Introspectre

falling apart to keep it together

2012-02-10T14:16:00.001-05:00

My face would make a great salt lick for a deer. As would my neck. The sleeves of my sweater.Yesterday I spent most of the day in the company of a gal I've been meaning to hang with for nearly two years. We both laughed about it, the timing, and all. We are wounded in similar ways. She is quite different than I in that she has served in the military, overseas, and has some serious war trauma simmering beneath the surface. While we sat talking, her faced started to twist up and I realized she was fighting back tears. I left her to her dignity the first few times, and finally patted the bed next to me and said, "Come here. It's ok." And then I just held her while she cried, comforted her while she worried that I would think she was a nutcase, and laughed darkly with her while she ruminated on what a fine first impression she was making. I said, "You're doing fine. You're in good company, kid." She was. As we traded stories throughout the day she marveled at how well I seemed to handle things, to take them in stride. As best as I could, I clarified that she was simply witnessng the aftermath, not the moments themselves. I am hardly so well put together as that.Today, for example. Most of today has been filled with explosive bursts of weeping, the kind I won't allow myself the luxury of having with my son home, so now I have to pull my shit together. Time to grab some water and make like I'm not teetering on the delectable edge of a nervous breakdown. *sigh*I miss those days of chain smoking and silence and painting for days on end and refusing to speak to other humans even if they thought I was insane, simply because I fucking felt like it. Today I spent an hour curled up in a chair outside in the sun, weeping. Perhaps my neighbors saw me, perhaps not. Meh. It was needed. At least I have worked out some of the strength behind my grief. That's for another day, though.

grief overfloweth

2012-02-07T11:08:00.002-05:00

Did you know that you can strain the muscles in your chin by trying not to cry, and that when you do that it makes your lower lip twitch? This is one of the many things I learned over the weekend. The speech that I was worried about finding the words for, that I was to stand up and give at my grandmother's funeral turned out to a moot point. All I was able to do was refrain from bawling, and so I just sat there in the front row next to my brother and shook, and shook, and shook. When he got up to read the cheesy poem his wife had printed out, I stared up at him in little sister admiration, even though he admitted aloud that his hands were shaking, he walked up and he stood there and he read something aloud without falling to the floor in pieces, which is about all I thought I could have accomplished.Being in public with a twitching lip and chin is awkward. It repeatedly reminds me why it's twitching and I am quiet and sad.

"When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move..."

2012-02-01T11:53:00.000-05:00

Last Friday my mom called to say my grandma appeared to be dying. She was in the last stages of Alzheimer's. Saturday afternoon my mom called back to tell me she passed.

She was the only member of my family that I was remotely close to, growing up. My grandparents often watched my brother and I while my mother was working multiple jobs to support us after divorcing my drunken father. As it was, my grandmother tends to figure in a majority of my childhood memories.

The woman was a firecracker. Every year she'd fly out to Reno and go on a week or two drinking and gambling binge with her girlfriends from childhood, even into her nineties. In her late eighties she once lamented when she returned that it was getting harder, "I just can't GO the way I used to," she said with the wistful grin of a hellion. She always French inhaled her cigarettes, and blew them out the bitty crack in the kitchen window, over the sink- as if that would make it all go outside. Ah, well. I appreciated the effort, anyway. She called me by the wrong name all the time, but I thought it was funny- she did it with everyone. She bowled and golfed like a champ, and could cuss people out like I've never seen the like of.

While pondering the void in my heart last Saturday, one of our two gerbils died. He died, no joke, between my boobs. It's ok, you can laugh. It was morbidly funny. I'd been nursing him back to health (just like his brother, who had displayed the same near death symptoms and recovered magnificently)by giving him water by a dropper (they die of dehydration very easily) and he was wet from where it had dribbled out of his mouth. I dried him off as best I could and put him into my tank top to stay warm while he finished drying. He cuddled in and scooted around now and then but seemed very content. Because he was so warm in there, I didn't notice when he died... but pulling a dead gerbil out of my shirt was my emotional breaking point, and I balls to the walls lost it.

Crying that much is a bitch. It fucks me up in so many ways. My neck still is a mess.

It's a huge distraction from what I was supposed to be doing this week: filing for a divorce. The lovely state of Virginia makes you wait a year, and I've been going through a lot of "A Year Ago Today We Got In That Fight" and "A Year Ago Today He Hooked Up With His Twenty Three Year Old Girlfriend", etc.

Processing, grieving already... and then my grandmother, and then the gerbil.

I'll be ok and all, I guess I just wanted to say hi, tell y'all what's up, and ask you to forgive my erratic postings and occasionally dissociative states.

On the upside, Nice Guy came to visit a few days ago. Bless his very soul. Living here is a strange exile, and I've been losing friends left and right (another post for another day), so seeing anyone who wants to hug me is absolutely welcomed. It was very strange though- his skin felt like magic. I kept stroking my fingers over his back in wonder and awe. Marveling, I told him what I thought, despite the fact that I knew it would raise some red flags with him, "Your skin... it feels like love..."

That deserved some serious pondering: I think I've been so emotionally locked down since my husband left (for that matter, maybe the year or two before as well, as we fought so much) that it took my grandmother's death to knock down some internal wall. It's no wonder I feel so vulnerable and reclusive.

It's given me plenty of time to tear apart my kitchen because there's a dead animal in the wall or possibly the attic, and it reeks. This happened before and it took something close to sterilizing the walls themselves and everything in the room to be able to not retch every time we used that bathroom. This time it's in the wall next to the pantry. Needless to say, all of my food is on the counter. The walls in the wee little pantry are being repeatedly sprayed down with super Sport Strength Febreeze, which is working, much to my surprise. Then again, it's February this time. Although it is a lovely warm day, it's not the same as a bigger animal dead in the attic in the middle of the summer (which, if you mistype it, becomes the word "simmer" which is true enough. Our attic was basically a Crock Pot for a decaying raccoon or something. It was wretched. Even the guy who cleans up that mess for a living was astounded. He told me he'd never had to go back in three times to spray some massive disinfectant over everything, but that we were a first. Oh, joy!

To smell that smell again was enough to shut me down again and go into Clean Everything mode, which is kind of a relief but... I'm supposed to be writing something for my grandmother's funeral, which either I will read if I can make it up there, or my mother will read in my place.

Now I wish I'd taken the time to write them down after Nice Guy left and my heart was still open. Words can pour out of me, but when I think of her all I can think of is green grapes and Twinkies in a brown paper bag. It was what she would bring me as a snack when she picked me up from wherever I was. I don't remember where I was, just getting into her car that always smelled just like she did- faint cigarettes under a just right amount of Estee Lauder perfume. I'm sure there were other things in the bag, but those were my favorites, like the Hubba Bubba bubble gum she would keep on the counter in a jar. Or the bottle of bubble bath stuff from Avon. Dove soap in the bathroom.

The smells, the smells... they break me down and tear me apart inside. They build me up and make me a child again.

I realize now why I cannot find the words- they are located just behind the levee of emotions that I fear for it's strength and it's pain and it's intensity. I'm not ready yet. Not yet.

*exits stage right*

Spamalot, no.

2012-01-31T11:46:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the change to word verification on comments, y'all. Lately the comment moderation isn't enough, and TONS of spam is making it's way through and requiring my moderating it. It's clogging up my inbox with notifications. I'll change it back once I get time to figure out what Blogger's deal is, because I really hate using that feature. For a dyslexic, it's a fork in the eye. For now, it's better than fifty sporks of email, though.

Blogger....
When have I EVER needed to know about designer purses? Really. And I don't give a shit about libido pills, either. Get yo shit straight. Sheesh.

wandering thoughts on a lid swollen Sunday

2012-01-29T15:53:00.000-05:00

Facilitate.

The smell of popcorn and hotdogs, a hot summer day.
The noise of a baseball game, the muted roaring murmur of a hopeful crowd.
When a player comes skidding into home plate, feet first, the dirt pushes up in a wave before his foot.
He walks away.
Look closer, lay down next to me.
Do you see the way the sunlight hits the grains of sand where his foot dug in?
Do you see the trench made by his shoe, the miniature tower of sand triumphantly pushed to the top?
Can you hear the crowd's murmur, the food, the sweat, the freshly cut grass?

When I try to define the word "facilitate" in my mind, this print in the sand is what I see. The energy behind it is inherent in it's existence.

Facilitation is forward moving energy.

fat broken hearted blues

2012-01-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

Fatter, that's me. And I'm pretty pissed off about it.

In the fall, I had decided I would be sweet and forgiving of myself for my holiday treats, because what's the point? Should I berate myself while I eat pie anyway? That's silly. So I decided I wouldn't, and I didn't. Oddly, there wasn't much holiday feasting at all, so I wasn't very concerned about it.

With my weird guts (I bloat sometimes and look a good seven months pregnant, and then it just stops and is fine again- it hurts, it looks awful, and it fucks with my abdominal muscles, so I do NOT like it) I guess I just didn't really notice that I was packing on pounds. I mean, I didn't wolf pie like previous years... no holiday parties, no family dinners, so I just didn't think there was much to worry about, as far as my weight.

Suddenly, *BLAM* I bugged out. I think it was exactly and precisely once I could see the weight gain in my face. Oh, horrors. Not my FACE. My hips I can handle, some extra butt, whatever, but my FACE? No. NO NO NO. There is no way I can dress that up to make it look fine until the weight comes off.

Looking back, I think I just ate a lot of fatty foods because I'm battling depression. Love life, zero. (Don't even ask about Nice Guy, I really don't want to talk about it.) Friends, near zero. (Even less friends than before as I've had apocalyptic fall outs with two friends in the last month alone. I have nearly no friends here as it is, now I have two less.) And all of this is on top of riding out the end of A Year Ago Today My Husband And I Were Doing Such And Such Today, Fighting About Such And Such Today, and while that's still happening, it's nearing it's end. In the meantime, I'm lonely and fat. Awesome.

With my wonky ass joints I can't work out like normal people, so just hitting the gym isn't as simple as it is for most people. And most people can come up with a plethora of excuses not to do it, at least I don't have work to contend with. Taking care of myself and my son IS my job. So that leaves an awful lot of time to work out, right? Wrong. My joints have been wreaking all kinds of havoc. Even after going to the chiropractor yesterday I spent the night in horrible pain. I could have just taken some Vicoden, but fuck- to what end? This morning I took it, though, in the hopes of working out. Yesterday I napped off and on throughout the afternoon and evening.

Side note: I have been having some WICKED interesting dreams the last few days!

If working out and burning calories isn't always an option, what is? Ah, yes. Cutting them in the first place. A damn slower way to lose weight but it's something. And so, the mostly raw food diet is reenacted.

Carrot ginger bran muffins sounded promising... but I found the only way I could get that thing down was to chomp big fat strawberries with every bite. Afterward, I could see it being useful as a diet aid as I felt as if I had eaten a paper fiber elephant.

Now, the Gazelle. Working out looks more promising when one is faced with the option of eating cardboard elephants for eternity otherwise.

Still, I like eating better. I realized late last night as I walked into the kitchen that I wasn't actually hungry when faced with a bran muffin. Not hungry at all, in fact. I guess I just wanted something that tasted good.

I confess, I thought about tasting ice cream and then just spitting it back out instead of swallowing it, but that's just too freaking weird.

Onward.

Yes, yes, I said yes

2012-01-23T15:36:00.000-05:00

There is much going on, some very heavy thought that takes too long to think out with my hands...

... this kind of thought takes a long time and my hands but I don't have to think about this, just say yes:

some days...

2012-01-17T12:22:00.003-05:00

Schrodinger's habit

2012-01-07T00:17:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I put my boots on and started kicking apart boxes.

It wasn't what I'd meant to do. That is, I'd thought I would put it on my list of things to do today, but realistically knew that there were way too many of them and trying to haul them all out to recycle would be a bitch. So... I was thinking perhaps it was not the best plan after all. Then I ended up in a small avalanche of boxes again as I was trying to do laundry and just started chucking them out of the laundry room (really, "room" is far too generous for a medium sized closet but whatever), and then out of my closet, and then realized what a lunatic pile of boxes I actually had.

Chalk it up to yet another experience in the year since my husband left that I've had an AH HA moment. This one was in reference to how very difficult I found it to break down certain kinds of boxes. My husband had A Thing for boxes. A very OCPD thing about boxes, in fact. At first it was just electronics, and he wanted to keep the boxes and specially shaped foam that came in boxes for electronics to keep computer bits, etc, safe while moving. Ok, fair enough, especially considering my idea of safely moving a computer is to wrap it in a blanket and set it on the front seat. The problem arose, for me personally, in the sheer amount of electronics that he amassed, and therefore the amount of nearly empty boxes taking up otherwise useful closet space was a bit irksome but hey, we've all got our quirks.

At some point I grew accustomed to the boxes. Meh. Make room, boxes exist. Part of marriage. At some point I started inquiring whether or not I should keep this box or that box... oi. Never ask someone with hoarding tendencies any such question. Hindsight, you silly little whore! Hardy har har... suffice to say the answer was almost always, "Yes." At some point I stopped even asking and just started stacking boxes inside of boxes, like rectangular cardboard nesting dolls. In a way they sort of were- I usually justified their existence by telling myself we were going to move eventually. We planned to and aborted the plans repeatedly, so keeping them and then keeping them a bit longer seemed sensible enough.

When he moved out he took the boxes for electronics as the electronics were in the boxes as he left with them.

In a few more weeks a year will have passed and still I had a vast collection of boxes. Today, as they cascaded gently down upon my head for the bazillionth time, I wondered why I have such a motley collection of boxes- after all, even when I move, I really dislike having strange assortments of boxes to pack.

I described it to my mother while talking for over an hour on the phone this evening:
At some point in my illustrious moving career, I discovered the fact that one can actually buy boxes from UHaul. And while it is perhaps wasteful to buy boxes when one can simply collect them and reuse boxes, it is really freaking awesome to have boxes of two or three sizes at most and that stack nicely and neatly and making moving a helluva lot easier all around.

So.... why exactly would I keep all of these freaking weird boxes? Ah. Yet another adapted mutation. Even knowing I didn't want the boxes, I found it challenging to give them up as I listened to a background stream of chatter about the virtues of each box, what uses it may have, it's structural integrity, etc etc. It sounded like my voice, but it wasn't my logic. Not originally. It just became normal. Like so many other things.

The first box I kicked apart and wrenched a few toes. Hopping up and down on the other foot and cursing myself, I went immediately for my boots. Having acquired those, I went on a boot meet box beserker happy rampage.

I won't tell you how many boxes there were. I will admit I had to use packing tape in a big strip around the outside ones just to be able to haul them all outside without dropping heaps of them, even flattened.

Later, boxes. Hello gorgeous empty space.

MY gorgeous empty space.

the D word

2012-01-06T12:27:00.000-05:00

There are so many things I need to do, and one of the top ones on the list I dread: I need to file for divorce. It's not that I don't want it to be done and over with, it's that I don't want to add it to my internal list of failures. Really, I just need to alter the way I look at it... so far that's not worked. Yet. *sigh* Such a beautiful day and so many heavy thoughts on my mind.

sneaky and squeal worthy equals win

2012-01-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

Seeing something like this makes me want to go get my nipples pierced- it's the only way they would stay on. What a fabulous invention.

Now, if I could just get a real life instead of distracting myself with sex toys, that would be dandy.

*sigh*

Back to work.

fuck it

2012-01-05T12:27:00.001-05:00

I'm in a foul mood. The kind that would frighten pirates that have the word "Dreaded" in their names. Two months ago I was pondering if romantic love was ever for me, and a friend (well, many concerned friends, actually) seemed worried about my state of mind. Why? Is it really that important to everyone else if I believe in love? Does it makes me a freak to think it really IS just a heap of stupidfuck chemicals and to hell with it? When does it become acceptable for me to give up and become a nun or a whore?

rubbish and mutterings

2012-01-04T12:59:00.000-05:00

As I tossed a nearly dead orchid bloom casually into the trash I thought to myself, "That's just wrong. It's like... me being celibate is wrong. My not getting laid enough is as wrong as throwing an orchid into the garbage." Then I laughed and realized I am so very glad to have you back, blog. I've missed having somewhere to toss these wacky thoughts.

*deep breath in aaaaand release*

I really need some new sex toys. I killed mine. Alas, I kill them all. It is hard to be so mighty. Perhaps I should take up very small motor repair...

reunited and it feels so monotonous

2012-01-04T08:52:00.000-05:00

What is it with couples that break up, get back together, break up, get back together....? I know it's not very nice of me, but I don't ever feel happy for people like that. There's something that feels so grim about it to me that I feel like I'm being utterly contrite to say I'm happy for them. Really, what I'm thinking is, "Oh, well... if you're content with settling yet again, I guess I'll smile at you instead of just asking you to remind me of why you broke up in the first place... or the second time..." Sure, people can change, but really now, that much? Perhaps these are people who don't try hard to work things out in the first place and that's why it seems so bizarre to me. Maybe they have it right and you should just split while you work out the relationship issues, who knows?

Basically, who the fuck am I to judge?

Well, I'm me. And I'm telling you, if you've reunited with your sweetie more than once, you can tell me about it and I'll smile but I'm not happy for you. I'm actually wondering what the fuck is going on inside your head and resigning myself to listening to you complain about the same things you had stopped complaining about the LAST time you broke up.

icy cold creamy love in my mouth

2012-01-03T18:09:00.001-05:00

It's cold, bitterly cold, and my ability to go work out in the gym every day is shot in the foot because of it. Oh, I know, for normal people it's a lame excuse. For me, it's true- I can't possibly go down and sweat and then walk back out into this kind of cold without risking one lunatic pain spike. If this kind of cold (and to clarify, I'm talking about 23 degrees and a 30mph wind) hits me I start having massive muscle spasms. Those pull my various loose joints out of alignment. That initiates MORE muscle spasms. Hence, pain spike.

