The Slippery Slope of Day Drinking

I think that some days are just meant for a person to drink from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. Most days, I like a cup of coffee or an energy drink with my small breakfast, usually taken as I walk run out the door to work. Though even then, with the coffee, I like the Bailey's Irish Cream Creamer over the French Vanilla or Creme Brulee, though those are good too. On the first anniversary of my uncle's passing, we all gathered at his neighbor's house for a get-together, a potluck and firepit. His boyfriend made "Antifreeze" and I drank from the time we arrived, at about noon, until the time we left, maybe 8. I might have also drank when we got back home. I probably would have drank on the ride home as well, as I think my mom was driving, but she has a whole thing about not driving with open containers in the passenger compartment and following the law and all that bullshit.

It feels like today is one of those days, where you drink all day. It's the Fourth of July, after all. Most people start their bbqs in the early afternoon. If they are smoking meat, like the Professor's friend who's party we are going to a bit later, they start much earlier in the day. And nothing goes with bbqing like drinking, right?

Of course, I'm writing this at a quarter after 1pm, so I've already wasted a good portion of that drinking time. Sigh. Trying to be a good girl. I actually just started a cup of coffee-hot cocoa mix-creamer and I'm working on a 24 oz bottle of water as well, so I won't get dehydrated later. But the red, white, and blue jello shots that I've been working on since yesterday are calling me. (Note to self: next time, fill in more blue on each, so less shots overall, which will end up with a wider white section and fuller shots overall.)

The key to drinking all day is not getting too drunk though. I imagine it is the same for smoking pot continuously throughout the day, as opposed to just getting really stoned at the end of the day. Sadly I wouldn't know because I'm still trying to 'get high.' But you want to be able to function, maybe even drive a bit if you needed to, so you want to stay a bit buzzed but below the legal limit for much of the day. You also don't want to get dehydrated, so you need to have some water in there too.

I grew up with my grandfather drinking during the day on weekends and my uncle followed in this proud tradition. I definitely remember weekend days where my grandpa was having a beer at the kitchen table before he was properly dressed. Now I will say that I never saw my grandfather drink and then drive. My uncle really only did that after he moved out into the country where you could drive the gravel roads for hours, never get above 30 mph, and never run into anyone. He and his neighbor even had a name for it, "country cruising." (Don't get me wrong. I am very opposed to drunk driving. I try to be very careful about my alcohol consumption if I know or even think I might be driving later on. But sometimes we all do stupid shit and sometimes we can't stop the people we love from doing stupid shit.) Honestly, while it isn't as if he didn't have issues before he moved out into the country, I think that having a friend and neighbor who was (and still is) basically a functioning alcoholic did my uncle no favors. I am pretty sure that if he hadn't passed away, my uncle would have had to deal with some serious alcohol dependency issues. It seems to run in our veins, though. Many people on both sides of my mother's family have had chemical dependency issues.

It isn't like I blame them though. Everyone on both sides of the family were either poor or, at best, working class. Some of their kids reached middle class, but, as the middle class is shrinking year by year, I'm not sure most of them will stay there. A month or so ago, a friend texted me, forlorn about the state of his personal economy, that even though he makes what to me is a really good wage, he isn't making as much as he thought he would at this point in his life, he's had to go into debt over medical bills, and he doesn't know how he would be able to be married and raise a child on his current wage, especially since he would rather his child not be put in daycare but to have one parent stay home during those pre-going-to-school years. I sent him to a country song, Tip It On Back, by Dierks Bentley:

I see main street closing
Miles of “For Sale” signs
And them fields ain’t growing
Fast enough to get us by
I feel the sweet release,
Of a Friday night
For a couple of hours we can run this town
Till it runs dry

Tip it on back, make it feel good
Sip a little more than you know you should
Let the smoke roll, off your lips
Let it all go whatever it is
And tip it on back

I don't think he found it very comforting and, honestly, I guess it wasn't supposed to be. Shit sucks. For most of us, no matter what high ideals we had in college about not working for the man and not being like our parents, guess what? That's what we're gonna do. And most of our parents actually started out better than most of us because going to college was much cheaper back then, whether you went right after high school or went to night school. I'm not saying it was easy but there were somethings that were easier or cheaper for them. And our parents still smoked, drank, did drugs, were sometimes shitty parents, got divorced, etc. (Not all of our parents did all of those things, but you get what I'm saying.) A few weeks after I let him in on the harsh reality of what the rest of his adult life was probably going to look like, I had it myself. I was doing my budget and I knew I couldn't even get by working as much as I possibly could in the job I was at, where working close to full-time hours broke me, so how could I possibly imagine that I could do that and also go back to school for anything that might get me a better job while also working? But I had to do this everyday to pay bills. And this, folks, is why you drink once you are out of your twenties, once you stop partying.

Now there are some people who don't have this urge to escape when things are shitty. I know maybe one or two of them. I was in a fark comment thread (or was it a fetlife comment thread?) the other day that had something to do with alcohol and there were several people who asserted "Why would I want to not be present in my life and in control of myself?" It must be nice to be those people because, even though I know and, in reasonable mind, agree with all the DBT and Buddhist stuff about being present and participating and being mindful, I also know that life fucking sucks and I can't always deal with that, so there are a great many times when I would rather veg out in front of the tv or drink til I am buzzed (or beyond) or try to get high, or some combination of the above, than deal with what is in front of me. Now someday that might not be the case, but it is right now and I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter as long as I do the things I need to do before I start drinking, or if I can comfortably do it the next day and if I get up and go to work when I'm supposed to. But I also know that, for me, day drinking could become a slippery slope into alcoholism. You know, because things suck everyday so if you accept that there are days that just call for drinking all day then why don't all days call for that?

Anyway, here's a picture of my shots:

Picking at Scabs

It would be so nice to feel sleepy around 10 pm, before even taking any medication, then just lay down in bed and fall asleep. I'm told that's what normal people do and what I will eventually do when I'm healthy. I think it's all bullshit. Tonight I started feeling sleepy, drop dead tired at around 10:30, after eating, but I made the mistake of playing around on my phone, then journalling my day, which led to me thinking about what day it was by that time, since it was by then after midnight, and, well, I fell apart.

I sent this email to Moneypenny, typed on my phone, so sorry about the really poor grammar.

There's an episode of House in which House & his friend Wilon are on the outs but Wilson & their boss conspire to, basically, drug & kidnap Houe to make him attend his father's funeral, at the request of his mother, who knows House has much anomysity towards his father that he won't go on his own. During the ride to the funeral, House tells Wilson that part of his feelings are that the man wasn't really his biological father, which he figured out at 13 because of recessive genetic traits and that the man was a marine, shipped out at the crucial time, but House felt that it was himself who was decieved. At the funeral, House even goes so far as to get a tissue sample by pretending to kiss the deceased, so he can prove it later. Wilson ends up fighting with him and getting so angry that he throws a bottle of booze, at what he assumes is the wall but is really a stained glass window, which he breaks.

In the last scene, Wilson brings House the results of the dna test,which he'd intercepted before they got to House. Wilson also came to tell House that he'd been right about something he'd said earlier, that for all the insanity House had gotten him into that day, it was the mostfun he'd had in a long time, since what paused their friendship. Of course, the test results confirm House's lifelong hypothesis about hi parentage. Wilson tells him that this must make him feel a bit better, because it proved he was that smart and right at 13. House doesn't look more pleased. "Wilson, [beat] my dad is dead." Wilson looks genuinely sad for him. "My condolencses. Let me buy you dinner." He opens the door and waits for his friend.

Being the Wilson to my House doesn't mean you get the shitty character.

My grandpa died today. Around 6 am. I'm so sad.

I started crying and decided I'd rather watch the episode of House, if I owned it, than lay in bed and cry. Somehow I don't have season 4, but I do have season 5, and this episode is the fourth episode of season 5. I'm not sure if I'm lucky or not.

Around 6 am, December 28th, 2007, so about four years less five hours from right about now, I watched my grandfather die.

As I stood in the kitchen, crying, trying to find something to drink that didn't have caffeine to go with my pistachio pudding, things started flooding back to me. You know, it's strange how things run together. All the deaths. All the regrets. All the things you didn't do. All the things you did do. Four years is the blink of an eye when you're watching your child grow up, when you're pushing your way through high school, when it's the last four years you get with someone. Four years is forever when you're watching people die. Four minutes is forever when you're lost and alone and can't figure out where you're going.

