So yeah, I think I'm figuring out things! 

I have a lot of things on the go, and they're keeping me busy. Or at least out of trouble. That's good. But it's part of being on track. I do feel like the "track" itself is not well-defined, as in with absolute goals and micromanaged footsteps, but I do feel like things are looking up and would like to attribute it to a change in attitude. 

I was wondering about why I'd want to define it for anyone in the first place because it doesn't really matter to anyone but myself, so what difference does it make if it confuses the hell out of people or keeps them on their toes or whatever. I know where I'm going. It's with my gut. And for all the so-called paper qualifications I'm lacking for anything of elevated job status, I don't need a paper to know that I'm following something true and real. I've done a lot worse than that.

I really can't say if school is in that track or not. I hope in some ways it is. But honestly, the idea of incurring all that debt scares the hell out of me, completely independent of whether or not the music education sector is really good or dwindling. At least trade school is another option. My love of all things auto-motive really is turning out to be a passion, and not just some way of being cool, or getting daddy's approval, or any weird shit. It just is what it is.

And in figuring things out, having had much occasion to think about what it is I want, what I used to dream of, what I imagined, and what I can do with my reality, and I remember that when I was a kid, I imagined living in some urban-mixed-with-old-world studio apartment with my pet Bengal tiger and white grand piano, edges painted in gold with a red rose airbrushed on top, near the music stand side of the lid.

And for some odd reason, I never reconciled that picture with what was going on in my own life or worked on making myself be okay with it. Everything that occurred in my life after graduation was a gradual disenchantment with life in general because all I knew is that things weren't going the way I had imagined them, even to say those things compounded each other in rapid-fire succession; although I didn't know exactly what that was (just a feeling) and then purposefully grew bitter and angsty to avoid disappointment. I had my reasons.

So what? Now? I just laugh. Not really at myself or wanting to put down my former kid self or anything. And certainly not at any of the really heavy parts that caused great pain to myself or others. But at the sheer ease with which I just overlooked it. I mean, it's not hard to fathom, seeing as how I was dealing with some pretty major things right off the hop out of high school which continued far into my adult life.

It's just that I missed one tiny little detail in having known that my studio apartment with my piano was one of those memories you just put away with growing up: there was a reason I imagined things that way at that age, but there was no reason for why I had not changed it, or evolved it, or even entertained the idea that I could have a new dream.

Others? Oh yeah, for s-u-r-e! All the time! Ask me for advice and I'd work hard around every facet of your brain trying to inspire you! But myself? Nah. Nope.

So, you ask me now what that is, I don't know. It's still tricky for me to say, at least career-wise, to have a dream. My last career dream kind of flew out the window when we moved up north, because I was not willing to compromise on my education by doing something else through whatever other online programs they had up there, and because we were so far away from any institution that the older I got, the more out of the question it became to do anything that would upset the girls' lives like... leaving to go finish school.

Not only that, but my family was growing and my priorities changed. That is to say: get your frickin' head out of the clouds, out of missed opportunities, any of the "couldas and shouldas" and be a mom.

And before that, before I even lived in Canada, never mind way up north, was being a mom. I was always a mom. Being a mom was and is THE most beloved, treasured of roles I've ever been blessed or been allowed to have, but it was also the first thing I ever knew in the outside, real world. There is a whole world of raising up children to be ready for the world that I believed and avowed to engage before all else. 

My parenting style has been one about standing up against the tide, of doing everything in my power and with God's help to NOT let the "sins of the father pass onto the son", to break the cycle of pain, and never ever being an autopilot mommy. (My parents were good parents, but they had their issues, and I didn't want those passing on through to me to my girls, and thusly whatever issues I had to pass on to them, either.) Giving them the tools and teaching them how to instill their own tools, too, for the hardass world I'd already seen enough of at 22, 25, and 29 was far more important than whatever I was going through. It didn't take a genius to know that their worlds were mine. I put them on like a mantle.

But I did kind of hide behind that. I was glad to. I still would. Except I'm starting to realize what a disservice it is to them. The whole part of figuring things out has this right in there, along with my other contemplations, because I can see the possibilities of good in this new equation. I really can't reconcile me not having my daughters with me right now as a good thing. In fact, it feels very wrong. But this time, I'm not reacting out of emotions. 

I'm trying to be a grown-up.

Resolutions. Yes, I actually have them. For the first time!!

I actually, really, for reals, have resolutions that I fully intend to stick by. Who woulda thunk it!?

What I am most excited about is that I feel they are realistic and that I can follow through with them; which has always been my excuse for never setting a single other one in my whole life. Like, ever.

Seriously. I don't even stay on track with Lent. That's considerably more important than the so-called social bandwagon of New Year's Resolutions.

It's a new year. What can I say. A new year in the new life that is my life now. I'm not exactly the same person I was before. At least I hope I'm not. I hope I took the good stuff, banished the crap from my soul, and took on more good stuff, shoving it deep in my cellular makeup.

Anyway.

I really thought about what was close to my heart. What did I really need/want to improve on? What was imperative that I get right this year, that I've not worked on so much in previous years? (Besides not making resolutions at the top of the year?)

One answer. My girls. More specifically, my family.

1. Play more video games with Celia

2. Be ready to have my hair and makeup played with lots more by Aurora, as well as be her guinea pig for manicures and nails

3. Spend less time on the computer in the evenings

4. Spend more time in private with God; some people call this meditating. Whatever. For me, it's the awesome dude who created us all.

I cannot stress how, at the age of 32, this has become more than just a duty. One has to understand that my entire adult life has known no other way but being a mom. It started out as a personal sacrifice laced with rightful duty--an emotional conviction deep within my core--and blossomed into a choice.

What? A choice? How can that be, right? Obviously it's not like I could (or would ever!) give them up and then, like, re-adopt them or something. It was the difference in the attitude I had toward parenting: surviving parenthood at eighteen versus engaging parenthood full-on.

And then, call it age, necessity, maturity, whatever you want, I really started to feel these waves of needing my family near me that stirred deep within me about a few years ago, when the pain of leaving my mom standing at the train station in Seattle left me surprisingly, gut-wrenchingly wracked.

Who knew I'd ever grow up out of my surprisingly cocky, surprisingly naive, suprisingly angsty 20s to really re-grow an attachment to my parents, my brothers, even now my cousins and aunties! It was like re-attaching an arm that I had ripped off myself.

Needless to say, for all that I whined about in the last 15 years, and even more specifically on this blog, I needed my family the most.

And I LOVE being in my 30s now. I kind of remembered that I was waiting to be here a long time. Yeah, sure, I've complained about feeling my life is half over and wondering what I've done with my life. But frick! I'm changing my mind. Yup. Just like that. Because I have realized the importance of focusing on the positive. I have realized this by being consumed with the negative for far too long. And I don't even know how. I'm going to say: it just happened.

(Gaaa!! I'm really digging this Collective Soul album tonight! Staring Down from their second self-titled album.)

I'm not only just tired of working so hard at trying to get the people who just don't get it to GET it, but I am tired of the effort of it all keeping its grip on me. Tired of people who don't have the time of day for me and even more tired of giving the time of day to people who don't have it for me. Truly fed up with people who don't like me. And I have crap to teach my girls, crap that I learned from all of this.

Like following your heart, for one.

And for two, following your gut.

With having basically ditched town and torched a lot of friendships, I'm pretty much at the top of the heap of detestable things, really, and so my biggest fear of being hated came true and my second biggest fear followed suit: having to take responsibility for my share of things going wrong long before that.

It can't get much more in my face than that! I'm up! I'm up! I smell the coffee, dammit!

It Really Is Time

To grow up. To move forward. To not just 'get' over old fears but charge right the hell over them. To quit giving that little piece of ****-mentality any room in my brain. To go back to school. And to quit making a big deal out of it.