I went out into it this morning, to take my son to school. I had on so many clothes it was ridiculous. If the weather in Virginia hit this level of holyshitcold more often I would just buy a snowsuit and that's that, but to wear once or twice a year it seems like a ridiculous expense, especially when I can just heap on clothes as an alternative.

So, heap them on I did and then I came home, left the majority of them on, opened all the curtains and blinds and curled up in the sunny bedroom and fell back asleep. Normal people wouldn't have to wait a few hours for their body to return to a steady temperature, but mine's retarded. The technical term for it falls under the classification of "dysautomia", which translates to "Nervous System FUBAR", although I do not care for the B or the A. I admit FUAND doesn't have the same ring (Fucked Up And Needs Repair) but that's how I feel about it. Fuck the negativity of incurable. I refuse to be incurable. So there.

Considering how cold it is, you'd think I wouldn't be tempted to eat the living hell out of some ice cream bars, but alas, I discovered Magnum. Damn you, big condom sounding named ice cream bars, for your hilarious name is what prodded me to buy you and now I'm a fat ice cream whore. Even when it's 20 degrees outside, what do I want? Icy cold creamy love in my mouth.

There's pizza. Hey, fresh pizza! Nice and warm! Nope. I want ice cream bars.

And because of this whorish addiction, I have to start going to the gym. A lot. Because clearly just not eating them is not an option. They SING to me. I take them apart in my mouth with my tongue, and slurp their delectable cream out. What. The. Fuck.

I'll work out eight times as much some other day. Fuck it.

this is a happy new year, beginning here and now

2012-01-01T00:00:00.001-05:00

As of last night, I've been writing in this blog (and elsewhere, and back again, oh my) for ten years. One decade of typing my words on a computer instead of a typewriter or far more commonly, written in pen and paper.

Ten years.

It being New Years Eve, there is much thought of what's happened in the past year. The past year... what a fuckfest. Rather figuratively and somewhat literally. Certainly an improvement over the last few years and not in spite of my husband and I splitting up but BECAUSE of us splitting up.

Last year.

A year ago tonight I was stuck behind a train, sitting in the back seat of my husband's car with my best friend, while he drove us, amused, and we giggled and laughed, all on our way to one of the worst parties I've seen. Technically it was two separate house parties, just around the corner from each other, both of them filled to overflowing with wasted teenage kids. These were the people my husband sought out, the kind of people he wanted so badly to be around, the kind of people he felt really understood him. As he had said in therapy, he felt like he was emotionally... retarded. That he was stuck in his late teens and thus he felt more comfortable around kids that age. He didn't feel he had to put on airs or act stuffy or sell his soul/drink the corporate Kool Aid to impress anyone.

Sometimes I wondered if it was just easier to impress them, and that was what he liked. Maybe he felt he HAD to impress people our own age, or maybe he just needed to impress people because that was who he was, and younger kids were in awe of all of his knowledge and success. Part of me understands, as I do feel awkward at times with people my age because they have schooling and careers, and I'm disabled and have no career, no degrees, no fancy titles or even an impressive resume, even if it is old and hasn't been added to for seven years. Another part of me doesn't understand at all, and he and I differed in one very large way that didn't seem so large until our marriage seemed to fall apart in the abyss of such little differences- I just don't give a shit if people aren't impressed. If someone doesn't like me, there may be a moment of surprise and hurt (the awkwardness I mentioned) but soon after I've come to the conclusion that they are either faulty in their thinking or so different that it's irrelevant- we would never have been friends anyway, so why would it matter if I impress them? There's a whole WORLD of people out there- I'm certainly not going to be chummy with them all, so why would a few more people one way or the other really matter? Meh. I could shrug it off, he seemed unable. I saw his need to impress as a weakness, and he saw my disdain for impressing other people as a coldness.

To each their own. It was only one of so very many differences that made it impossible to live together.

After the initial break up, I was very afraid to write anything in here. I had been for a few years, to be honest. He had stopped reading my blog once I moved in with him, which I found a bit odd. If I had a chance to see what was going on in my lover's mind without asking, "What are you thinking about?" or doing the far more smooth sideways sidle up to the real question, I would take that golden goose and feed it, nurture it, and be glad for it's continued existence. With him, I got the very unpleasant impression that once he had obtained me I simply wasn't that interesting anymore. One time when I had asked him about it he told me that there was no point in reading my posts as I talked all the time and told him everything that was going on and then some.

*wry look*

No, that didn't go over well. What he couldn't seem to grasp was that my blog was where I went to think over things that deeply affected me, and unless I felt he was willing to have an hour long discussion while I worked something out, I wasn't going to bother. It takes time, introspection. And it takes a sense of commitment to the process, to tease out the knots in one's thinking. If I knew my blog would time out and say, "Can we talk about this some other time? I'd rather go read Slashdot," I doubt I'd ever have written as much as I have. As things stood with him, that was what often happened, and so he heard a lot of the dull minutiae of live in relationships- the things that need to be discussed, the bills, the household duties, the matters of friends and family that impact our lives.

Relationships die a steady death if they are only fed with malnourished conversations about budget and car repairs. Or worse, the Talks About What's Wrong Between Us.

Death, death, death.

While he seemed ok with ignoring those things in the hopes they would go away, I was watching our relationship unravel in slow motion and kept struggling to save it. Most of my attempts to bond and bring back the love and camaraderie and fun seemed too little, too late. He was done years before we split up, and those last few years were particularly awful.

I'm glad we've split up. So is he, I think.

The problem in blogging came when he started going through my blog again. He would only do so in small bursts, and never did he come to me to say, "Wow, that thing you wrote about was very interesting, let's discuss!" like he used to long ago, no, it was, "So, what the fuck? I saw what you wrote about me. Why are we even bothering if you hate me so fucking much?!"

The more often he used my words against me to start an argument, the less I felt safe writing. And that was why he did it, as we've discussed it many times. The last time he told me I was right, he just came in to read things when he felt insecure or upset already. As I told him, I felt that it wasn't just unfair to me, it was also a horrible disservice to himself. If he wants to feel better he should start a conversation with me, not go back and read my angry words about something that happened in the past. More often than not, my feeling was that he wasn't coming in to read and seek solace, he was coming in to read and trade in his sorrow for self righteous indignation because it's easier to be angry than it is to be sad.

While I've understood the need, THIS IS MY SPACE. I've been using this blog for years as a place of solace for myself many years before I'd even met him. Either he can relearn to respect my writing or he will force me to start a new blog somewhere else, somewhere he would not know about, and is that what he wants to have happen, I've asked?

Could he learn to either respect my privacy or silently work out his feelings about what he read and not lash out at me when he didn't like what he read? He thought about it and told me he felt he shouldn't read it anymore. Time went by, but I still got the occasional text, "WTF, why are you such a bitch?!" that to me seemed to come out of a clear blue sky as I had no idea when he would be of a mind to start reading or not. We talked about it again. Last I knew he had told me he felt like he must not ever read it again, or at least, not until he could read it and not get upset. I told him I knew him well enough to know he would still read it, but hopefully he could learn to at least check it when he wasn't already upset- if he could learn to read it while he was happy for me maybe it would lead to him being able to talk to me about something that was important to me instead of just combing through all of my thoughts and merely picking out the ones he feared and was angered by.

That alone is annoying as hell. To have someone dismiss my thoughts except for the ones they want to fight about- fuck that. It's worse than a troll, and those are not welcomed by the simple process of comments having to be moderated before they are posted. Trolls don't like that. But that isn't an impediment for Jack as he can text me all he wants, day or night, in hopes of getting a good old satisfying argument out of it.

I simply stopped writing much. It was depressing, both to write and to not write. The reason behind it was depressing. And when he used my words against me I feared something worse than an angry text out of the blue- I feared him printing out my words and using them against me in court during our divorce.

Well. Nearly a year has passed since he left, not quite. Tonight was the night he chased an idiot meth head that he wanted to screw around two teenage house parties and yelled at me for prudently driving one kid home since he was passed out, no one else was sober enough to take him, his coke head bitch girlfriend wanted to haul him off somewhere (he begged me quietly when he was lucid not to let her take him anywhere, just terrified, so I promised him I would make sure), and I was literally fighting off some other guy who kept sneaking up behind me and actually molesting him. What a shitfest. My husband was absolutely PISSED OFF at me for having to take the 30 minutes out of his partying to sit in the back seat with his friend so he wouldn't start thrashing around while I was driving and then help him up the stairs into his house. As soon as we got back in the car, good deed done, he reamed me for being so fucked up by my alcoholic dad that I just "HAVE to SAVE people, don't you?" Arrow straight to the heart, and I burst into tears, even despite having emotionally braced myself for one of his angry rages. I hadn't expected actual insight and a shot to the jugular. Jesus. He had backpedaled and apologized but there it was- when I interrupted his good time, I was fair game for an attack below the belt. He'd been drinking and his tongue was even looser than it usually was, and that was that. We got back to the party and I got lost and found a place to go cry. He never noticed because he was busy smoking weed with the meth head chick.

A few weeks later I found out he'd been sneaking around with her but "nothing had happened yet", he just wanted to know if he still had game, basically. Never mind the two years of marital therapy discussing the details of the polyamorous marriage he decided he wanted a few years into our marriage, never mind me putting up with him shopping for chicks he wanted to fuck when we went out together instead of him actually trying to have a nice goddamn time with ME for a change, never mind the horrid hours spent listening to him discuss those chicks once we got home and why he felt that I should approve and if I had anything to say otherwise, another few hours might well be spent discussing why he thought I was a prude and a liar and just having these discussions with him to string him along...

Whatever. It was all very ugly and what sparked the last string of the ties that bound us together being carefully cut by yours truly.

The point of it all is that I was afraid to write. Afraid of his anger, his wrath, his retribution.

His anger has improved. Mostly.

His wrath is mostly null by way of precedent- at this point he would have to explain to his girlfriend why he was suddenly cutting me off financially and I doubt she would approve. And her opinion is important to him.

His retribution is rather a moot point as he's been living with his girlfriend for about six months now- what's he going to say in court at this point about ANYTHING I do? He certainly can't use my blog as a way of proving I'm an adulteress when he lives with his rather young girlfriend and has for some time. Come on.

Despite all of the rather vile memories I've just relayed, the point is simply this:

It's time to let go. It's time to heal. I need to write about these things and so much more. So very much more.

I'm not one for New Years resolutions. I think they're ridiculous- if you want to improve yourself, do it each and every day, don't bother waiting for one magical day out of the year. Pfft. But when asked if there was something I should make a resolution about, this was the only thing I could think of that really needed to change: I need my blog back. I need to reclaim it.

And I need to write.

So consider this a declaration: this is my space, my heart, my mind.

And a very happy New Year to you all.

~one decade of writing, and wishes for a new year~

2011-12-31T18:39:00.000-05:00

As 2011 closes I wish for you all the same things that I wish for myself:

May you discover ever deeper reserves of patience, kindness, strength, courage, and love within yourselves.

May you be ever more able to distinguish truths from falsehoods, actions from reactions, and the present moment from all that was now before.

May the people in your life who greet you with anything less than joy find themselves occupied elsewhere, while your sense of family and friendships grow deeper, stronger, and ever more true.

May you discover and embrace your sense of purpose each day anew.

May you close your eyes on each day with a sense of satisfaction and inner peace, knowing that your heart knows the way forward even as your mind chatters it's queries in the dark and the quiet.

May you treat yourself with resolute compassion, forgiveness, and tenderness, so that you may grow ever more resilient in your strength and adaptable in your wisdom.

May you more easily distinguish want from need, and find joy in both the greatest and the smallest of things.

May you value your health and happiness, and experience great healing.

May you always move forward, and bring the light with you as you do.

*curtsies*
Good day to you all, ladies and gentlemen. Celebrate safely and live well.

romance in the kiddie pool

2011-12-03T19:46:00.001-05:00

It's been one very strange month.

The thing most people want to know: Yes, I've seen Nice Guy again.

We are not dating. We are... pleasantly spending time in each others company with an infrequency that is kind of perfect, actually. It's infrequent enough that the brain drugging neurochemicals of infatuation never manage to overwhelm me. There are moments, and then they pass and I am focusing on my life and not just using infatuation to make me feel better.

I am quite fond of him. Working on the ice cracking and learning how to swim analogy, he and I have discussed how we would like to not dive in to anything together but instead hang out in the shallow end of the pool together. I've shortened it, affectionately, to "paddling". (Gives a moment of thought to old sex blog and realizes this is not the intended meaning, whatsoever. Oops.) The gist is that both of us are unwilling and/or unable to be in a serious relationship but at the same time, neither of us wish to trivialize the time spent together.

So there is this strange new thing I am experiencing, where I am involved but not, and it's not a fuck friend thing, and we talk all the time (via text) but are like... newly made friends walking each other through a cake tasting that sometimes involves cake make of live worms and we both puke and hold each others hair? It's so simple and yet so complicated to try to explain. I suspect trying to explain it is unsettling, as I'm trying to define something that has few definitions to begin with, other than a mutual attitude of wariness, fondness, and respect.

What the hell do you call that? One could say "the way healthy relationships actually start out" but there is no assumption that this is the beginning of one. Well... *flustered* it's not NOT a relationship. More like a friendship, that is very difficult and oddly rewarding.
*sighs heavily*
It's just what it is. And it seems to me, in trying to write about it, that I value it so much I don't wish to fuck it up by yammering about it. It's a challenge. It's rewarding. It's lovely. It's painful.

There is no ice. There is no pretending. There is just honesty, which can be very fucking awkward and still fascinating.

I'm still here, hanging out in the shallow end of the pool. And while there are many other amazing things that beg to be written about, I think the most amazing thing of all is the thing that just occurred to me (as often happens while writing):

The ice of dissociation and delusion about love has cracked, is melting, and I'm swimming. I don't know if I'm getting anywhere at all, but the important part is that I'm not crawling back up onto the ice. I'm swimming. And while I may panic and sink a bit, thrash about and gasp for breath, I am swimming.

I believe this calls for a moment of celebratory ridiculousness, because I am proud of this accomplishment and I like to reward myself with happy laughter.

ding Oh, going up?

2011-11-04T02:21:00.000-04:00

It is very slowly dawning on me that nice guys kiss better. At least, that is the theory I am working on... it will take more research.
*grins*
Until quite recently, it's been so very long since a nice guy kissed me, I think I'd rather forgotten.
*blinks*
It is causing quite an uproar in my views on many things. It's kind of like someone just walked me to my truck, kissed me, and that somehow tossed file cabinets of viewpoints, opinions, and memories over and papers are flying everywhere while I look around and wonder who the fuck filed all of these things away and... why, they're sorted incorrectly, aren't they? And..

*cue to me standing like Louis Lane after Clark's just sped through the office and I'm watching papers flying*

Who WAS that unmasked man? My, but he's a surprise.

Huh.

2011-11-03T11:01:00.001-04:00

Dream:

My grandmother was lucid again, and came up to hug me. Once we were holding on to one another I didn't wast to get go. I knew it was probably my only chance to say anything to her again before Alzheimer's stole her mind away once more. I told her I loved her and that I was sorry I was so far away. She told me to be quiet, and I held tight to her, smelling her usual smell of Estee Lauder perfume and cigarette smoke, and listened. "You need to come home, Jill. you need to be around family. You need family." I sobbed and told her she was right, I knew she was right. and I kept going on my journey, I was maybe 500 miles into an 800 mile journey on a little broken down scooter with an engine very much like that of a Shark stick vacuum.

When I woke up I realized it's a beautiful day and I'm exhausted, just exhausted, and I'm gonna drag my ass to my chiropractor and see what magic she can do; she's done it before.

After being awake for maybe 30 seconds I got a text from my estranged husband asking if he should come by after work to sign the new lease.

And just like that, the pieces fell into place.

Our anniversary is next week.

I don't want to keep looking at these same walls that we fought in, I want to get the fuck out of here. My son is a right mess and needs stability so I'll stay, at least till this school year ends.

And I do dislike being here, but with what I make (on paper) I am such a liability that no rental place would wish to rent to me. I cannot file for divorce because it's not quite been a year, even if he lived with his girlfriend for most of it.

Blech.

Occupy Reality (Check)

2011-10-19T10:19:00.000-04:00

This man is magnificent.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has me fascinated and inspired. At first I didn't know what to make of it all and heard there was a local group starting up, and after waiting and watching to make sure there wasn't a chance of police brutality in the local group, I went to ask questions, be informed, see if the local group made sense or were just a bunch of nuts.

What I found shocked me: a renewed faith in humanity.

At first the media pointed out repeatedly that most Occupying groups were scattered, people didn't even have an agenda other than to protest everything. I could see their point- and so I asked people what IS the purpose of all of this? And I learned, and I'm still learning. And so are they.

Here's what I find particularly fascinating- people from every walk of life are joining up. So how do you manage the wants and needs of so many? Having witnessed a few meetings (General Assemblies) first hand, I can see how astoundingly difficult it is to organize.

For example:
I have shied away from reporters. I know that if I had a few minutes of air time and one of them asked me what *I* wanted, it would be a real battle for me not to blurt out what *I* want- more awareness of the rare genetic condition that I have, of course! Most of my doctors have never heard of it! If I could just get a few minutes of media time, oh man... I could have hundreds, perhaps thousands of locals saying, "Oh my, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome? I've never heard of that..." and the next time they hear it they'll remember, they'll say, "Oh, yes, I heard a woman talking about that on the news..." and hopefully it would spark conversations, raise awareness, and in the long run, gain funding for testing, treatments, a cure.