I drive Moneypenny crazy with late night phone calls and text messages. The text messages he, rightly, ignores. When it used to be phone calls, he'd feint interest and try to get me off the phone as soon as he could so he could go back to sleep. I don't fault him for this feeling. But, even before this recent extended dance with the Reaper, I've had this fear that I wouldn't say what needed to be said before someone was gone from my life. Maybe it was because I didn't know that the last time I saw my biological father would be the last time I saw my biological father. The anxiety most people felt when they wanted to tell someone that they had a crush on them was doubled by my own worry that this might be my last chance that I ever got to tell them that I had a crush on them, because they might move the next day or get hit by a bus. There was so much I told my uncle, about my life, about my feelings, about my crushes, about my friendships, on our long drives. But there were also times I'd sit outside his door while he was asleep, when I couldn't sleep, when I fought the urge to wake him up and tell him how bad it hurt, inside, all the time. When he was still living with my grandparents and my parents and I would visit from the Very Large Midwestern City, he'd give up his bedroom to my parents. He and I would have to share a bedroom, which was wonderfully awkward for a 9 year old girl and a 20 year old young man, though I slept on a day bed and he slept on a pull-out bed which only sometimes stayed propped up through the whole night. (That was funny, in a Three Stooges kinda way.) I'd lay in my bed, listening to him sleep, wishing I had the balls to wake him up and tell him that I was sad and desperate and maybe even suicidal, though I had no way to express that except reading all the horror novels I could get my hands on. I wish I had told him and yet I'm glad I didn't. It's hard enough dealing with my mental illness as an adult, when the doctors and pharmacists have a sort of kind of solid hold on what the illnesses look like and how the medications probably effect a person, much less children when it's all fucked up and topsy turvy. If my family is worried about me now, I can't even imagine the eggshells they would have felt they needed to walk on then. But I don't think I've ever told this to anyone. Not even Moneypenny. I wonder if my uncle knew. Even more than my mother, he seemed to know everything. While he didn't get to punish me for things I had no idea how he knew, he did get the burden of whether or not to share it with my mother, so she could decide what to do with it. On the other hand, it seems unimaginably cruel to let me sit outside his door for hours and cry and not do anything about it. If there's one thing he wasn't to me, it was cruel.

And why am I talking about my uncle when it's the anniversary of my grandfather's death? Because they all run together. Because I wasn't as close to my grandfather. Because it was easier to accept my grandfather's death. Because it's been longer. Because I could justify it by saying that my grandfather had done all, or almost all, of what he was going to do with his life. And why am I telling you? Putting all these personal issues on blast? Maybe just so I don't feel the need to wake up my poor good friend who is probably sleeping peacefully next to his lovely girlfriend and who definitely has to be at work at 8 in the morning tomorrow (or today.) Sigh.

But I still miss my grandfather. MGD and fritos. Steel guitars and lottery tickets. Ashes and strong coffee. Those steaks my grandmother made for him that I never could figure out how he could chew through without his dentures. A man who never said "I love you," but who never did anything to make me doubt that he did. I care him with me wherever I go and try to let his example lead me, try to be as good of a man and a person as he was. I miss you Grandpa.

[Oh, but I got the details of the episode wrong. Wilson goes to see House because House's patient pulls through. House is drinking in celebration of the test results which proved him right, but he's still depressed because he feels nothing at all at the news. But their final exchange is still the same. Your real friends are the ones who understand, or maybe just accept, that you can be righteous while being pissed off that you're right while still being sad that this person that you had such a strange and complex relationship with is dead. And while they might not show the textbook perfect response, their response is still... well, it's still something. Sometimes, something is all you really need. Your friends will never have the perfect response for you and you'll never have the perfect response for them. But being there is a big step in the right direction.]

[And I'm still the same person. I'm just blogging under an account that's tied to my Google. When I started the blog, google didn't own blogger and/or I didn't have a google account, so I used the email I'd been using for years. Now I rely on google for tons of stuff and I'm too lazy to log out of all my google stuff just so I can blog. So there's two of me blogging on here: Ava and AvaAlso. I think my gentle readers are intelligent enough for this not to cause a large problem.]

December 28th

Three years ago, at six in the morning on his 77th birthday, my grandfather died, surrounded by his family, his wife, two of his children, his one grandchild, and their partners. We have all missed him very much ever since.

Everyday I think of him and almost as often something else reminds me of him. Like how he would have liked my gerry-rigged Christmas light set up. Like the Christmas song my uncle's boyfriend told us about, "I Farted on Santa Claus." Like thinking of him or my grandma looking for something in a store when I decided to follow through on helping a little old Asian lady who was looking for Christmas cards yesterday in the birthday card section. She was probably somebody's grandma and they would want to know that a (somewhat) decent person didn't just walk away.

I really miss you Grandpa. If there is a heaven, I hope you and Grandma and Knothead and Butch and your mom all are there together. I love you and I'll never forget you.

Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone (2010)

Directed and co-written by Debra Granik

Cast Includes
Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly
John Hawkes as Teardrop
Kevin Braznahan as Little Arthur
Garrett Dillahunt as Sheriff Baskin



Saw at twilight showing at local art house theater July 14th, 2010, along with a dozen other people, mostly senior citizens

I thought this was a great, low-budget mystery movie, with something very real at stake. The movie is set in The Missouri Ozarks, not the partying by the lake area of the Ozarks, but the backwoods area that most people think are backwards, where many people live on and off of the land and woods. Especially when the small towns can't offer enough employment and those who live off of the land and the woods can barely eek out a living, these rural areas become havens for all kinds of illegal trade and creation. During prohibition, this meant moonshine. Nowadays, it means meth. Seventeen year old Ree lives with her nearly catatonic mother and a younger brother and sister in a small cabin surrounded by what her uncle calls "hundred year old woods." She has quit high school to take care of them, though she obviously values their education, quizzes them as she walks them to school. She dreams of going into the army, not to get away from her family, but to use the sign on bonus to care for them and to take them out of the Ozarks with her. She's a fairly straight arrow in a bad situation which soon gets worse. The local sheriff lets her know that her father is due in court the next week, but no one can find him, which is now Ree's problem since her father put up their house for his bail. Now this tough girl must find and confront her father's known associates, many of whom she's related to, in at least a distant way, and all of whom are involved in shady illegal activities that may come to light if Ree finds her father. All the while, Ree also tries to figure out what she'll do if, when, she loses the house and her family has no place to live. I thought this was a very good movie, harrowing in a everyday, down-to-earth way, just a young poor woman, struggling on the edge of homelessness, pushing against other people who were once in a situation like hers and chose illegal means to make a living.

Not that it's difficult for me to find something in a movie to relate to, but this movie did make me wonder how close my life might have been to this movie if just a few decisions were made differently. Now there were four people, two hetro couples it appeared, sitting in front of me, who "oh my" and "ugh"-d during scenes of backwoods life, like Ree showing her brother and sister how to skin a squirrel, so they could eat if something happened to her, or she wasn't around. I got he distinct feeling that these four sixty-something suburbanites felt they were above eating any such thing. Now I have eaten squirrel and I'm pretty sure it was killed by a family member. I've also eaten rabbit and quite alot of deer. After a bit of being a brat as a kid, I've gotten over not eating something because I thought I was too good for it. This would go double if I was in Ree's situation. Which is a situation that is pretty close to situaitons that some of my relatives have probably had. Much of my maternal grandfather's family still live in and around a small town in Southeastern Missouri where my grandfather's parents built their house. But none of these relatives have log cabins and large plots of land. Those who do have their own property live in a trailer on a small plot of land. I remember going to a funeral for one of my grandfather's brothers several years ago, before my grandfather passed. Afterwards, we went to my grandfather's sister's house, a trailer which could have been pretty nice if it didn't have too many people with too many clothes and school books scattered everywhere. My great aunt was taking care of four or five (or more maybe) of her grandchildren because their parents couldn't due to alcohol or drug addictions. Now what would happen to those kids if, when, my great aunt dies? Last I had heard, from my grandma, before she passed, my great aunt was taking care of even younger children, a baby or an infant that her youngest daughter had given birth to while she was clean from cocaine, before she got hooked on meth, the meth that my great aunt said was ravaging the area faster and more thoroughly than alcohol or any other drug had before. Watching this movie, especially watching one character who's face reminded me so much of my own grandfather, hollow, grisled, with that beak-nose, I wondered how my life might have been different if my grandparents had moved back to that small town after he got out of the army, if my grandfather had made it a regular habit to drink as much as his brothers, if, if, if. But a different decision here or there can change so much. Things might not always look so great right now, but I know that I am fortunate in so many ways, fortunate that my life isn't tougher, isn't closer to that edge. I just gotta try to be thankful for that more often.

The subconscious is a bitch

The house went on the market last weekend. The house that my grandparents built and raised their children in. The house I grew up in, full-time for the first 7 years of my life, then part-time, one weekend a month and holidays, for the rest of my youth. The house I could always call home, no matter what the situation. The house I've begrudgingly helped my family clear out and stage for sale. And, contrary to what we were expecting given the current housing market, there is already an offer on the table. And not flippers, who'll tear apart the house, or people who intend to rent out the house to people who'll leave the house in ruins. Nope, they're a young couple just about to be married.

My mom told me all of this Sunday. And I spent the rest of my time at TyRoy's that day crying. And a good deal of time since then too actually. I knew it'd be hard to do this, but I didn't know how hard. And the closer we got to actually being finished with the house, the harder it got for me. It was like losing my grandparents all over again. As melodramatic as it sounds, it was like I was letting them be killed, inch by inch, cleared out room by moved recliner. Intellectually, I know all the reasons we have to sell the house. It's owned by my mother and her two brothers. No one person has the money to buy the others out of the house. And no one (but me) wants to live there. They all have homes, or at least another town they call home, and don't want to leave them. And everyone could use the money from the sale of the house, especially my youngest uncle, the one who is living with cancer. Yes, intellectually, I know we have to sell it. But my heart just can't let it go.

I remember Sir telling me that life is not what happens TO you; life is just what happens. I keep trying to tell myself that, but I don't really think it is helping. As childist and, once again, melodramatic as this sounds, I feel like things keep getting taken away from me. Things I either really had no hand in building, such as my family and home, or things and people that entered my life when my circustances were different so I'm not sure I could replicate them now. It is easy to say that I can (and probably should) find/build a new home for myself and find new lovers when mine is transferred. But I cannot replace my grandparents or my uncle, who will be taken from me far too soon. And I am lost, confused, and absolutely rudderless when it comes to what to do when I actually can make a life of my own, when this death watch is over. (And yes, that is what it is. I value that he is here and I will love and care for him until he is gone, but I am only being honest, with others and myself, when I say that he will die, sooner than anyone could ever want. I refuse to apologize to people who think I'm cruel but have never watched with certain knowledge that a loved one is going to die. I also refuse to chase false hopes and miracle cures when there are no more left.)

All I want is someone who will listen to me and who I can believe them when they says they understand or that they are sorry. Someone who can show me enough emotion for me to believe that they sympathize with me. I have yet been able to find that, despite the fact that many I care for have diligently tried. Sadly, today I was once again reminded that those I could always count on to have both the emotional capacity and life experience to bring insight or a different point of view to a situation are cut off from me in this situation. Gram, always one to voice her opinion even when it was unsolicited, is no longer here to share and I'm sadly devoid of the supernatural powers I would need to hear her now. My uncle is...well, honestly, what could I say to him about all this? My mother is always there to listen and I know she is aware of what I am feeling to some degree, but I am afraid that she'd pull back all the caretaker responsibility she's entrusted in me, which would mean it would all fall on her. I don't want to be a martyr, but I don't want her to be one either. I believe the burden should be shared, as best we can manage, even if it tears us both apart.

Last night I had this dream. Now, most of my dreams are fantastical, rarely touching on real life situations, though things I have seen or thought about during the past day or days do pop up. Just my brain transfering memory around. But last night's dream mirrored what had been happening with the house during the preparation phase: Mom was trying to keep everyone on task, though that is easier said than done. My uncle was hindering progress, "Well we can't do A because of X. We can't empty the garage because it's too cold today. Etc." My step-dad was supposed to be fixing things but he was really just making a big mess. And my gram and I were mostly just crying. (Oddly, in dreams, my gram is usually still alive while my grandfather either appears as a ghost or I know he's dead despite the fact that he's physically solid. My mom suggested that it was because I was there when my grandfather died so his death is more real to me.) Back to inside the dream, where my mother and I ran an errand to go pick up some things from the local lumber yard, which was owned and run by Dr. Phil (who knows). I was thinking about how I should send out a tweet/facebook status update, but all I wanted to write was, "This is all your fault. I will never forgive you. I will hate you until the day you die," which in my mind was directed at my uncle. That's about the time I woke up. And when I was slapped in the face by that evil little reality. That despite how much I might love my family and want to help as much as I can in all this, I'm also bitter and frustrated and hateful. I detest that it is so, but it is. And I have no more idea what to do about it than I do anything else.

On a brighter note, my mom also had a dream. She dreamt that I had become a famous and wealthy writer of cheesy romance novels. Of course, I wrote under a pen name, something equally cheesy, like Sweetpea Smith, and none of my friends believed me when I told them that it was really me who was that famous and wealthy writer. (Mom must have seen Lethal Weapon 4 recently. Wasn't it 4 where the one cop's wife was actually a romance writer and that's how they could afford all their stuff?) But every year I sent a Christmas card to my grandparents' former house, telling them that if they ever wanted to sell the place, I'd pay handsomely. Finally, one year, they bit. Then, I started buying up all the houses around my grandparents' house, demolishing them all and building a big mansion on the hill. And you had to take Sweetpea Lane to get there (or whatever my pen name was.) Mom didn't say whether or not I left my grandparents' house standing or not. I bet I did, though. Well, a girl can dream, right? Guess I should get to writing those romance novels.

House That Built Me - Miranda Lambert

Yeah, I know this is a country one, but there's something on youtube about it also having been recorded by pop chick Kelly Clarkson, so suck it up. It's a beautiful song and one that I think many of us can relate to.

I first heard this song on the first trip I made to help get my Grandma's house ready for sale. Of course, it made me bawl my eyes out and it still does. From the time my gram died, I didn't want to give up the house. Still don't, but now I see why it's necessary and I'll tow the party line on this one. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to think about other people living in that house or to know that soon I'll never be able to go back to that "home" again. And, despite that fact that I've lived many places, none but my grandparents' house was ever really home to me. Hell, it was even where I retreated to after the home invasion and attempted burglary of the first place I lived "on my own." It was the one place I knew I"d feel safe at a time when I couldn't bear to close my eyes to sleep after dark.

So here's the song. I hope it makes you into a blubbering idiot just like it does me. :P

House that Built Me



(skip to about 1:20 on the video to get to song)

I know they say you cant go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.
From "Better Homes and Garden" magazines.
Plans were drawn, concrete poured,
and nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama's dream.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.


You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can.
I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could walk around I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

It's Not Christmas 'til Somebody Cries

Ah, the Holiday Season! As everyone knows, it's supposed to be a time for giving, sharing, rejoicing, loving, and being with your family, but once translated through our own imperfections, it becomes a hectic time during which we're dragged down by obligation, consumerism, attempts at perfection, and whatever kind of dysfunction is created by the gathering of our family or friends.

"It's not Christmas 'til somebody cries." I heard my mom say this a couple weeks ago in response to some Christmas-themed television show. Today, she informed me that she thought it came from parents whose children cried from crankiness because of a lack of sleep while attempting to wait for Santa or whose toys got lost or whatever. But at the time she said it, all I could think of was my pre-teen and teenage years, when my step-dad (a grinch by upbringing) and I would always get into a fight, which ended in me crying and running out of the room. The fights always revolved around his desire for me to be more "sociable" with our family. Now, I'm an only child who's always been a bit introverted. I was being as sociable as I felt comfortable being. I was never rude and I attempted conversation with everyone, but I never had anyone my own age in our family, nor anyone I really had a great deal in common with, so, eventually, I'd end up sitting in a corner, reading a book or watching TV, though I always jumped right up to help do anything the adults needed, like setting the table. Looking back, I think that, as my step-dad and mom were usually cooking at holidays or doing some kind of work, my step-dad thought I should be doing the entertaining of our relatives, so they weren't as bored as I clearly was. But I didn't get that at the time and he didn't say it that way so.... we fought. And I cried. Which then made him look bad in front of our relatives, which made him more mad and grumpy, which then might lead to aftershock fights. For so long, I really hated holidays with my family because I thought there was no way around those fights. I don't think I came around to trying harder or just living through the fights until, after another fight with my uncle, during which he got so upset with me that he walked out, I realized how much Christmas, and all the other family holidays, meant to him. But it really has come to mean alot to me.

Last Christmas was full of a great deal of crying. It was the first Christmas without my Grandfather. Now he really loved Christmas. I don't think he was much for the smaltzy, sentimental side of Christmas, but he loved funny Christmas movie (Christmas Vacation especially) and tv specials. He liked Christmas music, always turning the cable tv to the seasonal music channel. He liked watching people open gifts, though Grandma always did all their Christmas shopping as soon as she could pry a Wish List out of us, and she started asking in September. But, from what Gram told me, which I'm not sure how reliable of a narrator she was, every year Grandpa would get gussied up and go shopping on the last possible shopping day. He liked to do it during the day of Christmas Eve, but that wasn't always possible, as we had several Christmas in Very Big Midwestern City, when I lived there with my mom and step-dad, as that was also where the rest of my step-dad's family lived and we were all friends. Grandpa liked watching the people though. Usually, he only bought one present, always for my grandma. Sometimes it would be something he knew she or they needed but that Grandma kept saying they couldn't afford yet, though it was quite often jewelry. Never costume jewlery either, but real diamonds and rubies. When he had had his fill of humanity, he'd come home, wrap the present, scrawl out the gift tag in his shaky hand, and set it carefully under the tree. (Well, except the tv. That he covered with a blanket in the guest room until Christmas morning, then he took her in the room to show her the present.) But, whether it's true or not, I still love this story about my grandpa. So it was hard last year to celebrate without him, without his cheer and his sparkle. Without the ham we had to have because Grandpa wouldn't eat any kind of fowl. Without his skiing Santa animated toy. Both sides of the family were at my step-dad's parents' house. I was in pain from falling on the ice the day before. I was angry that my step-dad's parents had invited a friend from their church to what was a very emotional Christmas for those of us on my mother's side. I went out to the garage to smoke and ended up crying, though I tried to be careful not to mess up my makeup. My grandma came out to have a cigarette as well and she said that I couldn't cry because then she'd cry and if she started crying, she might not stop. She also pointed out that Grandpa wouldn't have wanted us to be sad on Christmas, but to celebrate the family, the funny and weird, and even the consumerism of contemporary gift giving. She also reminded me that it wouldn't do a damn bit of good to try to tell my other grandparents anything because they wouldn't understand, they'd do what they wanted to anyway, and I'd be the only one upset. Of course, on this she was right and I didn't say anything, though I didn't really enjoy the time anymore than I already was.