I realized with an absurd, aggravated, and earth-rattling heaviness yesterday that in trying to be a good, decent citizen my whole life long and be a good listener (a challenge back in the day as I have procured such nick-names as Blabber Mouth and Chatty Patty,) I let TOO many outside opinions seep into the inside my brain and became the wishy-washy, insecure, tormented and turmoil-ridden little creep that I was. Just read some of my older entries, you'll see. 

Okay, creep is a little too far. It just is a point of reference for how disgusted I am with this realization; and equally how frustrated.

I mean, retarded. It was absolutely retarded. Simply and finally just grabbing the realization like I was choke-holding it, it was an epiphany of the weary sort. Who woulda thunk. I thought epiphanies were supposed to be dowsed in light and make you feel like skipping all the way to school or something.

You have no idea how this whole idea has got me in a bit of a tizzy.  For no other reason than that is not how my parents raised me. Like I said in a bit part of a few entries ago: where the HELL did that monster come from?

There were two parts to this: 

1) The letting it soak in, the processing of information that had been lingering in the abodes of limbo for a time, the accepting it, the growing furiousness of wondering what in the hell "just" happened, the knowing full and damn well that it didn't actually just fly out of nowhere, and the overlapping madness of wanting to scream, yet again, it was ten or so excruciating years at my expense.

2) What. The. Ginormous. ____ Where in sam hell did she come from? 

I'm not that person. 

That is not how my parents raised me.

That is not even what I believe in being.

Did I ever mention that I think doormat people are the sorriest of people?

 

I don't really think anyone who knew me or knows me now would consider me a doormat, but there were doormat moments for sure.

It just doesn't make sense. When did I got from being a woman who knew what she wanted to being a scaredy-pants, little afraid-of-her-damned-shadow poser who tried to tap too hard into her old self?

Well I'll tell you what it was. I'll tell you how I got there. It was me listening to people and butting my head on brick walls. It was trying to value the opinion of others while slowly tuning out the dreams of my own heart. It was what morphed out of trying too hard to be a doormat and resenting the hell out of it. It was me forcing myself to be something I was not, and it was me making an effort and no one noticing. (So cheap!)

It was the anger and the insecurity of a person who tried so hard to be good, to do the right thing, was really dealing with some heavy crap on and on and on and on and on... along the way, and too backlogged with "whatthehellisgoingon!?" to pay attention until I was throwing syrup bottles at the wall across the kitchen. 

Or, it was feeling placated when I did try to pay attention to what was going on in and around me.  Several people, one at a time over time it felt, were simply trying to placate me or maybe placate a rage they felt on their own. Maybe me making enough gripes and slashing comments (many of which I wish I could take back) unearthed their own discontentment with feeling essentially trapped there. Who knows. I was just too inside the inside.

It was feeling cross about what was "right" for everyone else and nobody else at the same time versus what was right for Amy; and yet so rarely did what was right for me. Instead of being accountable for myself, I was accounting myself to everyone else, answering to them like a child.

It was discovering, albeit rudely, that finding a good ear was incrementally difficult to come by; and not only couldn't I get the help I needed nor rely on friends to simply say, "wow, that must've SUCKED", I didn't even get to have a 'my side' of the story without being linched for thinking the wrong way. 

I had just had enough of it.

Or I thought I had, anyway. 'Cause apparently, even after being sick of editing myself to death, I was still doing it. I was still, still saying what I thought people wanted to hear based on what truths they were able to bring to my attention. Did you catch that? I was listening to other people's opinions, digesting them, understanding their side, and trying to alter my perception to meld to some schmoozy hybrid of them both!

And then I did it one last time. With the so-called 'last' person in my satchel of people I angered to the hilt with my attempt to clean up the hot mess that I was, wanting to get control of myself AND feel validated, a final stroke of contempt plus this massive downstroke of irritating depressive moment yesterday, and it all came swirling together. That's what made me mad. Holy crap.

Have I ever let people influence me!

And then it occurred to me. Regardless of the lack of details, pertinent or otherwise, for anyone sitting on the outside of my skull, or even fragments of the story pieced together by outsiders--by anyone not directly influenced--there is only what's right for me, and what is right for my kids. There is conjecture and perception, and then there is truth. And, as much as I hate to say it, just because someone doesn't like my point of view, it doesn't mean I'm wrong and it doesn't mean I deserved nearly a tenth of what I got. It means, I made a choice.

And isn't it effing ironic that I had a whole entire life of being indecisive and letting everyone make decisions for me (or at least influence the hell out of mine) that when I finally started making my own, I would get very little respect for them.

And here's the thing. I can still hear the voices of the multitude of well-meaning people in my past saying their well-damaging things. 

I had grown monumentally resentful of it, too, relative to the time spent there. 

1 year = isolated hardship frustration times pi r-squared minus some joyous moments X 10 = clusterphuck to the nth. 

But...

...doesn't it just SAY something about me? Yah, what a kook I am, perphaps. Because I'm the only one to have moved in and moved out, with a hefty sum of time having been served on the inside, and being so absolutely "vocal" about it. (Who really knows who reads these things. It never serves me when I'm writing something cool, only the negative. Just ask whatever anonymous person it was who printed out one of my, shall we say, meaner entries some years ago and sent it to my bosses.)

But it should also speak to how hard I was trying to make it all work--living there, working, emoting, partying, sulking, crying, laughing, celebrating, mourning.... Taking my lemons and making lemonade, if you will. Doesn't anything speak for itself?

The worst part about this whole kind of dawning-on-me thing is that it really wasn't new or surprising. And it came laced with feeling dumbass-ey and feeling freaking justified all along. Weird.

The realization that I was drowning in that deforming mentality, rather than staying true to myself. It just sucks.

I mean, family can have their own way of screwing you up, true, but isolated northerners...

And to digress a bit more, yes, I know it wasn't just people back there, that it was just my own experience, that I am grouping the people I loved there/people I did not love/people who weren't even from there and therefore possibly stepping on their toes, and that yes, it wasn't all bad and yes, there were good times there, and yes, it's true that I should not be coloring the minds of whichever 2.3 people that read this with a negative opinion of a community that happily functions at a stunted level, and that yes, I know my contempt screams through every word. After all, there is much to be said (and will be said in an entry soon-ish to come) about the life I had with my kids there, and that was plenty positive.

But I am truly confident that I am not wholly out of line when I say that there is definitely a certain "mentality" because I did live there and did give it more than just a disgruntled chance. I've seen people who've lived there and left use air-quotes around the word 'mentality'.

 

I did my damned best to entrench myself there, live and bloom where I had been planted, and deal with all that I had been dealing with at that time in my life; and contrary to what I have been told in regards to post just like this one, I am not slapping people in the face. I'm slapping a mentality which does afford me some room to gripe. Not to mention that some of the dearest of my friends there admitted, or at least relented to, there being major disadvantages to living there.

I guess it just didn't didn't work for me. For whatever reason. My very two different, Gemini sides were very present through pretty much my whole ordeal there: from start to stop.

A rambling year in review: 2011 in some parts

-So yeah, I don't know. That's just what my thoughts are on it. I think the biggest thing, in rereading my religious entries, is that I am still not satisfied with my answers. Perhaps that may be because I don't know what question I am answering, and to figure that out directly would mean answering directly. It would mean taking a defined stand on something I specifically and intrinsically do not feel I can do, for I see the errors in representation on all sides.

