency room trip as soon as Jamie got home from work.

Luckily, the ER was not too busy and the oncall doctor was one of my favorites. He gave me a shot of penicillin and a prescription for zithromax, plus pain pills. Today, which was supposed to be spent cleaning cages and doing laundry was spent in bed and on the couch due to the extreme pain that any infection causes me. Fun, fun, fun.

Technical Difficulties

Well, the new year has been full of technical difficulties...actually the difficulties began before the new year, but let's not get nit picky. See, the day before New Year's Eve, I spilled milk from my cereal onto the as yet not fully paid for laptop. And much to my horror, lost the ability to boot up the four month old computer. So, I get on my desk top to discover that I should have immediately turned off and taken the battery out of my laptop to prevent frying the motherboard, and that the inability of said laptop to boot has probably been caused by my dumb mistake. Shit...okay, don't freak out, I tell myself, and myself does not listen of course.

I called around to find out if anyone was open, and of course they weren't it being a Sunday and they weren't going to be open the Monday and Tuesday due to the holiday. And as I've gotten totally spoiled by not having to sit at the desktop to be on the computer, this completely bummed me out, not to mention the fact that it was likely that I was going to have to replace the as yet not fully paid for laptop, which is financially not an option at the moment.

So, eventually, on Wednesday I get the damn thing in to the repair place, and they call me on Thursday to tell me that when they went to start it up to figure out what was wrong it was miraculously cured. Apparently it just needed to dry out, thankfully, because if I had completely fried it, I'd still be crying and Jamie might still be kicking my ass for being so careless.

So, I had the laptop back and all was good until the power went out Friday, so of course that means no internet at all. Also, because I live in the boonies and we have a well with an electric pump, no running water. For twenty-four whole hours, actually it was more like thirty-two hours, but who's counting? In the midst of this, Jamie and I were moving the desktop into our bedroom so that we could move the rattie boys cage away from the fireplace because of the need to stop using the heater due to the five hundred dollar gas bill. Also, the heater doesn't work without electricity and it was getting damn cold in the house, much to the dismay of the snake who spent much of Friday in my and Jamie's shirt. And guess what I learned about dsl? Apparently you can't just plug it into any old jack in the house, so I have to come out and have Volcano Telephone (who I pay a small fortune to for completely crappy dsl service) do their magic to the tune of 60 dollars an hour. So, I'm writing this on my laptop which I can't move from the front corner of my living room because that's the only place I can get reception from my mom's wireless.

And then there was the spree of vacuum deaths. My little dog, Charlie likes to chew things up. We've lost a PS2 controller, a couple pairs of shoes, many, many shoe laces and underwear and even a few pajama bottoms. But then he escalated to killing appliances. He chewed the plug off of my vacuum, and then threw up on our bedroom floor which is when I discovered that he also chewed the plug off of the spot cleaner I had stored under my bed. However, the lovely chew toys he got for Christmas are in pristine condition. He's becoming quite the expensive little dog, between the groomer and the chewing up of items that don't belong to him.

On a side note, I discovered that the chinchilla I've been trying to talk Jamie into for awhile is simply not an option as I'm painfully allergic to the volcanic dust that they must bathe in regularly. I held one at Petco, where we went to stock up on water bottles because the foster girls (who have finally found a new home) decided to chew through three of them. My intention was to show Jamie how awesome they were, and from that five minute contact, I spent the entire ride home with my eyes swelling and leaking. I had never experienced anything quite that uncomfortable in my entire life. So the chinchilla's out, but that just means I'm going to have push that much harder for the tarantula I've been wanting...

I Need Zoo Keepers

As you may know, I'm a bit....highstrung, shall we say. I'm also a magnet for madness and mayhem. Cassidy comes by her drama queen title naturally. So, while tonight's happenings are not really a surprise, it's just all a bit much given that it's Christmas time and my house is in it's usual state of messiness and chaos and I have eighteen thousand things to do tomorrow.