Which brings me to this Christmas. No one in my mother's family seemed to really feel like celebrating, with both Grandma and Grandpa gone and my uncle in the middle of chemo. Also, no one has a great deal of money or wants any gifts. As my maternal uncle can't really travel, we decided to skip the trip to my step-dad's parents' house. But, well, I can't help trying to push for a bit of the holiday spirit. I offered to put up and decorate our Christmas tree, if my step-dad would be so kind as to bring it out of our storage shed, and Mom asked me to put up garland and bows on the patio fence. Doing that spread the holiday spirit, which we've all managed to pump up in each other since then. Even the shitty "blizzard warning" weather couldn't dampen my spirit. I was all smiles on my drive home from last night, hanging out with TyRoy and getting showered with gifts.

Until I didn't get friended on a stupid social networking site. I set up a new account last week when my original one was disabled. During the original setup, it took "possible friends" from my email account, a different email account than the one used to setup the first page. The possibles included Sir. I was in such a hurry that I just allowed everyone. It wasn't until a few days later that I started to wonder. Well, seeing him on there made me think about him, at which point I listened to some music he gave me. When listening to Counting Crow's "A Long December," I got stuck on "And if you think that I could be forgiven / I wish you would." Now, I know that we "lost touch" because, after I revealed on my blog, which his girlfriend read, that he was seeing someone else as well, he texted me that I had "burned the bridge with him." But isn't Christmas and New Year about catching up with people, about forgiveness, about figuring out why you lost touch in the first place and fixing it? So I periodically checked all my friends, to see if it still showed "request pending" or not.

Well, I got my answer today. He had disappeared from my "All Friends" page, which includes the pending requests. As he wasn't a friend and he wasn't still pending, he had denied my request. Maybe I would have had better luck if I'd thought about those song lyrics and included them in my request. I try to keep reminding myself that he's from one of those Italian families where someone becomes dead to you when they wrong you too many times or too severely. Even if he wanted to, he probably wouldn't go against that. I try to remind myself that he doesn't know that I'm not completely that same person, that I'm on better drugs, that I've gotten used to being alone and keeping a great deal more inside, that I've found a level of compassion I didn't know I nad. I try to remind myself that I'm not sure I really want to be friends with him, in a reality kinda way, as I don't know who he is anymore and I was starting to realize that there were things I really didn't like about him when we were still friends. But all I feel is that I got the ultimate "coal in my stocking" Christmas present, that I wasn't good enough, then and I'm not good enough, now to be friends with. Happy Christmas to you too, Sir.

It's not Christmas 'til somebody cries. I just wish it wasn't always me.

The Dog Dies, and other rantings

I'll get to the dog later. I'm just hoping that this is somewhat coherent, as I'm now fairly certain that the new anti-depressants aren't kicking in as the other one drops off, so I'm getting crazier by the minute. Or at least I feel like it. I've even caught myself curling up, from the cold in my bedroom before the heater kicks in, and stopping myself because I don't want to even look like the stereotypical tv/movie crazy lady, holding herself close, all alone. I'll freeze to death first, thankyouverymuch. *Deep breath* I keep trying to remind myself, and listen when those around me remind me, that I'm actually dealing with this better than I usually do, as I've informed the people around me within the first few days and called my doctor about the medication after the first few days and before I became suicidal. That is all a huge step up from what I usually do. Also, while I would usually worm my way into the bed and company of the closest romantic significant other when I started feeling bad (because somehow their love would magically protect me from myself and/or I could blame them when they didn't live up to my expectations/huge need and I hurt myself or made some suicidal gesture or attempt), I am trying really hard not to do that. I want to curl up with TyRoy and stay with him. I think if I asked, he would be more than happy for me to be there. But, as MP often reminds me, I'm alot for one person to deal with. I'm trying to spread it around and to delegate appropriately. TyRoy's friendship and love help a tremendous amount. We talk and write often. I'm sure I'll see him when he has time off. But I also lean alot on my mom right now. She knows how I'm feeling. She knows exactly where I am. She still holds my meds. She pushed me into not putting off calling the doctor until I was really awake, so I didn't waste more time. As it would be much easier for her to deal with any legal and medical issues if I was hospitalized (though she is still not my legal next of kin, until the divorce comes through), it's best to always be in contact with her, have her up on the situation. Even when I'm with TyRoy, he has all her numbers, just in case anything happens. And I'm trying to keep in touch with my other friends, because I know the isolation can get to me, even when I am the one doing it. I'm trying. Not sure if it's working or if it will work. Fuck. I think what makes me most upset about this is that I was just starting to feel like I might be getting closer to being a person living with a mental illness, rather than a person suffering from a mental illness. I've spent the last year and 3 months or so being someone suffering from a mental illness, feeling like I was controlled by it, feeling like my life was just fighting a losing battle against it. I was just starting to feel like that might not be it, like it might be something I could negotiate within a relatively happy life. But currently I feel like I'm battling just to not let it all slip away again.

But anger helps. Which brings me to the first thing I wanted to rant about. This evening, I was flipping through AM radio stations and decided to listen to a bit of the rantings of Michael Savage and his listeners. For those of you who don't know, I do listen to a bit of conservative and right-wing talk radio, mostly to know what the other side is saying. Know your enemy, right? One of his topics today was if pot should be legalized. A man training to be psychiatrist called in, decrying the evils of marijuana, as a gateway to other drugs, as a drug made infinitely more potent by chemists and growers which lead it to cause all kinds of psychiatric symptoms and illnesses. The psychiatrist-in-training also said that a high percentage (I think he said either 90 or 95%) of people prescribed psychiatric medications just needed a kick in the butt and a change in diet. OMFG! On the subject of weed: I would not go so far as to say that this man did not see people who smoked marijuana, especially the more potent varieties grown these days (as compared to the pot of the 1960s or even 1980s), and had a variety of bad trips, which lead to, as he said, suicidal attempts/gestures and visual and auditory hallucinations. I had a friend when I was a teenager who was only smoking marijuana on a very regular basis and started to get very paranoid, even when not stoned. But, for all the people I've known who've smoked marijuana, I've never known anyone who experienced LSD-like episodes. Maybe we just get skunk here in the Midwest. Also, I hate this whole "gateway drug" bullshit. Yes, almost everyone who does heroin has smoked marijuana. But correlation is not causation. Those people do not do heroin BECAUSE they did marijuana. I know I can't come up with a GOOD example that seems the same to me, but I have a bunch of things in my head. Being born is a gateway behavoir for becoming a homicide victim. Also, in terms of parsing out correlation and causation, maybe it isn't the drugs that caused the psychiatric problems, or at least not at first. It might have something to do with the fact that people who already have mental illnesses often self-medicate, even when they don't consciously know they are doing it. Then the drugs might exacerbate problems they already have with their brain functioning or just damage the way their body, especially their brain functions, causing even more illnesses, both psychiatric and physical. And they might have sought help if their psychiatrist wasn't a patronizing prick who wouldn't even try to work with them for a plan of medication but instead thought that they should change their diet and get a kick in the butt. I agree that medications get over-prescribed. But they get over-prescribed typically to people with insurance, who can pay, in communities (and of genders and sexual orientations) that accept that medicines can and do work for mental and emotional problems. The rest of people, sometimes people who really need it, don't have access to, or are taught not to take, the medications that could help them. Honestly, while I come from a therapy-friendly family and one that encourages the use of needed medications, I did not want to go on psychiatric drugs. It took a hell of a lot for me to start anti-depressants. But, you know what? I kinda wish the "psychiatrist" I went to in my mid-teens hadn't been so focused on how I was an idiot for what I wanted to take on my hypothetical deserted island and how the continued effects of the "Epstein-Barr" that he claimed I still had after my mono would go away once we bought this book and changed my diet. Because maybe he might have seen that I was suffering from depression, not Epstein-Barr, and I should be getting real therapy to help me learn how to manage it and possibly start the experimentation with drugs when I was 15 and had years and years and years left on my parents' insurance, before I was in college and paying for the education I was missing by not wanting to get out of bed. I bet that asshole loves Savage and his psychiatrist-in-training caller.