-I had to put some barriers between me and an old friend recently. It really sucked, and I am rather sure she was on her way to doing the same before I even resolved to, but the real pisser of it all is that I was trying really hard to be the kind of friend she wanted and needed and still failed miserably (for a multitude of reasons both sides contributed to) while trying with great difficulty to overlook the fact that we both were probably always friends with each other out some sort of sense of condescending obligation. I mean, that's not to say our friendship was or is a farce. No. Never. But just ended up being more on the ritual side of a prolonged, long-distance relationship, and then when I tested the friendship by making a decision she could not stand by nor overcome, the ugly reality of it basically divided us. I really don't harbor a whole lot of ill will because she had to stand by her convictions and I had to stand by mine. But what compelled the need to put more than a little space between us, and it's more complicated than I give credit here, is that at the end of the day, she could not be there for me.

-I started playing bassoon again and realizing a huge portion of an old dream: to perform for a living. I did not make a living off of playing come true, but I DID get to just focus on playing, practicing, performing, and making some good friends for life while doing it. I realized that I have a ginormous fear of accomplishment and/or failure, and that to get past it, I had to suck up a buttload of old preconceptions and misguided notions. About myself. About others. About success and failure in general. And I did it French.

-Learning French was a much needed benefit and blessing. As a result, my vocabulary and ability to communicate has improved somewhat. I have found the ability to articulate more clearly and be more concise in my communications. Being that French is a more direct language and puts the kibosh on vague and otherwise useless constructs of language, I have figured out how to more accurately state no more or no less of a given main idea, which has helped in my writing, but has also aided in my personal psychology, making introspection and even moving forward more easily accessible. On top of that, I can now listen and appreciate French music and television much more as well as watch movies in French without subtitles. I can walk into my girls' school and utilize my newly acquired French-speaking skills. Overall, it has made my life a much richer experience.

-I never, ever, ever, EVER, ever. Ev-er. Want to live without my daughters ever again. And while that may be just exactly what happens as they go to live with their dad next year, I will scream it from the rooftops of Blogger here and through tensely clenched teeth: I. Do. Not. Want. This. At. All. It is not because of their father. In fact, if there was anybody else to take care of them when it's not me, I would rather it be him. But it is because living without them last year was absolutely hell. My entire adult life has been constructed with being a mother. I do not know who I am without them, nor do I really want to know. Whatever sweet moments of living like I was a freely independent woman and cohabiting with a crazy wonderful man that I just adore to have existed last year were intensely subdued with the pain of being without them and the terrible, terrible state of limbo I was in without them. My life is complete when they are with me. It doesn't matter that I will just have to deal with their absence when they leave home to go to university or whatever mission in life, what my mom said about that absence being like a practice run for me is the shittiest thing I've ever heard.

-I realized how negative I had become. Again. Who knows why or when, and it almost certainly has to do with the tremendous ups and downs of the last year, from divorce to epic disagreements with mon conjoint to living without my daughters, but in rejoining my children's lives to mine, my oldest has been keen to call me out on it point blank.

So, after a negativity/positivity quiz kind of acted like the final smack upside the head, I just kind of, sort of snapped out of it. I quit dwelling or brooding. I realized how easy I could do it. I realized that I couldn't handle boring without brooding, that I had brooded all last year, that I had gone back to brooding after successfully changing my outlook TO be glass-half-full back in the day. I realized that if my daughters could live through the kind of year they had and still be happy, well-adjusted children, well then, so the eff could I. I realized I don't like brooding. So I changed it back again.

It doesn't mean I'm cheery or with sunny disposition all the time. But it does mean that I have, yes, reassessed my life, realized that even with all the stresses of starting over, of tight budgeting, of cleaning up after everyone, of maxing out the overdraft, sewing holes in clothes (rather than getting new ones), scrambling to make rent---in addition to this being the THIRD time in my life that I've started out from scratch and been poor. as. fuck.---my life is still pretty good.

Maybe the third time's a charm. Maybe it's because I have this really cool French boyfriend that my daughters are trying to establish a relationship with. Maybe it's because people are so friendly in this town, or that I'm doing what I love for a part time job. Maybe it's because I have cool friends and a sweet neighbor lady and family that still loves me. Maybe I'm wiser now. Maybe it's because putting all the crap behind me is working and I'm not hiding behind anyone or anything anymore (even WITH the drama and scandal of what I did.) I don't know. But I just know that things are getting better. I know I am seeing signs of hope, joy, love, and exciting times passing my way and just as sure to come.

-Bottom line of the last year: not apologizing for myself ever again. This is not the same as being sorry for people I've hurt or mistakes I've made. But it is about correcting those mistakes, making right the wrongs, and moving forward. I have not always moved forward so decisively. In fact, I pretty much never have. I have blabbed to just about everyone I've had a problem with in email form while continuing to spin out on either 1) blame/wanting someone else to take the responsibility of any given gripe (early on) or 2) force their side of accountability. I will probably never quit trying to be a mirror towards people, but I will not be focusing on what I can show someone else--I will only be worrying about choosing the paths and turns I am taking to be happy and to bring happiness to myself.

In the words of a very dear friend in regards to all the naysayers and judgmental critics: f*** 'em.

Painting

You ever dabble in painting? Acrylics, water colors, oils? Ever create something you really believed in or at least took an inspired shining to during its creation, only to view it in time and cringe that you ever, EVER thought it was good?

Ever want to undo it or throw it away and hope no one sees it?

That's me and about 5 or more old entries. I just deleted one that I would be mortified to learn someone (especially those referred to) had read it. Why do I do those things? Why did I do them? I would never do them again. And if I would never say it to their face, why would I put it on here? Especially after learning how well-read this blog is. And by "well-read" I mean usually the people I hope don't find it.

I mean, sometimes there are paintings which have mistakes or are amateur that are tolerable. Yeah, you hope no one notices them, but if they do, no skin off your nose. Or theirs. But what if you look at it again when you've had some time to come back to it and suddenly realize how offensive it is or controversial? What if your painting hurt someone's feelings?

I mean, I am on the brink of hypocritical/fake because I have blasted some of the past to the wall, characters in the story included, and then seem them around, smiling at them because of some credo of wanting to make others smile and forgetting that maybe, just maybe they know, and maybe, just maybe I'm the one with egg on my face; and in the meantime, I'm left to wonder if/who's read what and if I'm really launching egg on my face. And THEN I wonder (no, I know) that people have GOT to be wondering what kind of backasswards jerk I must be. And that would just put me back about a thousand paces of where I've come in trying to gain people's empathetic respect... if I want to make people believe I care, how can I write blogs like the one I just deleted? It's soooo important to make others feel important, loved, listened to. How can I gain any ground if I'm piping off like an idiot in a stupid blog?

Because of this and because of realizing (tho bewildered that anyone would) how many people have come across this stupid blog (thinking it had been a 'private' outlet from the start--I mean WHO in the world would be reading/coming across MY blog? A spitting, negligent, heathen-istic little peon??), and because of realizing the control thing (see prior entry), I don't believe I will ever write another vividly livid entry like those of the past ever again!

So, as I clean out my collection, I humbly offer to wander around with pie on my face and thusly, offer some kind of expiation for my sins.

A serious thought, an epiphanic entry

So. That's what it is. That's what it's been this whole time. I mean, this WHOLE freaking TIME! Amazing. Ten years, eleven years (who the hell knows for sure) of WASTING energy, time. Tears. Words. Apologies. As somber as it is, it is also gleefully uplifting. You know. A relief. TEN years (or more, maybe) of looping and spinning and grasping at internal battles for nothing! Well, okay not nothing. But something, which has finally, ultimately, and lastly added up to so many years of spinning my wheels, hashing out, and rehashing approximately three-trillion degrees and forms of acceptance for about as many conflicts, situations, and the like, for which I would ultimately try to control the outcome: a realization. Something has finally clicked and made me understand just about every single aspect of my crazy, fading-psychobitch ways: control.

Aye yay yay. What the hell am I talking about, the proverbial 'you' asks.

'Tis the muted enlightening of a soul who has just realized how she has tried to control outcomes and output of the situations and people around her for SOOOO many years by the way I have delivered my own dialogue, assumed a savior-ette, super-hero type role, and all--and I mean ALL!!!--the brain-crap that can be associated with all of the hair-brained, vendetta-type, "passionate" responses I've ever, EVER had and made. I've just done that for soooo long and in so many ways that it just became the norm of relating to people and, more importantly, dealing with situations, dealing with life.

I mean, everyone wants and needs some control in their life, but sheesh! I never realized the magnitude with which I do this. It really is so sad. Thanks be to GOD it can be overcome, such is the blessing, just not without some reflective regret. What brought this new idea about was the impending change to come with Kyle not getting the high school band job (who woulda thunk--it all seems a little too reality-novel for me, but...)...but all in how I dealt with the news, how I reacted, how I wanted to act, and the miserable unfolding of what was, essentially, the fact (and realization) that I could not control this and no amount of avenging was going to change the outcome, nor would it leave anything but severely damaging consequences behind in some proposed aftermath.

It wasn't just entirely all there, though. The realization, that is. I had some time in between the news of Kyle's employment situation and the unfolding of conversations in a day (yesterday) to stew like a mad cow over the entire blow of it all. Which I did. I let the anger boil in me like a hot blister in my chest and rise into my throat yesterday morning, with a surging I knew would only be quelled by giving the wrong-doers a piece of my mind. My temples throbbed, I felt almost sick with the feeling that was rising in my chest and I've never experienced that kind of exhaustive emotion since the time I was a child and was throwing a wild fit in the hallway (for being sent to bed early since muttering some nasty thing under my breath at my mother.) I've never been so mad. In all my life. I knew I had to write them (the administrators) a letter and that I needed to compose it like I would send it. I had to be confident that what I wrote could be something I would send and I needed to believe I was somehow, in some way or another, going to send it.

So then I focused all my energy in trying to find the words I couldn't spit out and tell them just everything I wanted to say and everything I wanted them to hear. After taking a mere hour to accomplish just that (and believe me, that's a pretty good deal!), I let Kyle read it, who was home for lunch by then. Expecting a response and knowing he knew I demanded one, we ended up launching into an entire noon-hour debate about the way I deal with things, the operative word being successfully launched into the air being "control."

Being that he had adapted to my ways for so long, either by being brow-beaten or by physical ailments of the past, there was a serious lack of boundaries set on his part and a serious lack of respecting ones on my part. But there was also a serious amount of bravery on Kyle's part to use such a word with me, in full context, full light of the day, in a discussion that had been launched originally with respect to his job; and a serious amount of relief in seeing my reception of the word. He explained right out what I had been failing to hear for SOOO many years about why to let things go, why to understand that inevitable situations are beyond our control, and that not being able to control them does not equal failure (I realized this in not-so-many words.)

This being such a heavy realization at such a bright hour shook my foundation a bit. It seems easy to say or think, but to know it is completely another thing. I never wanted to be like that. And with Kyle's tender touch, he pointed out in a way that made new sense all of the ways that my life and our life together had spiraled so amazingly out of control in the beginning. From one thing to another--living with R, searching for money (and having none!), dating Kyle while R was still in the house, R moving out, apartment flooding, the accident, moving in with other people, moving to another country, in with the inlaws, Kyle getting sick, moving again, and more--all overlapping in traumatic series of cowpies that transpired (plus mothering two little ones) within a year's time and then, in turn, morphed into our lives on this side of the border (getting the job here, moving again, Kyle getting sick again, having two young babies, the aunt, the cancer, the joints, the whole peril of the looming unknown, job upheaval, marriage upheaval...)

However, this being a particularly astonishing thing all on its own--the entire realization of my control (or attempts to control)--it wouldn't be the last time I'd hear about it. After lunch, I had coffee with K who had observed the same things Kyle did about my behavior in my attempts to militantly assume justice in cases where someone had been done wrong; and her observation touched something raw.

But then, if that wasn't enough, I had a bit of time to think about it and hopefully clear my head before work, but during my shift, my boss called me into talk about some aspects of my job and noted some of the way I deal with customers and more or less suggested I not take it so personal. I realized (although not too suddenly) that most of the time (in regards to customers, particularly rude ones) that I can brush it off, but sometimes there is a switch in me where that puff of indignation rises and I do, indeed.... *sigh... take it personally. On a side note, I guess I do this because I know that I would never go into a restaurant--or anywhere, for that matter--and treat an employee poorly; and so it makes me mad, BUT... the anger that builds up so intensely is due to this... A-HA!... lack of superpower to change that person's mind or behavior.

And so...

I can see how it ALL just finally works together to explain why I was the way I was for so long. Perhaps the need to control something in what used to be my insane life seeded its way down. Perhaps there is heritage influence or familial pressure (as in, of old) that had its own life blood in my decisions to let every person in the world know exactly how I feel. Maybe a ton of things. But I can look back on every single time in my life that contained some form of contention, ill-formed resolution (or trying to force resolution), or any kind of temperamental flare-up and realize that it is a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. It is a piece of knowledge that I can look back with and match the puzzle pieces to. Every single instance of those situations where I got mad or felt out of control is like a part of the puzzle that each match up with this one piece of knowledge and it works like an application. I've only had twenty-four hours to start a new life with one of accepting what I cannot control, but I can tell you that I'm already relieved. Beyond measure.

(Epilogue: The letter was deleted.)

I love band!

I am much too tired to get into the analytical side of this, but tonight, after the Air Command Band concert, Kyle re-informed me that there was a reception for the musicians and some of the city employees at one of the local hotels. I would have been excited to know we were invited except this week's already been a clusterphuck of time managing, with rehearsals for the musical, various activities for the girls, various appointment cancellations, a vet appointment, an imminent birthday party looming around tomorrow's corner, two more shifts of work, packing and supper at a friends house on Saturday to compound leaving the house on Sunday and the overall mess that is my brain this week; and I really didn't think I was going to be able to stomach yet another handful of stupid people.

Let me side track for a moment and explain how much I love band concerts. I love symphonic concerts, orchestras, instrument ensembles of all kinds and of all forms, but I am especially fond of bands ensembles formed with traditional wind instruments plus or minus a rhythm section. I love how any piece of music can carry me away, going back to the simple days where I would just romanticize my life away and mull over the delightful way the music answered my pains, my joys. I love how there is always something in each genre, label, kind, brand, timbre of music that moves me like nothing else can. Clap, snap, dance, wiggle, gyrate, wave my hands, sing on the outside, but feel like there is planetary motion on the inside. I crave that band sound. I really feel like it's just something so integral to me that no one will understand, but I imagine there are others with the same feelings, that pertains to the sounds that only wind instruments can make. I love the mariachi trumpet feel, the light flutey parts, the rhythm trombones and tenor saxes, the character of the double reeds, the unmistakeable strains of guitar, drum beats, rhythms, and even like tonight, the added character of vocals. Truly I am a band geek.

That being said, I've established myself as a musician in this town albeit minorly, playing keyboards on (going on) four community productions, a host of accompaniment gigs and church services around town. I don't presume to have a title, because I don't. I wouldn't want one. I don't have to be known as any one thing. Because I am surely not an elitist. And it's not like I'm so good that I could afford to be anyway.

But...

...as sure as the day you were born (side tangent back on track), I went up to the keyboardist tonight at the reception and introduce myself (because I'm friendly and outgoing like that, fun and funky, fearless, down-to-earth, whatever,) and make a point of relating to her when she donned the snobbiest face I have seen on another musician in a long time. Maybe I have been too far removed both in time and in distance to remember what it was like to rub elbows with elitist musicians (and believe me, I knew a few in college!) and therefore put my dumbass cart before my retarded, socially awkward horse, but being that I was dressed up head-to-toe in great clothes, hair coiffed, ready with a smile and drink in hand, I was poised to approach this woman, only to be utterly and grieviously snubbed, bitterly put back into place by her blank stare, expectant eyes, and far less than subtle "yes, we'll talk later" (after I shut up) bite.

I was dumbfound. Astonished. Yes, astonished--truly (!) astonished--that this woman had the nerve to be so cold after I'd taken time out of MY schedule (yes, mine, the schedule of a lowly small town mom-ish thing living in the real world) to grace her with MY conversation. I was absolutely gobsmacked that such snobbery of that caliber would ever find itself in Flin Flon, Manitoba, that another woman could be so immature and yet seem so convoluted in her resolve so as to actually form words that were soaked in condescending vinegar. I just have nothing else to say after that. Except...

...wow.

Mother hen to nest, calling all mama birds

I don't really have much to say. Rephrase: I'm not inspired about any one thing in particular tonight. I've noticed Facebook has failed to notify me that it would be sucking tonight, or last night, or for pretty much the last three nights in a row and I am rather disgruntled about it.

I had a girl talk with my littlest one tonight. She's feeling repressed and stomped on by her older sister and that kind of situation does NOT bode well with a little Leo. Not to use astrological comparisons or assign her to any kind of walled-in definition, there is definitely a roaring leader in her and a certain indignation about her when the antics of her very bold, opinionated, highly organized (both in schedule and in thought), and eclectic older sister inflict a very potential damage. (It would stand to reason that a Gemini could bear a child with contrasting traits, methinks. Hmmm...)

I mean, there is the sibling rivalry, in light and in seriousness, to consider. In this light, what is going on could be reduced to a mere, "oh, those kids" while laughing because it seems so trivial in comparison to our lives that involve bills, deadlines, schedules, entire weeks of rigid plans; and... because we can remember those childhood pains and wave our hands at those with a dismissive guffaw when matching those pains to the pains of adulthood.

But really, what makes them so different?

Without coddling my children, I can see how real this pain is. I remember being told things like "well, it'll get better" or "just wait until you're older" or any other such equivalent comment that essentially dismissed what I was feeling. At the very least, it made me feel like I was being silly for having kid feelings.

However, I've realized that I still have feelings in the same way I had feelings as a kid and it's because I've had to rearrange them a million times that I know what my girls are feeling is very real. Most importantly, those feelings don't go away without real validation and I don't ever want to be the reason my girls feel invalidated.

So, we talked. And even thought I knew pretty much what she was going to say, I listened anyway. Asked her questions that would walk her through her feelings and then rubbed her back until she fell asleep. I actually played Mama rather than The Problem Sorter/Solver Extraordinaire, which is what I usually do. I don't know why. I guess it's just one way of being dismissive, regardless of the intention being to help my girls avoid feeling hurt. In that way, it makes me no better than the ones who missed that mark with me (and there we could go off on another, completely different side track about sensitivity on both sides of the opinion.)

In either case, why are kids so mysterious to figure out? It wasn't that long ago that we were kids, that I was a kid. I think I'm less worried about "figuring them out" (as I do know my own children) than I am deeply contemplative of what's going on in their little, very real, very active minds. Because I am so analytical and introspective, I want to know the thoughts making rounds in their minds. I don't want to pass on my over-analytical-ness, either. I want them to be able to think critically, to have the ability to analyze a situation, but I don't want them to be me. I want them to be better than me, than what I have lived, of course. The wish of every parent.

I just see how fast they've grown and realize that they are half grown already! It'll only be another eight to ten years before they go off into the real world. Maybe I should look at it as 'before they JOIN us in the real world'---then I can look at it in the way that all the things I can share with them as adults that I couldn't before, but egads! We'll cross that bridge when we get there! Which, at this rate, will be when I blink my eyes...

The point is, I got to be a mom so early and I'm really thankful to the powers that be that someone saw me fit enough to handle these blessed, beautiful humans; I just hope that I didn't figure myself out too late, that trying to get a grip on my own trials hasn't wreaked havoc on the way they see life, and that they see life with the purity, passion, and vigor that I am wanting them to see, but most off all that they walk into a crazy, hell-in-handbasket world knowing who they are and not to compromise their morals for anything.

Over and out.

ye olde dukes of hazarde

I have really great friends. I mean, really, really great and kind people around me and sometimes even watching out for me, even when I've gone out and lost my dawg gone mind.

You know who you are--CS, JR, EK, KW (meow), ME, just to name a few--all of whom have been in my life at various points along the way, who share the same heartaches, but who listen to ME pour my ever-lovin' whine into their ears with LOVE as opposed to "oh well"-ness.

This is to you. This goes out to you. The people who are what my "strong" is--the unwitting team of human beings that unknowingly work together to make me feel a little less at odds with myself, a little more human, a little more... sane.

Thank you.

A measly, pathetic term, truly, to describe the absolute, sheer, amazing, unending gratitude I feel for the times they've helped me feel even a shred less of the insane person I SWEAR I am. Not only am I in my own head a little too much, but I'm not exactly surrounded by what you would call like minds or those who understand (save for two, whose initials are both KW); and so it goes to you, it goes without saying, it goes with saying words that are inadequate, my friends, who I love and who listen and who I hope feel listened to, too, across the miles, in a wide span of the map--I thank you.

Reasons

I saw the light today. It started with a Ty and ended with a -lenol AND came with a realization that I have been, indeed, coming down with an ever-loving cold.

I slept so well last night that I woke up two hours before I was supposed to be at work this morning feeling well-rested, even after having taken a nap yesterday afternoon. Taking naps, even when desperately tired, is usually stupid. They wreak havoc on a good night's sleep. But it wasn't even a question yesterday. Given yesterday's mood.

When I woke up, though, the light shone softly through the window, the mattress felt soft and cozy, the covers tucked in around my chin, and the scratchy, pre-sore throat all worked together to explain why I've been SUCH a bitch the last two weeks.

Okay. Okay! I know. I know! It doesn't excuse the actions. But it DOES explain the feelings. The overall, extended period of run down irritation with everything. I was actually relieved to wake up with a sore throat. It offered SOME suggestion of why I just kept hitting a wall week on week, long after PMS had its fun run, constantly unable to rework life's accostic ways in my mind with some sense of peaceable perspective.

But here it was. In no uncertain terms. I was run down. And drugs are great. The headache building up at work was met head-on with some extra strength acetaminophen in the analgesics/first-aid cabinet at work; and the relief with which I was able to carry out the rest of my day brought about another realization (or more of a consideration) that any discomfort or pain drastically discolors my dramatic view of the world.

Eeeek.

Myspace import: October 2008

Thursday, October 09, 2008

The word "nice"

Category: Writing and Poetry

When I hear the word "nice", I want to write. Nice, as per agreement to those discussing it in the staffroom today, is far too general a word. It is barely a descriptive thing as it only compares to what is NOT nice. And so, what is that? It drives me crazy that it is so general when there are thousands (well, okay, maybe just a mere 'several') of other words and ways to term an object, describe the emotion, paint the picture.

Points should not be given for a descriptive paragraph that reads "she had a nice bike." Well so what? Nice in the quickest sense that it wasn't a piece of crap. Well good. NICE-ly done. But WHAT? about it? What MAKES it nice? Is it nice because it has handle bars at all when others do not? Would "nice" be the lines or the color of the bike? The type? The brand? Could "nice" be that it was from the store as opposed to the junkyard? Could a bike from the junkyard BE nice in the sense that it was built from scraps and therefore implies PRIDE which can be considered "nice"?

Furthermore, how do we get kids to care? To GIVE a crap about writing? To submit and produce works of art, of ethic, and of pride? In today's generation, it's a do-what-I-can-to-just-squeeze-by lazy fair, even though the earliest generations of our time and further back produced great works of prose, poetry, narrative, and novel--treasures for us, the younger generation to compare ourselves to, to aspire to, to find inspiration, truth, opinion, imagination, and most of all freedom.

To defend these slackers somewhat, the number of humans in the world has not doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in one hundred years, when Teddy Roosevelt was in office, but has risen nearly 670%! That is a staggering boom of human minds to be born and thusly compete for the light of recognition in a contemporary society where 'letting the other guy have it' has become more popular, if not banal, concession to working really hard to achieve something actually worth merit, praise, and to this end, good marks in school.

It makes sense in a very consumeristic culture, where the volume of humanity is crowding itself out, that we are losing steam, finding the lazy way out, and being content to simply let someone else take care of it, write it, paint it, create it, develop it. There ARE many others out there willing to do it for you, for someone else, for those unable, but especially unwilling to do it and enabling this atmosphere of blaze-ness. It is undoubtedly creating a sterile apathy in the younger generations, where the numbers of kids in classrooms are ever-oozing into barely-manageable crowds, and undoubtedly establishing a dichotomous society.

http://www.infoplease.com/year/1908.html
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

But, if this is any indication where we could be headed, it is also another just-is era of many eras to have dominated the cultures and societies of our time and the times which existed along time ago.

Geminian postables

Gehhhhht up.

Get up.

Get up, get up, get up. Go. Now. Get up and go to the gym. Get up and go now.

Gehhhhht up, gettin' up. *even tone*

--But I don't WAN-NA

Get up. You can feel your belly resting on its own self, can't you?

--Yeahhhh. But I don't wahhhh-na.

I know. So get up. You know you feel better when you've been going.

--Yeahhh, but it's harrrd. I don't have the time. I don't wannnnna.

Make the time. You've been working evenings. You have time in the mornings. You knowwwww you feel better in the mornings and your overall day.

--Yeahhh. True. I do. But that means giving up sleeping in.

Well that's a tough one. We DO like to sleep in.

--Yeah.

Yeah.

--Well.

Well.

--Well maybe we could just this once. But then what about when my work schedule changes? 'Cause you KNOW we hate change. Hate reaccomodating.

Yeah. It's too bad, hey? I used to think I adapted easier.

--Yeah, me, too.

But look at the overall picture. Wouldn't you rather lead by example? Show your daughters how to take care of themselves?

--Absolutely

And you have a pass already. You found Kyle's pass today, so you know the number to sign in at the gym.

--Yeah.

--Okay fine.

*Gemini post #1

Yo. *click click* She-Bitch. Let's go.

I know I'm PMSing. I know it because this kind of grumpy doesn't just get reasoned away. I am beyond reasoning. It's never seemed that extreme, but I know I must have been downplaying it for years because I've always put the filter on between my brain and actually broadcasting it.

One. Everyone and everything pisses me off when I'm PMSing. There are exceptions, but I will get irritated by everything. I don't know WHERE this comes from or WHY, but I know that I become a sight-losing, objectivity-thrown-out-the-window, perceptiveless she-bitch. I try and steer Kyle clear of this She-Hulk metamorphasis, but sometimes he gets caught in the crossfire, poor guy.

Two. It's gradual and blindsighting. For Kyle. For everyone else, there's Mastercard. (Or is it VISA?) Okay, comedic flitting break done. It's gradual and blindsighting and creeps in like the plague, unaware, unassuming, and then BAM! it, that, those, them... are culprits in everything. People. Dummies. Co-workers. Acquaintances. Former high school classmates. A scheming circle around me to somehow fall out of the Stupid Tree and crawl under my skin. As though fate has nothing better to do than spite me. Psh. Whatevs.

Three. I am beyond reasoning. Far beyond. Trying to put things in perspective, context, reality---gone. All gone. The ability TO reason and to be reasoned WITH leave and float to a place of magic and mystery that I still have yet to chance upon in my journies, extract, GRAB... and pull back, rendering me a useless bulk of hideous transformation with no ETA of my sanity. Experiences that have made me a better person are forgotten and experiences that could make me a better person or matter don't even make the radar.

Not really that bad, you say? Shyeah! You try living in this head. I'm hungry, I'm tired, have to get up early, and am watching an old replay of The Bodyguard on CMT. I'm just not really helping myself here. Will check in another time soon...

MySpace Import: Nov '08

Friday, November 28, 2008

Bass flute

Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping

I can't help it, but here we go again with the music scene thing. I'm leaving rehearsal tonight when I notice that *C* left her cello bow on the pew to be buried under all the choir folders. Folders that should not have been allowed to go there, I mean, I'm just sayin'...

I pick it up, being the gracious observer that I am, and give a shout out to its owner in the back of the church, who positively identifies her possession. My sole and solitary purpose is to unearth the delicate bow from under the folders where it lay, place it on top of the piano in the church, right there, one step away from where I am standing, and remove it from harm's way.

Now, let me side track by saying that in this moment, I recall a story from the recesses of a high school band concert where I was allowed the play the bass flute for a winter piece we played. After our concert, we all had to take our chairs and stands off the stage in the auditorium and put them back in the band room, which was through the door at the back of backstage. In wanting to be efficient, I set both my flute and the bass flute down. On the floor. Of the bandroom. Where people (60-piece band, namely) are walking back and forth. With stands. On tiered floors. Jumping, flying, wrestling, scuffling, scurrying, and all other various sorts of banging around, trying to clang and clunk their way into reassembling the band room.

Without warning and coming through that upper band room door with a stand and chair in each of my hands, the first chair flute player (we'll call her KG), starts reaming me out from down in front, in the presence of all, about having the bass flute on the floor. She is unglued and her tirade comes out in peals of maniacal outbursts that mention expense, irresponsibility, et al.; and with anger that 'might' have made someone wonder, at that moment or even now, what her investment was. Embarrassed for being dumb and pissed as hell for the censure, I move the flute ipso facto and put it in its case. Then I go home.

I was so pissed at her absolute lack of tact and ability to deal with it in a way that we could both keep our dignity, but in the end she was right. I left a multi-hundred (maybe thousand?) -dollar instrument on the floor in a moment of poor judgment to get stepped on, crushed, maybe bent. And who would have had to pay for it? It was completely reckless. But I learned my lesson.

Fast forward to the current story. This bass flute story flashes through my mind in a fleeting milisecond as I turn around with the bow in my hand. The husband of said bow owner is there, just there, in a moment, in between me and the piano. Just as momentarily, I am stopped in my tracks of realization, realizing I have his wife's bow in my hand and knowing it is an expensive piece that I really have no basis in holding.

I offer a piddling, half-instantly-intimidated explanation. I am just about ready to get worked up in my mind about this. This is the same Super Talent of the north, who is known "far and wide" for the music he has written, the instruments he has played (namely, the piano), and overall ability to wow the crowds with his alleged greatness; and who, in the matter of one and a half years, I've been able to work with alongside (and in spite of) and learn a great deal from.

I also really enjoy the change and challenge of working with him when I have the opportunity to as I always push myself more than I would on my own when I know he's right there and several steps (and years) ahead of me; but this element is lost when the territorial superiority comes creeping in and I am "reminded" that I am just an insecure peon in the life and wake of the who's who in the musical community. In other words, I let it get to me at ALL and read far much into things that no one else does and just figure that everyone else buys into his diplomatic b.s.

Yes I know.

But as I offer explanation to the husband (*Y*), I also regain (remember) my confidence, set the bow on the piano, and get a less-than-there "ok" from him. Actually it sounds more like a half-laugh at a less-than-pathetic joke.

And then I notice everyone is quiet!

Super quiet. Like if everyone is watching me; and then suddenly I'm aware that they may or may not be waiting for me. So I book it. But I'm just as instantly aware that I was half-lingering, just gathering up papers and books that other people had left laying around, and making sure I had all my own stuff; and it makes me self-consious and feeling loser-ish. I have just executed a move that I have laughed at other people for, dwelling after practice because they have nowhere to go or want to get invited to stay or whatever or however it works.

So it adds up in my head faster than a locomotive gaining speed and the half-laugh "ok" combined with people waiting for me to go, people who have been in this group, a group I fleetingly expressed an interest for once upon a time, people I've associated with, people I've mingled and associated with musically and socially who, although reasonably wait for me to leave, somehow make me feel not good enough. Ousted. And even though I wouldn't have time to be in that specific group nor would I be so unreasonable as to think I could join them so close to the concert or be of accompanying assistance when they have *Y* there, I can't help but feel inadequate or unnecessary just the same.

That being said, it's over. Situation done, gone, and past. Life goes on. I just can't help feeling unappreciated or pushed aside because this is not the first time this has happened. It makes me doubt my ability and gives me justification to be angsty, which I don't like and is cause for me to eat crow when I go back into these kinds of groups, made of up of the same people, in a small town, where there is rarely any deviation from the status quo, and where deviation is met with the same kind of reaction a bitter cashew might have; and where none of that kind of negativity has any place in who I am right now or ever. This rant has far more to do with reaction (of others) than it does my sense of self and ability. But maybe it has to do with how I read into things, too. I just know I sense things others do not, even though it gets me into trouble when I take it too far.

End of rant.

*** I'd like to comment here that it's crazy what the mind will do to itself. Especially mine. I think it's even crazier to illustrate it on paper (or virtual space, as it were) because writing in a style or a way that will help people understand makes my craziness all that more concrete, but it still doesn't generally make sense to the general whole and it's still left out there not making sense to the average person; but my point is that the main point THEN was about being in this ridiculous, absolutely heedless position of having this bow in my hand because I was trying to take care of something the other gal should have been taking care of. It was ludicrous. And as my friend, Celia, pointed out, it should have never been left there to begin with as any competent string player knows damn better than to leave their bow unattended and at risk.

BORING. Boring, boring, boring.

It's hard to blog in a small town. If even one person knows you blog and has the slightest amount of interest in passing the link on, your news is spilled out and all over the table like sputtering coffee beans and the 6 o'clock news. You have to find a balance. The balance of giving a shit and not giving a shit. Alas, my people-flitting skills and enormous pride fit me in the Give Too Much Of A Shit category. Besides that and the fact that I'm a mother of two, very perceptive, not-so-little girls whose lives suffer the ramifications of the tentative, theoretical antics of "that woman" should I decide not to exercise discretion. That sucks.

There have been so many things I've wanted to specifically (and might I add humourously) (look at that--Canadian spelling) spill the beans over, rant, vent, label, whatever and I'm finding that I just can't. I feel very limited as to what I can post and regret being too candid or liberal when the whiplash comes from me not thinking beforehand. And why would I just not think beforehand? Because I'm just tired at the end of the day and what fun is sensible reading of sensible minds?

I guess this would contradict this earlier post somewhat, at least in my mind, the point of starting this TO have a place to freely digest in the form of spewage. I.e. online rantfest, diatribe dolings, epistle-like ponderings, and the like. But I just can't bring myself to spit it out, no matter how much I want to, because even when I say I don't care, I still do.

Okay. I will try again tomorrow. I'll try to blog about work or stupid people. Or both.

I've been wanting to post something here to soften the blow of my religious-ey explosion, to act as a buffer between what you see when my page first pops up and the rest of my blog, but there are just TOO many things I could pick from and I can't even decide if I'm going to wear jeans today.

I read a blog I follow called "Sarah Says" and maybe it was because I was so tired yesterday by the time I read it or because I had had the giggles earlier in the day (and at work, no less!), but I laughed hard. She talks about lemons being hurled at her to desribe her experience with trying to find a job in her field and refers to a past entry in her rant that further explores the lemon metaphor. It's the writing style. It's the way she delivers what she has to say, her feelings about it, and the imagery comparison (analogies) all involving some sort of stoning that makes me howl out loud (hol, instead lol now?)

Of course, I've always been an imagery kind of girl. I always laugh MORE at people's reactions or the reference to a visual (sometimes unpleasant) than I do the actual joke content. Unless, of course, the joke content has a punchline that involves reaction from within the joke. Long way to go for a laugh, I know.

This has also made me appear "slow" in getting jokes. I realized this working at the crusher where the safety guy would read a joke at the end of the safety meeting (always paycheck Thursdays!) and there would be a 1.3 second delay from the other guys' laughing to mine. I've always known that I laugh more at the way a person responds to a joke than the joke itself, but being able to perceive that I laugh (and I bust out--like a BWA HA!) about a second or two behind everyone else has made me realize that I am just about a second or two behind everyone else.

And yes, sometimes it takes me a second to get a joke. If it reaches too far to get a punchline and I have to logically or numerically walk from the tag to the punch (BOH-REENG!), then I'll just look at you with a 'huh?-you-think-that-was-funny' look or I'll just laugh politely. And then I'll laugh because you'll look at me like I'm stupid--and THAT is funny. The facial expression.

But this is just how I am. Hard-wired to respond this way to jokes and I am absolutely, positively, undoubtedly sure I get this from my aunties. Well, ok, and my mom, too. Duh. But it makes my world that much richer because not many people I know react that way and so it makes the chance of mass production for my kind of laugh far lower and I'm left laughing alone or at least with you for completely different reasons. And you'll still think I'm laughing about the joke...

Starry winter nights

It's exactly what it implies.

There is something quietly magical and mysterious about the still, dark, winter night sky. It's just romantic, both in metaphor and in reality, but it's also nearly impossible to grasp. It seems always just out of reach and overwhelming in concept and in entirety, respectively. It makes me feel in full scope how wrong the world is or how wrong I am or just how inferior my human attempts at living life right are. In looking for a photo to go with this entry, I realized that the aurora borealis gives exactly the same kind of impressed emotion. That kind of surpressed feeling that makes you want to explode just to get out of your body, which makes you feel so momentarily trapped. It never lasts and it's so intriguing but it also so humbling that I just don't know what to do with it and then hustle in the house with girls as I realize I'm getting cold and have a handful of something (bags, stacks of books, leftovers from supper at Darlene's.) I'm really not on drugs. I've just never tried to explain this before.

It's what makes me the crazy, Latina, life-absorbing, miracle-observing chick that I am. But I find it no coincidence (or perhaps CrAzY coincidence altogether!) that the aurora, the stars, the sky--all of it--work together to woo me in this crazy, cold north living with a man who I wonder may have been in a dream I had before I even knew him. Yes, I know. That might be going too far...

But it begs the question: what if?

This dream is so old it's hard to believe I still think about it. Several years ago (thirteen or fourteen), I had a dream one night where the only details I remember are that it was in the middle of winter, the middle of the night, I was in a cabin that resembled the mobile home I used to live in, and several girls wandering around, all in some form of a white dress. (Pajamas? Smocks? Hard to say.) They were all just walking around, doing aimless tasks and I remembered wondering (a little self-righteously) what in the hell they were doing and what for.

Next I remember being across the living room and standing in front of the window. I remember looking out into the bitterly cold night, I remember wondering how cold it was, not wanting to find out, and I remember the sparkling, expansive, untouched blanket of snow on the field that stretched past the horizon. It was like I knew the air outside was unbearable and Arctic-like (being a girl from Wyoming), but was still standing super cozy and warm inside. In the meantime, I took in the dark, black-purple sky, riddled with stars and just stared, half breathless, into the midnight sky.

But I also remember that just as momentarily as I perceived cold, warmth, and wonderment, I perceived absolute desolation because there was nowhere to go and no way to get out. I wouldn't have known which direction to go and no one seemed interested in getting away anyway, seeing something new, experiencing life past this two-dimensional way of living. It was desperately lacking.

That's not all. If you've ever had to transition from experiencing pain to accepting it, you'll understand this next part. I realized how separated we were from other people and it felt instantly crushing. I actually felt physical pain. Somehow this translated into knowing I would never find love and the whole entire realization--of being cut off from the world and not getting the chance to experience true love (cheese alert!! cheese alert!!)--just killed me. I had to take this enormous sadness, accept it, and somehow turn it around.

The next thing I remember was holding the front door open for someone who, I guess, had come by in passing. It was a guy, a man, a tall, broad man, who barely fit the door frame and he was covered in furs all the way up to his eyes, eyes I couldn't see, but somehow captivated me through this jolt of electric energy that I couldn't perceive. Energy and connection that was beyond first or second impression, and I was amazed, incredulous, relieved, and inexplicably light-hearted at the thought of his presence. Yet he was right there in front of me and there was something about him, something about the way we connected, that I knew he was meant for me and I was meant for him. I woke up sad to leave the dream but with a smile for a sense of purpose.

It's so ooey-gooey (and it's SO me), but the overall purpose of the dream seemed bigger than me and all my gooey-eyed perceptions of romance or even life.

The point is, it stuck with me for a good long while and then it went away. After graduation and a few failed experiences, life went on and I got a real good dose of reality as I searched for jobs 7 months pregnant and moved on with homework, bottles, diapers, daycare, and concert rehearsals. I totally forgot about it.

Enter Kyle. And the world around me changed again. The way our relationship unfolded and the way he treated me made feel just like I did in that dream (the good part, that is.) Then that's when I remembered the dream. All the comparisons since then of my life with him always involve some kind of recollection of that dream. It makes me wonder--it has always made me wonder--if maybe there was purpose to that dream, purpose beyond my own agenda, divine intervention perhaps or if it was just that I wanted to relish in the coincidence so much that I subconsiously made it so.

I highly doubt the latter, no matter what the cynics believe. I don't need that dream to know what the beautiful inscription of Kyle in my life means or how blessed I am to have him in my life. I simply know that both the reality of Kyle in my life and the dream of someone very like him are connected. The comparisons will be left to a later entry.

Lush sensuality

1. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming, USA and was primarily raised in Gillette, Wyoming where we moved when I was little. Both are in the east side of the state, Laramie in the south corner, Gillette in the north. I've never been to Yellowstone National Park.

2. I don't really have a favorite color because I don't ever want to have a house or closet full of purple, which would be the color of choice. But then I wouldn't want a house or closet full of red, either, or chocolate brown, black, blue, green, which are all really great colors,too, that are rich and attractive and that I like just as much. Too many options to have too much of one thing and variety is the spice of life. It's not a standard rule, but it does stem from my beliefs in balance.

3. I was a single mom for a year--only a year--but I was 18 and will never forget it because I didn't know a thing about anything and it came before everything else, including all the other things I would ever become in my life. I played single mom again when Kyle was sick with cancer for 6 months and again later when he took a year off of teaching and had to work out of town. So even though my life is great now, it wasn't always so.

4. I was in a horrible accident with my then-fiance (Kyle) and my then-year-old (Aurora) where I fell asleep at the wheel trying to drive overnight back home, hit a reflector pole, overcorrected one too many times, and sent us rolling into the median of the highway. According to the police report, I hit the reflector pole, swerved, over-corrected twice, and rolled the vehicle a number of times before coming to a stop on the roof. Aurora was ejected out the back, but miraculously--MIRACULOUSLY--escaped with a bruise on her jaw and a bruise on her collar bone. She was released from the hospital within hours. Kyle was beat up horribly, with pulled back muscles, ridiculously blood-shot and blackened eyes. He was released in a few hours. I was in ICU for three days with concussion. My dad said I looked like an alien. I don't remember ANY of it. Did I mention I was driving a Geo Tracker?

5. The guilt from the afore-mentioned accident on ALL sides of realization ate at me for a very long time. It took a long, long time to "sober" up, get my brain back, start remembering things, and I was a very different person after that. Very combative. Not myself.

6. I have a big freckle on my big toe. It's been there since birth.

7. I don't grow my nails out. I am always clipping them because I hate the feeling of click-click on piano/keyboard keys, the scratching when they connect with a surface, and when they start tearing at the tips.

8. I love to laugh. I love stupid comedy, dry humour, jokes that involve reaction and I will laugh primarily at reactions that have less to do with the joke content than people's faces.

9. I use tanning beds.

10. I think confession is good for the soul.

11. I talk too much and too fast.

12. I can operate heavy equipment, operated a full-scale gravel crusher, and shovel like a b****.

13. I can drive a standard transmission.

14. I rebuilt my bathroom downstairs from scratch after we had water in the subfloor and had to gut it out. I'd like to say I did it all myself, but a friend with more knowledge than me helped.

15. I really, really, really like my computer. I don't go to bed without spending WAY more time on it than I should.

16. I know how to play bassoon and used to be pretty good at it.

17. I like to belt out the tunes if there is noise that can kind of hide it and I stop when the noise stops. I used to sing full force when I worked at the crusher because nobody could hear me over the generator, the conveyor belts, the motors, the noise, and overall crunching and crushing of boulders. But sometimes I like to hear my voice in resonating in a building. Like the bathroom or the restauarant I work at that has a vaulted ceiling or big churches.

18. I put a rock through a picture window the summer after 8th grade because I befriended a girl who stole cars. The police came driving around and we somehow managed to avoid getting caught by laying in a field of grass taller than us for three hours.

19. I'm a Gemini.

20. I danced the Jarabe Tapatio with my dad when I was in high school for the Cinco de Mayo night the school put on. It was the unofficial official version of the regional dance of Jalisco, the state where he is from. It is, more or less, the Mexican Hat Dance. I still have the dress. I still hope to dance it again some day.

21. I speak Spanish. My dad is Mexican. I have Mexican family that I can talk to, but don't often.

22. My mom is Norwegian. She does not speak Norwegian. Nor do I.

23. I was in Girl Scouts from grade 1 to grade 8. It's really, REALLY not cool to be a Girl Scout in junior high.

24. I got out of an algebra test in college to get married. I wore my best friend's clothes and tied a bow in my hair. In 1999.

25. My computer is about to die. So I'm posting this and logging off.

I cracked just before Christmas...

I wrote this in my other blog some time ago, after I'd completed the ginormous project of painting the entire upstairs.
* * *

Well... Oh my God, I don't know what to say. I mean, really, thank you so--

-much!! *tear*breathe*

Okay. *sigh* I'd like to thank first and foremost my publicists and agent. Without their undying support, I would not be here. Bug and Doll, you know who you are. HB? Yeah. You were there for me through the worst of it, from the beginning until the completed project. You helped me. You helped me so much.

I just can't believe it...

Thank you so much!

Uhh-m, I'd like to thank the paint mixing people, the supply store, um... the (*cue polite laugh) till clerks who rang me through. I just don't know what to say. I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible. This award goes out to you, this award... IS for you.

But mostly I would be amiss to not mention the hugest thank you my husband and my beautiful girls. This aware goes out to them-

No! Don't you dare cue the music!

-for their patience in living in disastrous conditions, having to navigate the treacherous piles of clutter in the living room, giving up their comfortable lives for the sake of Crazy Mommy Painting The House and um..

Wait, wait, wait!

Just... thank you all, dear people, for this award. This- *shakes head, tears up, shakes award* prize for the biggest job ever. I love you. Mommy loves you. *Mwa!* to you... goodnight, go to bed. Thank you, Academy!!

--*exit stage right