Here's the really important part: THIS ISN'T ABOUT ME. This is about all of us. And thus, I think it's amazing that so many people are even capable of setting aside their own motives, passions, and goals, to organize and align themselves for something bigger than their own personal wants in order to make a change for all of us.

Of course there are scattered signs, people asking for various things, do you see? It's easy for the media to latch onto those people and give a few scatterbrains air time to discredit an entire movement, but it's equivalent to ignoring a snowball rolling down the side of a mountain of snow.

Am I for or against the Occupy Wall Street movement? I am so absolutely on board, yes. Am I Occupying? Eh... a bit. It's hard. A few times I've wanted to go out to local meetings or rallies I've been sidelined by pain or parenting issues at home. My son is having a very hard time, but that is another post in and of itself. But I am getting out there and raising awareness from home as much as I can. I suspect most of my family has already pondered my sanity or even outright blocked my updates and feeds on Facebook because of how much I post about it. It wouldn't surprise me.

Part of my fascination with the local Occupying groups is completely selfish- I am so head over heels in love with being able to meet people outside, on the street, and have intelligent and engaging conversations with them. Such energetic, positive people! As much as I adore the local music scene and love a damn fine night out on the town or even indulging in some Framboise Lambic at home, being able to talk to sober and positive people any time of the day or night is so awesome I'm at a loss to explain how much I love it. Clearly I have been lost for a sense of community in all the seven long years I have lived in this area, after moving away from all of my friends and community in Asheville to come live with Jack (who recently moved in with his girlfriend; time moves on) and now I have a sense of being plugged back in, I've got my fingertips resting on the pulsing beat of the people around me again and it's electric. Simply electric.

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

If you want information about Occupy Wall Street you can visit their web site or just get a general idea by reading the Wikipedia article about them (although that could be tricky as anyone can alter Wiki articles) or check them out on Facebook if you are a Facebook kind of person.

And if you like what you see, set aside your concerns of being judged and get out there. Be brave and beautiful. You just might be astounded at the new people you meet and come to respect, people you would never have talked to otherwise. Being part of 99% of the population is going to widen your views on a lot more than you realize. Hell, you might even have fun while doing it. It's a crazy mixed up world, you know?

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

virtue

2011-10-02T13:35:00.000-04:00

"Blushing is the color of virtue."
~Diogenes

In that case, I am virtuous indeed. I blush like a fool. In fact, I'm quite glad that it's colder and therefore I can wear winter clothes and cover up the blush that starts at heart level and works it's way up to my face. I've got to turn madly red now before anyone can see it, and that's good because usually I've run away by then.

justification is bitter sometimes

2011-09-14T19:39:00.000-04:00

I won disability.

Sometimes I felt bad for filing, now sometimes I feel bad for winning it. Some days I'm normal...ish. And then other days I'm a train wreck, train wrecks upon train wrecks, just piling up cars.

Right now I'm about to order pizza for my son. He is happy. I am not, as I haven't gone to the store in days. I can't. In fact, I just took the very last Percocet I have to be able to move and not just curl into a tighter ball of hell, helplessly crying until it hurt too much to cry.

That's how I ended up in the emergency room before. Can't have that.

The stupidest thing, the reason I come in here to admit it somewhere, is that I'm horribly frightened. I'm in so much pain I can't help but hold my breath in waves of it. I know better. I did two days of drug free labor, so shut your pie hole. I know about pain. This is like spikes, thin though, thin spikes long enough to go through my head, down my neck, around my skull, like lightning. They come and go seemingly at will. That's not what upsets me. What upsets me is I'm stuck in my dress. I could breathe better without it but I hurt to much to take off my own clothes. The only reason I managed to get the laptop open was to order dinner for my son in the only way I currently can manage.

It's humiliating, to be stuck in clothes. Crying. My son could help but I don't want him to see me like this or to realize how bad it is. So I wait, in this dress.

And I don't feel so bad for winning disability. I can't get undressed and all I can do is order food from the internet to feed him. Thank God he's a teenager and loves pizza.

Go Go mighty percocet...and zanaflex.

I'll go watch TV and not piss off any muscles, wait for the knock on the door and save up all my acting for that moment. The hand off. The signing for it. The smile. My son's cheer. He'll go back in his room, happy. I'll collapse again in this damn dress.

I really like this dress, too. *sigh*

glimmers in the darkness

2011-08-29T14:06:00.000-04:00

A new moon. I do so love the transitions of the moon and how they affect the world around me, the world inside me. Always interesting.

Last night was... informative in just such a way. People were acting oddly, and I had decided before I went out that I was in observation mode. Sure, I was still going to drink too much too quickly and totally enjoy my friend's band playing, but also I was just going to relax and learn things about people.

I learned things, all right. I can't say I liked all that I learned but *shrugs* that's knowledge for you. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes.

More about it later. My son has been losing his mind and interrupts me so frequently it's impossible to concentrate. He needs to go back to school.

One Of Those Things Was Not Like The Other Things

2011-08-25T18:58:00.000-04:00

*face palm*

While perusing old posts from the sex blog I went ahead and added a few back in that were sitting in the draft folder of my blog. It wasn't till a moment ago that I realized one of them posted as if I had just written it recently.

Ack. How completely out of place and dated.

So, for those of you that saw it, that was from five years ago. Seek it out yourselves if you'd like to reread it, but I don't want to see current posts talking about sex with my husband while I'm working out the details of our divorce.

*twitch twitch*

There we go, all better. Onward.

Saturn rises

2011-08-13T23:02:00.000-04:00

Sing along to the melody
A cracking voice is to be expected
In times like these

Tears stream down my cheeks
Each a faceted jewel
The price of which
You never could grasp the value of

On and up I push myself
When pain kicks my legs out from under me
I keep going any which way
For that is who I am
And who I am is beautiful

remember, don't wallow, and grow

2011-08-06T19:17:00.005-04:00

Many years ago I found a angry, horrible letter that my step father had written to my mother. As I had found it while snooping about, it was obviously of great importance to me that I busted myself by telling my mother about it, because I needed to know WHY. Why he wrote it was not my question to her. I wanted to know why she had kept it.

She took a few moments to compose herself after being angry with me for poking around where I had no business and also, likely wondering what to tell her sixteen year old daughter about the letter. I'm certain that she was angry with me but also she must have been dealing with the humiliation of me knowing what he'd said to her. Various emotions battled their way across her face until she paused, looked at me, and said,

"Some things are important to remember."

I didn't understand and told her so. She told me that some things are horrible experiences, but we SHOULD remember them so that we can learn from them... The memory of the experiences are also vital because it is easy to convince ourselves that things never happened and thus not see a pattern over the years. The ability to delude ourselves in (any form of) an abusive relationship is very mighty indeed- keeping the tangible reminders is a defense against that delusion.

Discussing the letter reminded me of a time a year or two before when I had come upstairs with the cutest little 60's style shift dress that was hanging in the basement, one my mother (an excellent seamstress) had obviously made herself. When I pulled it out of the clothes hanging there I then realized it had a huge black iron mark scorched into the back of it. I then took it upstairs to ask her why she had kept it.

Standing there in the kitchen (the same place she was when I asked her about the letter, in fact) she had taken a deep breath and told me she had kept it to remember. Remember what, I had asked? And for perhaps the first time, she had told me one of the many experiences she had had with my father and his drinking. Throughout our childhood my brother and I were subjected to all manner of trash talking about our mother from our father, but our mother never did it. We had taken it as a sign of guilt for years, that he was in fact correct and that she was a horrid person. As I stood there in our sunny kitchen and heard my mother describe the scene of my father arriving home in the middle of the day, drunk and unable to park the car in the garage (alternately flooring it up the driveway then letting the car slowly roll back down the drive) while my mother stared out the window in horror and burned to a crisp the exact same dress I held in my hands, I realized that there was far more to my mother's heart and character than met the eye.

The iron marked dress went back down to the basement with the other clothes. The letter went back to her drawer. Her lesson about remembering stayed with me.

Years later that lesson came in to play as I experienced multiple forms of abuse in various relationships, all very different and oddly hard to recognize. I learned that it wasn't so black and white as I'd thought, and was amazed to find myself standing atop a mountain one day, staring at the sky and wondering where to draw the line- the next time he punched me or the last time he did? I thought back to watching stupid TV shows about women in abusive relationships and hearing myself say with utter confidence, "There's no way I would EVER let a man do that to ME! Hoooooo noooo, I'd be long gone!" yet there I was, dumbly standing there, debating just how much was too much. My compromising self would wheedle, ". . . maybe it was a mistake, perhaps it will never happen again, he isn't really like that . . ." and so on and so forth. And each time was a different excuse not from him but from MYSELF. It simple couldn't be. Not the man I love. No.

Some things are important to remember.

Indeed they are.

In recent months Jack and I have been getting better at being Friends, but it's not right yet. It's not ok. By that I mean something about it is off, and perhaps it is a need to be divorced and say it's over. I'm tired of the phrase "my husband's girlfriend", among other things. Dear God, I saw today she's adopted my style of writing with actions inside asterisks. I wished I could literally vomit all over a "wall" in Facebook. But she isn't the focus. What is the focus is seeing the way they interact, even online, makes me feel nauseous; it reminds me of how he and I were, not so long ago. It also reminds me that I learned to stand up to him. How long will it be before he starts trying to control her behaviour through power plays and head trips, anger and fear of wrath? Maybe he does already. Maybe he never will. I fear for my husband's girlfriend, but she must learn her own lessons. I fear for my husband, that he has not yet learned to control himself instead of other people, but again, that is his own lesson. My lesson from the nausea is that I am still too close, too enmeshed as our therapist called it. I require more space in my boundaries with Jack.

A few days ago I saw this dance performance on TV and burst into tears as I watched it. Florence and the Machines is a band that my husband discovered and one that he played loudly when he wanted to be left alone. Everything about the song, the way the dancers move, their facial expressions- they just nailed the feeling I had of our circular arguments, endlessly fighting about nothing at all for hours, every day, day after day, for years . . .

While Jack and I may be friends right now, I cannot simply let the past go and forget about it, either. When we have a hard time being friends it doesn't mean that there is some issue currently happening other than that we are still working out the trauma of being together. Yes, trauma. While the first half of our union was healing and often beautiful, the second half of our union was often a cacophony of discord and an demented exercise in distrust and deception.

Some things are important to remember.

I feel it is very important to differentiate between wallowing in the past and remembering it. Each week it seems I run across some new realization of how I am interacting with people unconsciously, each a learned behaviour from being with Jack. They surprise me each time, and there is usually a short period of feeling resentment while I remember the circumstances that led to the change (read: mutation/adaptation). I work hard at maintaining my focus on moving forward, growing, weeding through which changes are possibly useful and which ones should be eradicated.

Growth and moving forward are always important to remember.

~fly~

2011-07-22T15:00:00.002-04:00

2011-07-06T08:57:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if other people have the physical understanding of how amazing this is to be able to do, even some of the more "simple" things that they accomplish during this dance, but I assure you- nearly everything is dumbfounding.

nifty keen

2011-07-06T08:51:00.000-04:00

I really dig (no pun intended) the look, the concept, the sheer awesomeness of underground housing. It's a problem in coastal areas, but otherwise very cool.

The price (for now) of looking normal and happy: FUBAAR

2011-07-05T22:05:00.001-04:00

That's how I'm feeling. Not totally FUBAR, but FUBAAR- Almost All.

A little while ago I peeled myself off of the kitchen floor. That is always a strong sign at how bad I feel. If I walk into the kitchen to make food and feel so bad I lay down right there in pain and exhaustion, people, I do not feel good.

That was two hours after taking half a Darvocet. Pfft. Those do doodely to touch this level of pain.

Regardless of the pain, I am very proud. I'm in this much pain because I spent much of the last week hanging out with friends and working on some massive craftacular projects for an art show. Then I helped move and set it all up. Then I took part in two performances that, while not lengthy, were very physically demanding, especially for someone with my condition(s). Should I have done these things?

YES.

Two years ago I couldn't have done any of it. Last year I could have helped a tiny bit. This year I pushed myself right up and over the point of utter exhaustion but I DID IT.

Very few people there had any idea at all how much of a victory that was for me. In fact, my husband may have been the only one who had any real idea.

I looked at the pictures people posted and I just look normal and happy, one of the people involved.

Exactly.

It's beautiful and worth every aching moment.

I may be FUBAAR, but I am fucking victorious. I will work may way back. Incurable is not a death sentence. Degenerative is not either. Maybe some day I'll find out I really should have listened to those doctors... but I tried it their way and got worse so fast my head spun. Now I'm doing it MY way, and I'm totally ok with being FUBAAR. I added an A they weren't prepared to give me.

My body, my life, my repairs.

Hell yah.

AdBlock, I love you...

2011-07-05T21:45:00.000-04:00

...ads, I do not.

Have I not accessed my blog via my phone before? Perhaps not in full mobile web version, because I have never noticed how many obnoxious ads are all over the place. It's why I use Firefox- no ads. I may have to switch to Fennec for my phone. That or shank the internet for being so ...ad-y. Blech.

And AdBlock, darlings? Please let other browsers make use of your magnificence. It's not nice to not share in the love.

unspoken

2011-07-04T05:28:00.000-04:00

This evening my husband texted me to say goodnight. While odd, it isn't particularly odd for his usual behaviour. Then around 3 AM I got this text,

"Is there anything you aren't telling me? I have a bad feeling."

*sigh*

What could I reply to that? I replied as rationally as possible, asked if maybe he was having a panic attack. We texted a bit and I guess he's fallen asleep by now.

The shrink would tell us we were "enmeshed". As much as we've done to fix that (including actually separating after a few years of slow but unsteady therapy) I still feel like it isn't enough. It's such an odd question.

Then there was the dream I had this past week, where he crawled into bed with me. No matter what logic I threw at him, he insisted he had every right to be there and nothing I said was going to change that fact. I was sickened. I felt absolutely violated by his presence in bed with me, the fact that it was unwelcome and apparently unarguable.

The dream was inspired by something that had happened a few days before- he had come over for us to both fill out insurance paper work. A boring task. But when finished, he didn't want to leave, and at one point reached down and swatted me on the upper thigh. On my very bare upper thigh, as I had shorts on. The sort of area one would not, let me be very clear about this, swat anyone one did not feel they had the proprietory rights to be swatting in the first place.

I immediately gave him A Look and said something vague but clear like, "Hey." His reaction was what freaked me out so much- he LAUGHED and did it again. My very disturbed glare and immediate defensive posture clued him in to the fact that I wasn't fucking around, I was very much not ok with him touching me like that. He apologized and defensively added something about how I must know that he still finds me sexually attractive.

After two plus years of barely wanting to touch me, I just don't care. I suggested the separation because I was tired of watching him lust after other women and then tell me it was his medication that was causing our lack of sex at home. Sure, right, whatever. He wasn't going to hold out forever and sooner or later the stress of trying to stay faithful was going to be too much. I let him go. As I've mentioned in previous posts, he had a girlfriend already lined up. They started texted each other relentlessly the next day, and four days later he was gone. They are still together.

Is there anything I'm not telling him? Sure, I suppose so. I'm not telling him that I observe his behaviour towards me change to include ownership when he comes over sometimes and that this doesn't happen outside of this apartment. Maybe it's because it was our home, maybe it's because he still views it as his because he pays for it. I don't know. I just know I have to change it, and I know he fears that change. He thinks I won't talk to him anymore once I can financially fend for myself.

I wonder if he has any idea whatsoever how deeply that insults me. Yah, that's why I compassionately answer his weird texts at 3 AM - because I'm a fucking gold digger.

*sighs*

I should be in bed.

Alone.

gay marriage versus nature

2011-07-04T04:13:00.002-04:00

it's time to make a house a home

2011-06-30T03:07:00.001-04:00

A few days ago I sat here watching this video over and over again, sobbing my eyes out. It's a great song, and an amazing dance, and it's beauty stirred something deep within me.

It took me a few days to really put my finger on what it was, though. I had seen it on TV a few days before that, and bawled then, too.

I have yet to be able to watch it once without crying at the part where he is doing some move that looks to me like he is absolving her of her past and then she leaps into his arms...

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Tell the world I’m coming home
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home, I’m coming home
Tell the world that I’m coming

What gets me is the joy, the sense of togetherness, and hot damn, his headstand on her back and the flip in time with the lyrics. Jack still talks about how I make him a better man.

Oh, how I grieve.

I miss the husband that I thought that I had. While I think it's amazing how we're better friends now, that's a fine balance- add romance back and we'd be back in the same damn place. But it was amazing for a few years. I'm so homesick for a place I can't ever return to. I felt like I had met my best friend, my lover, my husband. I felt like I had finally found my home.

Once again I find myself reassessing what home means and where it is. I'm battling a deep sense of failure at uprooting my child who has never really had the sense of home that I had, although maybe all in all that isn't a bad thing. The fact that we have to move in the next few months because the place we're in now is something I couldn't afford on my own is daunting. Reality check- even if Jack wanted to perpetually support us, I don't want him to. It freaks me out. Depending on someone else to be able to have a home is deeply unsettling to me, for a whole list of reasons and experiences to go along with those reasons.

While I had to do a lot of work on my laptop to even be able to sit down and write this tonight, it might have been just the timing I needed so I could write down and remember the text exchange we had last night. I was in a dark mood and upset about a number of things, and Jack had asked me to tell him what was wrong. After listing a few things, I silenced myself. He said I seemed close to getting to the root of what was really bothering me and I should keep going. Despite my reluctance, I did. It was foolish; I knew better. I knew my feelings towards him where the root of my upset and that he doesn't handle things like that well. Anything that he could construe as something he should feel guilty about, or that anyone else might think he SHOULD feel guilty about, those things freak him out. To tell him that I missed my husband and my marriage and I was painfully lonely did not sit well at all. His response was ugly, I back peddled and said I was sorry for even telling him.

As both of our phones were sending us multiples of the same messages, I just turned mine off. This morning I awoke to realize he had sent me messages the night before that I didn't get, and by this morning he was very distraught and was resorting to bullshit tactics- talking about the budget in a cold and businesslike manner. And because that hadn't gotten him any response either, his last text was, "Never mind, I'll come over and find it myself" (referring to a check # he didn't really need) "I'll see you soon."

Laying there warm and naked in bed and knowing my angry husband was possibly going to knock on the door at any moment was disturbing. Knowing he knew it was bullshit and was forcing my hand was also disturbing. It's not like I would show up at his house and demand entrance for information if I didn't feel like he was responding to ME in a timely manner. It smacked of a power play, controlling behaviour that both frightened and enraged me.

Further wake up call that I need my OWN place that I alone can afford.

This dance tore me up:

Brilliant choreographer, no? What a way to show the feeling of fighting for independence in a co dependent relationship.

*looks around*

Moving into this place was such an emotional disaster. It shouldn't surprise me that things turned out the way they did, I suppose. That was right as my grandfather went into surgery, died a week later, and I came home to Jack flipping out- he was guilt ridden over not going with me after he said he would, not putting away any of his stuff while I was gone as he said he would, and instead spending vast periods of time surfing porn, even past the point where he was enjoying it. He was so freaked out he had deleted all of his porn and that started the period of him trying to not look at porn anymore and lying about it to me and us ending up in counseling because of his lying (not the porn itself, but him lying to me about it). We had stopped having regular sex at some point within the year before, and things didn't improve afterward.

God, what a long time it's been.

Hmm. Last week I had a lover spend the night. (There. I didn't mince words, good for me. That's not easy and I don't know why- I am a grown woman. For someone who used to write the most intimate details of her sex life, it's odd how self conscious I am of it now.) Anyway, he didn't really spend the night, he left halfway through the night. After he left I busied myself around the house and finally realized I was actually stalling going back into my empty bedroom. Oh dear. So I walked into it, looked at the lovely rumpled bed and burst into unexpected tears.

Forcing myself to just stand there and feel whatever I needed to feel, I leaned into the discomfort and quickly realized what was bothering me- I am lonely, emotionally, mentally, and physically. It was being physically intimate with him that really shook me- not the sex itself (which was fan-fucking-tastic) but the growing sense of closeness between us, a level of comfort that has surprised me, and being so incredibly affectionate while in the bedroom.

He sleeps easily- I barely do even with medication. Knowing he was leaving I didn't want to waste a minute sleeping and had thought as much at the time, although I did briefly fall asleep at one point. Mostly I just petted him while he slept, and smiled at each passing smile on his face and each noise of sleepy content that he uttered. Every time he woke back up he would kiss me, pull me closer, and that was something that rarely ever has happened in that bedroom. I hadn't really thought about it till just now. I mean, Jack would cuddle with me sometimes but often it felt either contrived or co dependent, sometimes both. This... this was cuddling of another sort entirely.

Um. As much as I want to pull this post together before stopping, the smell of cleaning stuff in the house is making me very nauseous. My son found ants in his room and I went on a rampage cleaning, after midnight. I don't think I ever ate dinner, and now it's 3am and I'm emotional and in pain from trying to sit still and write. As I rarely sit and write anymore it's possible I won't actually finish this post the way I would like, so for now it will just have to stand on it's own.

The song is still running through my mind.

Hmm. Time to open more windows and let a fresh summer wind run wild in a home I won't know much longer. Time to find a new home, one without all of these memories and ghosts.

Yes.

love and vantage points

2011-06-17T21:35:00.002-04:00

Near my front door is the nest two barnswallows built. I watched their progress with interest and blessed them each time I walked by.

One day a huge storm rolled through and neither bird have I seen again.

Every day I leave my house I look up and see that empty, pointless, beautifully mud built nest and I think to myself that it is such a perfect metaphor for our short lived togetherness.

Today I thought of taking it down and mailing it to you but you wouldn't understand. Even if I explained it it simply wouldn't mean as much to you as it does to me. And that, really, is the realization I need to hold on to when I feel sad and miss you; I never did mean as much to you as you did to me. I couldn't explain what you meant to me if I tried because you would be incapable of understanding it.

And so today I walked outside and the wind softly blew at me, the sun hid coyly behind a cloud and created a prism on another cloud, and I knew right then that I was going to be just fine, because I know how important that nest is, you don't, and that's ok.

Welcome To The Jungle, via two cellos

2011-06-13T16:59:00.000-04:00

That shit is the fucking hotness, yo. Good lord...

the joy of being adored, rediscovered

2011-05-26T12:29:00.002-04:00

There's something intensely powerful about having extended eye contact with someone. In particular, I'm thinking of the man who is currently setting my heart aflame. The way he holds my hand in public and private (something my husband stopped doing many years ago) just makes me feel like I should skip through a meadow while singing. There's so many things that are wrong about this bizarre union, but so very many things that are deeply healing as well. One of them, in particular, is the fact that my self esteem is badly warped from the last few years of my husband not being sexually interested in me, but obviously expressing and sometimes even discussing with me his sexual attraction to other women. The way he would look bored and put out while I was talking, the way he would turn away when I undressed, the million and one ways that showed me he just wasn't interested anymore... these things wounded me on some level. The man in my life now... it's so hard to be away from him but when we're together it's... just fucking amazing. He makes me feel like I'm gorgeous and fascinating and hilarious and...
*sigh*
I haven't slept much. And although the song and sentiment are over the top, I saw this video a while ago and thought, "Yes, yes, YES!" So here's some Rhianna to prance about and say what it is I'm feeling dramatically and quite possibly, accurately.

The part where she's standing on the edge of a cliff with her arms outspread totally resonated with me. And the bit at the end, where she's happily skipping about in front of the tree with all of the colored lamps- yes.

Yes, he makes me feel just like that, both of those things, especially when he's staring into my eyes while making love. I wish I could find the words for it.
*heart thuds and eyes unfocus*
Oh me oh my.

(As is sadly seeming to be a trend for me, maybe a week later he oddly stopped talking to me. Two weeks later, there's someone else. Well. Don't I feel special now. *sigh* I seem to excel at torrid love affairs, I guess.)

2011-05-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

I see my husband is attending "Sarah's (finally) turning 21!" party. Thank you, Facebook, for reminders such as this.

my kind of humor...

2011-05-20T10:12:00.002-04:00

thoughts of this morning:

2011-05-20T09:47:00.000-04:00

1) The Rapture started early, when this came on the radio-

2) Describing oneself as "mercurial" seems to translate as "moody" when used by men.

3) My ex, no matter how much he fucking bugs me, is fun to mess with. This morning he asked me how I was feeling. I responded, "Hm. Speculative." He was concerned about my (admittedly concerning) mood yesterday. A bit later he replied, "What'cha speculatin' on?" My response, "The muthafuckin Rapture, dude. There had better not be any muthafuckin snakes on that muthafuckin plane." His reply, "?! You're weird and funny." My response, "Get it? Plane? Of existence? I am weird and funny."

4) Spam can be absolutely fucking hilarious, especially when viewed by a brilliant mind. Spam can be absolutely fucking hilarious for everyone when that mind is named Adam and can also draw.

You're welcome.

May is Ehlers Danlos Awareness month

2011-05-15T11:07:00.000-04:00

Funny thing- while typing the title I instead wrote "May is Ehlers Danlos Awesomeness month" and then realized what I did and laughed. I am awesome, for the record, but that's not what this is about.

Vegan Black Metal Chef

2011-05-14T16:39:00.000-04:00

This thing is retarded and totally awesome. I don't even care for metal music but still have it playing in the background while I write this because it's fucking funny.

*kisses to Puckett, who I think will extra enjoy*

2011-05-12T10:57:00.000-04:00

What could be more brilliant than eating the head of the Great A'tuin at your wedding?

Personally, I would avoid the bits near Unseen University. You just never know what might happen. I'm guessing some sort of Willy Wonka effect.

No More Mr. Nice Guy (you stole his suit, he wants it back)

2011-04-28T14:37:00.001-04:00

I'm sick to fucking death of my husband trying to be sweet now. It's a mind fuck. I'm tired of the mind fuck. It's the only regularly offered kind of fuck I got out of him for years, and now that we've separated and he's literally fucking someone else, I don't want ANY kind of fuck from him.

After the years of dark looks, yelling, hateful words, and the emotionally soul crushing experience of just living with him from day to day, he's really outdoing himself trying to be nice. Too little, too late. After years of him showing me the many ways in which he hated me, his niceness now is like being bitch slapped with a wet sack of honey.

It's not that I have a problem with nice. The problem is that I feel his current niceness is conditional. And temporary.

I met someone I like, you see. He knows this. He knew before I went out with him, in fact, as it is a childhood friend of his. He heartily gave his blessing. And when I came back and he wanted details, he blurted out during a completely unrelated story, "Did you have sex with him or not?"

My reply, "Um...awkward." A pause. "Are we at that part of the conversation now?"

Not, "Do you like him?" or "How do you feel about him?" or "Did you have fun, did you two get along?"

For someone whose had his dick regularly jammed into a twenty something year old that he supposedly cares nothing about, the question seemed a bit, what's the word, oh yes: insane.

But the fun wasn't over! Oh, no indeed!

He informed me that if I moved away, he would want to come, too. He wasn't sure if that would be welcomed, he noted.

Uh. Dude?

The crowning jewel in the conversation was when he asked me, while laying back melodramatically on the couch with an expression of long suffering silence, "Does this mean we're over now?"

*even the crickets stop chirping by the utter mind fuckery of this ludicrous question*

It was all I could do to stare at him and not burst into truly hysterical laughter. Utter and complete laughter of the variety "You just bent my head over and ass raped it, wow!"

My mind whirled at the plethora of times and ways in which I could list to him how he repeatedly ended our relationship, how he actively sought to annihilate it in a million little ways, then bigger, then bigger still, always just short of (so I assume) actually putting the nail in the coffin and fucking someone else.

Finally I managed, "You said the same thing when I started dating (some dude)."

And now? Now he's moving into a spare room in my best friend's house. Apparently she doesn't fucking care or hasn't given the slightest consideration to how this might make me feel, having my soon to be ex husband as a housemate for her and her boyfriend.

And as I finish typing that, I get a text from her that says, "I'm worried you aren't gonna come visit me because Jack's movin in" to which I responded, "I'm also scared of that. The situation is brutally painful to me."

What else can I say? I had some of the most amazing experiences last week while on the first vacation I have had in sixteen years. Yes. Count em. Sixteen years. And it was difficult to see so many friends and feel so much love only to come back here to Jack and his crazy mind fucking. All I wanted when I got back was to sit down with my best girl friends and dish all, and hope they could help put my heart back together or at least make sense of the puzzle pieces.

I'm been sleeping and drinking a lot. And I don't fucking care about that. I think I'm holding up pretty goddamn well, considering.

Now what?

Now I put an end to this shit. Slowly but surely, this is ending. I managed to get myself into yet another idiot situation where I was dependent on a man and this is what happens- there's always an emotional price to be had for it.

I'm wondering if moving back home with my parents isn't a brilliant idea after all. Family would be nice. Real nice.

fuck the dark side's shitty cookies, anyway

2011-04-27T15:29:00.000-04:00

Too many thoughts.

Current:

Wishes my husband would stop being so sweet and nice sometimes. Just sometimes. It's a mind fuck and I don't care for it. He didn't want me and should just have the damn divorce papers served to me so my journey to the dark side will be complete.

Phillip Roebuck

2011-04-16T21:18:00.000-04:00

This is who I went to see last night in Norfolk. He was freakin' astounding, as usual.

when life presents you with mind fucks, just dance

2011-04-03T22:11:00.000-04:00

Last night was the first time since my husband and I split up that he and I and his new girlfriend were all at the same club at the same time.

It was straight up weird.

Part of what made it so flipping weird was that the two of them aren't acting like they're together while in public. Even going so far as to leave separately and at different times. Maybe it's better than watching them paw each other in public, I don't know. I do know that being privy to their weird little secret was just uncomfortable as hell. Realizing that very few people had any clue at all was just plain wtf weird. Having them come up and stand just to the other side of my best friend was even weirder.

One best friend, me, other best friend, husband, husband's girlfriend.

That was the line up. So we could all just look up and down the line at each other and want to hurl. And that was my husband's doing. You know, because there's nothing weird going on. He's not fucking the girl he's standing next to so how on earth could anyone fault him for that?

My friend between us leaned over, bug eyed, and whispered, "I do NOT want to be in the middle of this freaky ass sandwich." I nodded solemnly to her, reached into my drink, pulled out some ice and dropped it down the back of his shirt.

He hopped around, laughing. Oh, we're all having such a good time.

Ugh.

And good lord, he just kept staring at me, starry eyed. Finally his girlfriend went to dance with the other twit that always demands attention, and I found that fitting, as she certainly wasn't getting any from him. While part of me found the fact that he couldn't take his eyes off of me appealing, another part just wished he would fucking stop. I mean, I did everything in the world to get his attention for years- apparently I just needed to let him go so he could fuck someone else and that would make him look at me like that again. Oh, golly, that's all? Why didn't I think of that?

*sigh*

The thing is, despite all of his claims to being a polyamorist, the fact is he's only seeing her. Only has seen her. Isn't trying to date anyone else. So, in reality, he went from being with me to being with her, exclusively. Except she is not with him exclusively. And he's not bothering to use condoms with her. So...

Can I get a, "No, thank you" in the house?

*shudder*

The only thing more icky than seeing them there together was knowing they were leaving together. Although they made the effort of looking like they weren't leaving together (and when I expressed as much, in confusion, to him he continued to let me believe that by not correcting me, which I did not actually appreciate at all once I realized I had been duped), the fact remained that they did, went back to her place, and one can only assume had a lovely time fucking each other after he told me repeatedly how I was the most beautiful woman there and blah blah blah.

He wonders why I lose my damn shit.

Whatever. Once he left, I got another drink. A strong one, but mostly for the ice. It was oddly hot in there, considering it's a patio and it was cold outside. And as the girl next to me started dancing, I realized there really was only one thing to do about any of it:

Dance.

And dance I did, although it required taking off my heels because I would have broken my ankles (both) had I tried, and that meant ending up with revolting dirty bar floor feet that I managed to carefully hobble inside, wash my feet intensely and then my shoes as well once I got home... still worth it. Absolutely worth it.

What else was there to possibly do in that crazy inside out fucked up sideways situation but close my eyes, smile, and dance?

I love dancing.

And now, I present you with this bizarre ditty that my friend in the awkward sandwich showed me when she spent the night Friday night (and we spazzed out and tried to pull April Fools' Day jokes on her friends- I am not a prankster, but a willing accomplice, being there is no malice involved)
Enjoy your Mexican Breakfast. It sounds to me like something you should Walk It Out.

Oh, sex and sorrow...

2011-04-01T13:46:00.000-04:00

While perusing the new editing and formatting options that Blogger is offering, I came across a pile of blog posts that are saved as drafts. Hmm. It's a rather huge pile, honestly. The majority of them are from 2006.

As I read through a few of them I realized most were from the sex blog, and back in the happy days when my husband and I were still not only having sex, but mutually enjoying the hell out of it. Now he is gone and I quietly counted back the years to 2006 and sighed.

Life moves on.

books, not boys

2011-03-29T14:16:00.003-04:00

Is it enough to date one person briefly and decide that I'd rather just stay home and read books? Should I give other men a chance? Is it fair that one douchenozzle should convince me that I'm not ready and frankly, I just don't give a shit?

Doesn't matter what the right answer is: those are the facts, currently.

urgh

2011-03-25T15:37:00.004-04:00

Stupid mobile posts disappear into the ethers, and I am aggravated but I shall return.
In the meantime, I woke up with a fever of 104.2 in the wee hours. Estranged husband taking me to the doctors soon. That says a lot, yah?
Oh. Sick? Don't think so. Think it's a body wide revolt via massive migraine to the sheer amount of both pain and stress that I've been under. My body is weird.

(Later edit:

The doctor sent me to the emergency room, where they did a CT scan and a spinal tap, thinking I had spinal meningitis because my migraine was so severe and my pain so bad that my whole body went bananas. The whole experience was stupid times a zillion, other than rediscovering an appreciation for my estranged husband. Life is weird, too.)

nobody told you how to unfold your love...

2011-03-15T20:38:00.002-04:00

Someone recently told me that now that I was single men would start coming out of the woodwork. I laughed at him and thought he was trying to be flattering.

Since then I have had more than a few moments where I realized not only was he correct but that I am wholeheartedly unprepared for any such thing. So far my track record has gone like this this:

Up close and personal- giggle madly, confused, run away.
Up cose and personal- laugh somewhat more sedately and run away.
Up close and personal- pretend I was clueless and run away.
Long distance- acknowledge and laugh it off.
Long distance- acknowledge and laugh it off, pretending to not fully understand.
Up close and personal- was honestly baffled and then ran away.
Long distance- totally and absolutely encourage it (given that it remains long distance).
Up close and personal- giggle and clumsily try to be ok with it. Results not promising.
Long distance- vaguely encourage it, somewhat perplexed.
Up close and personal- act vaguely clued in and ran away.

And here I am, drinking tea and wondering what the bloody hell I'm doing. Evidently nothing. However, it is no longer a mystery to me why I've gone from one relationship to another. And also, I now know why I must learn how to be single. It's that or keep running until I fall over.

The Beatles are on the radio singing, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." It's more fitting than I care to really admit, but there it is.

habitual avoidance

2011-03-11T10:14:00.002-05:00

I've just spent close to an hour sitting outside my apartment in my truck, reading. Why? I can go inside. Why on earth am I just sitting out here?

Avoidance. Habit.

This is what I used to do when Jack still lived here- he was almost always home, and inevitably sitting on he couch, in a rotten mood and scowling. If I wanted somewhere chill to sit for a little while, I would simply pull back into the parking lot and turn off the engine, just sitting in the sunshine or rain, but no matter what it was always more peaceful than going inside. Even with road construction going on, or the landscaping guys mowing grass or blowing leaves, even the military jets taking off from the nearby base, all of that didn't scowl at me so it wasn't the noise I was used to- the near constant emotional onslaught of living with someone as chemically unbalanced and depressed.

So why am I out here now, typing away?

Every day I am learning more and more about what my life was like with Jack and what it's like without him. It endlessly astounds me how insanely unhealthy it was and yet I had deluded myself into thinking it wasn't. I catch myself doing odd things like this, things that became habitual, coping mechanisms.

I'm going inside. I'm going home now.

*smiles*

File under: lamest emo post ever.

2011-03-06T01:18:00.002-05:00

I haven't been sleeping much, and up until tonight I'd have told you it was worth it. But I'm blue, and dark, and gloomy. What's my fucking problem? I don't know.

Fuck it. I'm going to sleep.

What? Oh phooey....

2011-03-02T22:59:00.002-05:00

...I just realized my mobile posts are not making it in here. New phone. I'll have to fix that. In the meantime:

places to go, people to love on

2011-02-25T19:40:00.001-05:00

With two hours of sleep last night and the utter inability to sleep at all today, I have never had so many invites from so many friends to do so many things all in one night.

The weather is crazy warm, and going to drop back down again. Spring fever?

Whatever it is, I am feeling the love.

~exactly~

2011-02-22T21:28:00.000-05:00

next to my bed:

2011-02-15T23:51:00.001-05:00

For me? How did I know?

awake and shed tears, woman

2011-02-15T18:58:00.003-05:00

I just woke up still sitting up and looked at my laptop. There was a message I had been writing to a girl in town who wanted to know why I unfriended her on Facebook, apparently I fell asleep writing it.

When I fell asleep there were mourning doves in the sunset outside my window and when I awoke I could hear the voices of strangers in the darkness outside.

For a few moments I was confused why I felt so happy and so sad, and then I remembered that the man that I thought was the love of my life is gone with no hope of that dream ever returning. And then I remembered the dream and the bizarre sweetness of kissing one of my male friends that I've known forever, and us standing with our heads together and smiling, enjoying the suspense and the excitement, both of us content in knowing that whatever happened, it was ok because we'd loved each other forever and were friends. I remembered being in my dad's house, then it was my uncle's house, merged. I was somehow showing the friend of mine around but was doing some sort of slow motion dancing, spinning off the ceiling and walls and floor while he gazed at me with adoration and love and I him when I spun slowly back around to face him. It was some convergence of one house that I feared (my father's) and one I loved and feared (my uncles). And it was partly the church I attended as a child that I have always gone to in dreams as a safe place because of the happy memories I have there but also the zillion little stairways and back routes and hidey holes- when I was in Youth Group we would do bake sales and bake until we dropped, literally all spending the night at the church, baking downstairs in the industrial sized kitchen, and running around the huge building in the dark playing hide and seek and laughing.

The song that hit me when I woke up was one I heard on the radio earlier- "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton. I was on my way to the chiropractor when I heard it and listened, surprising myself. I haven't had much use for love songs lately, usually changing the station when they come on. But I listened, and sang along, and faintly smiled.

All of this hit me in an instant- the men talking outside, the darkness, my husband having left, the dream, the song- and I burst into tears.

*sigh*

How much am I holding back in an effort to just be ok, I wonder? Why on earth would this all strike me as so sad, so suddenly? And why, oh why, does that dream pluck the strings of my heart so hard?

*starts to cry again and takes a deep breath*

Maybe because I've known that friend longer than the guy I've got a crush on, and longer than I've known my husband, and even longer than I've known my own child. There is something powerful to me about familiarity in the people I surround myself with now.

As a matter of fact, that was just the point I was making to the girl I was writing back to when I fell asleep.

Sure, I could accept it at that and tape it closed and stick a label on it, but there's more to feel about this. So I will.

~beautiful and bittersweet~

2011-02-14T10:18:00.002-05:00

first light of sunrise in my home:

2011-02-14T07:28:00.001-05:00

2011-02-13T23:30:00.001-05:00

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering...
Now, let us acknowledge the wonder of our physical incarnation— that we are here, in these particular bodies, at this particular time, in these particular circumstances.
May we never take for granted the gift of our individuality.

— Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

what I found on top of the fridge:

2011-02-13T12:14:00.001-05:00

There are far worse things one could find after leaving their teenager home alone. This made me laugh. He set it back up there so perfectly careful that none even spilled. Not one. This morning I showed him where to find the Ziploc bags.

breakfast with sunlight

2011-02-12T10:24:00.001-05:00

things in my inbox(s):

2011-02-09T12:23:00.004-05:00

Being separated seems to have some advantages... some of my old sex blog readers have reappeared and are sending me delightful things. VERY delightful things.

I miss sex blogging. *sigh*

This is part of a message in my inbox (in reference to oral sex):

I know its an odd question but I have never heard you mention it in any of your writing. I assume you would enjoy having a male face wedged deep into your thighs, but then again you are one complex kitten.

A complex kitten! I love it. I set him straight on the matter right away.

Seriously? I never wrote about that? I'm sure I did. Perhaps Jack didn't do it often enough to merit writing about.

*snickers*

That's not very nice of me yet true nonetheless.

On a stranger note, I decided to put myself to sleep happily last night and got out my Rock Chick. I was exhausted and did not finish what I meant to accomplish. I realized it when I woke up... suffice to say I don't move much in my sleep and once awareness hit it was all I could do to not crack up.

I amuse me.

more joy

2011-02-08T15:39:00.001-05:00

There are many things that I have discovered that are joyful about having my husband move out. One is having flowers and vast empty spaces to actually set them in. Another is nudity. With the last three years of near sexlessness, Jack was unnerved by my nudity and felt like it was a pressure tactic on my part for him to have sex with me. That was tiresome and I very much disliked that he found my nudity threatening. Blech. As for himself, the man I met that would strip the second he walked in the door and not get dressed again until he left disappeared, lost under a pile of clothes. Part of that was having my son in the house but a whole lot of time while he was at school my husband would stay clothed. Near the end it was so awkward that he would dress in the bathroom or closet or shut the bedroom door so that I wouldn't see him. But now he's gone, and I'm strutting my hips through the empty house and draping my tall body over whatever I damn well please. For I am wild and beautiful and won't be contained by some man's head. Rawr!

we think we can, we think we can, we think we can

2011-02-08T14:26:00.002-05:00

I just finished writing emails to my son's teachers and counselor at school- we're all joining in together to try to help him find a way to pull his grades out of the crapper, in a nutshell.

For a student who is usually so self propelled that he is often on the Principals List (straight A's) or Honor Roll (A's and B's) this is serious. What on earth could make his grades drop like this?

First, he's a teenage boy. I think he's distracted by the usual teenage boy stuff. But second, I've barely paid the usual amount of attention to him and helped to keep him organized because this is the year that my husband decided to become a social butterfly, a drunken social butterfly at that. And since our shrink told us to go out and have fun together (which Jack translated into "Go out and have fun") Jack has indeed been going out and having a whole lot of fun. Then I looked forward and saw the school year starting and pointed it out to Jack. He looked entirely put out, and stayed that way. The school year started and I stayed home a lot more, but still tried to go out a bit as it seemed to be the only way to spend time with my husband and our marriage wasn't doing very well.

When I asked my son how school and homework were going, he said that it was fine. I believed him because I wanted to. And for awhile I suspect it really was fine. But at some point it ceased being fine and I think my son had grown accustomed to no one really being there or helping him stay focused or organized and well... things slid out of control. By the time I actually realized how stressed out he was, he was, in his view, beyond all hope of saving.

One giant plate of mama's humble pie, with a side of sour guilt milk to wash that down with, please. Thank you.

Now after many emails and one horrific meeting with his teachers and counselor- all at once in a little room with Yours Truly (oh his science teacher is hot! Well, he is!), they have a better understanding of how this has all come to be. In other words, one teacher pointed out his grades for every year and then this one... and she asked if there was anything going on that might have contributed to his grades dropping like that....?

I confess, I felt like a gazelle with a pack of hyenas staring me down.

To my surprise, my lip started to tremble and I blurted out, "Well, my husband left." I inhaled. "Yesterday." I exhaled.

I really didn't think I was that upset about it. I mean, the house was so blissfully quiet and I really loved it. But suddenly having five adults, the very people that care for my child when he isn't with me, stare at me across the table with looks of pity and pain was just too horrible. My eyes watered up. And I bit the inside of my cheek, lifted my chin in salty tear defiance and went on, "But it's better this way. We just weren't getting along. We... I mean..." I faltered and stopped talking. I looked down to see my white knuckled fingers of my hands clenching each other and took a shaky breath.

His math teacher said softly but passionately, "It's ok. All of us have been there at some point. And we're going to help you two get through this. We're going to help (my son)."

And from then on out the meeting was about the specifics of what was wrong and how we could work around them according to my disability to my total retardation when it comes to mixing dyslexia with equations involving letters and numbers (seriously, do you know how fucked up that is to try to read and write when you're dyslexic?! Argh.) to the fact that Jack was the help with math homework but now he's gone to how to help my son feel like he's catching up while at the same time not overload his poor overtaxed mind and heart with the monstrous task of catching up...

I left the meeting with my head spinning and my heart felt raw and exposed. A friend of mine was meeting me nearby so I could give her something and I have never wanted to hug her more than I did right then. It was like God just dropped down a salty sailor tongued angel girl in a parking lot just so I could receive the glorious bounty of her heavenly hug.

>cue shafts of light and an angelic choir<

After rushing back home, my son looked at me with the expression of someone waiting to see if the governor had perhaps sent word of a pardon...? no....? Oh.... damn. So I told him the plan and while he was not overjoyed he was at least consoled that so many adults cared so much about his well being and happiness that perhaps it temporarily eased the pain of his step dad leaving.

Alas, all of that seemed undone in one fell swoop when he came into my room and informed me that the project he'd been telling me he was doing fine with in social studies was, in fact, not done at all. In addition, he couldn't even vaguely explain what the assignment was, nor could I guess from the vague but incredibly complex instructions. It dawned on me that he had been lying about having done this project all week, all weekend, and on top of that, he'd been bugging me relentlessly to get him a new xbox game that he could play online with his friends, one that costs sixty dollars that I don't have. But Jack does and Jack offered to buy it for him... but no way in hell was I going to let him have a new game to further distract him from the schoolwork he was already blowing off to play online with his friends.

Of course I understand that the game was something to use to distract him not from his homework but from the pain of his parents separation. Unfortunately for him, he chose to not do his homework and lie to me about it. He knows from previous experience how poorly that works out for him, and last night was no exception.

Once we had clarified that he had no clue how to do the homework and there was no way to find out nor time in which to do the whole thing even if we did figure out how to do it, I set it down to one side and calmly told him to get out of my room because I was really pissed off and needed some time to calm down before we could decide what our next course of action would be. He wisely exited the room.

It wasn't two minutes later I could hear him bawling across the house. When I went in to ask him what was wrong, it had nothing to do with the video game, which was refreshing for a moment. When he followed it with, "My dad left me, then (my ex) left me, now Jack left me... I'm so LONELY!" and started back in to bawling I felt my heart just flutter to the floor.

Two hours later of talking about the Why's of it All and many tears from both of us later, I told him to screw the homework for the night (it was late anyway) and that I would email his teachers in the morning, but for the time we should go eat his favorite cheese (it's one certain brand of mozzarella, the kid has taste, what can I say?) and crackers and just kick back and watch some TV together.

So we did.

And today? Back to homework. The emails have been written but not answered yet and the veggie burgers are cooked, he has taken one very long shower and it's back to the grind for us. I'm really hoping the emails made sense as I literally nodded off repeatedly while writing them, just utterly exhausted from a week or so of high end stress and emotional strain. I figure I already made a first impression and hopefully they read my messages as a stressed out mother and not a first rate crack head.

I'll tell you this: there is both champagne and Guinness in my fridge, and had my son NOT just fell the fuck apart the night before about the three alcoholic men who abandoned us I would be drinking something right now. And last night. And maybe tomorrow two.

It would at least give me an excuse for my hands to keep sliding off the keyboard and me nodding off and typing xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for two pages only to snap back to, erase it, and keep writing.

So tired. And truth be told I'd like to say fuck the homework and buy my son that video game and just listen to him laughing his fool head off in the other room while he plays live with his buddies at their houses in their rooms.

Still. I look up from the screen at the bouquets of fresh flowers and listen to the silence and know that no one is going to walk in and scowl at me like I'm an asshole for some unknown reason and that I can start singing at the top of my lungs if I wish...

Oh. I do suddenly miss the way Jack would laugh at my antics.

Still.

Just...

still.

****breathe****

brand spankin' new: my request is in!

2011-02-07T11:04:00.001-05:00

things are looking rosy

2011-02-05T10:12:00.001-05:00

Aren't they beautiful? I bought them for myself. And they are quite lovely to wake up to on the very first day of sleeping in on a weekend while living new singled.

(Did I describe them accurately, Eve?)

I don't wanna talk anymore

2011-02-04T21:09:00.005-05:00

This evening my husband stopped by to get some more of his things but really, I suspect he was here to tell me that he was going over to some chicks house. The same chick that he was relentlessly texting back and forth with when I made up my mind that really, truly, we would both be better off NOT LIVING TOGETHER ANYMORE.

There's a plethora of reasons why we shouldn't be together, but that evening stood out and smacked me into awareness of the fact that he isn't even dealing with the fact that we're splitting up. In fact, he just replaced getting my attention with getting hers. More disturbing to me still was how he wouldn't be affectionate at all... unless he hadn't gotten any texts from her in a while and then he would come over and hug me and try to engage me in some playful banter.

Um...no.

The thing about it all that irks me is that after a year and half of discussing the intricacies of a polyamorous relationship, he couldn't fucking balls up and do it. There's a few bits of this story that are missing as I've been up to my eyeballs in getting him moved out of here but suffice to say that uh... I did my part. I went on a date. And I had a WONDERFUL time. And I was perfectly honest with Jack before, during, and after. In the meantime, he had been sneaking around with some girl the week before and met her for lunch on the sly... and then managed to own up to asking another girl out with full blessings from me, only to get shot down. She didn't want to share him. And then he's moved out.

Yah, I know that's an inaccurate version because I'm irritated right now. There was more stuff in there. We went to therapy. He started eyeballing this other chick. She started eyeballing him back. They talked. They started texting relentlessly. The night that he was going to move out but didn't he ended up sitting on the couch just texting back and forth with her for hours. It was all I could do to not throw something at him and say, "Jesus, just go fuck her and knock this shit off! I'm not even reading your damn texts and know you both want to knock boots, just do it already, GAH!" It's one thing to be supportive of your polyamorous spouse enjoying some flirting- and it's another to be supportive of your soon to be ex not actually moving out but instead sitting around giggling about whatever his new gf is texting him. I expect my teenage son to act that way. Seeing a grown man having himself a way too early mid life crisis do it is just lame- especially when he complained about being "too scared" to move out earlier that day.

Bitch, please.

So why come over tonight and tell me about his date? We aren't together. I don't give a shit. I really think he is still so tangled in the Us That Used To Be that he felt he had to "confess" before he could go over there and fuck her. Like, seriously, dude? I wonder if he's going to call me at 3am and drunk and tell me he didn't use a condom, you know?

Ugh.

Last night was SO awesome. I spent the better part of the day ripping our bedroom to bits and rearranging furniture, redecorating, and in essence, just making it MINE. After finishing that I took a broiling hot shower, changed into pajamas and tore into a book I've been dying to read for well over a week now. The new bedroom? I love it. This morning I went to get stuff from the store and decided my new bedroom needed fresh flowers.

Tonight I'm texting a gal pal. Both of us seem to be coming down with something so we're unsure about hanging out. I told her I need to find my web cam and we can Skype back and forth and shop for sex toys online.

In the meantime, I can turn off the phone. I'm home, my son is safe and happy chatting with his buddies on his Xbox 360, and everything that matters to me is right here. And that, my loves, is a truly AMAZING feeling.

(Note from a few hours later:
I should have turned the phone off. While it's not yet 3am, I have received numerous texts from him over the last few hours, each more emotional than the last. I simply replied that I was busy talking to a girlfriend and having fun and would respond when I could, and did a few hours later once she and I were done talking/laughing hysterically. It's midnight now, and while I'm not yet tired I think I will shut the phone off once I do go to bed!)

objects in mirror not what they seem

2011-02-04T13:05:00.002-05:00

(This post is belated. I wrote it maybe a week ago and finishing it is silly as things change. So, fuck it, here it is.)

This evening I was planning on going to an art show and ended up staying home with my son, who needed help with his homework. He's been needing a lot of help recently as he's slipped further behind that I had noticed, something that strikes me as alarming.

Mmm.

As I looked up articles for him and fielded odd texts from my soon to be not husband *sigh* about him going to buy mushrooms (yes, that kind) I realized I was utterly exhausted. When my son walked back into the living room I told him I just had to nap for twenty minutes but to wake me back up as I wanted to help him still. Being the incredibly sweet child that he is, he leaned over and made sure I was tucked in, then kissed my head a bunch while telling me I was being attacked by The Smoochy Monster. This is a zillion times cuter than it sounds as he is thirteen and his voice has dropped deeper than many grown men's voices. And I fell asleep.

It shouldn't be possible to dream immediately but I felt like I was dreaming the sort of dream that hits after a full REM cycle- very strange and very realistic, utterly unlike the bizarre half thoughts melding into fantasia that make up dreams as one is falling asleep. In the dream I was back at my parents house and I was trying to get away from my step dad who was being inappropriately affectionate and was trying to molest me. I recall fighting him off with a wooden soled shoe and then curling up into a fetal position and trying to play dead. One of my dear friends, J.B. was there and trying to help me get out of there. And I awoke.

Upon awakening a few things hit me in rapid order: ~I used to dream about that and/or fear that a lot growing up. *shudder* ~My husband and I are separating and we agree on that point. ~One of my best friends would be over any minute and while she thought she was coming to comfort me about the doom of my marriage I had to inform her that her boyfriend stuck his hand down my pants at a party last weekend while she was at a funeral. I don't know why on earth he crammed his hand into my pants to grab a hold of my ass, especially as he hadn't even partaken in my lips at all. I thought to myself, perhaps I should vomit.

(Post never finished, but I tire of having them sit in my phone like this.)

when snacks gaze back:

2011-01-30T13:20:00.001-05:00

what time it truly is right now:

2011-01-30T06:13:00.002-05:00

Jack's watch and wedding ring, both sitting here on the bedside table while he's out, not being able to find his drunken way home. Fitting, really. Marriage and time, fuck em. Yep.

I stopped dating drunks because:

2011-01-30T06:08:00.002-05:00

staying up all night and worrying about them while they passed out somewhere is such total shit. And suddenly my husband is acting this way, after knowing I have refused to ever date a drunk again.

Ok, ok. I can take a hint. Loud and clear.

FUCK I'm hungry

2011-01-29T23:50:00.003-05:00

Note to self:

Massive sudden sexual frustration overrides a lack of appetite caused by unbearable physical pain.

Thank you, Scoot, for giving me the ability to eat something after spending a day in miserable pain.

I ate something yesterday, maybe with MSG, I don't know. *shakes head* Damn bar food, even vegan bar food, has twice now left me in horrific pain the next day. Pain that doesn't correspond to anything I did and certainly not in correlation to the two Guinness I happily drank. No, this is more like sudden and crippling arthritis combined with feeling like someone hit me in the bottom and back side of my skull with a ball peen hammer.

On that note:

Dear TapHouse and 37th and Zen in Norfolk, VA,

Fuck you for whatever you're sticking in your food. Maybe you're of the stupid opinion that vegan food tastes like crap and thus, fucked up additives are the only alternatives? If so, learn how to cook. It tastes awesome.
For my part, I shall stay away from your clearly sub par food and stick to places that actually know how to flavor vegan dishes.

painfully,
Jill

2011-01-28T12:28:00.001-05:00

2011-01-28T12:27:00.001-05:00

2011-01-28T12:26:00.001-05:00

liquid grace and softness~

2011-01-28T12:21:00.001-05:00

when words don't quite cover it:

2011-01-26T11:04:00.001-05:00

Ella knows just how to convey the feeling.

Love is varied, complex, astounding, simple, scat.

Technology Loop

2011-01-25T14:21:00.001-05:00

This show cracks me up, and this one reminds me of what it's like being with my husband quite often, minus the NetFlix and laughter.

2011-01-25T14:16:00.000-05:00

Note to future self:
When someone tells you, "Before we get married, I feel like I should tell you this," and follows it with something that you'd never share with another soul because it makes you want to curl up in a fetal position and vomit for a month, you should just take the pretty diamond off your finger and walk away. Or crawl away. But do so. There's something very wrong or you wouldn't want to curl up and puke, ok? Cool.

step one...

2011-01-25T13:01:00.003-05:00

I just sent my mother and step dad a lengthy email explaining what was going on between Jack and I, and that I felt that a separation, although not explicitly agreed on yet, is imminent.

To acknowledge this reality in a way other that bits of conversations with friends and talking about it on my blog is huge. And I sure as hell didn't want them reading it here first and feeling hurt and insulted that I hadn't bothered to clue them in.

So. There's that.

I'm going to go calmly and perhaps a little too calmly go do yoga and make myself lunch. *deep breath*

looking for the line in these sands

2011-01-23T22:41:00.002-05:00

Last week in therapy Jack discussed the idea of us separating. In the past I'd fought the idea tooth and nail because I don't really believe it would be temporary as he'd made it out to be. Now I'm all for it.

The other day I was driving and allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to live without Jack. It would be rough, financially, and there would be a period of grieving and adjustment for both my son and myself. Other than that... it sounds like heaven. It sounds like what it was life was like before I met him.

Being a single mother was hard, but it was beautiful, and it lasted for far too short a time. I wasn't ready to date and had told Jack that. But he said all the right things and swept me off my feet...and years later I realize that a lot of those things were either outright lies or perhaps convenient half truths that perhaps he thought were truths. I don't know. I do know a lot of what he claimed to be back then is not what he's like at least past the honeymoon stage (not that we ever did take a honeymoon- he hated the mere idea of vacations).

I miss those days of waking up and having it just be me and my little monkey, even if I was exhausted and poor, at least there was a lot of peace. There was a lot of tranquility. I loved coming home and ripping through the chores I had to do, make dinner for us, help him with his homework and then kick back and play or just cuddle up on the couch and watch silly things and laugh.

Jack has always had a serious thing with claiming any central space as his own and then refusing to leave it when he's in a foul mood (which is frequently). That may be one of the most annoying and stressful things about living with him, sometimes. If someone is in the common area and just glares or sighs or snaps at you every time you walk by to get some water or a snack, it becomes far more like having an asshole housemate than a loved family member. No matter how many times I have discussed this with him over the years it has made no difference. He has occasionally chosen to get up and walk into the other room, but I can likely count those times on one hand, honestly. Other than that, my son and I tiptoe through the house and try not to come out often or engage him in any way when we do.

After five? six? years of that I am so over it. He shows no signs of stopping it, and if anything, seems just as adamant that because HE is the one paying the bills, HE should be able to park his ass on HIS couch in HIS living room and kick back with HIS laptop and listen to HIS music if HE wants. Who the hell are we to challenge his almighty authority?

My step dad pulled shit ass behavior like that- I was thoroughly unimpressed as a teenager and I am even less impressed now.

Add to that the years of lying and secrecy about porn when a discussion would have sufficed (had he not an addiction that he is still in denial about to this day), or the horrible way he decided to become Super Corporate Dude and on his ladder climbing way to misery decided to mold me to his warped reality by making me throw away all of my favorite clothes and shoes and earrings and you name it (because they were "childish" and we could afford "better quality, more grown up things", blech), then his sudden reversal into teenage rebellion by his sudden decision to leave me and start his life somewhere else with a woman who could "have my children and take care of them and have a career as well", then his just as sudden decision to stay but only if we could have a polyamorous relationship, then his sudden change from Ultimate Hermit to Super Frat Boy Permanent Weekend, Dude Bro, to his most recent bouts of drunkenness, irresponsibility, and sneaking around with some chick and going to extraordinary lengths to conceal it...

That, I think, was the line that was finally crossed. It really doesn't matter if he did or didn't do anything. It doesn't matter if he could have just asked and kept me clued in first. What matters to me is his ever escalating bullshit and deception regarding things that don't even need to be hidden. As he told me the next day, "If you were someone else telling me this story I would tell you that you need to leave that asshole and don't look back because he's clearly just going to keep fucking you over and obviously can't or won't change his behaviour."

Well. Indeed.

That made me feel like it was his true self trying to reach through his own bullshit and tell me what I needed to hear: I'm fucked up. I can't/won't stop doing this to you. Please save yourself before I do something worse. And worse. Because I will. I can't stand being married.

That doesn't even begin to touch the chemical imbalance that he tries to treat with various self medicating ways or researching information on the internet and then convincing his doctors of what they should give him only to find he feels just as horrid if not more later because he's imbalanced and incredibly smart but he can't see past his own smoke screens about what his real problem is nor, for that silly little matter, is he a doctor. Seriously- I have some bizarre medical issues that I have to teach most of my own doctors about as they've never even heard of it, but still I am not so cocky as to assume that I know what kind of neurochemical medication could make me all better. THAT, if just that alone, could be a gauge as to how out of touch with reality the man really is. Don't get me wrong- I am all about doing my own research and double checking medications and straight up refusing to take some of the ones the doctors want to offer me- but I certainly don't try to convince them and myself that I have a different thing wrong with me than I do and that medication for THAT thing will help.

He wonders why the medications haven't been working. *sigh*

The only one that had any effect on his was the one anti psychotic that he had tried, and it was astounding. Alas, it's side effects were unbearable. And sadly, he doesn't remember how warm, cheerful, and excited he was during those months. Maybe it's a survival technique to save himself from feeling what must have felt somewhat akin to an angels fall from grace, at least biochemically.

For Christmas I got $20,000 from my inheritance early and paid off most of our debt. He's always said that money was the thing that stressed him out so much. He hates Christmas because it's a holiday that entails buying more thing when we're already in debt. Ultimate present? Pay off our debt. Well, I paid almost all of it off other than my own student loans and what happens?

A week later he was shitfaced and lost 30 minutes from home and likely had been already chatting up the girl he eventually went to meet for his clandestine lunch date... even after I had asked him, FINALLY, if he objected to MY going on a date. He granted me his almighty blessing and then went out to meet her the next day. He's like a weasel with a pile of food that would rather bust into the hen house and risk tangling with the dogs. It's idiotic. It's self destructive.

As his shrink wrote to me recently:

"I'll say that, in spite of these rumblings and reverberations in your Universe, I was glad to see you today. It's been a while!

Jack does not seem to know how to be in either world - that of being committed or single. He's quite the saboteur. How can a person actually "cheat" in a polyamorous type of relationship? By still being secretive, cut-off, evasive, avoidant, and distant. I can see how he might want to be alleviated of the responsibility of your marriage ending and the guilt of what might happen to you and (your son) should he leave. So, if you willingly find someone else, then it would be your choice and not because he drove you away. Plus, there is also the financial aspect of it - the dependence piece.

Somehow, in your marital distance, you and Jack still manage to be incredibly close. Or, if not close, open in conversation.

Tell me about (the guy I went on a date with) when you get the chance."

As the shrink is generally more lucid that I am I'll let that sum up my feelings as well, as I'm just sitting here squinting and exhausted from getting three hours of sleep after Jack woke me up, furious, and then HE fell back asleep for the next six + hours (on the couch, of course) while I spent the day going over horrible homework assignments with my son while trying desperately not to fall asleep sitting up. While he can say that he didn't mean for me to be so miserably tired all day, I've been an insomniac since we met and he knew already that I've been talking to the counselor at school and teachers to try and get something worked out (a possible 504 plan, she suggests) for my son, anything to get him caught back up and less stressed out... I assume he's as far behind as he is because so often I am too stressed out and distracted by Jack to pay enough attention to him and make sure he's organized and doing as well as any kid who is in all advanced level classes could be.

*shakes head*

If nothing else, I am sad because my son wisely hides away in his room (I wish I could!) and although he may be able to deflect a lot of the tension and bullshit that way, he still absorbs far too much and I AM MISSING YEARS OF MY SON'S LIFE while he stays stashed away because he doesn't want to be yelled at for something that really just amounts to Jack's head up his ass.

Hopefully I can get a chance to write about something far more pleasant...

...such as my date. With Mr. Dreamy Brown Eyes. Whose eyes aren't actually brown but some delicious shifting shade of something...he's magic. And possibly too distracting and also sad for me because I like him an awful lot but he's moving away so I mustn't get too close or just set myself up for heartache that I can ill afford. It's hard not to dream of some alternate world... Well. That's not the one I live in.

Or bunnies. I like bunnies. A lot.

Or reuniting with one of my best friends who I thought may have slipped through the cracks of life (he's taken a dive off the deep end enough times that it's possible he was gone and I didn't even know) but instead popped back up nearly twelve years later much to my absolute shock and joy.

Or lots of other things. I'm so tried of this taking all of my energy and time and sense of vitality and hope and dreams.

More about dreams. The ones I had forgotten. The ones I see in the ethers. The ones I'm recreating from memory and imagination and dreams. Soon.

it's like Ghent made a video

2011-01-23T16:25:00.000-05:00

...Or Asheville, really.

the many flavors of happy homes?

2011-01-23T13:39:00.001-05:00

2011-01-19T19:06:00.001-05:00

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

updates and conflicts

2011-01-19T12:30:00.002-05:00

Your blogress will be back. In between strange happenings at home and a weird conflict between Blogger and my mobile phone I haven't had time or the mobile ability to post doodley squat. But lordy child do I have some things to tell.

Hang tight.

testing...

2011-01-14T17:22:00.000-05:00

to see if I can finangle my way around blogger and my phones being super not best friends. *insert humorous thing here*

2011-01-12T12:22:00.001-05:00

2011-01-09T00:49:00.001-05:00

ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ་མ་ནུ་པ་ལ་ཡ།
བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ཏྭེ་ནོ་པ་ཏིཥྛ།
དྲྀ་ཌྷོ་མེ་བྷ་བ།
སུ་ཏོ་ ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་བ།
སུ་པོ་ ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་བ།
ཨ་ནུ་ར་ཀྟོ་མེ་བྷ་བ།
ས་རྦ་སི་དྡྷི་མེ་པྲ་ཡ་ཙྪ།
ས་རྦ་ཀ་རྨ་སུ་ཙ་མེ ཙི་ཏྟཾ༌ཤེ་ཡཿ་ཀུ་རུ་ཧཱུྂ།
ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧོཿ
བྷ་ག་བ་ན
ས་རྦ
ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་བཛྲ་མཱ་མེ་མུ་ཉྩ།
བཛྲཱི་བྷ་བ་མ་ཧཱ་ས་མ་ཡ་སཏྭ
ཨཱཿ །། ཧཱུྂ ཕ་ཊ

"This a-war dance I'm doin' means I'm fightin' mad, you don't need no more of what you've already had..."

2011-01-08T16:15:00.001-05:00

2011-01-08T11:35:00.001-05:00

Dear diary,
I did go to sleep at 4 and Jack home at 7am. He sulked, we did not talk. I fell back asleep and just woke up- he's on the couch. Whatever.
xo,
J

happy drunks can't be bothered

2011-01-08T03:05:00.001-05:00

I need friends. Honest to god, talk on the phone friends but also real life sitting over sushi friends. Don't get me wrong- those of you dedicated readers know how much I love you, and all of you on FB already know I'm upset tonight. I know we would be hanging out if we could, if not today than tomorrow or sometime. Sometime. It's not easy when I have some weird medical shit that has to be worked around and makes scheduling things hard, or driving hard, or sitting hard. Whatever.

I need more friends. Specifically, I need to be more assertive with my husband that no matter how much he may need friends, the fact is we BOTH do. I'm letting the squeaky wheel keep squeaking and I keep greasing it. The wheel, obviously, is him. Why do I do this to myself?

Part of it has to do with being a mom and being used to putting myself second. It's ingrained so deeply I have a serious issue with letting Jack take over the homework and dinner and bedtime duties and go out on a weeknight.

Fuck. Now that I come to think about it, the last two times I tried both turned into the same bullshit: he hung out with his brother and popped painkillers with him. Well son of a fucking bitch. No wonder I'm not keen on leaving him here with my son.

*rolls eyes* Jesus fucking Christ.

*rubs face*

Of course last time he left before I came back. He went to his brothers new house and did them THERE. And that time he swallowed them instead of chopping them up and snorting them like a fucking addict. Or so he says.

*deep breath*
*deeeeeeeep breath*
*and another*

When Jack and I were in therapy last (he's gone back once and hasn't wanted to go with me in months now) our therapist had discussed us going out and having fun together and making friends. Jack heard the "go out and have fun" and "make friends" part and despite clarification from the shrink, he still doesn't seem keen on trying to have fun with ME. Maybe he really doesn't know how. Maybe learning how to have friends again is a step he needs to take first, in his convoluted OCPD sort of way that I can't pretend to understand, only observe and notice patterns in it.

Whatever his reason is, the fact remains that he whined a lot about not being able to make friends and so I went out with him all over the freaking place all summer and pretty much bent to his whims in the effort to show him that yes, people do like him and yes, he can have fun. Essentially, it was an effort to drag him out of the deep, deep depression he's been in for years now.

Something must have worked as he IS finally weaned off of the anti depressants. And yes, his sex drive is sort of coming back, but that's another matter. A different kettle of crazy fish in his head as it were. And now he's working on quitting smoking, a mere few weeks (maybe less) after finally weaning off the SSRI's. While I'm proud of the effort and see it as a positive sign, it's also exhausting; just as he began to stabilize from the last chemical upheaval he's thrown himself into another one.

Personally, I would have preferred a bit of a break in between to let things settle down and feel like I really like him again and don't just see him as a boiling cauldron of creepy things coming to the surface. No rest for the weary though- here we go again.

As with everything else, he doesn't seem to grasp shades of gray, it's all black or white with Jack. The idea of carefully stepping down from a drug just rubs him the wrong way somehow. Instead of slowly cutting down on how much he smoked and replacing that with a patch or gum or whatever, he's just switched from one to the other *BAM* and if the shit were that easy, everyone whose tried the shit would have quit, duh. But there's the physical, psychological, emotional, habitual sort of aspects of it and Jack just wants to skip from one state to the other. He knows it makes him an unbearable asshole but his take on it seems to be that he's doing it for his own good, so why shouldn't everyone else congratulate him on his severe stance instead of complaining about how it's hard on THEM. In a purely selfish way, yah, I get it. In every other way I think he's being a dick. He knows he's being a dick. And the bigger dick that he is, the more pissed off and self righteous he gets, and the dick turns into a giant anaconda dick that is eating it's own dick-tail. He gets so wound up in how HE feels that everyone else is just steam rolled in his Fuck You, You Don't Understand Me pity party he's throwing for himself.

Except it seems to be limited, I've noticed, to the people who he loves the most.

Isn't that handy...for everyone else.

All those friends he's made? He's hanging out with them when he gets too pissed off to deal with his family (now that his brother lives in town I've noticed, to my surprise, that he is evidently inside this not to be coveted circle of assholery confidants and is privy to Jack's foul fucking moods as well). And it's interesting to me that his friends don't see a damn thing. Not a bit of it.

I could almost pass it off on them being stupid assholes if it weren't for him having spent most of last night hanging out with one of MY best friends in town, who happens to be HIS best friend's girlfriend. Her boyfriend knew they were hanging out together while he was in work. I was the one who was clueless until longer than I felt comfortable about, mostly because I wanted to come hang out with her. Or if she was busy, with Jack. My son had a rare night of not having any homework and so I could have come out last night, it was still afternoon at the point I knew I had the night free. At that point I sent Jack a few texts and asked him what was going on- if he was having super bff time with his best friend I certainly didn't want to intrude. He needs guy time. Ok. So after he didn't respond for awhile I sent HER a text. Magically, while she was responding to me he suddenly answered me as well. Coincidence, I'm not so sure. I had just sent her some silliness about this and that and was next going to write, "Hey what are you doing? You want to hang out?" but I hadn't gotten that far before he finally answered my question to him and informed me that he was hanging out with her. At her dad's bar. In another city.

Pissed. I was instantly pissed. I didn't ask her what she was doing as I just fucking found out.

I sent him back a message saying something about how I had the night free and had been trying to reach him to see what he was doing, but he hadn't bothered to respond, and then to find out he's hanging out with MY best friend and that neither one of them had even thought to see if I wanted to join them really fucking hurt my feelings. He responded that it was all very spur of the moment, really, and no slight was intended. I replied it couldn't have been THAT spur of the moment as they had to have driven into the next damn city- it's not like they turned the corner and *poof* there they were. He left his car at his buddies apartment. They all drove in the girlfriends car to his work, dropped him off, and then drove to the next city to go hang out at her father's bar. That's not spur of the moment. That may be tipsy or stoned logic, but it sure as fuck is not spur of the damn moment. He gets defensive. I tell him my feelings are hurt, plain and simple. He tells me I shouldn't be overreacting, this is my best friend, he thought I would find her safe. Safe! I sputtered back, safe has nothing to DO with it. I'm not worried about him cheating on me or her trying to fuck him, I'm talking about the fact that both of them had about four or five hours to kill before picking her boyfriend back up and neither of them even thought about seeing if I wanted to join them?

Goddamn OUCH.

As he'd been drinking, he was becoming more belligerent and mean about it because he DID really understand, he just felt deeply uncomfortable about it and so it's easier to be mad than guilty. He ran with that. At that point the whole thing became and idiot moot point anyway- I sure as shit did not want to join them then! He was pissed off and resentful and like I would want to join up with that little party. I think not. So I sent her one text that simply said, "Hey. Sorry to piss off your drinking buddy. I'll shut up now."

Her response over an hour later (she's glued to her phone, hello?) was that she didn't understand what I was talking about and that Jack "seemed like his usual slightly awkward, quiet self".

Wait, what? So he was sitting at a bar and having a text argument with me and seemed honky dorey? This girl is not stupid. Far from it. When I had been upset at a horrible New Years Eve party the week before (another tale) I had tried to act like I was fine and she saw right through it. Came outside and couldn't even see my face under my scarf and in the dark and said, "Jill, are you ok?" to which I nodded yes and she said, "Are you lying?" in a very no nonsense tone to which I slumped and nodded again. She had come over and just hugged me right there, and I was so upset that I actually burst into tears on her shoulder- not something just anyone gets to witness I can promise. I may be very candid in my own private blog but I'm hardly one to let them world see my angst on a day to day moment to moment level. She didn't even have to look at my face, she knew. So how in the world could she be sitting there next to him and never have a clue that he was in any way upset while we texted back and forth for nearly forty minutes?

Maybe she was on her own phone. Who knows?

The thing that really bothered me after it was settled between he and I was that yes, they hadn't considered my feelings or thought of inviting me AT ALL, but once it was known that I could have come out, it turned into an issue so ugly that I wouldn't want to. Whether that was his doing or mine I couldn't say, it all happened rather fast.

However, tonight was different. Tonight I was supposed to meet up with her and go to the movies but couldn't make it there on time so she and her brother saw a flick without me (it was scary, so I didn't miss much on that count- I can't bear scary movies). That was a bummer but we plan on having lunch tomorrow and I had a back up plan anyway before I knew she wanted to see a movie and that was to go into town with Jack to an impromptu get together with some of the writers that I enjoy the company of. People I would like to have as friends but rarely have a chance to hang out with them... but Jack was antsy, pissy with his nic fits and didn't want to wait for me to finish getting ready so I told him to go, that was FINE, I would drive separately and (as I've learned the hard way) it would give me the freedom to not feel dragged to some shitty place he wanted to go to if he wanted to leave, nor feel like I was making him stay somewhere he didn't want to be if I wanted to stay there. No biggie. Plus, I hate having him hover over me and asking me how soon I'll be done. Arrgh.

So, fine. Easy solution. I told him to go on ahead, let me know how the crowd was and I'd meet up with him there. In theory, easy, right?

Wrong.

He was already tweaky and pissy from the nic fits and then, I suspect, probably got high as hell with some of the pot smokers there. His text messages were odd, disjointed. I would ask him a question and he'd sort of answer it but veer off topic so I'd have to ask again and wait for him to notice the message and then answer off topic again and ask again and wait again and ....

Ugh.

After about thirty minutes of that nonsense I just asked him if he could please think about whether or not he wanted my company there. I told him he seemed tweaky still and I would rather not hang out with him in public like that- either we'd be having awkward and tense conversations with each other or be talking to other people and pretending the other wasn't there. Not something I had any interest in doing.

Just answer the question, please?

Oh heavens no. He was baffled and asked me, "What? Could you please just tell me what I'm supposed to say next? I'm lost."

*rolls eyes*

My answer: "That would be having a conversation with myself. What on earth?"

While I was waiting for his variously more disjointed responses I had gotten involved talking about D&D with some friends online and they expressed interest in teaching me how to play, so I was already set to spend the evening geeking out via the internet learning Dungeons and Dragons and playing with my friends. Suddenly they all stopped talking. I waited a few minutes and asked where everyone was and got no response.

Double dogfuck lame! Seriously? I just got blown off by gaming dweebs? For fucking REAL?

I set my FB status to something about spending the night blogging as I was sick of being lonely and wanted to do something that didn't require my being chipper when I was in fact not.

Within that minute I got a response back from Jack: "Nice passive-aggressive FB post."

Hey, way to answer another question totally off topic and be a DICK about it at the same time! WOW! I snapped back, "Not talking to you, actually. But thanks for the sarcasm." It was just too much. A few minutes past and I told him what had happened and that it had nothing to do with him.

Silence.

I waited thirty minutes and wrote him a long message because I was so absolutely pissed off and hurt by then that I couldn't just sit and wait for him to eventually maybe read my text or not bother unless it's a Facebook status update he could misconstrue to assume it was about himself or whatever the fuck was going on in his stupid head.

No answer.

I finally called, wanting to see if he was so batshit pissy that he turned his goddamn phone off, and was surprised that it wasn't, actually. No answer. I called back again, just had enough of the bullshit texts that were going nowhere. He answered.

He briefly apologized but his heart wasn't in it. He wasn't really sorry because he didn't understand what he should feel sorry for, he just didn't want to argue. He told me he was too drunk to have a conversation about it, really, and asked if we could just talk about it tomorrow.

I started crying then.

Here's the bitch of it, to me: he knew I was very genuinely upset. But he was drunk enough that it wasn't going to upset him. He was going to apologize and then go back to the party and have a good time. And I told him so. So he halfheartedly apologized for that, too. That did not help.

What upset me again was the fact that it was a party and people I would have enjoyed going to hang out with, but again he had misread the situation, gotten pissed off and by doing so created an uncomfortable situation for me, not for HIM, but for ME, so that he could still enjoy his night there with them and I could not join them.

In effect, he used his own idiot anger to alienate me from hanging out with the people I wanted to see. And knew full well that's what I was upset about the night before... but he did it again.

He's still there. I guess. I don't know. When we talked I asked him to at least send me texts now and then, just little, "Hi, this is what's happening," moments but I haven't heard a word from him in hours now. Yep. He so doesn't give a fuck about my feelings that he forgot and is just having fun.

What do I do? Send him a, "Hey, remember me?" text? Try to call so he doesn't misread the tone of a text? Pretend I don't give a shit but want to punch him while he drunkenly snores beside me whenever he gets around to coming home?

It's like being with an alcoholic all over again. Fuck this. I'm calling him.

(Edited on an hour or two later)

I called him. No answer. I called again, no answer. I thought for a moment and realized a voice mail wasn't going to get his attention if the phone ringing didn't. Nor would a text message. So I just called back over and over and over, maybe seven times in all.

Totally frustrated, and being utterly reminded of what it was like being with my alcoholic ex, I debated what to do and finally decided to send a text to the party thrower, telling him that Jack must not be able to hear his phone and I needed directions to get there, could he tell him to call me, please?

Yes. I did. I lied to make him look better. I lied to make ME look better. I did not want to say, "Hey, is he passed out or left or ignoring me? I can't tell. Can you?" because that would be far too humiliating.

Nothing.

I wrote this, "Haven't heard a peep from you in two hours. Are you still there? Are you ok? Sent (that guy) a text message telling him I needed you to call me with directions. So, call me?"

Within a minute, I got this response:
"I'm ok, (he) just showed me the text. In a car, call you in a minute."

In a car? Not his. No name. Just "a car". Totally vague and sketchy and utterly unlike him. How trashed was he?!

Fifteen minutes later:
"Not calling yet. Need to sober up. I'm ok, just about to eat a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches to help tame the beer in my gut."

Not calling yet, he needs to sober up...to call me. Um, that's trashed.

Thirty minutes later:
"Still chilling at bar with (the guy) and crew. Want to escape but still drunk and don't know where I am."

One, that's the first I knew where he was, if "bar" is a description of much at all. Not really. And "want to escape"? My pussy hurts, too. "...but still drunk and don't know where I am."

Oh, Jesus wept.

When you're typing "drunk and don't know where I am" you have crossed waaaay over the border. As long as I've known him, he has never been that drunk, EVER. What the fucking fucking fuck. I don't even know what to say. It couldn't get worse, right?

He called.

He's upset because he's stuck in his car and the people he was drinking with went to bed, so he's in his car and too drunk to drive and it's freezing outside and he doesn't know what to do.

Oh, I could go get him. Not a fucking chance. Nor did he ask. So fuck it.

I did try to briefly talk with him about how he misunderstood earlier about what I wanted, which was very simply for him to tell me what the party was like. He barked, "Yah, I saw that you called me a million times!" I took a deep breath and said no, that was three hours later. I meant right after he got there. He cut me off and said he didn't have time to talk about any of that, he's DRUNK and it's FREEZING and he needs to figure out where he can go or what he's going to DO!

Silence. On both of our ends. Finally he broke the silence by asking me, "Are we still talking?"

I sighed and told him I didn't think that we were, as he'd just effectively shut me down by insisting that his needs were more important. I didn't bother to add that they had been all night. And the night before. That was the very essence of the problem, in fact.

I told him to just let me know what he'd figured out once he'd figured it out. And hung up.

As I was typing out this last bit, I saw him update his Facebook status. I was mortified. It asked, "Is anyone in (town) still awake?"

Still not asking his insomniac wife to come get him. It's not like I get tired or can't shake it off in a heartbeat when I am, despite getting five or less hours of sleep for a few days now.

That was, in fact, why I wanted to know about the party as he got there. If it was too rowdy I was going to call it a night, take my sleeping meds and get some solid sleep. Instead, it's 3am, and here I am. My husband is drunk and about to pass out in his car in below freezing temperatures and I don't even know where he is. He doesn't either. Take my meds and knock myself out now? Seriously? When the cops could be knocking on his window? And why on earth doesn't he just call a fucking cab? Yes, it would be about $50 to drive him home from there. Oh yes indeed. But I don't think that's the reason- I think it's because he would then have to ask me to drive him back to get his car (which could then be towed... if he could find it).

In the last ten minutes there have been some more stupid messages back and forth, starting with him telling me he was going to sleep in the car for a bit and that he was turning the heat up inside to 90 degrees.

I've run out of expletives.

When I wrote back to suggest he just leave it at 70 and fall asleep (he would wake up sweating and be soaked- if he had to walk somewhere in freezing temperatures or ran out of gas he would be more fucked than before) he told me he was drunk he wasn't STUPID.

Mmm.

I'm going to bed.

I hope.

(Weeks later, an edit:
He came home at 7 am, fell back asleep. At noon he woke up and immediately informed me that he had fallen asleep at a mutual friends house. That friend is a 20 year guy. Jack fell asleep in bed with friend on one side, 18 year old stripper girl we know in the middle, Jack on the other side.

"I woke up next to June," he said, and stared at me, waiting.

Oh no, I know that look. So I responded, "And how do you feel about that?"

He flopped down on the couch again and said loudly, "Oh, HERE we go AGAIN!" and followed that with the ever mature, "I can't hear you."

I walked closer and said, "You can hear me and I'll tell you this: I think you are very disturbed about your behavior last night. I think you'd love to have me argue with you about it because that way you don't have to think about how uncomfortable you really are with it. If you are fighting me, you don't have to fight yourself. But I won't do it, so you're on your own. Those disturbing feelings are yours to feel, Jack."

And I left the room.)

For The Grinches

2010-12-24T22:41:00.002-05:00

There is no holiday that I've seen set off more emotional reactions in people than Christmas. People either seem to love it or hate it- other than the folks that don't celebrate it in any way and therefore it doesn't really register on their radar at all.

Personally, I have some seriously mixed emotions about Christmas- I've experienced highs and lows that would boggle some folks minds, frankly. For most of my late teens and early twenties I just hated it, outright. The magic I experienced as a child had been stripped away from me, irrevocably... or so I thought, right up until I had my own child.

My son's first Christmas was kind of a joke. He was seven months old and he certainly couldn't open a present or comprehend what the hubbub was about, but that didn't stop him from totally digging on the Christmas lights that appeared. (It was the one thing I was willing to put up, not having any love for Christmas or decorations or even money to go frivolously buy any.) When we opened his presents for him, he was mostly enthralled with the wrapping paper and the boxes- it was kind of like buying human presents for a cat, all in all. Never mind the fact that his dad bought him boxing gloves- I'm not sure what he was meant to do with those other than gum them while teething, which is all he ever did with them.

By the time his second Christmas rolled around I felt like I had to put a little more effort into it. I mean, how far back do kids remember? I was fairly certain he wouldn't remember squat about the second Christmas either but just to be safe, I put up some shiny stuff, some merry stuff, and kind of enjoyed watching his big round eyes light up.

Huh. Nifty.

After that the years got increasingly more fun, and the trickery and extent to which I (and my fellow accomplices) went to injecting the day and night with magic somehow just added to the thrill. Year after year I tried to outdo the magic of the year before. Don't misunderstand me: I'm not talking about presents, gifts, and STUFF. I'm talking about the belief in something mystical. The cookies for Santa. The letters to Santa.

One year my mother and step dad came to visit and were sleeping in the living room on Christmas Eve. While my son was concerned that Santa might see them there and take off, my mother assured him that they were VERY sound sleepers and Santa wouldn't be fooled by some mere grown ups and leave, that was simply preposterous. And the moment my little tot went off to bed my mother's eyes lit up. "I want to stage a picture of some boots in your chimney. I want to tell him tomorrow morning that I woke up just as Santa was leaving and caught a picture as he went up the chimney!"

Brilliant!

We all scrambled about trying to figure out how to make it look most realistic (the hardest part being actually propping my big black boots up high enough so they didn't look floppy or too small) and the picture was taken, the presents set out, the stockings stuffed, the cookies mostly eaten. Our jobs were done.

I believe I can safely say all of the adults fell asleep with a feeling of butterflies, a sense of having just a smidgen of pixie dust somehow running through our veins.

And really, isn't that what we all loved about Christmases?

Religious beliefs aside, isn't that what the biggest thrill of it all was about? Think back to being a child. Oh yes, you wanted those presents, but was your birthday that exciting? Of course not. Even with a party and all of your friends, nothing could compare to the sheer mystical experience of Believing.

Somehow there were thousands of elves working away all year long (and happily, too!) to make you your gifts. Somehow Santa would fit all the gifts of all the children into his sack. Somehow he knew if you'd been naughty or nice and even more important, somehow he knew that sooooome of those things you'd done hadn't actually been all that nice, in fact, one might say they had been downright naughty but somehow, somehow, he deemed you still nice enough to get gifts anyway.

(That alone has a world of connotations inside it, does it not?)

Somehow that fat guy fit down your chimney. Somehow he knew just what you wanted. Somehow he went all over the world in a single night and yet somehow no one had an actual photograph of him in action. Oh sure, you could sit on his lap at the mall, but who had a real picture of him and those flying reindeer, eh? What kind of super power is THAT, that no adult could ever catch him? WOW. Think of all the fun you could have if you could do THAT!

*sigh*

Oh, Santa: a jolly, benevolent creature seemingly consisting of shimmering motes of pure awesomeness.

What has happened to us since we believed?

We found out the truth, yes. It was devastating for some of us, a rite of passage for others. Some of us handled it better than others did, to be sure. It's easy to pick out who is bitter, especially if they have younger siblings- they're the jerk informing their younger brothers and sisters that there IS NO SANTA CLAUS. Oh, what kind of person does that to another? One without any idea of what they're truly doing, I suspect.

Here is what I propose to you all: we may have found out the truth, but unless we can still find the magic in the holiday, we have only been holding onto a half truth for all of the bitter years.

Santa is most certainly not about religion. Santa is about mysticism.

If you want to regain that sense of magic, set down whatever you're doing on Christmas Eve and simply listen: listen to the heartbeats of thousands if not millions of children who are dreaming or laying awake and trying to fall asleep before Santa arrives or trying to stay awake and see if they can't finally be the one who is powerful enough in the ways of magic to catch that jolly fat guy in the red suit. Listen to the dreams of children. It doesn't matter if you have children, just step outside and look at the stars and wonder for a moment what it would be like to see something shoot across the sky with the sound of bells jingling. It would happen in an instant. Of course there would be no one around to turn to and ask, "Did you just see that?"

That's the point, really. No one can prove he doesn't exist... so that leaves the words of Sherlock Holmes to give us our deduction about Mr. Claus: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". To eliminate the magic of Santa Claus from our hearts (or the hearts of our inner child, if you prefer) is to look quantum physics in the face and say, "Hogwash! What do you mean they can't PROVE it? That's ridiculous!"

Yes, I'm well aware of the many ways you could debate that last paragraph, but is it really worth it? Do you want to hold on to the anger and frustration about shopping and money and dinner and obligation and family and...

This Christmas, give yourself something magical: the magic you used to believe in. Even if it's not something you want to wave on a flag or plaster across your sandwich board, just keep it in your pocket and know that it's there.

Until you can reclaim the rest of the Christmas holiday for yourself (another article entirely), that bit o' magic in your pocket just might make this Christmas just a little bit easier. Who knows? You may decide it feels good enough that you want to spread the magic around (donate to charities, pay a visit to that grouchy neighbor you know is just lonely, or even just have a little sparkle in your eye that makes others stop for a split second and wonder) and the next thing you know, the magic will grow.

Listen to the children dreaming. Listen.

when spam amuses me:

2010-12-24T15:13:00.001-05:00

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2010-12-21T15:03:00.000-05:00

balance shmalance

2010-12-21T11:52:00.006-05:00

~in an email to a friend this morning~

Blog: I tend to blog the bullshit and none of the highlights but considering the stress of it all, fuck it for now. Being an unbiased news source of my life, that is.

The fact is, some good things are happening. Even Jack and I are having some productive conversations in the midst of all this crap. And one I will note: I think him finding out that it was a real struggle for me not to take off with Mr. Dreamy Brown Eyes the other night was a wake up call. With him, it's nearly impossible for me to determine what KIND of wake up call or even how it effects him.

In some ways he's normal, and in other ways trying to read him (emotionally) is like communing with an alien, utterly and completely. One conversation in particular went that way, and he later said maybe he IS fucked up...but for him it's normal so it's hard to believe my opinion, right?

All I can do is shrug at him and think to myself: There is no one like you that I have ever met, that's for damn sure. Not even strangers on the street are so utterly alien in their emotive pathways... so have to assume that yes, it is you.

Of course that's not what he wants to hear, and certainly not to believe. No one wants to think that something is wrong with them, and with his OCPD, thinking that something is inherently wrong with him freaks him out way more than the average person.

Another interesting thing that happened recently that made me realize how differently Jack appears to other people:

We had gone to a club. It was the same night that ended with Mr. Dreamy Brown Eyes nuzzling my neck for far too long, actually. Almost as soon as we got there, some incredibly bizarre-o dude came up to Jack and was just in his face. When I first looked over, I had assumed the guy was gay, drunk, and putting the moves on him, hard. According to Jack the next day, the guy was going on and on about how the whole world is HIS dream and how he controls the way reality works and blah blah drunken stupor blah. Jack asked him to please get out of his personal space and be quiet, and the guy got pissed off and confrontational (I joked to Jack later, "No wonder- you totally weren't behaving according to his reality, geez.")

At the point that I looked up there were already a lot of other eyes on the scene and guys starting to close in (this same dude had been pissing people off left and right before we got there and they were just waiting to get a few kicks in once he went down, I suspect) and Jack called out in a very loud, deep voice that dropped the chattering bar crowd into a sudden and awkward silence,

"HEY! Does anybody know who runs this place? This guy needs to get out of here. NOW."

As the guy's friend (who I was talking to and was very nice) got up to collect his drunken and trouble causing pal, the crowd moved and parted and that was that. Two of Jack's friends came over and hovered near me in the odd aftermath and the chick noted, "That was crazy. I didn't know he had it in him." She looked genuinely freaked out. "I've NEVER seen that look on his face before..." And Mr. Brown Eyes said, "I knew he had it covered, I just got closer to see it happen." The girl responded, "Really?! I thought someone was going to have to step in..." and faltered uncertainly. Brown Eyes responded, "Ha." I just looked at both of them and was at a loss.

All I could think of was: I see that look ALL THE TIME. Hardly a day goes by where I don't get that look at least in passing, and when we argue I can see that look alone for days at a time. Why do you think I'm ok with him coming over to your house so goddamn often? Why do you think I'm not with him, duh? You only know him as Happy Good Times Jack- must be fucking nice for you.

I finally managed to say, "I know that look well. I wasn't worried for Jack- I was worried for that douchebag, and whether or not he'd have all his teeth in a few seconds." She just stared at me like I was crazy, and Brown Eyes just solemnly nodded.

Hmm. Come to think of it, maybe that's part of what led him to come on to me later...maybe he notices a hell of a lot more than the rest of them do. Maybe he's already seen what no one else seems to grasp- that Jack doesn't particularly enjoy my company, no matter how lovey he seems sometimes.

*thinking*

Now that I think about it, there was another occasion last week where he sidled up to me at the bar during a big fundraiser I was helping with and he asked me, "So...who you enjoy people watching?" Because that IS what I was doing, just sitting there and watching the crowd. I was in a lot of pain and couldn't dance without risking further injury, so I was sad and sitting, watching. And...oh dear.

My response had been, "Well, actually...you." He had laughed, surprised but obviously flattered. I hadn't meant to be flirty, as I explained, "I like watching you watch other people. You don't talk much, so it's fun to try to guess what's going on in your head sometimes." I listed the very few people that I enjoyed watching (it IS a small list after all) and he asked, "What about Jack?" and nodded towards Jack standing at the edge of the dance floor (he's often on it, so him standing still and just looking into the crowd was a bit odd and had me worried). As I both like and respect Brown Eyes and his ever evident intellect, I answered honestly and plainly, "I don't like watching him at all. He rarely ever looks at me." I paused. "It's painful." Brown Eyes just nodded, and that was the right response as far as I was concerned. I had confided in him and he didn't prod or offer me bullshit condolences. I like that about him. But thinking back... I guess I revealed a hell of a lot with that, although the fact that he asked at all makes me think he already knew it, he was just confirming something.

He is a watcher, not often a speaker, and usually when he speaks it's... well, he's not the type to just run at the mouth or waste words, except on the rare occasions that I've seen him drunk, which are two. Even then, it seems like his words are coming from a deep well and sometimes hard to summon up. Among the crowd that he moves in, he is a rarity and a blessed relief to encounter in my opinion. So many of those people just drunkenly blather on about nothing, or drama drama drama, that they bore me half to death and I despise them.

It is a point of contention between Jack and I- it's hard not to feel judged when someone doesn't like your choice of friends, and I do my best to be polite and friendly with them but have told him in private that I care for very few of them. I didn't tell him to be a bitch, in the context of that conversation I had felt I had to clarify why I did not want to accompany him on his frequent trips to go see them all. Blech. I'd rather stay home and do laundry- really. He seemed to understand and took it well enough, and I wonder if he's not just glad that I don't take issue or bitch about HIM hanging out with them as much as he does. *shrugs* I don't know.

I think a lot of things that I write about that concern Jack are written about in a fit of anger, because I need somewhere I can vent the frustration and certainly don't feel secure about confiding in the few friends in his circle that I like, as the chance of them mentioning it or even spreading via pillow talk is not unlikely- it's a gossipy bunch. My own friends... well, damn. I don't want to call and bitch every time he pisses me off or hurts my feelings because it becomes hard for them not to come to resent the hell out of him, too. To be fair, I'd have to call and gush about how sweet he was being some days to give them a more accurate idea of what he's really like, and trying to explain what it's like living with someone with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder is fucking HARD. I consider myself rather empathic but I doubt in my ability to have understood how bizarre it is if someone had tried to explain it to me, either. So many things about him are so goddamn complicated. Lately he's been complaining that I'm bugging him with all of my psychoanalysis but how can I make him believe that it's in direct correlation to his moods? Why should he believe me, his Inquisitor? How could I possibly be unbiased? And so I have to ask myself, am I?

I don't know.

Last night is a good example of me reacting to his weirdness:

He had stayed home to spend time with me instead of going to an eclipse party at a friends house, because, he said to me, we were in a fragile state and it's best if we spend more time together right now. I was surprised and agreed. I was also in a lot of pain, so snapped one of my emergency Darvocet in half and took just enough of the edge off that apparently I fell sound asleep. I woke up groggy and baffled and most of all, HUNGRY.

(That has come to be my measure of pain, as it is a near constant in my life it is also hard to distinguish when I'm in more pain than is bearable while maintaining normal human action and interaction- when food just disgusts me even though my stomach is growling so loud I can hear it. When I am literally nauseated by pain, I need to take something. So I did.)

I came into the living room and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I know you stayed home so we could spend time together. I must have been exhausted..." He just shrugged. I think he was fine with it, really. He also knows as a chronic insomniac I can use all the sleep I can manage to get- obviously pain prevents me from sleeping, as my sudden nap suggested. Half of a Darvocet is certainly not enough to knock me out, not by a LONG shot. My genetic condition requires an unfortunate amount of medications to keep me mobile, and that mobility is precious- once it's lost it can take years to struggle to regain it. It is a constant job for me, and one I don't take lightly. I've seen what this did to my dad, and I would do any amount of physical therapy to avoid that. But I digress.

After sitting down at my computer to check a few things with the budget, I suddenly realized Jack was snoring. He wasn't just snoring, though- he was snoring with his noise canceling headphones on and listening to one of his brain wave lowering meditation tracks. In other words, he chose to check out once I woke up. I was insulted. He didn't have them on when I came out, so he opted to fall asleep once I got up and apologized for sleeping through the time we could spend together... um, ok. And he sleeps like the dead, and he knows that. So he fell asleep at 8:30pm, and slept right up until 1:30am, when I was heading outside bundled like a nomad to view the lunar eclipse. He moved from the couch to the bed and watched as I put on a zillion layers and grabbed the camera. I smiled and told him I'd be back in a few, and walked downstairs to check it out.

Maybe ten minutes later he came out and stared at me balefully from ten feet away. I smiled and pointed up at the eclipse, and he said, "Yes. The Eclipse. I know." In a very curt and irritated tone he said, "Will you come back inside now? It's late, it's dark, and I can't sleep knowing you're outside." He then turned on his heel and walked off.

Part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off and deal with it, and part of me felt for him as I know he's prone to panic attacks and was likely having one as he often does when he wakes up after sleeping for most of the evening. He's confused and grouchy and just freaks out sometimes. I get that.

At the same time, I thought of how many times I've been out at the same late hour while he was doing whatever, wherever, and it didn't bother him a bit. If I don't even call for hours he doesn't worry, even if I'm in the next city over in a semi bad area and by myself in the cold. So why bother worrying when I'm right outside and snapping pictures of the eclipse? But... I know he's often patient and accommodating when I have irrational panic attacks (aren't they all, by nature? Yes, I mean when I'm requiring an extra degree of comfort to calm down) and what the hell, it wouldn't kill me to go inside. There's lots more eclipses to see in a lifetimes, and ones that aren't in twenty degree weather at 2am at that. So, I went back in.

He crawled back into bed and was laying there, restless. I just ignored him for the most part, letting him work it out on his own and if he needed something, he could ask. But I wasn't tired yet, despite the medications I take to knock myself out. Wide awake. At first I just sat on the couch in the dark (he'd turned the lights off) and went through the pictures on my camera to see if any came out all right, but he got up and huffed his way through the living room, naked, pretending he was looking for something else but I knew damn well he was just seeing where I was.

After he left the room I quietly sighed and went in to sit on the bedroom floor at the foot of the bed, hoping that would ease his mind enough to fall back asleep. Sitting in a position I often do while he's asleep that stretches out my legs and lower back, I played the silly Bubble Blaster game on my phone (silently) for something to do while I waited to get tired. That lasted all of a minute, tops. He sat up and huffed, "What are you DOING?" Rather proud of myself, I kept my voice calm despite his acting like my pissed off parent and pleasantly said, "I'm playing Bubble Blaster until I get tired." He's seen me do it before, even laying next to him while he falls asleep; it hasn't bothered him before and it's certainly not unusual for me to do. But he was panicky and irritated by that as well, and said, "I can't sleep with that noise. You just keep TICK TICK TICK TICKing away down there. It's keeping me awake."

I sighed, unable to hide my growing frustration at his inability to simply say, "Would you lay down with me? I feel anxious. Thank you." So I set the phone face down and climbed into bed, laying as still as I could so he could fall asleep already. That's easier said than done, because often my pain means I have to shift around quite a bit as joints settle into the bed. So I lay there, quietly, with my eyes closed and waited. I knew it wouldn't be the end of it.

Sure enough... "Are you aware that I have to work in the morning?" he inquired a minute later. Hoping he was not going to be a total dick and imply that it was my fault he was awake and freaked out when I was doing my damnedest to accommodate him, I simply said, "Yes, I am." He seemed a bit stymied by that and paused before following it up with, "Ok, well...can you make sure I get up in case the alarms don't wake me up in time?" (Yes, multiple- I told you, he sleeps like the dead.) I replied simply, "Yes, I can."

At that point I realized the only thing that was going to relax him was if he knew I was asleep, for whatever odd reason he had worked out in his head, so I stretched myself out into light traction and then wrapped a shawl around my head because his breath smelled like cigarettes and he was breathing hard enough for it to be blowing into both my ear and face. Yuck. I didn't bother to explain why I did it, nor did I need to- he knows sometimes I get really cold and that's why the shawl is there next to the bed anyway. Maybe he thought I was still cold from being outside. Whatever. I fell asleep.

When we both woke up this morning he was chipper and fine, so I said, "Got enough sleep, did you?" and he said, "Yes, I did," happily as he made coffee. It was all so silly, as I knew he wasn't going to sleep through the alarms as he made it seem like, there was no emergency of him failing to get enough sleep before work in the morning because he had already been asleep on the couch for five hours before I went outside to see the eclipse. Even if he was awake for a whole hour he would still have gotten nine and a half hours of sleep that night, not that he could have worked that logic out at 3am in the midst of a panic attack.

Granted, I will be the first to admit that generally speaking, he is by FAR the more accommodating when it comes to bizarre behaviour and requests due to panic or pain or whatever, and I suspect that has a lot to do with our different ways of expressing it.

For me, when I'm panicked, I'm clearly panicked. I suspect that's a lot easier to deal with and parse out than it is for me to determine that he's having a panic attack because he's being an asshole. With therapy, his emotional palette is much more diverse than before but he still tends to revert to happy or pissed off at times, just one or the other.

Had I been distracted by anything at all last night, or half asleep myself, or in pain, I doubt I could have responded so well to him. As it was, I was standing in the dark, near silence, and just snapping pictures of a lunar eclipse. I was very calm and at peace when he approached me with his sullen attitude, and I had the peace of mind to contemplate just what the fuck his problem was and then try to deal with it as best as I could while taking care of my own needs as well and not letting it all devolve into a resentful bitchfest between us, and things can often go that way.

Like I've told him many times over the years: Having two tweakers in one house can be difficult. It's comforting at times to feel understood and not have someone look at you like you're crazy when you're tweaking out, but sometimes... it just plain sucks balls. Last night I responded well, much better than usual, but I still was resentful enough to post a quick 160 character limit text blog to vent my frustration about it, and it sure didn't explain why he was being such a dick nor that I understood and felt compassion towards him even while I was irritated as hell at having him piss on my peaceful moon viewing.

So there you go. There's the story behind my tiny text post from last night.

Does it make him seem better or worse in the viewers eyes? I don't know, honestly. Maybe the added details make him look like an ornery dick to other people. Maybe those of you who are familiar with panic attacks are nodding and thinking it makes total sense now. The point is that it is still my blog and my outlet and yes, often he is portrayed as an asshole. Sometimes he is one. Obviously I don't think he is an absolute one or I'd leave and that would be that. I'm still hoping we can salvage what has been good and healing between us and nourish it back into something that flourishes. Do I believe it's possible? I don't know. I know that I wouldn't be me if I didn't make sure that I gave this relationship every chance I could to make it work before letting it go and walking away, though. It's who I am. Perhaps I stay much longer than I should- my own history is marked by such occasions- but the pain of staying and having it fail anyway is by far a preferable pain to me than the toll of knowing I didn't really try.

2010-12-21T01:53:00.001-05:00

Jack just informed me that he can't sleep because I'm outside and it's late. I pointed up at the eclipse and smiled, but no, he wants me inside. Why worry now?

2010-12-20T15:25:00.001-05:00