Speaking of conservatives, what is it about having a dick that makes people more conservative??? Ok, ok, ok-- correlation is not causation. I don't honestly know many women who are liberal either. And the ones who do claim to be liberal are in certain areas, but, because of their life experiences, or lack there of, don't often subscribe to a larger liberal feminist, pro-queer, anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-ablist, anything I'm ignorantly forgetting, agenda. And I'm sure that there are people out there who would look at my life or even just my writings and say that they don't see me going by that either. But I try. I don't try to say "I'm not anti-whoever but why do they insist on blank?" or "I have friends/lovers/relatives who are whatever so I can't be racist/sexist/whatever". I try to honestly listen to claims made about the privilege I enjoy as a white college-educated middle-class cisgendered able bodied (just looked it up and I guess that is the term out there but that sucks) female, to be aware of it, and to not accept it as something that is rightfully mine. There are lots of ways I've changed how I act and think and, I'm sure, more that I should change but do not yet know of. If someone points it out to me, I will try to listen and think about it without defensiveness, but I know it isn't the job of someone who is of a certain race or gender or class to teach me how to not be an ignorant bigot. I am not saying I"m perfect, but I try to be more fair and egalitarian and less prejudiced. But if I hear one more man who's never been in that position talk like he knows and everyone should get his opinion about the actions of a less privileged group he knows nothing about I'm going to scream. Just because you knew some lazy women on welfare does not make you an expert on all the myriad of men, women, and children who make use of welfare programs. Just because you don't like damned dirty hippies talking about how Tibet should be its own country, under the rule of its religious leader, autonomous from the Chinese government, doesn't mean that the religious rule of the Dalia Lamas was nothing but female child slavery and those hippies should shut up. Oh, unless you want to decry the male child soldier slavery in Africa and the rule of religious leaders in Iran. Just because you went to a school that had comprehensive sex education and passed out condoms doesn't mean that those things are the reason that girls at your high school got pregnant. Maybe there were other factors, like their self-esteem, like their socio-economic status, like the messages that society on the whole gave them, like the fact that their male partner may have pushed them into sex before they were ready and/or without protection. But whatever the reason, that doesn't mean that sexuality or sexual contact should be demonized all around. Also, no excuse for not reciprocating a sex act that can under no circumstances get one pregnant. You know, I know this is the "pussy" female answer but can't you guys just grow the fuck up and stop feeling like your privilege is so threatened that you have to piss on anyone you percieve as "taking what's yours"? Honestly, it's a HUGE TURN-OFF.

Finally, to the title- The Dog Dies. (Might be a little late but ****Spoiler Alert*********) Lately, I really hate how I can't seem to get away from movies that play on the shit I'm already dealing with. This Christmas, my mom, who loves movies with dogs in them, wanted to see Marley and Me. I knew it was based on a book, on a true story, but that's all the extra info I knew. I'm sure I would have gone with my mom sometime around now if I hadn't read an article about how not only does the dog die in the end of the film, but it is used to pull extra extra hard at the viewer's heartstrings. He nicknamed the movie "New Yeller." Well, for as much as my mom loves movies with dogs in them, she can't stand it when the dog dies. If she hears about it beforehand, she won't watch any movie where the dog dies. Needless to say, we will never watch Marley and Me. I'm really glad we didn't try to go see it over our Christmas holiday in Slightly Bigger Midwestern City, as my grandmother's 18 yr/o dog was at the time getting around very poorly and we were all afraid we would have to put him to sleep. I don't think I could have done that movie then. This all probably just means that people should be more aware of what movies they go see, though, to be fair, not all reviews of Marley and Me included that tidbit, which I'm sure parents who took their younger kids might have liked to know before they had to explain that their own dog would someday die. Yes, sometimes, people should just pay more attention. My mom and I decided to go see a movie the weekend after we found out that my uncle had cancer. She wanted to go to the new theater by her work so we just picked a movie that looked ok that was playing soon. We went to see In the Land Of Women. In which Meg Ryan's character has cancer. And loses all her hair. And looks painfully, unhealthly thin. I told Mom that I wasn't going to let her have the final say again.

Then again, sometimes nothing can really prepare you, even if you think beforehand that it might be sad, you sometimes can't guess how sad. I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight. I've read several reviews and knew what it was generally about. I thought it might be sad but I didn't think it would be as sad as it was for me. I should say though that it doesn't take a great deal for me to cry at a movie. It takes very very little, in fact, so I don't blame the movie usually. I don't here. And I made it through most of the movie without tears. But I started when Cate Blanchett's character, dying in the hospital, started to have breathing troubles and the doctor or nurse assured the daughter that it was normal, that her breathing would get shallower. It took me right back to being in the hospital room with my grandfather that last day and how those last hours and minutes are never as peaceful as movies make them out to be. I can still hear that noise, the sound of him trying to breath as his lungs filled with liquid. I cried because it was one thing I knew the movie would never convey. I continued to cry as Brad Pitt's Benjamin came back into Blanchett's Daisy's life, as she became an elderly woman and he didn't remember her. The innocence of people who've lost their memory was highlighted by the young (and thus innocent) appearance of Benjamin. For those people, who knew how old Benjamin truly was, it seemed difficult to take it to heart when he got upset and cursed at them because he didn't think they'd given him the breakfast he didn't remember that he'd just eaten. I think sometimes it's harder to not take it to heart in our reality when the person appears to just be an older version of the same person who once disciplined us. It's harder to remember that it's not their fault. It's harder not to want to WILL them to remember how to be who we think they should be. I think one of the things that really got to me was that the chronologically old/phycially childish Benjamin still had that magical twinkle of mischief and curiousity. The same one that I remember my grandfather having right up until end. There was always some little joke that he made you feel like was just between the two of you. And my grandfather loved to tinker with things, so, even after the stroke, when he couldn't remember exactly what he was doing or why, his hands still felt the need to take things apart, or attempt to. It was hell trying to get him to leave in the IVs and tubes at the hospital. Even once he got home, he'd take his feeding tube out of his stomach. Even when Grandma would try to cover it up with a weird girdle thing and two shirts, he'd find it and take it apart, after having forgotten about it, out of sight out of mind. Even though I'm crying right now, I'm also smiling because he could be such a little shit! But smart and sweet and I miss him.

I went with a woman for whom it should have been worse than it was for me, though I didn't see her cry. I don't know her very well and, in our conversation before the film, I found out that she had had a son, but he died in 07, when he was less than a year old. Somehow, she seems to be more ok with it than I am with my grandfather's death. In the movie, Benjamin dies, as an infant, in Daisy's arms. After the movie, my companion alluded to the fact that it was a bit hard, but that was nothing like how he'd passed. I didn't ask her to share anything more specific, though if she'd wanted to, I would have listened.

Well, with that, I think I'll go to bed. Don't take any of this too seriously. It's just the ravings of a mad woman.

New Years

I don't have the greatest New Years. They aren't bad, persay. When I was young, I always spent New Year's Eves at my grandparents house, as I did every break, and, well, it wasn't really a party. That isn't my grandparent's fault. They were/are older. My grandma would be in bed long before midnight and my grandpa and I would usually stay up to watch the ball drop. The neighbors across the street seemed to have a better time, as they banged pans and shot off guns at midnight. There was also the obligatory call to my (middle) uncle since his birthday is New Year's Eve, but he was usually drunk, though thankfully usually more sad drunk than beligerent drunk.

New Year's Eves didn't get better when I got older, as I thought they would. I haven't gone to many parties and I haven't been with significant others who saw it as a big deal and made any kind of plans for it. I remember one year Sir bought tickets for a pro hockey game for my Christmas present (my request of gift, btw) and they happened to be for New Years. Though I probably shouldn't have dressed up, since we had to walk in the cold to and from the stadium, I still did. We got back to his place with enough time for me to drink a bottle of champagne (Sir doesn't drink), see Dick Clark looking not so great the first year after his stroke, watch the ball drop, and have an embarassing sex accident. Joy.

I think the best New Year's Eve was the one I had when I was 18 at the party thrown by my gay friends. They were the only good thing about living in Skanky State Capitol City. One of the young men worked for a local HIV/AIDS education center, ran their LGBTQ youth group, and worked the coatcheck at the local all-ages, gay-friendly club for donations to the center. It wasn't a huge party, but it was full of friendly accepting people (gay men, lesbians, straight chicks, coupla straight boys- all 18 and over) hanging out, joking, eating peanut butter cups out of each other's crotches, and hitting each other with my leather belt. Lol. It was alot more fun than it might sound.

But I've always thought New Years was kinda depressing. No presents. No special food. Lots of places closed. Just alcohol, which is no fun if you don't have friends. Even less fun if you don't have a significant other. And to make resolutions, one has to look back at the previous year, which is usually pretty depressing. Last New Year's Eve, I thought that things would have to get better the next year, except for BT being deployed. Turns out I was wrong. I hope this next year will be better. Hope I can make it better. So here are my New Years songs. I think the first one is pretty hopeful but they are all reflexive and depressing too. Enjoy ;)

What a Year for a New Year- Dan Wilson
no youtube-
What a year for a new year
We need it like we needed life I guess
Last one left us lying in a mess
What a year for a new year

What a night for a sunrise
And we thought the dark would never end
Reaching out to try to find a friend
What a night for a sunrise
Sunrise

What a day for new day
And our star shines like a miracle
And our world is almost beautiful again
What a day for a new day
New day

What a year for a new year
What a night for a sunrise
And we thought the dark would never end
Reaching out to try to find a friend
What a night for a sunrise
Sunrise

Soon we'll be lying in our beds
And new dreams will fill our heads
And the old ones will be ended
Hope we'll forget about this place
Let it go without a trace
Wipe the teardrops from our faces
Oh! What a year for a new year!

A Long December- Counting Crows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNF1a-ZG1uc
A long december and theres reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I cant remember the last thing that you said as you were leaven
Now the days go by so fast

And its one more day up in the canyons
And its one more night in hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven...i wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that its all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And its one more day up in the canyons
And its one more night in hollywood
If you think you might come to california...i think you should

Drove up to hillside manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And its been a long december and theres reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I cant remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And its one more day up in the canyon
And its one more night in hollywood
Its been so long since Ive seen the ocean...i guess I should



The New Year - Death Cab for Cutie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a84TmrJpBCw
so this is the new year.
and i don't feel any different.
the clanking of crystal
explosions off in the distance (in the distance).

so this is the new year
and I have no resolutions
for self assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions

so everybody put your best suit or dress on
let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one

i wish the world was flat like the old days
then i could travel just by folding a map
no more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
there'd be no distance that can hold us back.
there'd be no distance that could hold us back (x2)
so this is the new year (x4)

Recent Events

Now that the meds aren't quite so oppressive and I'm realizing that I can't live any kind of actual life sitting on my parents' futon, I'm trying to get out a bit, reconnect with friends, make new friends, in addition to looking for work. I've kinda had a paralyzing social anxiety since I've been out of the hospital, which was probably good at that time, or I would have just had sex continuously with anyone after BT left. But it isn't good for the long-term. So I'm hanging out with long-term friends that I''m currently JUST friends with in the next couple weeks. I'm also chatting online with some possible new "friends" who have varying levels of desired commitments. I'm just playing it by ear.

But friends, well, relationships with people in general are... well, tough. I'm volatile, inconsistent, and generally difficult to deal with over a long period of time. MP told me last week that I really needed to understand that dealing with me, at least when I'm not doing well, can take a great deal out of a person. And I'm not good at spreading that stress around either. It usually lands squarely on the person that I'm closest to at the time, often my significant other. I'm intellectually aware of this, but that doesn't really do much good when I'm not doing well and my emotions have control. I'm trying, even if it doesn't seems like it. And I'm trying even harder now, after a week of almost constant arguing with TyRoy, and managing to get myself into a mean-ish disagreement with MP today. Ugh.

While I know that what I really need is intense therapy for... well, forever, I'm trying to just focus on being as normal as possible. The first part of that is getting a job. I apply daily for jobs. I have a preliminary group interview/testing/fingerprinting for a temporary seasonal government job in January. I am playing phone tag with two human resource recruiters. I am on the available list for several temporary employment agencies. Until then, I'm trying to make up for being a jobless bum with doing stuff for my folks around the house. Though I'm still not good at cooking anything that I don't like, which usually means a noodle dish. I made tuna noodle casserole last week. Yum. I'm hoping to get a full-time (or even part-time) job with health insurance. Then I could get the therapy. One thing at a time though.

But I'm still making use of the health insurance that I have while I have it. I got a birth control implant. It lasts for three years. I'm SO happy about it. I've been asking doctors about longer term birth control options since I started this insurance and I was mostly rebuffed. I can't do the monthly shots because they have been known to drastically increase depression. I didn't want to do the ring because I've heard it fails. I'm tired of the pills and there's too much risk of missing a day. I wanted an IUD. My primary care physician said that I should stick with the pill, since I took other pills everyday anyway. But now that I'm on these meds and about to lose my health insurance, the gynecologist was happy to give me something else, though she suggested the implant instead since IUDs can make infections (like STDs) travel faster and it would have to be taken out if I had any procedure for abnormal cervical cells. Hell, maybe she just gets a kickback on the implants. Either way, I have it now and I'm super happy to have 3 years of birth control all paid for and off my mind. Though my arm kinda hurts right now.

I also see my psychiatrist tomorrow. I made a list of the side effects of the lithium to talk to him about. I don't know what will happen with it. I don't even know what I want to happen with it. We'll see.

In the definatively bad news category, my computer blew up Sunday. It shut itself off Saturday night. I thought it might just have been hot or something so I left it alone. When I tried to turn it on Sunday afternoon, nothing happened. NOTHING. My uncle's boyfriend, who built the computer for me, suggested I check the outlet, the surge protector, and then the power cord. I got to the final one, switching the power cords for the monitor and the CPU. There was a spark in the middle of the CPU, then a bigger, longer lasting spark in the back by the power supply. It smelled like burning. Sigh. I think it's completely fried. I just hope we can salvage my memory because I was too lazy to backup my music and pictures and writing.

That doesn't help with the "new friends" department. I'm using my mom's computer right now and only have access to two pictures that I sent out recently. I was supposed to meet someone for coffee today. I'm pretty cautious when I meet new people from the internet, asking for full name and phone number when I meet someone in public, and making sure that someone has that info, where I am, and expect me to check in. Maybe I'm paranoid, but anyone could be a psycho killer and I'd like to at least give the cops some clues. Also, I have people around me (Mom, TyRoy) who insist on the info, insist on me taking some steps to protect myself. Well, the man I was supposed to meet today took offense to that. He said that he never gave that information out. He attributed it to the fact that someone had recently stolen his identity. If that is true, then I think that is aweful, but it doesn't mean I'm going to not protect myself. When I told him why I need the info, he said that I just shouldn't date but stay at home with my parents were I was safe. He also said that he dates all the time and no one has ever asked him for that information. And it might be true that they don't ask him before they meet him, but I can't imagine that women are happy to date him without knowing his last name or having a phone number that they can call him on. And I am aware that dating is never safe, meeting people is never safe, nothing is ever completely safe. But I'm not so scared that I don't go out at all, don't meet people at all, and I don't want to be. But I don't feel like it's wrong to ask for those other things. I'm not asking for your social security number, for christ's sake. And I've never had a guy not give me that info. I did have one guy give me a completely false name, though MP quickly found his real name for me. hehehe. Even married guys will give me that info. I understand that other people want to feel safe and secure too and I don't want to make anyone feel un-safe. Both people need to feel as safe as possible. But I don't know you and I don't know what possible risks there are in being around you and, as I don't know you, I'm more worried about my safety than I am yours. Oh well. Whatever.

Oh, and apparently, in addition to the friends that I've driven to anger by my actions lately and the possible dates who I've upset, BT completely hates me. It isn't like I haven't done wrong. It isn't like he didn't have every right to leave me. But I guess I always hoped we'd be friends. I at least hoped we'd be civil if I wasn't picking fights. And I've really tried not to make the situation worse. I haven't texted unless I needed something. I told him before I took cash. I mailed the mail of his that came to my house to him. I told his mom to give the woman he's with now a chance because she makes him really happy. I even did all the paperwork and paid for the divorce that he wanted, that he now says he wants so he can marry this other woman. But none of that matters because of what I've done. Oh, and because I"m fat. He's found someone smaller and better who he really loves (guess he never really loved me?) and he hopes that I can develop some self-respect. (His words, not my extrapolation.) Sigh. I do hope he's happy and that it all works out for everyone involved.

I guess what it all really makes me wonder is how long and how much people should have to suffer for the bad things they do? I know that this is just me paying for the wrong I did him. I'm not paying for a larger wrong that I did to many people, for a wrong that is illegal. And maybe for him, it is right that I should be looked down upon and hated and belittled by him for the rest of our lives, even if I lived a perfect life from here on out, even if I did anything and everything I could think of or he could tell me to do as penance. It's not like I'm talking about getting back with him, him loving me, maybe not even talking about being friends. But just not being insulting for no good reason. (And do you really think it's a good idea to insult someone who is already suicidal, self-harming, and has zero self-esteem? Don't you think she already feels like shit?) "You ain't the only one who feels like this world left you far behind/I dont know why you gotta be angry all the time."

Makes me wonder about people who have done much worse things. How do you do the penance? How do you live with yourself and what you've done and still have the strength to work to make it better? I think about my uncle, the middle child between my mom and my youngest uncle. Since his teens, he's struggled with addiction and done so much damage. There was a time when my grandparents told him they wouldn't help him come back to the area where they lived. Not sure when the last time was that he asked. He's traveled the country, living in all kinda of places, struggled with substance abuse. I was too young to know what was going on when he lived near us. But last Christmas my grandmother paid for him to visit, since her sixth sense told her that it would be my grandfather's last Christmas. Gram said he was sober now. I was there for the first part of the visit, before I left to visit BT's family with him. In a couple days, when Grandpa was admitted to the hospital, that uncle got drunk. He got beligerent with my other uncle, who has completely written him off after having to grow up in the shadow of his brother's delinquency. My diplomatic mother was the only one who could deal with him. When he was still drunk and unruly the next morning, my grandmother drove him to the bus station and sent him back home early. If that hadn't been the case, he might have been there when his father passed a few days later. When I called to break the news, he made it all about him. I'm still upset. I'm upset that my grandmother actively pursues contact with him after all that. I wonder if I could rise above all that if he was ever to really try to change his life, if he tried to act unselfishly towards me and/or our family. But I haven't had to deal with his bs as much. My other uncle has and I honestly don't think that he could ever forgive his brother. Maybe the better comparison for me would be if my bio father changed and wanted to be a part of my life. But it's difficult for me to compare myself to them. Is the damage I did to BT in just a little over a year compare?

Sigh. I just don't know. All I can do is try to be the best person I can be to everyone, regardless of if they recognize it or care. I'm not claiming to be a saint. I imagine they are good people because they are good people by nature. I try to be a good person so I have less to feel bad about. I'm not a martyr. I still do selfish things and I don't see these things as sacrifice. If I did, I might not do it. I just don't want people to hate me.

On that note, I'm going to bed.

You Should Have Seen It In Color- Jamey Johnson

I said "Grandpa what's this picture here?
It's all black and white. It ain't real clear.
Is that you there?" He said, "Yeah. I was 11.
Times were tough back in '35.
Thats me and Uncle Joe, just tryin to survive
a cotton farm in the Great Depression.

If it looks like we were scared to death
like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should've seen it in color.

Ohh and this one here was taken over seas
in the middle of hell in 1943 in the winter time
You can almost see my breath
That was my tail gunner, ole Johnny Magee
He was a high school teacher from New Orleans
and he had my back right through the day we left.

If it looks like we were scared to death
like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should've seen it in color.

A pictures worth a thousand words
But you cant see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should've seen it in color

This one is my favorite one.
This is me and grandma in the summer sun
All dressed up the day we said our vows.
You can't tell it here but it was hot that June
and that rose was red and her eyes were blue
and just look at that smile, I was so proud.
Thats the story of my life, right there in black and white

And if it looks like we were scared to death
like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should've seen it in color.

A pictures worth a thousand words
but you cant see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should have seen it in color.
You should have seen it in color
Yeah a pictures worth a thousand words
but you cant see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should have seen it in color

You tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBk07l2aKrE

When I first heard this song, it made me think of my own grandpa. Not that we ever had a conversation so in depth, but I remember us going through the pictures before his funeral that we'd lay out for the viewing. I think it might just have been something for my uncle to do to keep himself even busier than he already was. But we now all have pictures of him in our living spaces. One of my favorite ones, the one that is hanging by my bedroom door and came with me when I lived at TyRoys is one of him and my grandma sitting at a kitchen table, with my mom, aged probably six, squirming in between them. Even though I'm sure I'm not a great judge of how I look, I know that I can see myself in all those faces. And in my grandfather's James Dean-y handsomeness and charm, I can see BT as well. (No, we aren't related.)

My grandma's grief conselor told her that it was a good idea to put of pictures of my grandpa around the house, partly as a good reminder and probably so that it wouldn't catch her off guard and hurt her more when she did see those things. At the house, I always sleep in "the guest room" and, since it became the guest room, the head of the bed has been surrounded by beautifully framed pictures of our family at different fancy family functions (weddings, parties, etc, not alot of them in my family). (Sidenote: You'd think this would get in the way of having sex in that bed, what with being surrounded by pictures of my family and all. But it doesn't seem to.) No one had warned me about the grief conselor's advice, but I wasn't freaked out by the fact that there were more pictures of my grandpa around. What did freak me out was the quilt on the bed. I don't think I had ever seen the quilt before. It was a quilt handmade by my grandma, on their 38th anniversary, with embroidery about their wedding date and their children. I lost it right there and then. This last visit I was looking at the picture of my uncle and my grandfather, at my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party and I almost lost it again.

But I heard this song twice today. And what stood out was that he uses the same chorus to describe him and his wife on their wedding day- "And if it looks like we were scared to death, like a couple of kids just trying to save each other." Reminded me of BT and I. A couple of kids just trying to save each other. I could sure use some saving now.

Moving On- Vol. 2

I've been wanting to talk to my grandma about the things that I've decided in the last week or so. My bestfriends tend to always be the men in my life that I'm romantically-linked to and, while the three men that I mentioned in the post are all outwardly supportive, I can't really trust their opinion on this decision because they all want me to make the decision that most benefits them. That's quite understandable. Their biggest critique is just that I shouldn't close myself off to possibilities at happiness just to follow some notion that I should go out on my own and that I MUST make it on my own. (And I'll address my issues with all that stuff in another post, but right now I kinda want to focus on my family.)

I told my mom about it and she is very supportive. She said that she's always thought that I should do something like this and that, while it sucks that this is the impetious behind it, I should still go for it. When I had made the decision a few months ago to try living with TyRoy, she was supportive of ME but she also wanted me to work at getting to a place where I could move out on my own if I ever needed to at any point. She also thought that I should cover my ass with some kind of roommate contract, so he couldn't just kick me out in the street in the middle of the night with nothing and no way to get at my stuff. I understood all of this and she's been a big proponent of stuff like this my whole life. It isn't anything new that started with TyRoy or started after the issues with BT. She went through too much shit with my bio father and money- not having enough to leave, then even after she left both having to pay his back bills because they negatively effected her credit and work a full-time job which only afforded for us to live with my grandparents. Also, while she'll never say it, I think that she regets that she never lived on her own, properly. She moved from her parents' house to living with my bio father after they were married, back to living at my grandparents' until she got married again. That isn't to say that she hasn't always worked or that she doesn't know how to pay the bills (in fact, she takes care of that so much so that my step-father can't really get along when she's gone for more than a week without some prior planning on her part because she has control and knowledge of all the money and bills.) But she's just never lived on her own. While I'm not sure she really feels that I MUST live on my own, all alone, for some set period of time, so that I can assure myself that I can do it, she does think that everyone, especially every woman, should have enough money in his/her power and enough confidence and knowledge to know that s/he can leave whatever situation s/he is in, especially if that is a romantic living situation, at any point that s/he decides.

But telling my mother was both easy and predictable. I knew what she would say and why she would say it. I guess I want to hear my grandmother's opinion because she's had a different life experience, especially with men/husbands and money than my mom has, but also because of the difference her experiences in this past year, since my grandfather's first stroke and especially since his death, might have on her opinion. Alot of it has to do with what I wonder her opinions are on me passing by "opportunities at happiness", as they all like to say, with 3 men who I do love each in their own way and who all do love me, who I could have very different lives with, to live a life on my own, hoping to find that LOVE that also doesn't bankrupt me, to take the financial and career opportunities offered to me on their own merits not based on my partner's life choices, etc, etc, hell- just to fucking prove to myself that I can make it out there, sink or swim, even if I end up finding out that I can't survive on my own, well, at least I'll know. (More on all that later though.) But, while I've talked to people and thought about it and blogged about it in hopes of getting the opinions of my reallife realworld friends who I hope also read my blog and only getting the opinions of online "friends" and the men involved, I haven't called my grandma. In fact, I haven't called her at all, about anything- because I know that I'll feel compelled to talk about this. And why can't I talk about this?, you might ask. Because no one has told her. In fact, no one really told me. I knew something was up when my uncle and my mom were up seeing the doctors because my mom wouldn't tell me anything. So when I went to see my uncle, I finally got drunk enough to ask him and just asked. But I still had to go to my mom and ask for a time frame because my uncle wouldn't really give me that.

Let me explain, if I haven't before---My uncle has the middle-child, peace-keeper attitude, so it's often really difficult for him to come out and tell unpleasant truths to those who need to hear it. Unfortunately, there is usually someone around him, namely my mother or I, who know that truth and are burdened with either hiding it or revealing it. I usually end up revealling it because I have NEVER felt the need to keep peace, in fact I usually feel quite the opposite need, so I can't keep my mouth shut, even if I really try very hard. This is how I "out"-ed my uncle. Both my grandmother and my uncle will gladly tell you that it was me who told my grandmother that my uncle was gay and that was the reason that he and his wife were divorcing. But no one ever feels the need to explain that I tried really hard for several weeks not to reveal what I knew. See, my uncle never really told me that he was gay. I told him. Actually, for years, my boyfriends (ex-J and Sir) and several gay male friends had been telling me that my happily married uncle was really gay. Even before ex-J said something about it, my godfather, who I hadn't seen or spoken to in years, upon finding out during our first reunion conversation that my uncle had married 2 years prior, said, "Huh. I always thought he was gay. Guess not." So, finally, nearly 5 years after this conversation with my godfather, and almost 4 years since I'd come out to my family as bisexual, when my uncle moved out of the house he and his wife owned and started talking about divorce, my uncle and I had the stilted conversation in which I tried to pull out of him why they were separated and he tried to not really tell me the whole truth until finally I said, "So it's just because you're gay, right?" I don't even think he ever said, "I am gay," during the whole conversation, just agreed that was the heart of the matter. At the time I was living with my grandparents, working a 3rd shift data entry job until I could save up enough money to get an apartment in the city closer to the university I'd be attending in the fall. By the time I came home in the mornings, dead tired but unable to sleep the way you are when you work 3rd shift, my grandmother had already been up for an hour and was on her 2nd or 3rd cup of coffee and her 10th cigarette. Every morning, she'd grill me for information about whatever was going on in the family, mostly about my uncle. She was certain that my uncle's wife was having this affair with a fellow (male) co-worker whom she saw quite frequently outside of work. It seemed like every morning I was having to defend my uncle's wife, who really was, all things considered, handling things quite well from everything I understood. She really was, and still is, so much more amazingly graceful about the situation than anyone has a right to expect and than I think anyone gives her credit for, including me really. When my grandmother would say, "Well what is it then?", I would just repeat that Dan was going through things and that I was sure that he would tell her when he was ready to talk about. After what seemed like weeks, she finally said, "He's gay, isn't he? That's why they're getting divorced, isn't it?" I didn't negate what she said, which is probably the nail in my coffin on this issue, but only once again told her that she would have to talk to Dan about all of this. But by not saying that he wasn't gay, I had just told her that he was and thus I had out-ed my uncle. As someone who was moderately well-read on the issue of coming out as LGBT and having done it myself, I knew that what I had done was horrible but there was really no way around it. Except to lie, which, in this case, I didn't want to do. But, as you see, dear reader who I assume is always on MY side, my hand was sorta forced by the fact that my uncle wouldn't tell my grandmother what I already knew and by my grandmother never letting anything like that go.

Thus, I did not want to talk to my grandmother about my big life decisions, in which I will go whichever way the wind takes me after I get my BA and after my uncle passes, whichever comes last, because I would naturally end up revealling that my uncle was told he only had 12-18 months, which my grandmother had not been told.

Then, tonight, after BT's mother called me to make sure that no men in dress uniforms had shown up to tell me that my (still at least for now) husband was dead, I called my mom to confirm just that, which of course they hadn't or she would have told me, and Mom said that Grandma knew. Kinda. See, my family on my grandmother's side seems to have this sixth sense kinda thing, if you believe in that kinda stuff, which I do. It's strongest with my grandmother, but my uncle and my mom and even me alittle I think have it. My mom told me that she was talking to my grandmother the other day and my grandmother said, "Do you think he [meaning my uncle] knows how serious this is?" My mom thinks this was my grandmother's way of asking my mom if my mom thought my uncle knew that he was going to die from this and probably kinda soon-ish. My mom said that she did think he knew, but asked how my grandmother knew that. My grandmother said that she'd been having dreams of my grandfather lately. They weren't the nightmare and/or grief dreams that she'd had after he first died. And while my grandmother never said that my grandfather said it outright in the dreams, my grandmother did tell my mom that she thought he was coming to tell her that my uncle was dying. My grandmother asked if my mother had been dreaming of my grandfather. My mom admitted that she hadn't but that, even before the doctors really told my uncle, my mom knew that it was gravely serious because my uncle was having dreams of my grandfather, mostly of the two of them walking around the cancer clinic where my uncle was being treated, talking. Even if my uncle didn't know that the dreams meant what they did, my mom said that she did. Apparently, I was left to figure it out on my own. Or maybe Grandpa just knows that Grandma and my uncle needed him more than I did. Even if you are astrally projecting, I'm sure that you can only do so much at one time. ;) My mom admitted that she didn't know if Grandma knew that I knew, so here she and I both are thinking that the other doesn't know, so we can't talk to the other because neither of us can keep our mouths shut, when we really both know. The most I'll be doing is possibly giving her the timeline that the doctors gave my uncle, knowledge which is both a blessing and a curse.

So, I plan on talking to my grandmother soon about all this. I'll let you know her opinion on the matter. I'm sure it will be as unique as she is. But, I also have to deal with moving BT's stuff back to the place where he used to live before we got married/before he left for training, dealing with money issues, and dealing with finding another job. Oh, yeah, did I mention that I quit my job Friday night? It's kinda funny story and it will be a bit of a rant later, I'm sure. Needless to say, I probably should have know that I couldn't put up with what I viewed as BS management and found another job and given two weeks, instead of quitting the way I did, but I did it and I have to own up to the fact that, other than the fact that I hate not having a job/dependable source of income, I only regret not being a bigger bitch in how I quit. Hell, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Wish me luck this week, kiddoes, and I wish you the best as well.

Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World by Sherman Alexie

This was the poem of the week on another blog a while ago. Fuck, I just realized that I hope I didn't post this before. Oh, well. If I did, then you should all read it again because that's how fucking amazing it is and how much it speaks to me. I have tons of moments like this with my Grandfather now. There are more moments like this the longer he's been gone, I guess because we tend to forget and then we remember that we've forgotten and we feel kinda terrible. But I guess at least we are remember that we've forgotten rather than never remembering at all. And I hope that Ms. Kee sees this because 1)because of her father and 2) because it's by the writer of The Art of Fancy Dancing.

Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World
by Sherman Alexie

The eyes open to a blue telephone
In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.

I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,
Proctologist, urologist, or priest?

Who is most among us and most deserves
The first call? I choose my father because

He's astounded by bathroom telephones.
I dial home. My mother answers. "Hey, Ma,

I say, "Can I talk to Poppa?" She gasps,
And then I remember that my father

Has been dead for nearly a year. "Shit, Mom,"I say.
"I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—

How did I forget?" "It’s okay," she says.
"I made him a cup of instant coffee

This morning and left it on the table—
Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—

And I didn't realize my mistake
Until this afternoon." My mother laughs

At the angels who wait for us to pause
During the most ordinary of days

And sing our praise to forgetfulness
Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.

Those angels burden and unbalance us.
Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

Valentine's Day Eve

This day has been a crazy mess of ups and downs. For the most part though, I think that the ups were due to the amazing things that others did me and the downs have been... well, sort of incidental, the ghosts of past tragedies popping into my mind. Tomorrow, I'll post about the wonderful gifts that my family bestowed on me today, so that I could enjoy them for the whole of Valentine's Day, I really want to post tonight on the other gifts and ghosts of the day.

This is the first holiday without my grandfather. Well, I suppose that isn't really true. New Years was the first holiday without him, but, at that moment, I was still very much too raw and too numb to really feel much of anything. Also, New Years day, my husband and I drove three hours to where he would meet the bus to go back to the military base from which he was deploying. Oh, and there was the horrible bladder infection that I was dealing with at the same time. So, I couldn't really even comprehend New Years as a holiday, much less that it was a holiday without my grandfather. That it was a New Years Eve without the man who'd let me stay up until midnight so that we could watch the ball drop in far away Time's Square so many times when I was a young girl, spending my Christmas break with my grandparents, as he drank his beer and ate his Fritos.

But it wasn't until today that I started to experience what a holiday might be like without this man. This morning, as I was headed out to run some early errands, I opened the Valentine's Day card that my uncle sent to me. It was just a funny, cute little card. But it reminded me that, whether I had a significant other or not, there were always people who loved me and that I never went a Valentine's Day without a card or a present. And I think that was started by my grandfather, who always sent cards to my mother and I and always had a small Valentine's Day present at his house for us whenever we visited closest to the holiday. It was always candy and always had a Snoopy figure somewhere in there. And I don't mean to diminish the cards and presents I've received from other family members, but it always seemed so special and unusual to receive a present on the most romantic of holidays from the man who responded "Me too" when you told him that you loved him. So I opened the card from my uncle and started bawling. As much as I know it was his time and I'm much more at peace with his passing than I would be that of other people's, I do miss him so very much.

But, overall, I had a very productive day. Actually, I probably had the most productive day I've had in quite awhile. I'm sure this is due in no small part to being both more physically and emotionally well than I have been in several weeks. And I'm sure the flowers helped. My last stop of the whole day was Walmart- that bastion of mass consumerism and consumption. It was not until then, at four o'clock in the afternoon, that I noticed that it was a truly beautiful day. Mild weather, sunshine, and, best of all, a clear blue sky. And clear blue skies often lead to one of my favorite daytime phenomenons-- the daytime moon.

And at this I heard the song "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tale in my head. It usually accompanies the daytime moon phenomenon. But when I walked into Wal-mart, I was a little freaked out to hear the song being played. But I was also a little happy. It seemed like the universe was giving me a little hug. So I'd like to thank who or whatever was in charge of that little coincidence. I'm very grateful.

Somewhere Out There by Linday Ronstadt and James Ingram
Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight

Somewhere out there someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there

And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky

Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true

And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky

Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true

(Ok so it's a horrible video, but a decent song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRaieyN77UI