So, at twelve thirty, I decide that it's time to feed the rats and go to bed. So, I feed my boys and the foster boys and the bitey boys, then I head into Cass's room to feed my girls and the foster girls. The first thing I notice when I go in Cass's room is that Cera (the three-legged wonder dog) is, as usual, sitting at attention trying to get her tongue bitten for the eighteen thousandth time. Then I notice that the board that sits atop the foster girls cage preventing them from opening the cage and escaping is on the floor and one of the fosters is on top of, rather than inside of, the cage. I do a quick headcount and come up with seven foster girls, but no, that's not right....there's eight foster girls. Math isn't my strong suit, but ten times later with the same result and it's clear that only seven girls are left in the cage. So, I do the frantic search around the cage, around Cass's room and find nothing.

I head back out to the living room to decide what to do and what do I see but Rainbow, the fat white kitten inside the snake's enclosure. Wait...yup that's what I said, inside the snake's enclosure. The dumb cat had broken through the screen top and was sitting on the snake's hidey log. At this point, I about lost my shit, because what the hell am I going to put the snake in at twelve at night that will keep him safe from the cats and dogs and keep him from escaping and wandering into the nearest rat cage and getting eaten. I awaken Jamie and share the dilemma with her, and she remembers we have another terrarium on the porch.

Now, it's about thirty degrees outside, and it rained all last week, so when I go out to the porch to drain the six inches of rain water from the terrarium, what do I discover but that the lid is frozen in place. And I'm proud to say that I neither screamed nor cried when I made this thrilling discovery, but instead send Jamie out to do the dirty work. She brings it back in and I finally get it cleaned out and set up to house the snake.

So, now it's one thirty in the morning and I'm wide awake trying to figure out what to do about the missing rat. Assuming it hasn't already been eaten by Cera, it isn't going to last long what with the two dogs and four cats that live in this house. And I have to be up at my aunt's house at eight in the morning to wrap my neices' Christmas presents since we're doing presents tomorrow, but I have to take my cousin, her baby's daddy and my soon to be former sister in law down my friend Ron's tattoo studio by ten so they can all get tattoos and we can get back in time for dinner and presents. Oh, and the festivities are not only going to be attended by my soon to be former sister in law, but also my brother's new girlfriend, a Jewish girl, who I'm sure is perfectly nice though I've yet to meet her, but since my brother and his wife are still, after all, technically married and both in attendance it's bound to be a bit awkward...

And somehow, in amidst all this, I've got to find out from my sister and my other sister in law whether they think we should get a small gift of some kind for the new girlfriend. What is the gift etiquette, exactly, for your brother's Jewish girlfriend while his wife is also in attendance?

I'm hoping like hell to have the energy to attend the annual holiday party thrown by my dear friend Darcee, because while none of my friends is a poster child for sanity, they definitely have the edge this year over all the family insanity.

I think the little rat is on her own...





****Edited at 5:30 am to add that luckily for the little rat, though unluckily for me, the insomnia that has plagued me this past week has continued and I located and caught the little rodent and returned her to her cage with her sisters.

This Is a Pain In The...Well, Everywhere

Update on the state of my health. So, I had an appointment with a rheumatologist at Stanford. I met with the rheumatologist who said he didn't think I had Lupus, and that I had Fibromyalgia. This was good news as Fibro, while painful and incurable, doesn't destroy internal organs. However, I got a phone call a few days ago saying that my test results indicated lots of inflammation, an indicator of Lupus.

So, they've decided that they're going to treat the Fibromyalgia, and keep testing me for Lupus. So I'm in this weird half limbo place that I really hate, because I'm no good with suspense. I need to know things. But no, I get to have blood drawn every three months and visit the rheumatologist every six months. This is in addition to regular appointments with my regular doctor, my endocronologist, my shrink and my therapist. These are my new friends that I see way more often than I see my real friends.

The last few days have been hell. I've got this crappy cold that will not go away and it's just sapping all of my energy. I'm in pain, I'm exhausted. I cleaned two rat cages today and it took all of the energy I had not to cry and stop in the middle.

All I can say today is hallelujah for pain pills.

Wait...Is This How It's Supposed To Feel?

Thirty feels a bit like a rip-off, I have to say. Certainly not what I imagined 30 would feel like when I was a kid. Thirty was sort of the "it" age for being an adult. And whatever I am, I don't feel like an adult.

There are times when I alone with my little monkey and I think to myself...geez, does anyone know that I'm responsible for a whole other person? It's insane to make decisions about someone else's life when I'm such a mess.

I literally don't feel any different inside now than I did when I was 18. Maybe a little sadder, but that's not really true, because eighteen year old me was an even bigger mess than thirty year old me. At least now I can look up from the middle of a wallow in self pity and say, "Come now, Laura, aren't we feeling a bit more sorry for ourselves than is strictly necessary?"

And in case you're wondering, yes I do talk to myself in pretty much exactly that way. As though there are a group of me and we're all kind of laughing at the others. And if that revelation's not enough to get me put in a nut house...

But, seriously. At what point am I going to feel like a grown up? You know I've paid rent and had a car payment and all of that for years. I've changed diapers and sat up in the middle of the night with a sick child puking all over me and every damn dry cloth in the house. I've even made meatloaf...on purpose. I've done all this stuff that signifies grown up, and I still feel like I'm teetering around in my mom's heels and at any minute someone's going to figure out I'm just a kid playing dress up.

I mean, okay, the average life expectancy is 76. Thirty is pretty damn close to halfway there, and I still don't feel grown up. Or is it a third...crap, why wasn't I ever any good at math?

My point is, when do you finally say, yeah, okay I'm a grown up and I've got this whole life thing figured out. How old am I going to be before I finally get that feeling?

War on Words

As a writer, I spend alot of time thinking about words. Words as symbols, since that's the basis of all language. Words have power, and depending on how they are used the power invoked by a single word can shake you to your core.

War is one of the words I've been thinking about alot lately. It should evoke fear, anger, outrage and despair. But it doesn't. We toss the word around so freely, throw war around the way we throw just any other word around.

It started in the eighties, with the Reagan administration's War on drugs. It was meant to signify that finally the government was going to get serious about drugs and drug related crimes. That we were going to have a "take no prisoners" sort of mentality. Drugs were supposed to be as heinous as Nazis or something, I suppose. So, I like everyone else in my generation, I grew up thinking drugs were a serious problem. Which they are, especially when you think of the connection between drugs, poverty and crime. But, drugs all alone are hardly worthy of the term war.

And these days every where you turn, we're at war. Still waging a war on drugs, not to mention one on terror and one on crime and one on illiteracy. War no longer refers to the utter desolation of the human condition that causes us to kill and destroy each other. Any situation that calls for problem solving, the most basic of human abilities, we call a war, which should only ever refer to the most appalling of human conditions.

In The Fifth Element, a bad science fiction film starring a model and an action star, there is this scene where the perfect creature is learning about us, about human beings, and she comes across the word "war" and it shocks and disgusts her. To the point that she almost fails in her task to save the human race. And that's what that word should do. We should hear war and stop breathing. We should always remember that war means that people die. That people do the worst possible things to one another under the guise of fighting for their beliefs, or for the freedom of other people, or for their own freedoms.

As human beings, we should always remember what we are capable of, both good and bad, and we should never allow someone to diminish the power of our most basic symbols. Stop using this word to mean anything other than what it means: bloodshed, horror and desolation.

Rats are cool...

So, check out this great video on you tube that shows just how fantastic rats can be. My rats have all mastered the fine art of looking pitiful for yogies. Who cares if other rats can climb ropes and do hurdles? Mine are cute!!!




And this video shows I'm not the only rat freak out there!!!!

Your Modern History Lesson

Presenting the latter half of the 20th century in less than five minutes. Courtesy of Billy Joel.

Grrr....

I haven't talked much about my health, lately. Mostly, because there aren't any new developments and I don't have any new information, so what's the point in going over the same old stuff.

However, today I lost an opportunity to have lunch with Craig, of Craigorian Chant, due to my crappy health. I've had a rough weekend, tired and achy and tight, heavy chest. I suspect there is some sort of infection going on, which is usually what causes my body to do this. It's not bad enough to rush off to the ER, but I will be calling my GP tomorrow to have some blood work done.

I've gotten used to certain things, like that working is sort of just not going to happen for me right now. I know that when I do too much or get too little sleep I'm going to pay for it. What I hate, hate, hate is when out of nowhere I get waylaid and spend two or three days on the fucking couch rather than hanging out with friends.

I don't cry too much over the things I've lost, because I presume that I will one day work and hike again. I presume that camping and swimming and spending an hour out in the park will one day be possible without paying for it for a week.

However, losing something so simple and so essential as spending time with people I care about really fucking pisses me off. I don't see friends that often, being that my friends have scattered to the four corners of the world, so even though I thoughtfully stayed in the town where all of their parent's live so that I would see them when they were home for visits, I still don't see them anywhere near as much as I'd like. And when I have the opportunity to spend time with one of them, and can't because of this thing, this crappy illness, I get really fucking pissed.

And this isn't the first time it's happened. I've missed visits with lots of other friends. Grrr....but how do you fight something that you can't see or predict? Gah!! I just don't know.

It Hurts to Love Rats This Much

Literally. Physical pain here, people. I got a new tattoo...first in about three years or so. It's really cute...a couple of rats. On my chest. Yeah, I'm crazy, but that's a whole other post.

Also, I'm nursing a very sore finger right now, as I got a rather vicious bite from my project rat who is having some "issues" adjusting to life as a pet. He and his brother were scheduled to be put to sleep due to their aggression issues. Thumper, the more aggressive of the two, has a broken tail due to human mishandling. Flower, his timid brother has yet to show any signs of aggression. And really Thumper shows more fear than aggression. They'll take yogies from my hand, but then they run back and hide. I got bitten tonight for pushing socialization just a bit too far.

He's bitten me three other times, all of which were my fault. At the shelter I reached into his igloo to grab a cornered rat, never a good idea. And the two other times I forgot to wash my hands after handling my other boys, and since they are so fearful, he reacted out of fear. And he's fast, and I'm not.

I also noticed tonight that he has a slight list to the right, which I'm hoping I didn't really see, because that added to aggression usually indicates a pituitary tumor, and there's not a whole lot you can do for a pituitary tumor in a rat. Lots of other tumors can be removed, but a pituitary tumor is basically a death sentence. Which would be heartbreaking because he's had such a crappy life. He's only a year old, and he's spent the last 6 months being mishandled by shelter workers who know nothing about rats.

You know, I know a lot of people will say, eh, it's just a rat. But this is an animal that was born because of human intervention, and has spent it's whole life at the mercy of human whims. I don't cry when I watch animal shows and the weak baby elephant dies or something like that. That's nature, and nature does what it does for a reason. But, when humans get involved in animal breeding and keeping we are basically being god. You have the power of life and death over your pet, and to not choose life, and a good one at that is just sadistic.

And doing what I do, as far as dealing with rat rescues (and hopefully, someday, other animals) I hear the lamest excuses for not taking care of animals. My least favorite is "Oh, I'm just too busy, now." What the fuck is that all about? You know, I wasn't doing anything exciting before, so I got this here animal to liven up my life, but now things are looking up, so kick rocks little rattie (or kitty, or puppy.) Aargh. Animals aren't just play things. You would never have a child and then say, you know this whole parenting thing puts a crimp in my fabulous life style, so I'm taking her down to the orphanage. She's pretty cute, so I'm sure she'll get adopted. Okay, actually some people do that too...but they're not people I'm inviting over to Sunday dinner, ya know what I mean?

So, bottom line...if you get an animal, you are responsible for that animal for the rest of your life. You don't get an out just because you got a boyfriend, or had a kid, or fuck, I don't know, any of the eight million other excuses people make to rationalize their shitty behavior. If you aren't willing to guarantee that come hell or high water you and Fido are in it together, then get your fuzzy animal fix by volunteering at a local rescue or shelter, and let Fido go to someone who is willing to make that commitment.

Oh...and spay and neuter your damn pets.

Kids Today...

I feel sorry for the generation that is growing up today. The things they won't know, and the fact that as a society we're overprotecting our children. We want to make everything fair and safe and make all the kids feel good about themselves all the time. It sounds great, in theory, that no kid is going to feel bad, ever.

But the thing about kids is they don't stay kids. They become adults, and if adults know anything, we know that life simply isn't fair. Sometimes the idiot who has none of your brains and works half as hard as you do gets the promotion. Sometimes the one you love more than any other doesn't love you. And no matter what your mom may have told you, not everyone worth knowing is going to be interested in taking the time to know you. So, what happens to these kids who've been taught that everything should be fair and that they should always feel good about themselves?

As a parent, I try really hard to keep two things in mind; first of all, my darling little drama queen only has one childhood, and I want her to have a good one, and second (and most important) the whole idea is not to raise a child, but to raise an adult. You know, they're kids for such a short time, so you don't want your seven year old worrying about her weight or something foolish like that, but you also need to prepare them for the world which isn't always a good and wonderful place. They need to be protected, but at the same time, aware that bad things can and do happen, and that, in fact, bad things will undoubtedly happen to them.

For some reason, there's this idea that it's important to protect kids from all the ugly in the world. But, if kids don't know about the ugly, we aren't going to be raising adults who want to change it and do better. Even the history we teach our young children is sanitized. It's no wonder that children today don't understand the importance of Martin Luther King Day...to them it's just a reason to stay home from school, play on their playstations and listen to their Ipods.

I worry especially about the message we are sending our little girls. If you've walked down the girl's aisle of a toy store recently, you'll get what I mean. All the toys out there are so materialistic...Barbie doesn't even have careers anymore...it's all about fashion. The girls in Mean Girls aren't pathetic and stupid, they're role models because they're pretty and have nice clothes. And I think about how far women have come in the last few decades and I wonder if this isn't like thirty big steps backwards, to be raising girls who know alot about Paris Hilton and the latest trends, but knows nothing about things that matter like, poverty and war and Christ, a million fucking other issues that are so much more important than whether or not you have the right shoes.

My generation has been defined as apathetic to social issues, particularly following my parent's generation which fought so hard for social justice. And what will the next generation be? Self centered, self indulgent twits who are shell shocked because they grew up to discover that the world, in fact, does not revolve around them.

So...if you have kids or know kids...don't let them win every game they play. And don't give them everything they want, even if it means that someone won't like them. And if someone doesn't like them, don't call a big conference with the principal and the other kid's parents (unless, of course, some bullying or violence is occuring), teach your kid to accept it and move on with their lives. Remember, these kids are going to be running the world when we're adult diapers...we want them to give a shit about something besides themselves.

I Can't Sing

I used to dream about being a singer. Until I was 12 or so and discovered the record button on my stereo. Dream shattered. Anyone who's been stuck in a car with me for any length of time will tell you why. I couldn't carry a tune if you held a gun to my head. I'm like one of the funny rejects you see on American Idol, not just bad, but really, really bad.

That being said, I have a fairly good ear, and a deep abiding love for music and spoken word poetry. For the rest of my days I will sit in audiences and wish I could put my words into pleasing sounds. Really, I can't even recite poetry. Not good when you write poetry. I've got one of those voices that sort of grates and sounds always like I'm alot younger than I am and I have some kind of cold, and my mama should have taught me to blow my nose or something. It's truly wretched.

Fortunately for me, I've had the great fortune to have relationships with a couple of musicians, so even though I can't create music myself, (because in addition to having no voice, I've got no rhythm either, so playing an instrument's out as well) I get to be around it alot. Not that I'm always all that appreciative of the music in my life. In fact, I spend alot of time talking about the pitfalls of being a musician's girlfriend. Aside from the continuous Yoko jokes, there's the constant sense of being excluded from something. It's sort of like when you sit at a table with people much, much smarter than you. (Another common experience in my life.) While it's fascinating and certainly an enriching experience, when you are as dramatic as I am, and have an innate need to be the center of attention, it tends to make you feel about as useful as tits on a bull.

But, I can write. I can put words together in a way that sometimes make a person go...wow...or go, you know, I've never really heard someone say it like that before. I can, from time to time, put the jumble of thoughts in my mind into a form that other people find entertaining. So, you know, if 30 years on the planets teaches you nothing at all, it teaches you to find ways to use what you have to your advantage.

What's all this leading up to...you might be asking yourself. Or if you're not, you don't know me all that well and aren't all that familiar with the long explanations I have for anything I do. Rationalizations really, that usually are way longer than whatever it was I was going to tell you. So, here's the thing. I've been making myself write, either taking little zygotes of ideas and trying to expand them, or going back over old journals and poems and rewriting and rewording, and I found this little, well not so little, poem/song thingy I wrote some years back that I really liked and decided to share with you all.

See, even when you know you can't do something...sometimes dreams don't go away....

Anyway, this here is called Anything But Fine, hope you enjoy it.


Anything But Fine

honey you know i was never much to look at
but lately i've been looking really bad
cause i've been staying up all night
thinking about that last fight we had
there's so much i should have said
so much that went unspoken
and i wish i could tell you now
cause i'm tired of being broken

and i know i never held your heart in my hands
though you know you always had mine
but i really think that if you had to leave
you could have left it behind
after everything we've been through
i can't believe you'd say goodbye
and i don't think i can live this way
this is anything but fine

it's a hard road to walk
when you're walking it alone
and everyday i become more weary
weary to the bone
there's so much i never told you
so many things i never said
now it's all driving me crazy
feeling trapped inside my head
and the path from you to me
is getting longer every day
and i have fallen oh so many times
along the way
don't think i'll ever find my way back
or that you'll find your way here
and all i seem to know anymore
are emptiness and fear

i've been so busy trying to remember
the girl i was before you came
driving down another lonely highway
realizing i'll never be the same
and every time i see you
and every time you call
i get closer to the truth
that we never really knew each other at all
and the road keeps stretching onward
and time keeps ticking by
and i still don't understand
why you ever let me say goodbye

yeah, i know i never held your heart in my hands
though we both know you always had mine
but baby when i left
i left my heart behind
and after everything you've been to me
i don't want to say goodbye
i won't do this anymore
cause this is anything but fine

Still Scarlett

When I was about 12, I discovered what remains to this day my all time favorite love story, Gone With the Wind. And because I was 12, and no less dramatic than I am today, I desperately identified with Scarlett. The Scarlett who was not beautiful, but made people (especially men) overlook that. The Scarlett who was clever enough to manipulate people and situations to suit her. Who trusted only two women in her entire life, and who clawed and fought to survive.

And nevermind that she never took the time to figure out who she was, what she really wanted, what was best for her, or what would make her happy. I didn't understand the implications of her "I won't think about it now, I'll think about it later when I can stand it..." mentality. Those of you who know me well, know that's always been my M.O. Only, I think I've finally figured out what Scarlett never did...that later never comes. That some doors, once closed will never again open, and some opportunities don't come back around. And that actually, that can be okay. Because no mistake comes without at least the benefit of a lesson learned, or at least a fantastic story to tell at the bar when you meet up with old friends.

It's funny how sometimes you look back with the benefit that comes with hindsight and say, ah, I see now how I thought I was running towards something when I was really running as fast as I could in the other direction.

And of course, I'm still Scarlett, when I'd be smarter to be Melanie. I'm still more fiddledeedee than I'd care to let on, but with a bit of self awareness that would have been fabulous ten years ago. So, I guess the question is, did Scarlett figure it out in time, or is the habit of thinking about it "later" so ingrained that it's too late? Of course, it's not Scarlett I'm all that worried about...

Snake Poo...

We recently acquired a baby ball python. It's a beautiful thing, and ultra fun to watch. I feel slightly guilty feeding him, since he eats mice, the smaller cousin of our lovely ratties, but hey, snakes gotta eat, too...right? The process is slightly gruesome since, for a myriad of reasons, I am feeding frozen mice. You have to set the mouse on the counter for about an hour for it to defrost, then put it in a cup of hot water to bring the body temperature up to something that a snake will find appealing. I try to be furtive and hide my actions from the ratties so as not to disturb them...though since they're predators and just as likely to eat a mouse as the snake is, maybe they would just wonder where theirs was.

Now, when you have as many animals as I do, you sort of become immune to the ickiness of pet excrement. between vacuuming up rat droppings and cleaning litter boxes, feces really has little ick factor at this point. Except, that is, for snake feces. For those unfamiliar with snake poo, it may be the most disgusting thing I've ever seen/smelled in my life. This I would imagine has something to do with their extended digestion process...but geez...

Luckily for both me and the snake (whom we've named Sal-as in Salazar) this is an occurrence that happens only every three weeks or so. Because if this was a daily thing...he/she/it (don't know the sex yet, and we may never since sexing a snake involves either a blood test or something called "probing" which given snake anatomy sounds rather icky) might find itself looking for another home.

The addition of the snake is just yet another step in my quest to become a hermitess living in the woods since about half the people I know hate/fear the rats and the other half are deathly afraid of snakes. It kinda makes me laugh, though, because the python's a whopping 15 inches long at this point, and it's head is roughly the size of a quarter, but it still freaks people out.

I've got my eyes on a beautiful pink-toed tarantula (which is a strictly look and don't touch pet). Cassidy's father says if I get the tarantula he refuses to set foot in the house...hmmm...kind of a bonus I guess.

Ugh...Bush...

I consider myself a pretty optimistic chick. Despite occasionally indulging in pity parties...I tend to think that there's nothing so bad that it won't look better tomorrow...or you know, after a gin and tonic or two, but even my relentless optimism is fading in the light of this administrations repeated mistakes, missteps and flat out law breaking.

I've been telling myself, well...he's only got x number of years left, and then someone can come along and mop up his mess and we can move on with things. But now, I'm wondering if there is anyone capable of cleaning up after this man. And even supposing that one or two of his messes and mistakes are fixable, 4 years or 8 years or hell even 20 years isn't going to be enough time to fix stuff.

Take Iraq, for instance. We all want the soldiers home. But that means we have to evacuate not only our soldiers, but every American in Iraq and Afghanistan because without the military protection it's going to be open season. And ethically, can we leave behind any Iraqi or Afghan who gave us aid in the last years knowing that doing so is basically signing their death warrants. So, what's the other option? Our army stays in place and we keep bleeding resources into a country that doesn't want us there. Now, I'm no genius, but I'm not exactly stupid either, and I can't find a single answer that makes sense and no one else has proposed one either. Action or inaction, they're both bad choices, how do we decide which choice is the worst.

But, perhaps the worst thing the Bush administration has done is made the American people apathetic to the crimes, lies and other crap they've pulled. In previous administrations, people who broke laws or made mistakes that caused lives were shamed and screamed out of power, in this one, we accept it as a matter of course. There is no longer any power of public opinion. Bush and his pals are going to do what they want, how they want and they don't give a good god damn what anyone thinks. This is dangerous territory, folks. Public outcry is supposed to mean something in a democracy, and it just doesn't any more. What kind of message are we sending to the folks in Washington when we don't have the power as the people to stop our leaders from breaking our own laws? Furthermore, what message are we sending to the rest of the world? You know, all those other countries with whom we've been sharing our messages of "freedom" and "democracy" and "human rights?"

America's become a joke. The worst kind of joke, because the bullshit just goes on and on and there's no punchline in sight.

Too long...

It's been too long, I know. And perhaps no one's even reading any more, but whatever it is that occasionally grips me to regurgitate words for the world to see has suddenly seized me again. We'll see how long it lasts....

Still

still, i am, fixated
full of breathless longing
and anticipation
holding my heart tight
between my teeth
it's been too long now
and wanting becomes my only focus
turned inward
on shades only i can see
my hand eternally held out to you