So my master plan for becoming someone to envy after my divorce isn't working out all that well.
I have levels of ideal floating about in my skull. There's the ultimate ideal (that goes without saying, right?) and then there are a couple levels of ideal that are lower than the ultimate but still very desirable. There are even a couple levels below that where I'd be content. Even my ultimate ideal isn't being ridiculously rich and bored. I tried a taste of that in Las Vegas with X and -- while fun -- it wouldn't be my cup of tea over the long haul. Err....I don't think so, anyway. Hee!
Satisfaction is really my goal. Security. I imagined getting a job that would put me making twice what I'm making now. That still wouldn't very be much but I could move out and live on my own. I could live in a style that, while not luxurious, would be relatively comfortable. Too me, comfortable means traveling a few times a year and seeing the world. As I most likely have more birthdays behind me than in front of me, this is something I'd like to do.
So I thought, what better way to better myself than to go back to school? I thought giving myself some new and updated skills would do the trick. But it hasn't. Even before the recent economic troubles, it hadn't. I've discovered that the skills themselves weren't as relevant as experience is. I know that's not first page news, but I'd hoped -- apparently in vain -- that my decades of experience in other fields would make me a better "bet" than a fledgling graduate right out of college. Looks like in order to really utilize my new skills I have to take a entry level job in the field making $3 less an hour than I currently make. I simply can't do that. I am barely squeaking by as it is and that's WITH a roommate.
Now I'm $4k MORE in debt than I was when I exited my marriage and in no better position. It's frustrating to say the least.
Still, I'm not suffering and I'm not lacking food on the table or a roof over my head. My roommate is really not all that difficult -- in fact he's one of the better ones I've had over the years -- and I am guardedly optimistic that whatever company I eventually end up with will see that the updated skills I've cultivated would be beneficial and at that juncture I'll be compensated for them. I want to think that I haven't done the schooling in vain.
It's funny, though. I'm pursuing other avenues -- contract positions and part-time writing jobs and things I haven't done since college. I was a journalist back then. Who knows....maybe my chops aren't completely gone but are just a bit dusty.
It made me think, though, about happiness. Knowing what you want and going for it with a single-minded determination. That's something I've rarely been able to maintain because I'm much too interested in experiencing all that I can before I shuffle off this mortal coil. While reading one day I came across a blog (http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/01/why-career-planning-is-time-wasted.php) with an article about why career planning is a waste of time and I pondered this quote about miswanting in particular:
"We are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future."The idea of making mistakes about what we might want in the future has been termed 'miswanting' by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). They point to a range of studies finding we are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future....Over time we learn, whether implicitly or explicitly, that we are not that good at predicting the future.
"This means your future self is probably a stranger to you. And, on some level, you know it. That's why it might be hard for an 18 year old to choose their career, but it's a damn sight harder for someone in midlife when limitations have been learnt. This might seem like just another way of saying that people get more cautious as they get older, but it is more than that. It's actually saying that it's not caution that's increasing with age, but implicit self-knowledge. People begin to understand that the future holds vanishingly few certainties, even for those things that would seem to be under our most direct control, like our sandwich preferences."
I DO know and have always known that what I want changes over time. I've never made really solid long-term goals because of that knowledge. I've always thought that made me wishy-washy. Hm. Perhaps it simply means that I'm a lot more self-aware and knowledgeable about myself than the average soul?
Well, it's a great justification anyway. :)
((Song: "Money/That's What I Want" by the Beatles. Lyrics here:
http://www.stevesbeatles.com/songs/money.asp ))
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
We Drank A Toast To Time...
Today would have been my grandmother's 108th birthday. I thought about her a lot this morning, Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" running through my head.
My grandmother was born in 1900 in a small town in the midwest, the youngest of seven children. Her father was French by descent and a farmer as well as a tintyper. His father had died years before from milk sickness, otherwise known as tremetol poisoning - their cows had eaten some white snakeroot. The entire family had grown ill from the milk and because of that, her father never drank milk again as long as he lived. Her mother was of Irish descent and was a Quaker, a decision influenced by a Quaker family whose home she had worked in as a housemaid.
Her parents met during a local fair along the Wabash River in 1885 when her dad stopped her mother to ask if she'd like her picture taken. They married in 1886.
After having three children -- and losing three, one at the age of 2 from an accidental fall into the fireplace and another two at birth -- my grandmother was born when her mother was 40. She was less than two pounds at birth and she told me her father could cradle her in the palm of her hand. He took a shoe box, placed it in the pulled out bottom drawer of a nightstand and moved it near the fire. That was her crib. They didn't expect her to live through the night.
But she lived, all right. She died four months before her 102nd birthday.
Oh, but she lived! Her brother fought in WW1. She rode a horse to school and only attended until the 6th grade. She took a cross country trip in a Model T around 1919 and worked in a shoe factory in the 1920's. She saw both World Wars, the Great Depression, Korea, Vietnam, and the development of aircraft, automobiles, television, cameras, radio, telephones, spacecraft, and computers. That in itself is simply incredible. Would that my life be as far-reaching in scope.
She met my grandfather at 27 but they didn't marry until she was 34. My grandfather's mother had died when he was 12 from influenza so he was the sole provider for his aged grandmother and great-aunt during the Depression and he worked as a mechanic to take care of his womenfolks. After the Depression was over they continued to date. My grandmother waited patiently for him to decide, as was her manner. She was a firm believer in the power of patience. After a few more years had gone by -- six of them! -- though, her patience had run its course. In her no-nonsense manner she told my grandfather, "I've given you leave to decide whether we're to marry. I'm getting no younger and I have waited long enough. If we aren't to marry, I will leave."
They married a few months later.
She lived her life like this. Patience, caring, love, acceptance. She allowed my grandfather to run the family and rarely made the "waves" that modern women make, angsting about decisions and feelings and rights. She didn't consider her choices a sacrifice and she didn't believe that she'd given up any of her own power by allowing these things. My grandfather listened to her counsel, believed in her, leaned on her and was devoted to her. She knew that while my grandfather was the rock of the family, she was the root. She was calm like the port in the storm. She rarely put her foot down with him but when she did, he invariably acceeded to her wishes. They were married 55 years.
I didn't really get to know her until she was in her 70s since I wasn't born until she was in her late 60's. We grew very close after my grandfather died and my love for her was the kind of love that I hold for no one else in the world, save my child. Nothing could shake her; she'd seen and lived through much and there wasn't much about life that surprised her. She told me at her 100th birthday that she thought they should legalize marijuana! She was 4'10" but in her small package she managed to meld pragmatism and childish innocence; a curiosity and appreciation for the wondrousness of living that I don't see often enough. She taught me so very many things.
The last few years of her life were a little rough. She suffered a number of mini-strokes over the last decade of her life and finally a few months shy of her 101st birthday one stroke was bad enough to render her incapacitated and she moved from my parent's home into a nursing facility. Though we were told that her brain had been damaged by the stroke, I wonder sometimes if she was aware enough to know -- in some distant sort of way -- what was happening to her. She'd told me many times over many years that she was ready to die when it came her time and though I understood why she said it, my gut always clenched when she would. She lived this way for about a year before finally succumbing to another massive stroke. It was a blessing and through my grief I knew that she was relieved to have it over and done with.
There are precious few people on this earth that I miss profoundly after they're gone. I don't believe that people persist after death but there is a part of me that wishes that they would, and even hopes that they do. I can see why many religious sorts find an odd sense of comfort in the thought. I thought about my grandmother today and wished with all my heart that I could see her again, if for no other reason than to apologize for my behavior in the face of her decline and death.
When she went into the nursing home I rarely visited her. It reeked of death and decay. It wasn't the reek of her bodily functions so much as the reek of what was inside her, killing her. Her breath smelled dark and rank, like death was her passenger and only her autonomic system and our efforts to sustain her were keeping her fixed here. She had a DNR so she wasn't on machines but she was fed through a feeding tube. Bu none of that would have mattered to me had SHE been there....the light in her eye, I mean. The glint of life still being lived underneath it all. I would have visited much more than I did. As it was, I felt uncomfortable and sad and petty that the glint mattered to me. She looked tired and miserable and I didn't want to be there as witness to her loss of dignity or remember her in that way. So I stayed away. I wish now that I hadn't.
I hope -- if she did know that I didn't come -- I hope that she forgave me. I hope that she understood the whys of it. I'm driving the two hours to her grave tonight. I can visit her in the peace of death. I hope if by some crazy way she's there now, she can see me again.
I love you, grandma. Sleep well.
((Song: "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. Lyrics here:
http://www.afn.org/~afn30091/songs/f/fogelberg-same.htm ))
My grandmother was born in 1900 in a small town in the midwest, the youngest of seven children. Her father was French by descent and a farmer as well as a tintyper. His father had died years before from milk sickness, otherwise known as tremetol poisoning - their cows had eaten some white snakeroot. The entire family had grown ill from the milk and because of that, her father never drank milk again as long as he lived. Her mother was of Irish descent and was a Quaker, a decision influenced by a Quaker family whose home she had worked in as a housemaid.
Her parents met during a local fair along the Wabash River in 1885 when her dad stopped her mother to ask if she'd like her picture taken. They married in 1886.
After having three children -- and losing three, one at the age of 2 from an accidental fall into the fireplace and another two at birth -- my grandmother was born when her mother was 40. She was less than two pounds at birth and she told me her father could cradle her in the palm of her hand. He took a shoe box, placed it in the pulled out bottom drawer of a nightstand and moved it near the fire. That was her crib. They didn't expect her to live through the night.
But she lived, all right. She died four months before her 102nd birthday.
Oh, but she lived! Her brother fought in WW1. She rode a horse to school and only attended until the 6th grade. She took a cross country trip in a Model T around 1919 and worked in a shoe factory in the 1920's. She saw both World Wars, the Great Depression, Korea, Vietnam, and the development of aircraft, automobiles, television, cameras, radio, telephones, spacecraft, and computers. That in itself is simply incredible. Would that my life be as far-reaching in scope.
She met my grandfather at 27 but they didn't marry until she was 34. My grandfather's mother had died when he was 12 from influenza so he was the sole provider for his aged grandmother and great-aunt during the Depression and he worked as a mechanic to take care of his womenfolks. After the Depression was over they continued to date. My grandmother waited patiently for him to decide, as was her manner. She was a firm believer in the power of patience. After a few more years had gone by -- six of them! -- though, her patience had run its course. In her no-nonsense manner she told my grandfather, "I've given you leave to decide whether we're to marry. I'm getting no younger and I have waited long enough. If we aren't to marry, I will leave."
They married a few months later.
She lived her life like this. Patience, caring, love, acceptance. She allowed my grandfather to run the family and rarely made the "waves" that modern women make, angsting about decisions and feelings and rights. She didn't consider her choices a sacrifice and she didn't believe that she'd given up any of her own power by allowing these things. My grandfather listened to her counsel, believed in her, leaned on her and was devoted to her. She knew that while my grandfather was the rock of the family, she was the root. She was calm like the port in the storm. She rarely put her foot down with him but when she did, he invariably acceeded to her wishes. They were married 55 years.
I didn't really get to know her until she was in her 70s since I wasn't born until she was in her late 60's. We grew very close after my grandfather died and my love for her was the kind of love that I hold for no one else in the world, save my child. Nothing could shake her; she'd seen and lived through much and there wasn't much about life that surprised her. She told me at her 100th birthday that she thought they should legalize marijuana! She was 4'10" but in her small package she managed to meld pragmatism and childish innocence; a curiosity and appreciation for the wondrousness of living that I don't see often enough. She taught me so very many things.
The last few years of her life were a little rough. She suffered a number of mini-strokes over the last decade of her life and finally a few months shy of her 101st birthday one stroke was bad enough to render her incapacitated and she moved from my parent's home into a nursing facility. Though we were told that her brain had been damaged by the stroke, I wonder sometimes if she was aware enough to know -- in some distant sort of way -- what was happening to her. She'd told me many times over many years that she was ready to die when it came her time and though I understood why she said it, my gut always clenched when she would. She lived this way for about a year before finally succumbing to another massive stroke. It was a blessing and through my grief I knew that she was relieved to have it over and done with.
There are precious few people on this earth that I miss profoundly after they're gone. I don't believe that people persist after death but there is a part of me that wishes that they would, and even hopes that they do. I can see why many religious sorts find an odd sense of comfort in the thought. I thought about my grandmother today and wished with all my heart that I could see her again, if for no other reason than to apologize for my behavior in the face of her decline and death.
When she went into the nursing home I rarely visited her. It reeked of death and decay. It wasn't the reek of her bodily functions so much as the reek of what was inside her, killing her. Her breath smelled dark and rank, like death was her passenger and only her autonomic system and our efforts to sustain her were keeping her fixed here. She had a DNR so she wasn't on machines but she was fed through a feeding tube. Bu none of that would have mattered to me had SHE been there....the light in her eye, I mean. The glint of life still being lived underneath it all. I would have visited much more than I did. As it was, I felt uncomfortable and sad and petty that the glint mattered to me. She looked tired and miserable and I didn't want to be there as witness to her loss of dignity or remember her in that way. So I stayed away. I wish now that I hadn't.
I hope -- if she did know that I didn't come -- I hope that she forgave me. I hope that she understood the whys of it. I'm driving the two hours to her grave tonight. I can visit her in the peace of death. I hope if by some crazy way she's there now, she can see me again.
I love you, grandma. Sleep well.
((Song: "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. Lyrics here:
http://www.afn.org/~afn30091/songs/f/fogelberg-same.htm ))
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
But You May Feel A Little Sick...
I got a flu shot this season but it's probably not the flu I need to be worrying about. A lot of people in my office have been sick and instead of staying home they come shuffling in, hacking and coughing and sniffling. I can't stay home to avoid them, so I end up swimming in the miasma of germs they cast off. Grrrrreat.
Tis the season and all, right? I know something's going around. The kiddo is home from school today with a sore throat. This time last year I was weeks away from my bout with pneumonia. I don't care to be that sick again. After that I started taking zinc and a multivitamin and gargling with salt water and using a neti pot. Eating more greens and fruits. I took the flu shot when it was offered. Yet I'm thinking my immune system must still be made of tissue paper. I'm not sick -- yet? -- but I've had a headache for the last day and a half and my throat feels a little tender. Damn it, what else can I do? Grrrrr.......
Tonight will be an early night. I'm tired and my health meter feels slightly askew, if you know what I mean. Hopefully a good night's sleep with some aspirin and chicken soup will help.
((Song: "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. Lyrics here:
http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/comfortably-numb-wall-lyrics.html ))
Tis the season and all, right? I know something's going around. The kiddo is home from school today with a sore throat. This time last year I was weeks away from my bout with pneumonia. I don't care to be that sick again. After that I started taking zinc and a multivitamin and gargling with salt water and using a neti pot. Eating more greens and fruits. I took the flu shot when it was offered. Yet I'm thinking my immune system must still be made of tissue paper. I'm not sick -- yet? -- but I've had a headache for the last day and a half and my throat feels a little tender. Damn it, what else can I do? Grrrrr.......
Tonight will be an early night. I'm tired and my health meter feels slightly askew, if you know what I mean. Hopefully a good night's sleep with some aspirin and chicken soup will help.
((Song: "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. Lyrics here:
http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/comfortably-numb-wall-lyrics.html ))
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch
Yo texted me this weekend and asked me out for lunch next weekend.
I kept telling myself I'd ask her but I just kept putting it off. There were all kinds of reasons why it was a good idea for me to do the asking -- be the mature person here, help the transition, make the effort to soothe some jealous edges -- and only one real reason why not to. I didn't want to, there was really nothing to say. But she asked, so I said all right.
Now I know she's trying to fit in because she doesn't feel like there's a place for her. She's looking for me to set her at ease. She wants to make nice. I know all this but really, deep down I never did bother to ask her for any alone time because I don't really have much to say to her. Other than the ex and the kiddo we've got little in common. She's a kid. I am curious, though. I wonder what I'll talk to her about once the 'safe' topic of kiddo is exhausted.
Guess we'll see, huh?
((Song: "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch" by Weird Al Yankovic. Lyrics here:
http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/girlsjustwanttohavelunch.html ))
I kept telling myself I'd ask her but I just kept putting it off. There were all kinds of reasons why it was a good idea for me to do the asking -- be the mature person here, help the transition, make the effort to soothe some jealous edges -- and only one real reason why not to. I didn't want to, there was really nothing to say. But she asked, so I said all right.
Now I know she's trying to fit in because she doesn't feel like there's a place for her. She's looking for me to set her at ease. She wants to make nice. I know all this but really, deep down I never did bother to ask her for any alone time because I don't really have much to say to her. Other than the ex and the kiddo we've got little in common. She's a kid. I am curious, though. I wonder what I'll talk to her about once the 'safe' topic of kiddo is exhausted.
Guess we'll see, huh?
((Song: "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch" by Weird Al Yankovic. Lyrics here:
http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/girlsjustwanttohavelunch.html ))
Thursday, November 13, 2008
If You Try Sometimes, You Just Might Find You Get What You Need...
I've decided to take a more novel approach to a recurring problem that I've been having with my kiddo. The problem is school. She's uninterested and her grades have been slipping. Although some of it can be attributed to her father's wedding (her language teacher said she noticed a rather sharp downturn about three weeks ago and ex said that Yo's son is also acting out a bit at his preschool) I'm not very surprised at this turn of events. Kiddo usually starts out strong and begins to slide. School isn't a priority for her and unlike me, she's never equated good grades with her sense of self-worth...at least not enough to strive for top grades like I did. She just says she doesn't want to.
Barring a lengthy explanation, I've come to the conclusion that grounding her isn't really a long-term solution. While we've grounded her now and she'll stay grounded until she brings her grades up to acceptable levels, I've got this other idea to test.
I'm not really thrilled about it but it's worth a try, especially if one believes (and I do) that part of why my kiddo is so lackluster in the motivation department is because she modeled it after me. I was so driven as a child and young adult and somewhere along the way I stopped being so because I realized that any return I was seeing wasn't worth the effort. I simply downgraded my needs and wants until they matched what effort I was willing to make to realize them. I let my husband take care of me. I stated many times within kiddo's earshot that I was lazy and didn't much care, it was "who I am and I am okay with it."
I know I contributed. So time for me to step up to the plate.
Here's my idea. Since I can't expect her to just suddenly get the desire to buckle down and do the distasteful work just because she's grounded (let me rephrase that; I can expect it of her but it doesn't mean it'll happen) I need to lead with honey and not with vinegar. I've been talking the talk and she knows it. She thinks I'm giving her the vocal equivalent of "do what I say and not what I do." There's no real motivation there.
I need to get her motivated and make her actually want to study so I need to turn it into a situation that'll play on what does inspire her to act. I know she enjoys feeling like she knows more than other people do about some things. She likes a bit of competition. She likes being respected for her ability, and she likes adapting a mentoring stance.
So.....yeah. See, there's this one thing that I've put off forever because I hate doing it so much. I know I should do it but I've made every excuse under the sun for avoiding it. My favorite? "I don't want to." Sheesh. In this, I sound very like my kiddo.
What I'm referring to, of course, is....*shudder*......exercise. Gagggggghhhhhh.
Kiddo knows I feel this way about exercise. She's bugged me for a long time about it but I've blown her off. She's athletic and in JROTC and she's proud of her fitness levels. She feels superior to me for this and it amuses me. Anyway, I feel sure she'll see that if I'm going to voluntarily offer up exercise it's a serious matter indeed and that's exactly what I need her to think. I need her to see that I intend to do more than just talk, but walk the walk.
I see it going something like this: I have to do so much exercise a week, she has to do so much studying. I have to report in to her and I'll make sure to ask for 'tips' from her so she feels like she's mentoring me and making an investment in my success. In return she has to report in to me about her grades. I help her study. She helps me get fit. Ideally, we're each other's cheering section.
I want her to feel like I do when I see her get good grades. I want her sense of competitiveness to rise and I hope that when she gets a real taste of how good it feels to succeed I hope that she'll find it easier to make more of an effort. Maybe if she sees me giving effort to something I despise and becoming better and stronger and more proud of myself for it, maybe she'll be more willing to make the same kind of effort as well.
This might end up being a stupid idea. But the other ways haven't worked so far so when it's broken, you try to fix it, right?
((Song: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones. Lyrics here:
http://www.keno.org/stones_lyrics/you_cant_always_get_what_you_want.htm ))
Barring a lengthy explanation, I've come to the conclusion that grounding her isn't really a long-term solution. While we've grounded her now and she'll stay grounded until she brings her grades up to acceptable levels, I've got this other idea to test.
I'm not really thrilled about it but it's worth a try, especially if one believes (and I do) that part of why my kiddo is so lackluster in the motivation department is because she modeled it after me. I was so driven as a child and young adult and somewhere along the way I stopped being so because I realized that any return I was seeing wasn't worth the effort. I simply downgraded my needs and wants until they matched what effort I was willing to make to realize them. I let my husband take care of me. I stated many times within kiddo's earshot that I was lazy and didn't much care, it was "who I am and I am okay with it."
I know I contributed. So time for me to step up to the plate.
Here's my idea. Since I can't expect her to just suddenly get the desire to buckle down and do the distasteful work just because she's grounded (let me rephrase that; I can expect it of her but it doesn't mean it'll happen) I need to lead with honey and not with vinegar. I've been talking the talk and she knows it. She thinks I'm giving her the vocal equivalent of "do what I say and not what I do." There's no real motivation there.
I need to get her motivated and make her actually want to study so I need to turn it into a situation that'll play on what does inspire her to act. I know she enjoys feeling like she knows more than other people do about some things. She likes a bit of competition. She likes being respected for her ability, and she likes adapting a mentoring stance.
So.....yeah. See, there's this one thing that I've put off forever because I hate doing it so much. I know I should do it but I've made every excuse under the sun for avoiding it. My favorite? "I don't want to." Sheesh. In this, I sound very like my kiddo.
What I'm referring to, of course, is....*shudder*......exercise. Gagggggghhhhhh.
Kiddo knows I feel this way about exercise. She's bugged me for a long time about it but I've blown her off. She's athletic and in JROTC and she's proud of her fitness levels. She feels superior to me for this and it amuses me. Anyway, I feel sure she'll see that if I'm going to voluntarily offer up exercise it's a serious matter indeed and that's exactly what I need her to think. I need her to see that I intend to do more than just talk, but walk the walk.
I see it going something like this: I have to do so much exercise a week, she has to do so much studying. I have to report in to her and I'll make sure to ask for 'tips' from her so she feels like she's mentoring me and making an investment in my success. In return she has to report in to me about her grades. I help her study. She helps me get fit. Ideally, we're each other's cheering section.
I want her to feel like I do when I see her get good grades. I want her sense of competitiveness to rise and I hope that when she gets a real taste of how good it feels to succeed I hope that she'll find it easier to make more of an effort. Maybe if she sees me giving effort to something I despise and becoming better and stronger and more proud of myself for it, maybe she'll be more willing to make the same kind of effort as well.
This might end up being a stupid idea. But the other ways haven't worked so far so when it's broken, you try to fix it, right?
((Song: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones. Lyrics here:
http://www.keno.org/stones_lyrics/you_cant_always_get_what_you_want.htm ))
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Hail To The Chief, Who In Triumph Advances....
The historical election is finally over, and thank goodness! I swore to myself that if I had to sit through another political ad I was going to commit violent atrocities upon myself or others. Some simper, some plead, some accuse, some persuade, some uplift, some tear down. Doesn't really matter to me. All are variations on the same theme. It all comes down to a simple fact -- whether they attempt to use vinegar or honey, they are all trying to attract the same flies.
The whole thing kinda makes my stomach turn.
I don't vote. Can you tell? I'm an apathist. If you push me into a corner I lean toward Libertarian but on the whole I really don't care. Four years is a drop in the bucket. The congress and the senate play heavy roles and the president isn't the law unto himself that a lot of people seem to think he is, though he does get to play the unenviable role of scapegoat when things don't go well. He's like an assistant principal.....he has to be the bad guy out there representin' regardless of what actually happens behind the scenes. Doom- and gloomsayers aside, I don't think our country will go to hell in a handbasket in four years and I don't think (except in rare cases) that a president molds the times as much as the times mold the president.
They'll be a lot of commentary from people about the election and their thoughts on the winner. Obama this, Obama that. Color barrier. Man of change. Whatever. The man won the same way every man before him has won -- mostly on popularity since it's like a high school class president election but with bigger budgets -- and he deserves the same sort of chance that anyone else does. He doesn't have experience? True. He doesn't. But then again, how can I sit in judgement of him? I don't have experience in half of what I do either and that doesn't automatically dictate that I don't have the talent or desire or the plain old ability to do the job regardless of my so-called experience. Convicting him before he's had a chance to step to the plate is very short-sighted and borders on the hypocritical. I can't expect one set of rules to apply to me and another to him so I'm more than willing to see what kind of performance he'll provide before I start spitting vitriol. I would hope others feel the same.
I just hope and pray that some wacko nutjob white supremacist doesn't assassinate him. Besides throwing us back 100 years, that will be bad. Really bad. Lock the front door and wait for things to settle down bad. Please, oh pasty white nutjobs, for the love of all that's holy.....stay locked up in your trailers or bunkers or basements or cellars or wherever the hell you choose to gather. I can't stand the idea that I share a skin color with you and get lumped into the same pile of mashed taters.
And California voted down gay marriage. I won't even go into what I feel about that.
Anyway, the real test will not be the fact that Obama made it into the White House. That part -- though it might not have seemed like it -- was easy. Although there are many people in this country who wish nothing more than the status quo, there are a great many others for whom Obama represents a path we've never taken. I liken it to our tradition of manifest destiny; we feel we have the god-given right to take what we want and we want the prospect of change or the appearance of novelty and progressiveness. It fuels our collective spirits. No, the real test will be whether Obama makes it in again in four years. If there's another thing we Americans tend to do, we fall easily into a sense of ennui. Once we've sampled something we're eager to be on to the next thing. Buy a new car and after a few years we start to notice the strange pings and the missewn upholstery. Soon we're bitching about how the paint is chipping or it doesn't drive like it used to and we're eyeing that new model on the showroom floor.
In four years, Obama will be less the "wowee-gee ain't this new and historic" candidate and more the incumbent president who has either performed well or performed badly. At that time his merits -- or lack thereof -- might have a better chance of obfuscating his color. That will be the true test. This is what I'm very curious about. Will we give Obama a get out of jail free card in four years because he's black? Will we excuse his missteps and praise every little victory because he's black? Will he begin to feel like his abilities are being forgotten in the wake of the swelling tide that is his color and begin to feel like the unspoken end to everyone's sentences are the words "....for a black man?" Or will we crucify his every move and find fault where there is none just to prove that the amorphous 'theys' of the country elected a man because he wasn't a WASP?
Time will tell. I wish the poor man luck. He's gonna need it.
((Song: "Hail To The Chief." Music by James Sanderson, words by Sir Walter Scott. Lyrics here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Chief ))
The whole thing kinda makes my stomach turn.
I don't vote. Can you tell? I'm an apathist. If you push me into a corner I lean toward Libertarian but on the whole I really don't care. Four years is a drop in the bucket. The congress and the senate play heavy roles and the president isn't the law unto himself that a lot of people seem to think he is, though he does get to play the unenviable role of scapegoat when things don't go well. He's like an assistant principal.....he has to be the bad guy out there representin' regardless of what actually happens behind the scenes. Doom- and gloomsayers aside, I don't think our country will go to hell in a handbasket in four years and I don't think (except in rare cases) that a president molds the times as much as the times mold the president.
They'll be a lot of commentary from people about the election and their thoughts on the winner. Obama this, Obama that. Color barrier. Man of change. Whatever. The man won the same way every man before him has won -- mostly on popularity since it's like a high school class president election but with bigger budgets -- and he deserves the same sort of chance that anyone else does. He doesn't have experience? True. He doesn't. But then again, how can I sit in judgement of him? I don't have experience in half of what I do either and that doesn't automatically dictate that I don't have the talent or desire or the plain old ability to do the job regardless of my so-called experience. Convicting him before he's had a chance to step to the plate is very short-sighted and borders on the hypocritical. I can't expect one set of rules to apply to me and another to him so I'm more than willing to see what kind of performance he'll provide before I start spitting vitriol. I would hope others feel the same.
I just hope and pray that some wacko nutjob white supremacist doesn't assassinate him. Besides throwing us back 100 years, that will be bad. Really bad. Lock the front door and wait for things to settle down bad. Please, oh pasty white nutjobs, for the love of all that's holy.....stay locked up in your trailers or bunkers or basements or cellars or wherever the hell you choose to gather. I can't stand the idea that I share a skin color with you and get lumped into the same pile of mashed taters.
And California voted down gay marriage. I won't even go into what I feel about that.
Anyway, the real test will not be the fact that Obama made it into the White House. That part -- though it might not have seemed like it -- was easy. Although there are many people in this country who wish nothing more than the status quo, there are a great many others for whom Obama represents a path we've never taken. I liken it to our tradition of manifest destiny; we feel we have the god-given right to take what we want and we want the prospect of change or the appearance of novelty and progressiveness. It fuels our collective spirits. No, the real test will be whether Obama makes it in again in four years. If there's another thing we Americans tend to do, we fall easily into a sense of ennui. Once we've sampled something we're eager to be on to the next thing. Buy a new car and after a few years we start to notice the strange pings and the missewn upholstery. Soon we're bitching about how the paint is chipping or it doesn't drive like it used to and we're eyeing that new model on the showroom floor.
In four years, Obama will be less the "wowee-gee ain't this new and historic" candidate and more the incumbent president who has either performed well or performed badly. At that time his merits -- or lack thereof -- might have a better chance of obfuscating his color. That will be the true test. This is what I'm very curious about. Will we give Obama a get out of jail free card in four years because he's black? Will we excuse his missteps and praise every little victory because he's black? Will he begin to feel like his abilities are being forgotten in the wake of the swelling tide that is his color and begin to feel like the unspoken end to everyone's sentences are the words "....for a black man?" Or will we crucify his every move and find fault where there is none just to prove that the amorphous 'theys' of the country elected a man because he wasn't a WASP?
Time will tell. I wish the poor man luck. He's gonna need it.
((Song: "Hail To The Chief." Music by James Sanderson, words by Sir Walter Scott. Lyrics here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Chief ))
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Who Started Out So Young And Strong Only To Surrender...
Lately I've felt like giving up. I haven't been filling out job applications and instead I park my ass in front of the TV and stare at it until the day turns into night and its time for bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think about picking up a book but when I do I fall asleep, or get bored, or I think I don't have time to plow through 500 pages.
The frustration I feel is palpable. I want out of my apartment. I want to live by myself and not with a roommate at my age. I want a job that isn't something someone right out of high school can do. I earned a certification in order to change this but I'm learning that since I don't have any experience in the legal field no one will look twice at me.
This frustration and hopelessness paralyzes me. I know that the only way to change it is to....well....change it, because it sure won't change itself. Perhaps I'm just easily discouraged. Perhaps. But I've wondered if I'm not simply falling a bit deeper into what Kübler-Ross says is the fourth state of grief, depression. It seems like I've been here before so who knows, maybe I'm cycling back and forth between anger and acceptance and depression. I'll sure be glad when there's more of the one thing I can't change -- time. The passage of time will help.
Part of me longs for what Springsteen called the "Glory Days." If someone walked up and gave me the choice I wouldn't go back, but still....
When you're young or naive or just feeling full of potential and possibility, experiences are shiny and fresh. Unminted and unexplored. Nearly everything felt incredible or unique. Spending time with friends and bonding over long nights of passionate discussion, or non-stop wisecracks limned with liquor. Hearing them tell their stories for the first time and sharing your own. Discovering other people; discovering yourself in the process. Asking those who, what, where, when and why questions and not despairing if the answers weren't set in stone because you knew you didn't really know the answers anyway...they were only right at that moment and they'd change week to week anyway. Nothing felt immutable or hopeless yet.
That was heady stuff, that was. But like anything else it changes.
Years pass. You know yourself better. You're familiar enough with yourself that you know how you'll react to a lot of things before you even do them. The experiences that enriched you and led you on that voyage of self-discovery seem more like peanut butter and jelly rather than filet mignon. They become commonplace, the stuff of everyday instead of the unusual. You want to feel that same jet-fueled rush of connection that you used to but your senses betray you by dulling the essence of it all. You find yourself telling the same old stories and you listen to your friends tell their same old stories and it doesn't feel comforting any longer, it feels stifling. This disappoints you. You don't like that it does and you try to ignore that it does and you try to enjoy it like you did before. You want to enjoy it like you did before! But you don't as often; it comes only rarely.
Some fight this....this atrophy....by pushing the envelope more and more. Risking. Gathering new experiences. And others would say that if you vary the scenery -- get new friends or new surroundings -- that you can have that glittery newness back again. But I know that moving or swapping friends isn't a permanent solution and I am certainly not a risk taker. Instead, I'm a mourner. I mourn the loss of excitement. I mourn the idea that I have to exchange the people I care about for new models just so I can feel any freshness about life. And above all, I mourn the fact that I am the type of person that simply cannot remember that familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt.
So I don't know if it's apathy or just exhaustion. Which reminds me of another lyric -- "life goes on long after the thrill of livin' is gone." It's hard for me to get excited any more about life lately. There's a quote from some song about that, but it's not coming to me at the moment though it feels right on the tip of my tongue. Oh, wait! -- it's David Bowie's 'Changes' -- "and it seemed the taste was not so sweet."
I hope this means that when I finally get a taste of sweet, it'll be all that much sweeter?
((Song: "The Pretender" by Jackson Browne. Lyrics here:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/jackson-browne/the-pretender.html ))
The frustration I feel is palpable. I want out of my apartment. I want to live by myself and not with a roommate at my age. I want a job that isn't something someone right out of high school can do. I earned a certification in order to change this but I'm learning that since I don't have any experience in the legal field no one will look twice at me.
This frustration and hopelessness paralyzes me. I know that the only way to change it is to....well....change it, because it sure won't change itself. Perhaps I'm just easily discouraged. Perhaps. But I've wondered if I'm not simply falling a bit deeper into what Kübler-Ross says is the fourth state of grief, depression. It seems like I've been here before so who knows, maybe I'm cycling back and forth between anger and acceptance and depression. I'll sure be glad when there's more of the one thing I can't change -- time. The passage of time will help.
Part of me longs for what Springsteen called the "Glory Days." If someone walked up and gave me the choice I wouldn't go back, but still....
When you're young or naive or just feeling full of potential and possibility, experiences are shiny and fresh. Unminted and unexplored. Nearly everything felt incredible or unique. Spending time with friends and bonding over long nights of passionate discussion, or non-stop wisecracks limned with liquor. Hearing them tell their stories for the first time and sharing your own. Discovering other people; discovering yourself in the process. Asking those who, what, where, when and why questions and not despairing if the answers weren't set in stone because you knew you didn't really know the answers anyway...they were only right at that moment and they'd change week to week anyway. Nothing felt immutable or hopeless yet.
That was heady stuff, that was. But like anything else it changes.
Years pass. You know yourself better. You're familiar enough with yourself that you know how you'll react to a lot of things before you even do them. The experiences that enriched you and led you on that voyage of self-discovery seem more like peanut butter and jelly rather than filet mignon. They become commonplace, the stuff of everyday instead of the unusual. You want to feel that same jet-fueled rush of connection that you used to but your senses betray you by dulling the essence of it all. You find yourself telling the same old stories and you listen to your friends tell their same old stories and it doesn't feel comforting any longer, it feels stifling. This disappoints you. You don't like that it does and you try to ignore that it does and you try to enjoy it like you did before. You want to enjoy it like you did before! But you don't as often; it comes only rarely.
Some fight this....this atrophy....by pushing the envelope more and more. Risking. Gathering new experiences. And others would say that if you vary the scenery -- get new friends or new surroundings -- that you can have that glittery newness back again. But I know that moving or swapping friends isn't a permanent solution and I am certainly not a risk taker. Instead, I'm a mourner. I mourn the loss of excitement. I mourn the idea that I have to exchange the people I care about for new models just so I can feel any freshness about life. And above all, I mourn the fact that I am the type of person that simply cannot remember that familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt.
So I don't know if it's apathy or just exhaustion. Which reminds me of another lyric -- "life goes on long after the thrill of livin' is gone." It's hard for me to get excited any more about life lately. There's a quote from some song about that, but it's not coming to me at the moment though it feels right on the tip of my tongue. Oh, wait! -- it's David Bowie's 'Changes' -- "and it seemed the taste was not so sweet."
I hope this means that when I finally get a taste of sweet, it'll be all that much sweeter?
((Song: "The Pretender" by Jackson Browne. Lyrics here:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/jackson-browne/the-pretender.html ))
Monday, October 20, 2008
You Tried Your Best But You Were Only Being You
I've always believed my ex was a bit more emotionally developed than many men, but now I've begun to wonder how much of this development was his own and how much was dependent upon my feeding him the proper signals.
Some months ago the ex and I had a heated phone conversation about his impending nuptials and how fast he'd moved with Yo, and some of my behavior during that call was something I wasn't proud of. I ended up revealing more of my hurt feelings and regrets than I cared to and after it was over and we'd apologized to each other I resolved that I wouldn't let myself lose it like that again. I have my pride.
Since then I've kept that internal promise though it's been much harder recently. Their marriage has stirred up that sleeping giant. Screw friendly; civil is about all I've been able to muster up. One would think that ex knows me well enough to see through my facade but he gave me some cause to wonder last night when he invited me to a dinner at his next-door neighbor's house. This next-door neighbor had many dinners over at his place with me and the ex, and now he wants me to go over there and share dinner with the old neighbor and the new wife? Can you say awkward?
And oh yes, there was the great moment when her boy called my ex "Daddy!"
Maybe later on I'll be able to share a dinner over there but right now I'm too raw and I don't think he gets that because unlike me, he's got distractions and this new family to help him funnel away or cover over any underlying emotions. My reactions to his marriage probably won't make much sense to him -- after all, I was the one that left! I was the one that didn't try to save anything or didn't want to! I was the one that wanted him to find a happier relationship! -- all of that is true in and of itself. But as in anything involving the heart, there's much more to it. I just don't want to have to explain all of it to him.
So I refused dinner. I don't think I could have said no any faster without being rude. I might have skated along the other side of rude even though I tried not to. I left soon thereafter and when he reached around to hug me I pulled away ever so slightly and he just ended up patting my back. I said a quick goodbye and made my escape.
The only way I can continue to do this is to distance myself from the lot of them. I didn't have to before he got married but I do now. I don't like crying myself to sleep at night and I can't let it get to me like that for too much longer. The only way I can keep that from happening is to pull away. The more I cling to the what was, the less I am able to deal with the what it is now, and I have to do that for my own well-being.
I'm sure he'll notice the distance eventually. Maybe he'll even understand it. Hopefully he'll understand it without being told and that for right now and for some time from now, sacrificing the closeness we had is the price that's got to be paid. We can talk about our kiddo. Time will do the rest.
((Song: "Runaground" by James. Lyrics here:
http://www.cmt.com/lyrics/james/runaground/1382514/lyrics.jhtml ))
Some months ago the ex and I had a heated phone conversation about his impending nuptials and how fast he'd moved with Yo, and some of my behavior during that call was something I wasn't proud of. I ended up revealing more of my hurt feelings and regrets than I cared to and after it was over and we'd apologized to each other I resolved that I wouldn't let myself lose it like that again. I have my pride.
Since then I've kept that internal promise though it's been much harder recently. Their marriage has stirred up that sleeping giant. Screw friendly; civil is about all I've been able to muster up. One would think that ex knows me well enough to see through my facade but he gave me some cause to wonder last night when he invited me to a dinner at his next-door neighbor's house. This next-door neighbor had many dinners over at his place with me and the ex, and now he wants me to go over there and share dinner with the old neighbor and the new wife? Can you say awkward?
And oh yes, there was the great moment when her boy called my ex "Daddy!"
Maybe later on I'll be able to share a dinner over there but right now I'm too raw and I don't think he gets that because unlike me, he's got distractions and this new family to help him funnel away or cover over any underlying emotions. My reactions to his marriage probably won't make much sense to him -- after all, I was the one that left! I was the one that didn't try to save anything or didn't want to! I was the one that wanted him to find a happier relationship! -- all of that is true in and of itself. But as in anything involving the heart, there's much more to it. I just don't want to have to explain all of it to him.
So I refused dinner. I don't think I could have said no any faster without being rude. I might have skated along the other side of rude even though I tried not to. I left soon thereafter and when he reached around to hug me I pulled away ever so slightly and he just ended up patting my back. I said a quick goodbye and made my escape.
The only way I can continue to do this is to distance myself from the lot of them. I didn't have to before he got married but I do now. I don't like crying myself to sleep at night and I can't let it get to me like that for too much longer. The only way I can keep that from happening is to pull away. The more I cling to the what was, the less I am able to deal with the what it is now, and I have to do that for my own well-being.
I'm sure he'll notice the distance eventually. Maybe he'll even understand it. Hopefully he'll understand it without being told and that for right now and for some time from now, sacrificing the closeness we had is the price that's got to be paid. We can talk about our kiddo. Time will do the rest.
((Song: "Runaground" by James. Lyrics here:
http://www.cmt.com/lyrics/james/runaground/1382514/lyrics.jhtml ))
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like These
I spoke to BiB last night for the first time in months and he stayed up a little later than usual talking to me. It was nice. Seems he's doing fine. He mentioned that it was an odd coincidence and he thought it funny I should pop on to Trillian after such an extended period away since he'd received a gift from another character, a chest that I'd instructed he be given in the online RPG we used to play together. I mentioned I was surprised he hadn't trashed it and he said no, he'd placed it in one of his chests. So there it is taking up space, something he really hates. That speaks to me. It's always a slight surprise to learn -- no matter how often it happens or how much wisdom you gather as you age -- that what you think and what someone else thinks are not the same.
I'm having a few troubles with the ex being married. I know eventually it'll fade but right now it's right there in my face. I was thinking today about my reaction to it and then wondering how it might feel and how I might react when he and Yo have their own child. I was thinking that it might be harder than I care to think it will.
I know I'm being selfish but in this odd way I always harbored a belief that kiddo would be enough for the ex -- maybe because she's enough for me -- and that he wouldn't want or need to have anything else. Doing it again seems like saying the first time wasn't good enough. Even though I know he views it as expanding her life and giving her other options and I have no doubts that it will, I suppose it just isn't how I'm built. I remember the feeling of having her and how it opened my heart in a certain way that no one before or since had ever been able to do. I remember being very vulnerable. It's no secret I have fears of intimacy -- deep ones -- but with her, I had absolutely no choice or control. It was a roller coaster I couldn't stop and get out of. It was the sccariest and simultaneously most fulfilling thing I had ever experienced.
That, and if I'm honest....having a child together was something we shared. He and I. Our child. We were on that particular roller coaster of fright and exhilaration together and he was the only person that ever really saw me exposed in that manner.
Even though I've wanted him to have what I couldn't give him, it's different now that it's happening and I'm actually feeling him receding from me instead of merely contemplating its possibility. Even though I know rationally that he's not as shallow as these things I am mentally throwing at his feet, my deepest insecurities and fears come out and I translate them into concepts I can understand and nuggets of blame I can place. Mental darts of accusation designed to encourage my own self-pity. Places where I can rest my troubles at someone else's feet instead of picking them up and owning their weight myself. I know that most of this isn't anything HE does or doesn't do but how I'm allowing my own issues to bob to the surface. He's not my husband any longer. I have no chains I can bind him with and no control over his life. I chose this and I was right to choose it. I can't decide to cut him loose and want him to live his life and be happy and still expect him to mourn me and stay true to my memory. It's my responsibility to deal with the small childish part of me that wants that to be so.
I guess I don't really grasp the idea of wanting another child. Who knows, maybe my heart just isn't big enough...or I am less inclined to take risks. Lord knows my choices of men have been 'safe' enough. In my case, many things I attempt to do twice end up cheapening the experience of the first time or rendering it more commonplace. In my heart of hearts, thinking about him having another child makes me feel that our marriage and our child will become less special to him. But again, I'm imprinting my reactions onto him. Having kiddo was the most unique of experiences and I can't imagine caring to repeat it and risk taking away from the memory of that uniqueness by blurring it with or overlapping another.
Then the impatient part of me says to the rest of me: Does it make you feel like you loved him better if you sit and mope about this? You acted like a bitch and when you had the chance you didn't want it. You knew it wasn't right for you. Of course you can afford to act like a martyr for love now that you're 'safe' and you don't really have to risk anything or feel obligated to make any effort. When you were in it, you knew it wasn't really worth it enough to you. So are you angry at him or are you more angry at yourself? Have you not yet reconciled or accepted who you are? And why on earth do you expect him to continue to worship at your altar?
Yes, there is that. That part of me makes a lot more sense and it's the part I'll eventually listen to.
Or to streamline the entire thing: It's like I'm standing at the gravestone of our marriage. The things we did -- get married, have a child -- those things have been done. Pay the proper respect to the dead and don't sully memory by trying to make replacements.
I know that eventually in order to truly move forward, I'm going to have to stop living like a widow. I'm just not quite ready yet.
((Song: "Nobody Told Me" by John Lennon. Lyrics here:
http://www.bagism.com/lyrics/lennon-legend-lyrics.html#NobodyToldMe ))
I'm having a few troubles with the ex being married. I know eventually it'll fade but right now it's right there in my face. I was thinking today about my reaction to it and then wondering how it might feel and how I might react when he and Yo have their own child. I was thinking that it might be harder than I care to think it will.
I know I'm being selfish but in this odd way I always harbored a belief that kiddo would be enough for the ex -- maybe because she's enough for me -- and that he wouldn't want or need to have anything else. Doing it again seems like saying the first time wasn't good enough. Even though I know he views it as expanding her life and giving her other options and I have no doubts that it will, I suppose it just isn't how I'm built. I remember the feeling of having her and how it opened my heart in a certain way that no one before or since had ever been able to do. I remember being very vulnerable. It's no secret I have fears of intimacy -- deep ones -- but with her, I had absolutely no choice or control. It was a roller coaster I couldn't stop and get out of. It was the sccariest and simultaneously most fulfilling thing I had ever experienced.
That, and if I'm honest....having a child together was something we shared. He and I. Our child. We were on that particular roller coaster of fright and exhilaration together and he was the only person that ever really saw me exposed in that manner.
Even though I've wanted him to have what I couldn't give him, it's different now that it's happening and I'm actually feeling him receding from me instead of merely contemplating its possibility. Even though I know rationally that he's not as shallow as these things I am mentally throwing at his feet, my deepest insecurities and fears come out and I translate them into concepts I can understand and nuggets of blame I can place. Mental darts of accusation designed to encourage my own self-pity. Places where I can rest my troubles at someone else's feet instead of picking them up and owning their weight myself. I know that most of this isn't anything HE does or doesn't do but how I'm allowing my own issues to bob to the surface. He's not my husband any longer. I have no chains I can bind him with and no control over his life. I chose this and I was right to choose it. I can't decide to cut him loose and want him to live his life and be happy and still expect him to mourn me and stay true to my memory. It's my responsibility to deal with the small childish part of me that wants that to be so.
I guess I don't really grasp the idea of wanting another child. Who knows, maybe my heart just isn't big enough...or I am less inclined to take risks. Lord knows my choices of men have been 'safe' enough. In my case, many things I attempt to do twice end up cheapening the experience of the first time or rendering it more commonplace. In my heart of hearts, thinking about him having another child makes me feel that our marriage and our child will become less special to him. But again, I'm imprinting my reactions onto him. Having kiddo was the most unique of experiences and I can't imagine caring to repeat it and risk taking away from the memory of that uniqueness by blurring it with or overlapping another.
Then the impatient part of me says to the rest of me: Does it make you feel like you loved him better if you sit and mope about this? You acted like a bitch and when you had the chance you didn't want it. You knew it wasn't right for you. Of course you can afford to act like a martyr for love now that you're 'safe' and you don't really have to risk anything or feel obligated to make any effort. When you were in it, you knew it wasn't really worth it enough to you. So are you angry at him or are you more angry at yourself? Have you not yet reconciled or accepted who you are? And why on earth do you expect him to continue to worship at your altar?
Yes, there is that. That part of me makes a lot more sense and it's the part I'll eventually listen to.
Or to streamline the entire thing: It's like I'm standing at the gravestone of our marriage. The things we did -- get married, have a child -- those things have been done. Pay the proper respect to the dead and don't sully memory by trying to make replacements.
I know that eventually in order to truly move forward, I'm going to have to stop living like a widow. I'm just not quite ready yet.
((Song: "Nobody Told Me" by John Lennon. Lyrics here:
http://www.bagism.com/lyrics/lennon-legend-lyrics.html#NobodyToldMe ))
Sunday, October 12, 2008
...
Ex and Yo came over this evening to drop off a washer and dryer for me. It's our old set; they decided to use Yo's. It got dented on the way over because some nimrod teenager rear-ended them on their way over. His insurance was 2 days expired so ex gets stuck having to deal with his own policy's uninsured motorist coverage. Luckily no one was hurt. I have yet to find out if the washer even works.
I only glanced at ex's ring finger once. A shiny new band replaced the one he wore with me. I'd love to say that I sailed through the meeting with ease and panache but I didn't, not really. I was just fine when they were here excepting I couldn't muster up the words to say congrats like my roommate did. I watched the ex carrying the washer and dryer up the stairs to my apartment and even though Yo was standing right there I had to watch myself from being too overprotective of him. He had been seriously injured a few years ago and small things kept popping up in my head, times when I took care of him and how I've always taken care of him. And even though it's been a year and a half since I moved out and a little less than a year since we divorced, it's a habit that's hard to break.
I wonder when I'll finally be able to fully reconcile my head and my heart or when they will finally seamlessly blend without even the hint of the regression they put me through now. I wonder when I'll be able to say congratulations and leave without turning -- literally or figuratively -- to look behind me.
I wonder when I'll really stop loving him.
I only glanced at ex's ring finger once. A shiny new band replaced the one he wore with me. I'd love to say that I sailed through the meeting with ease and panache but I didn't, not really. I was just fine when they were here excepting I couldn't muster up the words to say congrats like my roommate did. I watched the ex carrying the washer and dryer up the stairs to my apartment and even though Yo was standing right there I had to watch myself from being too overprotective of him. He had been seriously injured a few years ago and small things kept popping up in my head, times when I took care of him and how I've always taken care of him. And even though it's been a year and a half since I moved out and a little less than a year since we divorced, it's a habit that's hard to break.
I wonder when I'll finally be able to fully reconcile my head and my heart or when they will finally seamlessly blend without even the hint of the regression they put me through now. I wonder when I'll be able to say congratulations and leave without turning -- literally or figuratively -- to look behind me.
I wonder when I'll really stop loving him.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
It's An Institute You Can't Disparage...
Shopping with my kiddo was the theme for this past weekend. We went shopping a total of three times without dragging of feet or whining about having to actually go, which -- I believe -- is a record for us. The first time was for a bra. The second was at this cool vintage shop in the arts district. The third was at a ritzy department store's discount outlet. I'll speak of the bra last.
Now my kiddo normally lives in overly baggy jeans and skate shoes and hoodies two sizes too big. Most people who meet her think she's a boy and with good reason. Her hair is cropped short to meet JROTC regs, she doesn't wear makeup, and she wears sports bras that smush her down.
Anyway, she's starting to get interested in "cooler" clothing and things that fit more to size. Yay! We went into a vintage clothing store in the local arts district because it was a way to walk off our root beer drinking binge (kiddo is a root beer fiend and this place had 28 varieties!) We were looking around and I spotted this vintage long-sleeved b&w Lanvin shirt with a street scene on it. On another rack was a v-necked vest, black and shiny "snakeskin" style, that zipped in the back. Both were size 2/4-ish and when kiddo tried them on together they looked fantastic! She fell in love and I knew right then I'd get them both for her xmas present. A little steep, but whatever. I rarely buy anything any more and it was just a great pleasure for me to do it. It's almost like I'm living vicariously through her because she's got the body to wear that stuff and when I had it, I never took advantage.
The third time we went shopping was at a local department store discount outlet. It was during this trip that she tried on a hot pink Anne Klein blazer that looked smashing but was just not cheap enough for my budget after the Lanvin. Kiddo did happen to mention that she'd decided she was happy that her dad was marrying Yo and that the prospect of having a little brother wasn't as bad as she'd originally thought. She told me Yo's son had been talking nonstop to the babysitter about kiddo and that made her feel really good. I told her I thought it was good that she felt that way. And I do. Well, for the most part.
And oh yes.....my ex is getting married this weekend. It's why we went shopping for the bra.
My kiddo is in the wedding but not as one of the bridesmaids, thank goodness. It is sooooo not her style. She's playing the best (wo)man role, standing next to her father. Yo took kiddo out a month or so ago and bought her a black tux to wear that can be used for formal events later on. It's a woman's tux and cut to fit as such -- my kiddo is taller than I am with a lithe frame that very much resembles Katherine Moenning's (who plays Shane from the L Word.) The shirt she got to wear underneath is fuchsia and kiddo loves it. However, the sports bras my kiddo wears just don't work with the shape of the tux so when I picked her up she and I had to go buy a new bra, the first 'real' one she needed to actually size. Coulda knocked me over with a feather when the size she eventually needed was 34D!
All this aside, my feelings concerning the wedding are like a soup, really -- you throw in a little of this and a little of that and even if they don't fit together originally, eventually they make something different. I'm relieved, angry, sad, hopeless, bitter, amused, happy for him, hopeful it works out, replaced, jealous, revolted.....the list goes on and on. I try them on and throw them away like suits. I never know which one I'll be wearing on any given day.
I find myself wondering how soon it will be before Yo gets knocked up. Ex isn't getting any younger and if he waits too long he'll be 60 before the kid would even be out of high school. Kiddo might be getting a half-sibling as well as a step-sibling. There's this part of me that wonders why he feels the need to change what our little family was in order to make kiddo's life 'better.' Making it better implies that whatever he might have told me, he really never believed that kiddo's being an only child was any good. I had the sense of that here and there throughout our marriage but I always thought that one way wasn't any better or worse than the other, just different. It's amazing, how we lived together for 17 years and yet could find ourselves in such completely different places. It's like we never knew each other at all. I know that's not true, but at times it certainly feels like it.
One other niggling thing. I've thought about the time frame he says that he met Yo in but there is something about it that's not quite jiving with what I recall him talking about at the time. I remember him talking about their initial meetings and the aftermath of them months before I moved out. I remember wondering at the time if he wasn't a bit interested in her because of the way the situation played out. Funny, though. He says now he met her a few weeks after I moved out.
He's lying.
You know, that's okay. You'd think -- of all the things that would make me angry and bitter -- that stretch of the truth would be the major sore point. You'd think so. But honestly, it's not. It is knowing that even if he didn't actually cheat, he was guilty enough about what he did feel that he felt he needed to cover over the circumstances of their meeting with the soft cloth of prevarication.
That means he's just as infallible as I am. Now that, I like. Now that is comforting.
((Song: " Love and Marriage" by Frank Sinatra. Lyrics here:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/frank-sinatra/love-and-marriage.html ))
Now my kiddo normally lives in overly baggy jeans and skate shoes and hoodies two sizes too big. Most people who meet her think she's a boy and with good reason. Her hair is cropped short to meet JROTC regs, she doesn't wear makeup, and she wears sports bras that smush her down.
Anyway, she's starting to get interested in "cooler" clothing and things that fit more to size. Yay! We went into a vintage clothing store in the local arts district because it was a way to walk off our root beer drinking binge (kiddo is a root beer fiend and this place had 28 varieties!) We were looking around and I spotted this vintage long-sleeved b&w Lanvin shirt with a street scene on it. On another rack was a v-necked vest, black and shiny "snakeskin" style, that zipped in the back. Both were size 2/4-ish and when kiddo tried them on together they looked fantastic! She fell in love and I knew right then I'd get them both for her xmas present. A little steep, but whatever. I rarely buy anything any more and it was just a great pleasure for me to do it. It's almost like I'm living vicariously through her because she's got the body to wear that stuff and when I had it, I never took advantage.
The third time we went shopping was at a local department store discount outlet. It was during this trip that she tried on a hot pink Anne Klein blazer that looked smashing but was just not cheap enough for my budget after the Lanvin. Kiddo did happen to mention that she'd decided she was happy that her dad was marrying Yo and that the prospect of having a little brother wasn't as bad as she'd originally thought. She told me Yo's son had been talking nonstop to the babysitter about kiddo and that made her feel really good. I told her I thought it was good that she felt that way. And I do. Well, for the most part.
And oh yes.....my ex is getting married this weekend. It's why we went shopping for the bra.
My kiddo is in the wedding but not as one of the bridesmaids, thank goodness. It is sooooo not her style. She's playing the best (wo)man role, standing next to her father. Yo took kiddo out a month or so ago and bought her a black tux to wear that can be used for formal events later on. It's a woman's tux and cut to fit as such -- my kiddo is taller than I am with a lithe frame that very much resembles Katherine Moenning's (who plays Shane from the L Word.) The shirt she got to wear underneath is fuchsia and kiddo loves it. However, the sports bras my kiddo wears just don't work with the shape of the tux so when I picked her up she and I had to go buy a new bra, the first 'real' one she needed to actually size. Coulda knocked me over with a feather when the size she eventually needed was 34D!
All this aside, my feelings concerning the wedding are like a soup, really -- you throw in a little of this and a little of that and even if they don't fit together originally, eventually they make something different. I'm relieved, angry, sad, hopeless, bitter, amused, happy for him, hopeful it works out, replaced, jealous, revolted.....the list goes on and on. I try them on and throw them away like suits. I never know which one I'll be wearing on any given day.
I find myself wondering how soon it will be before Yo gets knocked up. Ex isn't getting any younger and if he waits too long he'll be 60 before the kid would even be out of high school. Kiddo might be getting a half-sibling as well as a step-sibling. There's this part of me that wonders why he feels the need to change what our little family was in order to make kiddo's life 'better.' Making it better implies that whatever he might have told me, he really never believed that kiddo's being an only child was any good. I had the sense of that here and there throughout our marriage but I always thought that one way wasn't any better or worse than the other, just different. It's amazing, how we lived together for 17 years and yet could find ourselves in such completely different places. It's like we never knew each other at all. I know that's not true, but at times it certainly feels like it.
One other niggling thing. I've thought about the time frame he says that he met Yo in but there is something about it that's not quite jiving with what I recall him talking about at the time. I remember him talking about their initial meetings and the aftermath of them months before I moved out. I remember wondering at the time if he wasn't a bit interested in her because of the way the situation played out. Funny, though. He says now he met her a few weeks after I moved out.
He's lying.
You know, that's okay. You'd think -- of all the things that would make me angry and bitter -- that stretch of the truth would be the major sore point. You'd think so. But honestly, it's not. It is knowing that even if he didn't actually cheat, he was guilty enough about what he did feel that he felt he needed to cover over the circumstances of their meeting with the soft cloth of prevarication.
That means he's just as infallible as I am. Now that, I like. Now that is comforting.
((Song: " Love and Marriage" by Frank Sinatra. Lyrics here:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/frank-sinatra/love-and-marriage.html ))
Sunday, September 28, 2008
... Funky Shit Goin' Down In The City...
I've returned from a weekend trip to Baltimore to stay with some friends I hadn't seen in about a decade. I was able to fly free as I had some miles to redeem but my options were so severely limited that it was nothing short of highway robbery (do you realize how many miles you have to log to even get a free flight, for chrissakes?) As a result my trip was very short, only a day and a half. During that time I managed to fit in a nice dinner of Maryland crabcakes and made a day trip to DC.
My impressions of that area of the country weren't very favorable. I don't know that you could pay me enough to live in Baltimore, at least not the east side where my friends do. They have an adorable little brick Cape Cod and the neighborhood was quaint and comfortable but when you got in the car to go anywhere there was something unkempt about the atmosphere that gave me a sense of unease. It felt old.
Don't get me wrong. I love old if it also manages to impart a sense of the place's history. This wasn't that sort of old. This was submissive, squandered old, teetering on that awkward fence between slovenly and dangerous. I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed the company and I enjoyed the time away from my routine but I didn't like Baltimore much.
My trip to DC was very much the same. Driving in through the surrounding neighborhoods we passed rowhouses that reminded me of those in Philadelphia and in Boston. They are -- or could be -- genteel multi-storied bricks with refined lines and black wrought-iron gates. But no. These were painted so garishly that it detracted from the elegance of the old buildings. Bright yellow, mint green or salmon, paint chipping from the windows and tattered curtains. Boys and men hanging out on stoops or crouching under the ironwork.
So you drive on and suddenly you're surrounded by the glamour that is downtown DC. Buildings from the Civil War, the Potomac winding around, the Smithsonian. The White House. Blair House. The Lincoln/Jefferson/Washington Memorials. The Vietnam and Korean War walls.
It's like heads and tails or silver and gold. Opposites. A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps.
I know that all cities have this two-sided coin vibe to them; the rich and poor and the in-betweens live everywhere. I've seen it over and over again. I suppose it became more apparent to me when I was there because it was our nation's capitol. I've always heard that the crime in DC is some of the worst in this country and having seen the neighborhoods I can see why. While I don't believe it justifies crime in any way, shape or form, I am not without empathy and am able to grasp how some would feel quite strongly that to be poor in the city supposed to represent all that is glowing about our nation is the pinnacle of irony.
Still, DC isn't all that and a bag of chips. It's just a city with a lot of power condensed in a relatively small space. As with Baltimore, I wasn't impressed. Wouldn't live there. But it was a nice trip.
((Song: "Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller Band. Lyrics here:
http://www.oracleband.net/Lyrics/jet_airliner.htm ))
My impressions of that area of the country weren't very favorable. I don't know that you could pay me enough to live in Baltimore, at least not the east side where my friends do. They have an adorable little brick Cape Cod and the neighborhood was quaint and comfortable but when you got in the car to go anywhere there was something unkempt about the atmosphere that gave me a sense of unease. It felt old.
Don't get me wrong. I love old if it also manages to impart a sense of the place's history. This wasn't that sort of old. This was submissive, squandered old, teetering on that awkward fence between slovenly and dangerous. I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed the company and I enjoyed the time away from my routine but I didn't like Baltimore much.
My trip to DC was very much the same. Driving in through the surrounding neighborhoods we passed rowhouses that reminded me of those in Philadelphia and in Boston. They are -- or could be -- genteel multi-storied bricks with refined lines and black wrought-iron gates. But no. These were painted so garishly that it detracted from the elegance of the old buildings. Bright yellow, mint green or salmon, paint chipping from the windows and tattered curtains. Boys and men hanging out on stoops or crouching under the ironwork.
So you drive on and suddenly you're surrounded by the glamour that is downtown DC. Buildings from the Civil War, the Potomac winding around, the Smithsonian. The White House. Blair House. The Lincoln/Jefferson/Washington Memorials. The Vietnam and Korean War walls.
It's like heads and tails or silver and gold. Opposites. A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps.
I know that all cities have this two-sided coin vibe to them; the rich and poor and the in-betweens live everywhere. I've seen it over and over again. I suppose it became more apparent to me when I was there because it was our nation's capitol. I've always heard that the crime in DC is some of the worst in this country and having seen the neighborhoods I can see why. While I don't believe it justifies crime in any way, shape or form, I am not without empathy and am able to grasp how some would feel quite strongly that to be poor in the city supposed to represent all that is glowing about our nation is the pinnacle of irony.
Still, DC isn't all that and a bag of chips. It's just a city with a lot of power condensed in a relatively small space. As with Baltimore, I wasn't impressed. Wouldn't live there. But it was a nice trip.
((Song: "Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller Band. Lyrics here:
http://www.oracleband.net/Lyrics/jet_airliner.htm ))
Friday, September 19, 2008
It's My Bar Of Chocolate! Give It To Me! Now!
This week my workplace has placed six giant bags of M&Ms in the freezer for everyone to snack from at will. Now I don't mean giant bags like the ones you get in the store. I mean 48-count fishstick bag size! Everyone who knows me knows that I looooooves me some chocolate so putting this stuff for me to grab right there in my company freezer is like supplying an addict with his daily dose of crack.
I learned today that Hershey's has changed its ingredients in many of its products. It's taken cocoa butter out of many things and replaced it with palm oils. Bah! Cocoa butter is what gives chocolate its creamy texture. Besides tasting better, it offers health benefits by protecting chocolate’s antioxidant properties. What’s more, cocoa butter doesn’t raise cholesterol levels like vegetable oils do.
You can tell what's what by looking at the ingredients. The removal of cocoa butter violates the FDA’s definition of milk chocolate, so look at the label -- if it says “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey” instead of "made with milk chocolate," you know you've got a re-do.
Funny thing though -- I don't know if this is because I've been watching my intake of carbs, but when i got some M&Ms to eat I realized they were making me feel funny. I ate some again today to find out if the result would be identical and it was. Hm. For the first time in a long time I found myself growing a bit uninterested in chocolate! I am thankful for the reaction no matter its origin though, because I needed those bags of M&Ms like a hole in the head.
I don't think they've done this presto-chango with dark chocolate, thank goodness. I rarely eat milk chocolate as it's way too sweet and sticky for me. The recent M&M ingestion was an exception because yeah, there's just something about that candy coating. Hee! Ah, but thank goodness the M&Ms weren't the dark chocolate kind. I would have been lost. Simply lost.
However......
I think once a month I might treat myself to a rich treat just for sticking to my healthier, lower-carb routine. Since chocolate is my drug of choice, where better to start than there? One bar spaced out over each month isn't too drastic and well...chocolate is good for you, especially the dark, deep, intense chocolates that I really love.
So I'll do some research and see what kind of specialty rockin' chocolate I can get for my treat each month. