Choosing The Price You Pay

It's difficult for me to say if my uncle was an introvert or an extrovert. Sadly, I can't ask him now. He did like to spend his time alone, would spend days at the lake, just drifting along in his boat. He loved living out in the country where he could be alone with the stars. But he also had many friends. Not just acquaintances, but people who were close to him. The sister of a friend of his came from 10-12 hours away, so she could help us out while he was in hospice, cooking us food, just being a shoulder to cry on. In those last years of his life, he had a hard time keeping up with all the people he wanted to talk to, between treatments and just being sick and tired, but he tried. 

I am not my uncle, however. I sit solidly in the introvert camp. Being around groups of people drain me. Even being around just a few people can be draining after a while. As the Professor, Ginger, and I plan on moving in together before our first child comes, I know that I will have to lock myself away in my room from time to time, veg out for hours to recharge when I need to. I'm glad we found a place where I won't have to share my bedroom with anyone, even my child. 

I have a few close friends. Two female friends who live in the metro, who I talk to more on facebook chat than anything else. Moneypenny lives four hours away, who I text with a few times a week (maybe) and try to see once a month. TyRoy spends his weeks 2 hours away and his weekends in the metro with his new wife, who I don't get to see very often because of our schedules and who I really should email more often. Occasionally, I'll talk or text with MP, more since I've been pregnant and he's concerned about how I'm doing. That's about it. Here and there, I will text with acquaintance-type people, but that's about it. It isn't a very large group.

I've tried branching out. Last fall, I tried to get out in the bdsm community as well as date through online sites. While I met many nice and fun people, nothing serious came of it. I stopped dating altogether just before I found out I was pregnant and then I stopped going to bdsm community events when my work hours changed and I started dealing with being pregnant. I was very overwhelmed and really retreated from more casual acquaintances, rather than have to expend more emotional energy on anything else. 

In the last few months, once I started to get adapted to this new 2nd shift schedule, I tried once again to find people that I could connect with through online sources. I was really lonely when I got off work, since none of my current friends are usually awake when I get off work. I just wanted someone to talk to, like you would with any friend after a long, tiring day. But I wanted someone who I had things in common with, who it was easy for me to talk to, who I didn't feel like I was always justifying my life to. I wanted someone it was easy to chat with, just like how it feels when you strike up a friendship with someone in any other context. But just like when I was dating last fall, I don't really have the emotional energy or the time in my life to expend on people I don't feel are a good fit for what I'm looking for. I know that sounds incredibly dismissive of other people and maybe it is. On the other hand, during neither period of time did I think that the people I chose not to have relationships with were not worthy people, in and of themselves. Even the people I had the worst dates with or the worst correspondences with still have good qualities and should have friends and romantic/sexual partners who they connect with. Hell, if I had unlimited time, unlimited emotional energy, and wasn't an introvert, I may have had successful friendships or other relationships with them. But I don't and we didn't. And, as much as I don't want to rob others of their own ability to choose to be in my life, I do feel like it is better for them to spend time with and on people they have a chance of a friendship or relationship with, instead of someone who probably won't be able to give them what they are looking for, or at least not for very long before she had to disappear again.

The older I get, the more I see the prices you have to pay for things, the trade-offs that have to happen. One of the big things you learn in DBT is radical acceptance, which is acknowledging how things actually are in this moment, so you can stop struggling with how it shouldn't be like this and start dealing with how it actually is. That means realizing your limitations and the limitations of the situation you are in, so you can either work within that or change how you see the situation. It's where you start to make the trade offs that you have to make to be an effective, not crazy adult. 

Sometimes, it means being selfish, knowing how much you have to give and only giving that to the most important people and things in your life, even when there are other people or things that are just as worthy or deserving. Sometimes, it means hurting other people's feelings, because they want to be someone you take a chance on, just like they are ready to take a chance on you. Sometimes, it means passing up a lot of opportunities, especially ones that you don't think are sure things, for ones you do feel more confident of, only to have those blow up in your face. Sometimes, it means being picky. Sometimes, it means being seen as a bitch or stuck up or difficult. 

And sometimes it means realizing that you'd rather be lonely because the price you'd have to pay to not be lonely is higher than the price you pay being lonely. 

There's one of those cliched self-help sayings that says that a person won't change until the pain they feel to stay the same is greater than the fear they have of the change they'd have to make, or the pain of making that change. For myself, this has definitely been true. I didn't put in the hardwork to change my life until the pain of that life was greater than my fear or change and the pain I worried I'd experience if I changed. Right now, I have to acknowledge that I'm not there in dealing with this loneliness. And I accept that I am actively making this choice. I'm not acting like there are no good people out there, for friendship or romance or sex. I'm not acting like there are not awesome people who would take a chance on me. I'm not saying that none of this makes me come off as a kinda shitty or difficult person, or even that I'm not those things. Just that I'm not willing to make this trade off. At least not right now.

Moneypenny, the Repseudonyming of Sir

Even though almost all people who read this blog are my personal friends who probably have some idea as to who the pseudonyms correspond to, I still like using the pseudonyms in my blog. This post, from 3 years ago, is the last post in which I updated the pseudonyms I use and my current relationship to those people: http://whatsbehindtheeyes.blogspot.com/2008/04/psuedonym-post-vol-3.html. In it, I wrote this:

Sir- Sir is my most recent ex-boyfriend. We were together 5 years. His
pseudonym of Sir is one that he came up with because, whenever he is out with
male friends at restaurants, the waitresses always call his friends "sweetie"
and "honey" but they always call him "Sir." We broke up February 2005 and have
remained good friends since. **Update: I sabotaged that friendship by revealing
what I felt was his hypocrisy on my blog. But I also revealed a secret that I
shouldn't have, largely out of spite and anger that I felt towards any and all
men who cheat.

Now, when I started this blog, when the above person and I were both in our mid-20s, it was pretty humorous that everyone treated him like a much older man. It was also particularly humorous to me because I felt like he was a stick in the mud who never did anything fun (read: crazy, risky) and I've never tired of pointing that out. In fact, I still don't tire of pointing it out, but I guess it now seems cruel to poke fun at his old-ness, now that he's starting to get laugh lines around his eyes, though few people see them because they only show up when he smiles and he doesn't really smile all that much.

As last year turned into the current one, I wrote a post on my lingering regrets about the ending of our relationship, which managed to reel him back into my life. Though it's been a rocky road back, I think we're finally managing to get on steady ground in our friendship. Which means, of course, that, if I'm writing, he's going to show up in it, even though he probably hates that. And "Sir" just didn't seem to fit anymore, so I started thinking about repseudonyming him.

At the time I was contemplating the repseudonyming, I was watching a BBC show called The Hour, about a fictionalized newsmagazine starting up in 1956. The reckless and headstrong reporter Freddy Lyon often jokingly refers to his bestfriend, and now boss, Bel Rowley as Moneypenny, after the levelheaded secretary to James Bond's boss M. Bel usually then points out that it is she who is the boss now, but, throughout the show, the stubborn reporter often makes the tail wag the dog. Now, though the gender is switched, I thought this a great comparison for Sir and I. In a me-centered world, he's the girl-friday in my crazy, wacky adventures, the strictly logical reasonable has-it-all-together homebody to my emotional living-on-the-edge wanderer. He's the Moneypenny to my James, at least relatively speaking.

So there's your newest pseudonym. Sir has been rechristened Moneypenny.

If You Think That I Could Be Forgiven

I was 15 when the Counting Crow's song "A Long December" was released. While my memory might not be accurate, it seemed like the video was in heavy rotation during the late fall and seemingly constantly by the time December rolled around. I loved the song, in the melancholy way I loved most songs back then, and I often cried when I heard the song or watched the video. Every year since, in the time period between Christmas and New Year's, I've sought out the song, to me a call to contemplate the year that is passing and plan for the year ahead. I guess it's my sadder version of Auld Lang Syne.

I drug it out tonight during the car trip home from Christmas dinner at my uncle's, on a mix disk made for me by Sir. "And if you think that I could be forgiven, I wish you would." Hmpt. Early on in our long-distance over-the-phone courtship, I had told him how much I loved that song. His response made me tear up: "You know the line about looking across a crowded room to see the way that someone lights up, stands out, when maybe no one else really sees it? That's how I felt when I first met you." It was probably one of the sweetest things anyone had every said to me.

I haven't written about it here yet, though I plan to, but a really good friend of mine, I'll call her Miss Kee, died recently, suddenly, unexpectedly, not from an accident or outside force, but seemingly from what I'm choosing to call a massive sudden body failure. As with anyone who dies, I wish I'd spent more time with her, though we were both kinda flakey and moody so it was difficult for us to both get our shit together enough at the same time to hang out. And, stereotypically, I've tried to evaluate things in my life that I want to change, so I make my own life more meaningful, more happy, more how I want it. Also, with one less living friend, it makes me wonder about getting back in touch with friends I've lost touch with. Or lost through my own stupidity.

"And if you think that I could be forgiven, I wish you would." This is where Sir comes back in. When I heard that line tonight, I thought of him. I wondered if the power of a song we shared, of that line, might break through the "you're dead to me" Sicilian mindset that his family has for those they feel have wronged them. But, well, the more I thought about it, the more I thought I wasn't really sure I wanted forgiveness for what he feels is the wrong I've done him. For those just joining the soap opera in progress, I revealled on this blog, which I knew Sir's current girlfriend read, that he was seeing someone else and that he had also cheated on her with me. I'm fairly certain that Sir felt this was all done out of jealousy, that I always wanted to be back with him, never liked his girlfriend, and, in a bipolar snit, put his business online to break them up. And I won't say that's all untrue. I would contend that I thought he and this girlfriend were a bad match for several reasons and that him moving even further away from where she lived, where he then met another woman, didn't help matters. I can also say that, while I"m not sure exactly what was going on at the moment, I am sure that things with BT and I, who were married at the time, were dramatic and I had probably just found out that he had lied about or was hiding something I felt significant. Since getting married, Sir and I had not had the friendship we had once had, so I didn't feel the loyalty needed to keep a secret of that kind. Most of all, I was tired of what I felt like was rank hypocrisy on his part. Mr Ethical, Mr Sexual-Intercourse-Virginity, Mr Do-the-Right-Thing took a weekend holiday with his new girlfriend while still maintaining the supposedly-exclusive relationship with the first girlfriend. The write-off text from a man who said he'd see me through anything was that I'd "burned that bridge." I probably should have handled it differently, but I think he'd have prefered I didn't handle it at all, didn't call him on his bullshit. I think that was my real sin to him and that's one I cannot repent.

But despite that, it hurts me to think he's mad at me, that he'll feel perpetually wronged by me. Hey, A, self-important much? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think about the people you un-friended in real life, no matter how long ago, or not long ago, and I'm sure you'll find someone that you are still mad at, where you still grind your teeth when you think of them. Granted, that's not everyone, but it's someone. And I don't want to be that for Sir. I also know that I'm more the person now, inside, that I wanted to be when he and I first met, when we spent hours talking about who we wanted to become, than ever before, though I'm not sure how it happened or when it happened. I'm not the person I was when I burned the bridge, even if I still think what he did was wrong and what I did wasn't the worst thing ever. And even though I realize how limiting many aspects of our relationship were, hell how limiting many aspects of his worldview are/were, and I realize that I disagree with a great many things I let slide when we dated and when we were friends, I do miss him, his friendship. (The dating ship has sailed for both of us, I'm sure.) I miss him because it's damn tough to find someone smart enough to talk with and harder still to find someone you can laugh with as well. It's hard to find a very logic based person who can and will apply that to real life situations and be honest about that.

So, audience, what do you think? Should I ask for forgiveness, or, to paraphrase another band (Barenaked Ladies) ask him to just forget if he can't forgive? Do we think he misses my friendship as much as I miss his? Should I go straight to him with my plea?

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.

Moving On- Vol 1

I'm Moving On- Rascal Flats
I've dealt with my ghosts
and I've faced all my demons
Finally content with a past I regret
I've found you find strength in your moments of weakness
For once I'm at peace with myself
I have been burdened with blame,
trapped in the past for too long
I'm movin' on

I've lived in this place and I know all the faces
Each one is different but they're always the same
They mean me no harm but it's time that I face it
They'll never allow me to change
But I never dreamed home would end up where I don't belong
I'm movin' on

I'm movin' on
At last I can see life has been patiently waiting for me
And I know there's no guarantees, but I'm not alone
There comes a time in everyone's life
When all you can see are the years passing by
And I have made up my mind that those days aren't gone

I sold what I could and packed what I couldn't
Stopped to fill up on my way out of town
I've loved like I should but lived like I shouldn't
I had to lose everything to find out
Maybe forgiveness will find me somewhere down this road
I'm movin' on
I'm movin' on
I'm movin' on


A couple years ago, I was in the car with my mom when this song came on. I told her that it always made me cry because it made me think about how I always felt I had to leave to really find myself, though I never really had done it. My mom said that it made her cry because it made her thing about my uncle and how he had to leave "home" to really be the person that he needed to become. As the years have gone by, that has become more and more true for my uncle. Because of strange job circumstances, he moved around a bit and ended up settling in this po-dunk town where his (at the time) brand-new boyfriend had grown up and was also moving back to. While his boyfriend has moved a couple hours away for a much better job, my uncle decided to move even further into the boonies, living in a (very nice) mobile home on alot of acres of land, his portion of which he rents from his neighbors (the female of the couple is a co-worker). While I never would have thought when I was growing up that he would end up where he has, I can completely understand why he is so happy there. I also think that he is more himself there than he has ever been anyplace else that he's ever lived. I think that he found what so very few people find in their lives, a place where he really feels like he belongs.

When someone is seriously ill or dies, you start to think about your own mortality. We as a society seem to deal with illness and death so little and also so.... so much at a distance that it is hard to really keep that in mind. When my uncle was first diagnosed with the sarcoma last May, I remember talking to Sir about all the things that I wanted to do with my life that I never got to do, things that I always thought I had time for but that I might not. (My uncle is young, only 11 years older than me. He'll probably die before he turns 40.) Sir encouraged me to make a list (I'm a big list maker) and to do those things. But, as these things usually go, I quickly forgot and all those things fell by the wayside. Also, shortly thereafter my grandfather had a stroke and I spent my summer with my grandparents. But now I'm faced with it again. When my grandfather died, well, while I wish he hadn't, he'd also had a full life and, as they say, "it was his time." But it isn't my uncle's time and I'm damn sure that I'm going to try to make up for the time that he is going to miss out on. So, I made some decisions about what I want to do and what I don't want to do.

The first thing is something that I said to Sir and that he was going to go with me to do. Then BT was going to go. Now I don't know who will go with me. Hell, it might be more fulfilling to go alone. But I want to see my father. My biological father. I know that I want to see him. I don't know yet if I want to confront him or actually talk to him or anything but I know that I at least want to see him. I do know, however, that, even if I did confront him, I don't think that there would ever be a good enough answer for what he's done/not done. But I'm not sure that matters as much as just never having any answer at all.

Another thing I realized is that I am tired of being the girl that everyone goes to when they have no one left to go to. When I was a teenager, I was the friend that everyone called when they were in trouble. Don't get me wrong, we'd hang out but usually I'd initiate it and it would be low key (shopping at the mall, meal out, lay out by the pool), but it wasn't like these friends invited me to any of the parties that they went to with all the cool kids. But they certainly called me when their boyfriends dumped them, or their boyfriend locked them out of their own apartment while their baby was still inside with the boyfriend, or when they needed someone to drive them home from the abortion they got because their boyfriend was abusive. This trend seemed to continue with my male romantic relationships as well. Ex-J never had a girlfriend or even kissed a girl and he was 19. Granted, I'm not saying that I didn't get something out of it, mostly a very easily manipulatable boyfriend, but I'm sure I wouldn't have been his first choice either. BT had a girlfriend for over a year but they broke up just a month or so before we met. They were going to get married before he left on the deployment at first, until he decided he couldn't stand her and wanted out of the relationship without the guilt of doing the dumping. Then, low and behold, he meets me, we fall madly in love, and get married right before he leaves. Two nights ago, Ex-T, my first real boyfriend who I'm still friends with, texts me and asks me to move back to where he lives and marry him (once my divorce is final). Of course, his last girlfriend just left for jail for 3 months because of a very old drunk driving accident and some guy he owes money to is going to kill him if he doesn't pay up, so I'm sure he's re-evaluating his life as well. BUT I DON"T WANT TO BE THAT GIRL!!!!!!!!!!! I don't want to be someone's project, someone's "she'll be good enough when she changes into X". I don't want to be someone's 2nd, 3rd, or last choice. And if that means sex and friendship but no romantic relationships, well, I guess that is what it means. The last time I did get to talk to MP (after a very long absense and only because I was in a real bind) he mentioned that the same situation I was in would keep happening while I was still defining my life by the men in it. (I'm sure that the same would also hold true for a female romantic relationship.) And I know that is a big reason why he isn't currently active in my life. So, big decision 2 is to try to break that cycle.

Another big decision I've made is that I want to, quite literally, move on. Let me go back a second. When I was growing up, I idolized my uncle and I thought he was the HEIGHT of cosmopolitan style. He always had mid-priced, newish cars in good condition. He was the first one of us to go to college. He had a good paying job. He listened to good pop and college rock music. And he shopped at Jeans West, which was the epitomy of high mall fashion at the time. (Think The Fashionable Male in Mallrats.) So I always thought that he would get out of the suburb that my grandparents built their house in and where we all grew up. But as I grew older, I noticed that he never really left. Once he got married, they moved about 15 minutes away from my grandparents' house but they were still in the same suburb. One night while talking on the phone, my uncle told me that he had resigned himself to the fact that he was stay there in that suburb until my grandparents both passed (so that he could be sure they were well taken care of) and then he would start his real life. All I could think of was this song:
Everywhere- Tim McGraw
We were born in this little town
Growin' up I was counting down
Every single day till we made our get-away
But you said you could never see yourself
Trying to make a life anywhere else
This would be your home and I was on my own
But ever since we said good-bye
I've been out here on the wind
Baby you would be surprised
All the places you have been

I've seen you in
Albuquerque waitin' out a blizzard
Arizona dancin' 'cross the desert
Watchin' the sun set in Monterey
Girl I swear just the other day you were
Down in Georgia pickin' them peaches
In Carolina barefoot on the beaches
No matter where you choose to be
In my heart I'll always see you
Everywhere

Now days
When I'm passin' through
The conversation always turns to you
I hear you're doin' fine
Livin' out by the county line
Got a man that's home every night
a couple of kids and the kind of life
That you want to lead
Guess you could say the same for me
Cause you and I made our choices
All those years ago
Still I know I'll hear your voice
And see you down the road

Maybe in Oklahoma drivin' 'cross the prairie
In Dallas, Texas isn't that where we
Always said we would like to try
Never did so maybe that's why you're on
Every highway just beyond the high-beams
Right beside me in all of my sweet dreams
No matter where you choose to be
In my heart I'll always see you in
Albuquerque waitin' out a blizzard
Arizona dancin' 'cross the desert
Watchin' the sun set in Monterey
Girl I swear just the other day you were
Down in Georgia pickin' them peaches
In Carolina barefoot on the beaches
No matter where you choose to be
In my heart I'll always see you
Everywhere

At that point in my life, I was certain that I was going to be the next (female) Kevin Smith, making my own indie movies. I was going to go to college up in Chicago at an art school. But things didn't quite turn out the way either my uncle or I planned. He moved sooner than he planned and I haven't left the Midwest yet. YET. That's part of the decision. I have a year left of school to get my BA. And my uncle has 12-18 months. After he's gone, I'm gone too. On my own. I have a feeling that BT and/or Ex-T would gladly follow me wherever I wanted to go. And TyRoy will probably be leaving at that same time for another military posting or to get a further degree to get a higher rank. But I seriously doubt that I'll be going with any of them. I want to see places, LIVE places, move places where I don't really know anyone all by myself. And I want to see all the places that my uncle didn't get to, even if they weren't places that he particularly wanted to see. Until then, I'm going to work my ass off to finish school, save money for all this moving, and spend as much time as I can with my family.

Travels in the Land of Depression

I had meant to write this earlier, but, as with most things lately, I'm running a little late..... I really wanted to write this so that I could re-evaluate my history with depression before I started with a new therapist, which I did earlier today. (BT and I seem to have reached a... if not a deal, then a stasis, by which we'll stay married for now so that I can keep my health insurance and we're making money arrangements as well. *Sigh of relief* At least this can be said for BT, he is generous and giving of whatever he has, when he has it.) But not that the therapist and I could really get to alot of my history because I was trying to get him caught up enough that he might be able to give me any advice on...anything. Then again, as I write this, I'm not sure who exactly I'm writing this for or why, especially now that the first therapy session is over. I suppose part of it is so I can re-evaluate it Part of it is to share it with other people out there who might be going through the same things. Finally, I guess I want to share this with those who are important to me, who I know read this, so that maybe they can understand.

I can't really remember a time when I wasn't depressed, even though I didn't know that was what it was called then. While I don't remember making it at all, Sir said that, once, when he was going through some of my old stuff, stuff I had made when I was a kid, and there was something where I wrote that I hoped I would go to heaven so that I could be with the angels. From the date on it, I was only 5 or 6 years old. What I do remember was what got me sent to a therapist the first time. (And yes, I do mean SENT, because that was how I viewed it at the time and viewed going to therapists for quite some time thereafter.) I was either 5 or 6 at this time as well. My uncle, the middle one, the alcoholic/addict one, was just starting to get a divorce from his wife. I had been in their wedding, as the flower girl. She was beautiful, at least to me at the time- blonde, thin, an 80's dream. And, supposably, Cybil Shepard was a distant cousin of hers. Her name was Lynn. And, for some weird kid reason, I started signing my name as Lynn on drawings and assignments. I don't know why I didn't think it through further, realize that it would look weird and get me in trouble. Or what I thought was trouble at the time. Ok, and I do know why. Because I was a kid and I was having a hard time adjusting. It was embarassing when I finally got called out on it, when the teachers and the whole class looked at me like I was insane because I was taking on name of my soon-to-be-ex-aunt. Actually, it was so embarassing at the time that I can't remember telling anyone about it until right now. My parents had already been divorced for two years by that time and I'm sure that everyone in my family thought I was adjusting as well as could be expected. But, then again, it was just around that time that I saw my (biological) dad, so.... Needless to say, I got to go to see a nice man (therapist) a couple times. I remember talking and drawing pictures. I don't know if it helped or not.

Things started escalating as the teen years started hitting full force. I think everyone has some amount of chaos during their teen years. My body developed early and very visibly. I looked much older than I was and got hit on by older teenage guys who were mortified to find out that I was 11 and not 15 or 16, like they were. And I was interested in sex, but, when you are that age and you don't live near any of your friends because you go to small private school and you're too introverted and your neighborhood is too dangerous to be friends with local kids, well, you just don't have much opportunity to explore sexual things. Plus, I think the whole gender binary, double standard, fucked up way that sex is viewed in our culture doesn't really let anyone, boys or girls, explore their bodies and their sexuality in safe ways that they can view positively. I wanted a boy that would "love" me (as I probably would have "loved" any of them at that point) so that I could explore all the sexual feelings I had at the time, which I felt could only be explored with the opposite sex through the very straightforward kissing which leads to necking which leads to sexual intercourse. In addition to knowing now that there's so much more you can do, so many more people you can do it with, so many reasons that you can do it, I also recognize that I wanted that "love" to make up for the love I didn't have from my (bio) dad. (Even though I had at the time and still do have, luckily, a wonderful step-father who loves me and cares for me as he would his own biological child.) Also, if someone loved me, then it meant that I was worthy of love, which would contradict how I felt, as if I wasn't worthy of love, especially if my own father couldn't love me. Even to this day, I always feel like I must be unworthy because my father still doesn't want anything to do with me, which to me means he obviously doesn't love me.

But finding "love" at 11 or 12 with an 11 or 12 year old boy is...well, I was going to say more difficult than finding love with a man or woman your own age, but I'm not actually sure that's true. Either way, it wasn't very sucessful back then and I actually ended up spending most of my nights crying myself to sleep while listening to sad, crappy easy listening, adult FM music. The summer I turned 13 three important things happened. 1) It was the first time I got to spend my summer at home alone, as opposed to the previous summers which I spent at a summer day camp. 2) It was the first time I actively contemplated suicide. 3) We moved away from the "bad" suburbs of the really really big city to the "good" suburb of the smaller city where we still live and I got to go to a "good" high school. At this new school, I got to start over, in an environment that was quite a culture shock to me, where I had even less luck with guys. I decided I would stay stuck on a guy back where I used to live, the futility of which made me ever more depressed. I think I spent most of my high school afternoons, except those when I was working, curled up in the fetal position on my bed, crying. It got even worse during finals time each semester because of all the stress. I'd cram for as long as I possibly could, then break down and cry really hard, then make myself go back and cram some more. I was always very relieved when finals were over.

But, just as my inability to deal with men is at the root of much of my depression, men have also been, or tried to be, my saviors as well. It was my relationship with Sir, his unrelenting and unreasonable belief in me that caused me to try medication for my depression, to (kinda) voluntarily hospitalize myself when my continued cutting was too much for him to deal with, and to keep picking myself up over and over again when I fell off the treatment-for-depression wagon. This last fall, when I was overwhelmed by the combination of my very painful gallbladder problems, my anti-depressant medication pooping out on me, a summer spent dealing with and taking care of ill family members, and a wonderful loving couple who just wanted too much too fast, it was Mon Parrain's pressure and belief in me that lead me to seek out hospitalization again, to tinker with a new medication, to take the chance on marrying a wonderful man that I was (am) head over heels in love with. It was BT's long-distance desperation that kept me hanging on during the medication tinkering process- when moving from 75mgs to 150mgs made me aggressive and homicidal, then moving from 150mgs to 225mgs made me suicidal, and staying on 225mgs took away most of my higher cognitive functions. Now it seems to be TyRoy's push that is helping me during this down turn, helping me to have some kind of hope for the future, convincing me not to let the bad with BT determine my moods, and forcing me to get up (usually by kicking out of bed and not letting me return to it) so that I will be awake for appointments, job searching, and going to a job.

Alright, so at this point, I am realizing how much this post has deviated from what I had intended. When I first started thinking about this post in my head, I thought it would just be a catalog of my depression, my medications, my doctors, my therapists, and my hospitalizations. But I actually haven't covered alot of the actually nitty-gritty facts. I've ended up with a litany of how my life has been guided and shaped by the men both in it and out of it. I feel like this should really be the end of this post but I haven't even touched on the fact that, because of health insurance, or lack there of, I don't think that I've even gotten to touch on the fact that, while I think that talking to therapists have helped at the specific times when I talked to them, I don't think that talking to them has made a damn bit of difference in changing the deep down issues that still pop up and feed the depression monster. (Well, there, guess I mentioned it now.) I guess I'll leave that for another day.

Katie-He's Got Another Girlfriend

I've been contemplating whether or not to post this blog now for several weeks. I would have just come to you in person, but I can't seem to find you through the magic of the internet and I've already warned him that I would tell you if he didn't. I'm sure that this is also done out of some sense of vengence. You would think that my sense of vengence would have been quenched by fooling around with him over the summer, after the Bruce Hornsby concert on the Levy, but, after your comments about why you wanted to come to the funeral, it is suddenly back with a vengence. Maybe I'm lucky enough that he has already broke up with you and come clean. But probably not because he's kinda cowardly when it comes to girls. Heck, I hope his PA girlfriend knows/knew about you. Best of luck to you and I hope a lesson has been learned. Though I'm not exactly sure what that lesson should be or who should be learning it. Tata.

Just for you Sir

Remeber when we were trying to find this song to put on a CD for me? Half of those fucking CDs didn't even come out because your Dad's CD burner was going out. I think the only one that actually came out right was the Slow Dance CD, which is still one of my favorite mix disks ever. But I was on a youtube streak and found this one so I thought I'd share it with you. You know, I think hearing this song way back then made me realize we'd never make it? Because I'd always want to be the one calling you to come to Boston or Denver or LA and you'd never want to leave home. Kinda funny to look at where we are now, huh?

Please Come To Boston- Dave Loggins
Please come to Boston for the springtime
I'm staying here with some friends
And they've got lots of room
You can sell your paintings on the sidewalk
By a caf矷here I hope to be working soon
Please come to Boston
She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle down
Boston ain't your kinda town
There ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like me
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Please come to Denver to see the snowfall
We'll move up into the mountains so far that we can't be found
Throw I love you echoes down the canyon
And then lie awake at night til they come back around
Please come to Denver
She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle down
Denver ain't your kinda town
There ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like me
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Now this drifter's world goes 'round and 'round
And I doubt if it's ever gonna stop
And of all the dreams I've lost and found
And all that I ain't got
I need someone to cling to
Somebody I can sing to

Please come to L.A. to live forever
A California life alone is just too hard to LIVE
WE'LL live in a house that looks out over the ocean
There's some stars that fell from the sky livin up on a hill
Please come to L.A.
She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle down
L.A. ain't your kinda town
There ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like me
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Original http://youtube.com/watch?v=1PX5t9VJweQ
Kenny Chesney (country artist) http://youtube.com/watch?v=JgP1t_Ydeag&feature=related

Fucking John Mayer!

So I’m sitting here, flipping through channels on this Saturday night, just managing to come out of the funk that’s kept me in bed for the past three days, and I stumble upon his latest Austin City Limits performance, which is mostly just stuff from his latest album Continuum. Now, I love John Mayer but this probably wasn’t be best night to get me all introspective and shit. I probably should have picked out a big-budget movie from the box of cloned DVDs that I haven’t watched yet and seen some shit blown up. But as soon as I hit on him singing “Belief”, I knew that I had to write a blog post. For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking that I should write something for my blogs but I couldn’t really come up with anything ‘appropriate’ to write. I’m sure regular readers of my blog are wondering what I might write that I would consider inappropriate, but it isn’t really about me. A great deal of it is about other people, people that I don’t want to hurt or endanger by writing my truths and my feelings.

But listening to him sing “Belief” brought up something that I probably should write about, something that I might be in a unique position to write about, though I don’t claim that my position is right or wrong-it’s simply mine.

While I’ve always had a passing interest in politics and a passing idea of what was going on in this country and a slight idea about things in the rest of the world, I started paying more attention to the bigger picture (i.e. things other than just those issues that directly effected me and mine) after 9/11, though mostly because of Sir’s interest in those things. It brought me another thing with which I could discuss with Sir in a semi-intellectual manner. Fortunately, this interest in politics didn’t go away when Sir and I broke up. Actually, it allowed me to more freely express and pursue my political ideas, which were and are much more liberal than Sir’s are.

But it is in this context that I assessed and constantly reassessed my beliefs and feelings about the current Iraq War. But no matter how much information I have read, I always feel like I’m coming up short. I feel like I still don’t have enough information to make an informed decision. In my mind, I would think that any leader and/or politician without an agenda might feel the same, though they do probably have some information not available to the general public. From the beginning, I really didn’t know if I felt the United States (and our Coalition of the Willing) should start a war in Iraq. And as we have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and fighting continues in Iraq, which gets closer and closer to civil war, it becomes harder and harder to support this particular war. And, while it has never been one of my favorite songs on the Continuum album, I think that “Belief” does bring out that sort of ambivalence about the war, about anything that is supported by ‘belief’ because everyone believes in something and no one is just going to change their mind because someone else yells louder. In the song, belief is not necessarily good or bad: “Belief is a beautiful armor/ But makes for the heaviest sword.”
But what really gets to me, especially now, comes at the end of the song. “We're never gonna win the world/ We're never gonna stop the war/ We're never gonna beat this/ If belief is what we're fighting for//What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?/ Belief can/ Belief can/ What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand?/ Belief can/ Belief can.” On the one hand, I recognize that ‘the war’, especially what radio commentator Michael Savage would call the War on Islamofascism, or hell, any fight that is based on beliefs, will never truly be won. But I also don’t think that our politicians keep us involved in two wars overseas that aren’t going very well because they believe it is the right thing to do or because they believe that they are making the world a better place. Personally I believe that the only things they consider are their political futures, their bank accounts and the bank accounts of their friends.

And, despite feeling this for quite awhile, despite knowing that this war was/is killing children, not only Iraqi and Afgani children in the war zones, but also our children, the 18 year old boy- and girl-soldiers that we are sending to do our dirty work, despite knowing that pretty much everyday at least one U.S. mother loses a child to this war, I never really cared. I have to admit that I was just as ambivalent to it as everyone else. The first song on and the first single from Mayer’s Continuum is “Waiting for the World to Change”. In it, he discusses how people of his generation are viewed as uninvolved but he tries to give reasons for this, saying that people of his generation, and I think people of my generation as well, feel disempowered. Even my mom identifies with the lines “And when you trust your television/ What you get is what you got/ Cause when they own the information, oh/ They can bend it all they want.”

So, why do I care now? Why do I feel like I should write about my ambivalence now? Because now I’m a soldier’s wife. I’m the wife of a soldier who is leaving for Iraq in less than a month. That child buried in the sand would be my husband, who’s never really grown up, who has a foot-locker full of Star Wars figures. That folded flag would be in my hands. The night I met him, he told me that he would be shipping out in January, so I knew from the start of our relationship. But it wasn’t until a few nights after we were married that I ever knew how he felt about the war he was going to fight or the man who was ordering him to fight it. As a pinko, liberal, queer, feminist, etc, etc, I never got into a discussion with this man who I was having amazing sex with about his political beliefs, mostly because I was afraid of finding out that he was a hardcore neoconservative. And I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t support him or what he was going to do, because I do support him. I have a great deal of respect for him, for any and all men and women who choose to fight for our country, especially because I know it is something that I could not do, for many reasons. Imagine my surprise when my new husband revealed that he did not believe in this war and that he doesn’t like his Commander-in-Chief, but that he asked for this deployment because his military brothers and sisters were out there fighting and he should be as well. And, for as hard as it is sometimes, I will do everything and anything in my power to support him as he is fighting.

But that doesn’t mean that I think we should just continue to fight, ad infinitum, in Iraq, especially as it seems that nothing is getting better, but I don’t have any answers. Should we “cut-and-run”? Should we put even more of our soldiers there to stabilize the region? I don’t have these answers. I’m just the wife of a soldier who is proud of how well-trained he is but would be much happier if he never had to use that training.

[Oh, and why I titled this “Fucking John Mayer” is because I started this right after he sang one of those songs that I can never hear without crying- “Stop This Train”. I have a previous post with this song in it, but no matter what I’m going through, it speaks to something in my life at that point. I could never sing this song in concert. Hell, he didn’t seem like he could make it through the song without a few tears. I suppose for me, I have a great deal of reasons why I would like to “stop this train” and keep things like they are. And so I started crying. Then, he followed it up with the other song on Continuum which makes me cry a good deal of the time, “Gravity”. So, fucking John Mayer: making me cry! Oh, but I love him so!]

How I Got Married, Part 2

Part 2: 19 Hours From Here to Las Vegas

I blame Jason Aldean. Yep, I'm going to lay the blame squarely at the feet of a country singer and his song named after another, slightly more famous country singer. On our way back home from St Louis, just as we were making this sharp entrance onto one highway from another, we heard the song "Johnny Cash"--- "Quit my job flipped off the boss took my name of the payroll.(I outta here man) Picked up my cell rang my baby's bell said I'm three miles from home. I said sugar why don't you put on that sundress I like so much, Wait out by the road I'm comin' to pick you up. (whoa) Throw your suitcase in the back, (whoa) Done gassed up the pontiac, (whoa) Blastin' out to Johnny Cash, headin' for the highway, Baby we ain't ever comin' back.It's four hundred and sixty seven miles to the outskirts of Las Vegas. What do you say we go get married by a preacher man that looks like Elvis. (yeah momma) Sugar don't you worry bout tellin' your momma goodbye, We'll send her a souvenier postcard from the wild side. (whoa) Throw your suitcase in the back, (whoa) Done gassed up the pontiac, (whoa) Blastin' out to Johnny Cash, headin' for the highway, Baby we ain't ever comin' back." When he sang the part about going to Vegas to get married, BT and I just looked at each other, smiled, and laughed. We laughed then, but I think it planted the seeds for what we would do later that night.

Once we were back at my house, I was supposed to just be taking him back to the house where he stayed in Local College Town. But I wasn't feeling entirely well and he wanted to copy a DVD or two before he left. Plus, I just didn't want to not be with him. So, we hung out around my house, cuddling and talking for hours. Finally, one of us, I don't think either of us can remember which, brought up flying to Vegas. I think he joked that he had the time and I joked that I had the money so we checked online plane ticket prices. But it was just a joke. Wasn't it?

Of course, none of the flights left until 6am the next morning. So, on a lark, we checked Mapquest to see how long it would take to get to there by car. And it said that it was only 19 hours from my house to Vegas. Only 19 hours. It didn't really seem that long. And suddenly, we were both even more giddy, smiling, and actually thinking about driving to Las Vegas that night to get married.

Wait, wait, wait---What are we doing? What am I doing? BT was standing there, grinning from ear to ear, and very clearly ready to go as soon as I said the word. This was all happening too fast. I had to take a step back. I had to get a second opinion. As Mon Parrain was still unreachable, out of country on a business trip, I settled for the next best thing, the very logical, never-rush-into-anything Sir.

I talked to Sir for about an hour. I told him all about what had happened over the weekend in St Louis, about the engagement. He had always said that he would never let me do something incredibly stupid that I couldn't come back from. I expected it would be the same in this instance. And, of course, he came at me with every logical, smart reason why I shouldn't run off to Vegas. Then, just as I was about to let him go for the night, knowing that the smart, wise, reasonable decision would be to wait, to not go to Vegas, I stole something that I'd heard BT say earlier, "It's just that he is the first person I've been with where I don't feel like I have to be someone else." Sir sighed into the phone, "Well, YOU would run off to get Vegas and get married."

Even though that pretty much made up my mind, I still had to spend another hour or so laying in BT's arms, gathering the courage, before I agreed to leave. He was still all smiles but no pressure, probably because he knew I would agree eventually. At one point, I remember telling him that I was just wondering what would happen if I called his bluff. His answer? "But I'm not bluffing." Finally, I looked BT in the eye and said, "Ok, let's go." While I was taking one last bathroom break before hitting the road, BT took it upon himself to empty my suitcase from the weekend, so I could pack new, clean clothes for the trip. I packed the bag as hurriedly as he had unpacked it for me. He said we didn't need to stop off at his place for more clothes for him. And with that, we were off.

Well, almost. Before we even made it to the highway, we were stopped by a cop. As I waited for the officer to come to my door, all I could think was, "This is it. Somehow my mom knows what we are planning on doing and she called the cops to stop us. Sir probably called her. If not, this is at least one really bad omen." The officer explained that he had stopped me because the light above my license plate was out. As he took my license and insurance information from me, he asked the typical cop question, "Where are you guys going tonight?" I figured it wouldn't hurt to tell him the truth. "We're going to Vegas to get married," I sighed. "Really?" "Yep." "That's awesome. That's so awesome. Well, I'm just going to run your license and then you guys can be on your way. That's just so awesome."

As the cop went back to his cruiser to run my driver's license, I stared at BT in disbelief. Instead of the thorough lashing I thought I would get from the cop, not to mention the speeding ticket I had been sure I was in for, he had been truly psyched about the whole thing. We both had to laugh. It was a good omen after all. Without a ticket or even an official warning, though with quite a few more "awesomes", the cop returned my license and sent us on our way.

And that's all for tonight children. I'll pick up where I left off once I've slept off this awful weekend.

Being Back Home

This is a post that I should have written last week, or at least sometime this past weekend, but there has just been too much drama (bad men, as usual) and too much readjusting to being back in my old life, my real life, that I haven’t done much of anything that didn’t need to be done right away.

While I always knew that the time I spent at my grandmother’s house was not my real life, it was still hard to come home. Maybe because I’ve moved so much, it doesn’t take me long to feel like something has become “old hat”, has become routine and normal. Part of me really felt like I’d never come back to my real home. Coming back to my real home was quite a culture shock.

Two weeks ago today, I got home at 1am. Most weary travelers would just slink into bed. Not me. I had to unpack. Everything. Since all my clothes smelled like cigarette smoke (because my grandma smokes), I had to wash them all, so three loads of laundry. I had to unpack all the books and shoes and cds and dvds that I had brought. I also had to clean up cat puke (hairballs) and vacuum. I finally settled down about 5am, watching Angel as I laid on the futon. (Strangely enough though, my overnight bag from last weekend is still partially packed. Go figure.)

That’s when something strange happened. My step-father comes downstairs to use downstairs bathroom to shower every morning sometime between 5am and 6am. He’s usually fairly grumpy, especially when I’m still awake when he comes downstairs. But that first morning home, despite his usual morning gruffness, he said, “It’s good to have you home, girl.” While I know that might not sound like anything special to some people, it is quite huge between us.

Then, last week, my step-father enlisted my help in one of his side projects. He was about to stain some pieces of wood, when he asked if I wanted to help. Basically, unlike when Sir helps his dad by standing there and/or holding a flashlight, helping my step-father means that he shows me how to do something once and lets me do the rest, interjecting here and there to tell me when I’m doing something the wrong way. It’s kinda been this way for as long as I can remember. When my parents married, my step-father already owned a rental house. Every time someone moved out of the house, we had to do some kind of work before we could rent it again. I was always enlisted to help with anything I could physically do. I painted, a lot, but I also mudding walls after the new drywall was put up. But, as he liked the job I did last week and knew that I am very broke until my new job starts in a few weeks, he asked me if I’d like to help him on another job where he could use an extra set of hands, essentially demolishing a bathroom and carrying away the pieces before he completely remodeled it. While the project has been put off several times, I am still excited about helping him. While I was staining and he was calibrating a saw, we actually had a conversation. He told me that I would inherit a lot of tools when he died. I replied, “My friend, Mon Parrain, once told me that, when he meets a female friend who mistakes lust for love too many times, he buys them a dog, a vibrator, and some power tools.” My step-father’s response: “Why does he buy them power tools?” (Completely glossed over the vibrator.) “So they can do all their own handy-work and doesn’t need a man around to do it for them.” “Oh,” he replied, “Well, that makes sense. You women don’t need us. Anything we can do, you can do. Usually do better too.” (Seriously, not a word or reaction to the vibrator part!!!!)

Another interesting development in my relationship between my step-father and myself has come from things my mother has told me about the time I was gone. My step-father apparently wanted me to come home from my grandmother’s house quite a bit sooner than I ended up coming back. Every time my mother would tell him about my grandmother’s newest crazy, he would demand that I should come back home. Eventually, she stopped telling him things because he would get so upset about what he saw as my grandmother mistreating me, using me for her own purposes and to deal with her own turmoil, instead of the both of us working hard to help my grandfather get better. He was essentially afraid that my grandmother was quickly driving me crazy. Which she was, but that didn’t really mean I was ready or willing to leave yet. Also, for my birthday, my parents had promised me a new stereo for my room. But my birthday weekend was the beginning of my time at my grandparents’ house and smack-dab in the middle of the time my mother took off work to take care of my uncle, which meant our family had less money than usual, so we all decided that I would wait for my big present until I came back from helping my grandparents. My mom and I ended up going to buy it last Tuesday, though she told me that the only reason she really rushed me to go pick it out and pick it up was that my step-dad kept mentioning how I still didn’t have my stereo. He was much more worried about it than I was, apparently.

But I think that all of this bodes well for he and I maybe getting along better in the future. Especially after I start working a real job again, which is a huge thing for him. He’s kinda old school in thinking that everyone should be working all the time, paying all their bills themselves. Not that I don’t understand that, but I also understand that there have been times I have just been unable to work, unable to do anything quite frankly, because of severe depression.

My mother understands this a little bit better. Or at least she puts up with it without ever complaining. Until I spent so much time living under my grandmother’s stifling rule, I never realized just how much space my mother gives me here. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t concerned. When I am having a spell of depression or just a down day, she’ll check up on me, but she never presses, never acts like it’s my fault that I can’t seem to drag my ass out of bed. But she also has a keen sense of intuition and knows when to press for more or ask just the right question.

But while I revel in these new discoveries and pleasant events, I would never have realized how great it was here, back at home, without the time I spent not here, which, while not all bad, was more stressful than I had anticipated. So, despite how lax I have been lately, I’m grateful to be home.

Sexuality and Class

Conversation had Saturday night on the way back from the concert
Me: So I had sex with ex-T Wednesday. It seems I managed to catch him at a time between girlfriends, so we kissed and had sex, the whole nine. Not just him teasing me until I acquiesced to a blow job.
Sir: (Silence)
Me: Why is that some guys think that blow jobs and hand jobs aren't cheating?
Sir: Because some guys are assholes.
Me: You mean none of your male friends think that getting a blow job isn't cheating?
Sir: No. Not that I'm aware of. But then again I don't hang out with assholes.
Me: It seems to me that it is, in large part, relegated to men that are our age or younger, of our socio-economic level who haven't gone to college or tried to rise much above this economic leave or get out of their hometown.
(Long silence. Both thinking.)
Sir: There is another, less pretty way of saying all that you just said, but it'll probably make you mad if I say it.
Me: (eyebrows scrunched) What?
Sir: Poor people do stupid things.

So I have always been kinda curious about how people, which I've usually found to be male, can construct their ideas of what is or isn't cheating for them in what seems to be a rather arbitrary way. It is even worse in my opinion that they don't usually share these ideas with their partners and that they also have different rules for what is cheating when it comes to their partners. I suppose this especially bothers me in regards to ex-T, who has said he'd never get back with me because I cheated on him, which would be perfectly valid and understandable if he wasn't perfectly happy getting blow jobs from women other than his girlfriend. While I must admit to actually knowing few people personally who feel this way, or at least few who will admit it to me, but it does seem to be a popular cultural notion. Of course, just because it's something that TV shows and the MSM present as the cultural norm doesn't mean that is the case.

But what's really been bugging me since this conversation is the class-based assumptions both Sir and I were making. Later, I did tell him that it also seems to be a popularly presented social norm among higher-educated, upwardly-mobile, exec-wannabe-type guys, but that I would assume has more to do with a sense of both male and economic privilege than anything else, whereas I'm not sure where it stems from with men like ex-T.

This sense of my (largely) unquestioned classism came back to me last night as I was reading Sex & the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan by Lorna Jowett. In her chapter "New Men", centering on men in Buffy who are neither typical tough guys nor vamps but are trying for some ideal of the New Man, she touches on the way in which middle-class society, typically the people that are making television shows and for whom television shows are made, attribute sexuality, or at least a certain type of sexuality to the working class. (Let's leave aside issues of race and the stereotypical ways in which white society attributes a certain type of sexuality to other races because that is a whole section in the library right there.) The two main characters that get the most thorough treatment in this chapter are Giles and Xander. When discussing Giles, Jowett says that, in addition to being a male authority figure and a financial provider, "Giles displays other traditionally masculine characteristics- aggressive sexuality and physical violence- though these are often displaced onto his alter ego, Ripper.(129)" Ripper is a hold-over from Rupert Giles 20-something days as a university dropout who meddled in dark magic. But when Giles is Ripper, he loses the glasses, dresses like a 50's rebel, and takes on a "(rather exaggerated) generic southern English working-class 'accent'.(129)" Jowett uses Ripper and several other bad boy characters to argue that these characters link "a certain type of masculinity with certain types of men: middle class men may be new men, but working-class men are real men. (130)" Jowett goes on to demonstrate how Giles sexual prowess is proved through his relationships with Jenny Calendar, his black UK lover Olivia, and Joyce Summers, Buffy's mom, who he has sex with as Ripper. It seems that Giles can only truly express these more "base" traditionally masculine behaviors through a working-class alter ego.

This becomes even more apparent in Jowett's discussion of Xander, the only member of the Scoobie gang who is clearly not from a middle-class background. Shown from the start of the show to be a self-deprecating dork with no supernatural powers or special skills who does not go on to college with the rest of the Scoobie gang, Xander still serves as the "Heart" of the Combo-Buffy formed by the group to defeat Adam, the Big Bad of Season 4. Jowett writes, "But as I see it the real problem with Xander's representation as a new man is sexuality....Sexual prowess is again called on to demonstrate that a new man is in fact a real man. Xander's uninhibited (hetero)sexuality can be read as another trait attributed to the working class by the middle class.(136)"

The more I thought about what Jowett seems to be saying about class and sexuality, as it is presented in popular culture and popular mores, the more it rang true to me that the middle class environments that I grew up within, including my family, my high school, my popular culture of movies/TV/music, present virile, unbounded, aggressive, non-monogamous sexualities as (stereo)typical of working class people. In middle class or upper class peoples, these sexualities are deviant, often signs of some other inner corruption. Though I am fascinated by postmodern thought and identity politics/philosophy, I am realizing that I've spent so much time focused on feminist and LGBT identity philosophies that I've neglected masculine studies and class issues (not to mention race issues).

Ok, so what is the point of this whole long 'essay'? Mostly, that I'm still acting out assumptions that I have from my upbringing about not only sexuality and race, but also class and how I've been taught to assume they all work together. Obviously, from Sir's response, I'm not the only one, but I do think this is something that I've never really thought that in depth about and that I'd like to explore further. Does it really boil down to working class men having such unstoppable sex drives and low morals that they will then construct their personal sexual moralities to allow for that? Or is that just a horrible horrible example of me stereotyping based on one guy and crappy things that I hear people say about guys?

I guess I'm just putting it out there.

Revisiting I Walk Alone by Oleander

I first heard this song in February 2001, when Sir made me the first of many mix disks. It always kinda made me sad because I knew he put it on their because he was trying to be the singer of the song, but that ultimately, he wanted me to be the singer, for me to be the strong one. Ironically, "the one who let me go" turned out to be him, but it did make me stronger and made me much more able to stand on my own. I listened to this on my way out to meet up with Sir for the Bruce Hornsby (who was AWESOME!) concert we went to tonight and it really made me thing about the things that are true for me now and what isn't. So, I'm going to be making some slight changes to the original lyrics, strikingthrough what doesn't fit and adding in brackets what does.

I Walk Alone- Oleander
I can't take this anymore
And i'm almost pretty sure
I've been here before
I can't take this any longer
I won't heal until i'm stronger
[I am] Strong enough to not be afraid
Of what anybody thinks
Of what anybody says
About the way
About the way i am
So i'll wait until the day
When those feelings fade away
Then i'll make my break

I can't take this anymore
And i'm almost pretty sure
I've been here before
I can't take this any longer
I won't heal until i'm stronger
Strong enough to not be afraid
So i leave it up to you
Yeah i leave it in your hands
Respect your wishes and your demands
But if it was up to me
Honey we'd already be back at home
And living out our dreams
Living our dreams

Everbody and everything i've known
Never taught me how to stand up on my own
Had to learn it from the one who let me go
Now i walk alone, yeah i walk alone, yeah
Living blissfully

I guess she [he] had to step away
To make me want to be
A bigger man, a bigger man than that
I need you by my side
As i take it all in stride
I put away, i put away my pride
Oh i leave it up to you
Yeah i leave it in your hands
Respect your wishes and your demands
But if it was up to me
Honey we'd already be back at home
And living our dreams

Everbody and everything i've known
Never taught me how to stand up on my own
Had to learn it from the one who let me go
Now i walk alone
Yeah I walk alone, yeah I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk, oh yeah
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3ei32FWy0

P.S. I think I might be getting the hang of this HTML shit. I did all the strikethrough on the HTML editor!!! Yea for Ava!

Casual Sex

Merriam Webster Online
Casual
1: subject to, resulting from, or occurring by chance (a casual meeting) 2 a : occurring without regularity : OCCASIONAL (casual employment) b: employed for irregular periods (a casual worker) c: met with on occasion and known only superficially (a casual friend) 3 a (1) : feeling or showing little concern: NONCHALANT (a casual approach to cooking) (2) : lacking a high degree of interest or devotion (casual shorts fans) (casual readers) (3) : done without serious intent or commitment (casual sex) b (1) : INFORMAL, NATURAL (a casual conversation) (2) : designed for informal use (casual clothing)

Urban Dictionary
Casual Sex
1. Having sexual contact with another person with no plans on furthering a long term/committed relationship with that person.

4. Sex that involves two people who have no desire or intention of ever commiting to any type of exclusive relationship with each other eliminates many stressful factors that may accompany a commited relationship such as: jealousy, mind games, verbal and/or physical abuse, marriage, accountability of daily actions/wherabouts, lack of quailty and/or frequency in sexual activity, boredom, and many more I'm sure.*****THE BEST KIND OF SEX*****He and I have casual sex. It is by-far the best sex I've ever had and can hardly wait for the next time we meet! ***Additional note: casual sex is not the same as promiscuous sex in that casual sex can be had with one person time after time while to fit the definition of promiscuous multiple partners are required

Sir told me a little over a week ago that I was having casual sex. He wasn't trying to be insulting or defamatory. I had just revealed that I had had very unexpected, unplanned sex with a huge crush of mine, but, because I'd also been dating and having sex with Mon Parrain, I was wondering if he thought I was being...wrong, immoral. As Sir has the highest moral code of any non-bible thumper I know, I thought he might be a good judge. His answer was that, as casual sex was all I was looking for, as long as I was honest with my partners and safe, he didn't see anything wrong with it.

But I was really taken aback by the term "casual sex". It wasn't really casual to me. I took it very seriously. When looking at the Merriam Webster definition of casual, I hardly think that the sex I was having was any of those things. It wasn't by chance. I hope it continues to occur with some regularity. It wasn't superficial in my opinion. And I have a great deal of concern, interest, and devotion for the sex I had and the people that I had the sex with. Calling what I did "casual sex" seemed to really disrespect the sex, myself, and the people I was had the sex with, none of which I think is necessary.

Obviously, our society gives greater support and respect to sex had within relationships and, the more long-term and committed the relationship is, the more support and respect our society gives to it. Lately, I've found myself trying to describe to people why I do not want a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner or husband or wife (heretofore refered to as SO, for significant other), even with these great people who I have had sex with and hope to have more sex with. Honestly, most people don't get it, especially my grandmother, but I just chalk that up to generational differences. On the other hand, she goes into lengthy diatribes about how stupid this particular female relative of ours (my grandmother's aunt's granddaughter) who is only a year older than me. At the time of this particular conversation, this woman was married to a guy who she claimed beat her (though my grandmother said she'd never seen any bruises, so that must not be true) and who had been picked up for two DUIs in the same month. They have a two year old daughter, but they are always fighting and they both drink like fish. The woman cleans houses and works as a bartender at a golf club and is always talking about how this guy or that guy wants to sweep her off her feet, which she'll one day let them do when she finally leaves her husband. My grandmother tsk-tsk'd this the whole time and acted like this woman was an isolated situation. But, from what I know from ex-T who still lives here in this suburb, this is pretty typical of most of the women of my age who still live here, especially the ones of our socio-economic-racial backgrounds who didn't go to college. ex-T, poor bastard that he is, can't stand to be alone. He goes from girlfriend to girlfriend, never really leaving one behind until another one is lined up. Is the sex he has with a brand-new girlfriend, who he might soon find he can't stand and break-up with within the month, any more casual than the sex I have been having? Many women here, fuck, many women everywhere, do the same thing, feel the same way. They don't want to just have "casual sex" because then they'd be sluts, but, if they are "dating" a guy or "going out with a guy" or he's their "boyfriend", however little commitment that actually entails and however little time they've actually spent together and however little they know each other, the sex is no longer "casual" so they aren't sluts. I reject that.

When I have a SO, I expect certain things of them and of myself, a certain (rather high) level of commitment and involvement. I know that I cannot give that for the forseeable future. Once I get back home after this crazy summer, I'll have classes, my new job, (hopefully) hanging out with friends, and members of my family will still be ill. Oh, and have a semi-regular spiritual practice, exercise routine, and creative writing schedule. If I have a SO, I will devote as much time and energy to my love for them and my relationship with them that everything except my classes and my job will go out the window. After I obtain a degree, I'd like to spend a year working my ass off to pay down my student loans, while still keeping up my spiritual practice, exercise routine, and creative writing. I want to put as much of the money I make into getting out from under my college debt and starting to build myself a solid savings, a nest egg, so that I can start a life. My life. The life I always dreamed of where I could move anywhere, do anything, not feel trapped by not having enough money. It's not that I even want to be able to live a middle-class lifestyle. I just want to be able to pick up and move if I get a job offer or just if I want to. But if I have a SO, I'll spend every free bit of time and money and mindpower on them. I'll live where they want to live. Simply, I'll never live my dreams.

I just want more than one membership to more than one club because I owe my life to the people that I love- Ani DiFranco. But does all I've written in the above paragraph mean that I should not get to have caring, honest, mutual, sexual relationships until I achieve my dreams? Does it mean that I can't learn important things from these people that I choose to have these relationships with? Things just as important as the things I could learn from significant long-term relationships? Does it mean that I care less about the people I choose to have these relationships with than I did those people I had SLTRs with? I don't think so. And I refuse to feel bad for attempting to honestly, intelligently, and positively forging sexual relationships that are outside the norm.

I don't think this is how I will always feel, but I am trying to go into this and stay in this for now with my eyes as wide open as I can. Because this isn't just casual sex to me, because these people and the experiences that we share are very far from casual.

Last Request- Paolo Nutini

This is such a beautiful song. I liked his earlier single "New Shoes", but this song is just so bittersweet and I can totally feel it where I am right now. Enjoy. I just want you closer.....

Last Request- Paolo Nutini
Slow down, lie down
Remember it's just you and me
Don't sell out, bow out
Remember how this used to be
I just want you to know something, is that alright?
Baby let's get closer, tonight

[chorus]Grant my last request and just let me hold you,
don't shrug your shoulders
Lay down beside me
Sure I can accept that we're going nowhere
But one last time let's go there
Lay down beside me, ohhh

I've found that I'm bound to wander down that long way road, ohhh
And I realise all about your lies,
But I'm no wiser than the fool that I was before.
I just want you to know something, is that alright?
Baby let's get closer, tonight.

[chorus]Grant my last request and just let me hold you,
don't shrug your shoulders
Lay down beside me

Sure I can accept that we're going nowhere
But one last time let's go there
Lay down beside me, ohhh
Baby, baby, baby
Tell me how can, how can this be wrong?

[chorus]Grant my last request and just let me hold you,
don't shrug your shoulders
Lay down beside me
Sure I can accept that we're going nowhere
But one last time let's go there
Lay down beside me, ohhh
[chorus]Grant my last request and just let me hold you,
don't shrug your shoulders
Lay down beside me
Sure I can accept that we're going nowhere
But one last time let's go there
Lay down beside me, ohhhooohhhh wohhhhohhh, yeah
Lay down beside me
One last time let's go there,
Lay down beside me.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nFrKBrlZYPY

Breaking Hearts

I've been meaning to post this for all my friends who are right now in this situation. I know both people who are the singer of this song and the person that the song is sung to. And, in different situations, I've been both as well (though not at the same time). For those who are the singer, they rarely feel as unambivalent about the situation as the song states. They often just don't want to make the mistake of leaving too soon when they are really making the mistake of staying way, way, way too long. And for those that the song is sung to, I hope that you can all be as stong and resilent as the song puts it. It's much better to be alone than with someone who doesn't want you. I'll keep repeating that to myself everytime I wonder if I'm not currently in the situation of being the one the song is sung to. Bonne chance to all of you.

Break Your Heart- Barenaked Ladies
The bravest thing I've ever done
Was to run away and hide
But not this time, not this time
And the weakest thing I've ever done
Was to stay right by your side
Just like this time, and every time
I couldn't tell you I was happy when you were gone
So I lied and said that I missed you when we were apart
I couldn't tell you, so I had to lead you on
But I didn't mean to break your heart

And if I always seem distracted
Like my minds somewhere else
That's because it's true, yes it's true
it's this stupid pride that makes me feel
Like I have to follow through
Even half-assedly, loving you
Why must I always speak in terms of cowardice?
When I guess I should have just come out and told you right from the start
Why must I always tell you all I want is this?
I guess 'cause I didn't want to break your heart

And you said
What'd you think that I was gonna do,
Curl up and die just because of you?
I'm not that weak, you know
What'd you think that I was gonna do,
Try to make you love me as much as I love you?
How could you be so low?
You arrogant man,
What do you think that I am?
My heart will be fine
Just stop wasting my time

And now I know that you will be okay, and that I got what I want
and that's rid of you
Good bye
And it's not cause I'll be missing you
That makes me fall apart
It's just that I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
Your heart
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z4kqQpbb66Y

When you can't walk...

"When you can't walk, you crawl, and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you." - Firefly

As anyone who reads my blog knows, life is kinda crazy right now for me and my family. But tonight I was thinking of this quote from the TV show Firefly and how appropo it was for our current situation. It seems like even those of us who are doing the carrying have those there to carry us as well. Thank the goddess.

Arguing with Sir

Blue=Body of e-mail from Sir

Instead of being mad today, I did some wikipedia research. I know it's not a definitive source but it's close enough for government work. I discovered that my problem with Feminism is that I believe it is a "gateway philosophy" for Misandry. I support the Feminist view that women should have equal opportunities as men and I'm in favor of causes and work toward that end. From my perspective, it is inherent in this philosophy that women should also have equal responsibilities and accountability as men, and I believe that there is where the philosophies diverge. This disconnect can be discussed at another time, but those are my findings as of today. Misandry is my enemy, especially when it masquarades under the banner of feminism. One quick remark about the whole topic of mixed messages from women, do you really think it was any different before feminism? Don't you think guys trying to romance women still had to use trial and error to figure out what the specific woman they were dating wanted? I think you'd have to go back to the days of arranged marriages to find a time when men didn't have to worry about running the woman off by doing the wrong thing. But once they were married, they still had to live with each other every day and mixed messages existed there. And guys send mixed messages too, just not the same one.

I also wanted to say that your argument last night was a perfect example of the "inferrence" I was speaking of. Instead of arguing the points and having a dialog about the topic at hand, you managed to insult me and my opinions, say that I support rape, and then blamed me for not listening for years on end. First of all, I think that you were, if not insulting, then at least making a pointed jab at me, when you blamed "the liberal media and feminism" for communications between men and women. You are always telling me that I should be able to infer from past reactions how a person will react. Whether or not you think I should react the way I did, you know from past experience that heeping all of the blame on feminism and the "liberal" media would make me feel personally insulted. I know there is no way you support rape, but, the way you were positioning yourself, it seemed to me that you were only allowing for women "to be asking for it" or for women never to want sex and/or never want to get the attention of a man with her appearance. I was not trying to insult you and your opinions, nor did I want to discuss our interpersonal relationship inthe beginning. But I saw a mental pattern that you have and that you stick to, which I do not see as helping you, propelling you forward, being fulfilling for you, or working to make you a better person. I was trying to use the opportunity to point out that maybe it is the structure of your thinking that is holding you back, limiting you, not only in this but in life. Though it obviously didn't come across, I also tried to point out that this isn't just ideas that are hurting you but ideas that are hurting the whole society. I feel like I've been trying to do this for several months, especially as I see all of your hope and alive-ness fade away into sheer cynicism and disappointment. But you never seem to take anything I say on these topics into consideration. I tried to point part of this out in my letter to you, but you chose to ignore that in favor of only discussing IF I wanted to continue our friendship, not discussing the things beyond K that have caused our freindship to be even more dysfunctional as of late. If you want to discuss our interpersonal relationship, don't mask it in a philosophical discussion because I will ALWAYS be blamed for "not listening."While I'm trying to defend a position, you're busy using that position against me in a personal manner. The ways in which you support your positions, with your interpretations with your personal unfair treatment, that I believe has clouded your judgements about everything in life, are based on a view of the world that is hurting you, though you will never admit it, and, frankly, hurting me. My "careful crafting" of a conversation is my way of trying to stay on task against personal attacks. If you cannot have a philosophical debate and exchange of ideas without dragging personal feelings into it and slandering me personally, it's better that we avoid such conversation. Then what would our friendship be? You can get all that other stuff from everyone else. Attacking me personally is definately not the best way to convince me to change my mind about something. Why? It's always how you act towards me? Hanging up on me after warning me not to hang up on you probably isn't the best way to change my mind either. Your behavior last night was unacceptable, especially considering the day.When I am ready to speak to you again, I will let you know. What about my feelings about when I may or may not want to talk to you?

At this point, I'm so torn about whether I even want to keep this friendship. There is a bigger problem that K. That was just a more immediate concern that helped us avoid the bigger issues. You are in a bad place. Not as bad as some of the places I've been, but, then again, the worse it is, the more incentive you have to dig out of it. It seems obvious to me that the way you deal with the world is not working, or at least not working to make you a better person, a more fulfilled person, etc. When you were trying to ground yourself in Eastern thought and your moral ideals, you could almost see that life could be more than ordinary, even if it was only internally extra-ordinary. That is completely gone now. And I want so much to help you see that it is still out there, but you only see attacks and slander and insults. Or what I say is so pedestrian that you dismiss it out of hand. On my end, I feel strong contradictions in our relationship. On one end, I feel like orthodoxy always comes at too high a price, especially yours. I feel like you have such high expectations that no one will ever meet them, especially me, and that you are always keeping score. Now, you might not kick me out of the game for too many fouls, but you just won't play me for the rest of the season. On the other hand, I know I am doing good, but I almost feel like I can only do this good without you in my life. All the good things I had done over the last year, I did when you weren't around. I haven't been depressed or cried or wanted to cut or wanted to die, except in relationship to you and our dealings with each other. Last night, I spent a half hour scratching my forearms until they were red and raw. I can deal with most things, even the more stressful work and school and illness all at once, but I can't deal with you in a constructive way. "Nobody said it was easy. Nobody said it would be so hard." I wish I could go back to the start. I just don't know what to do.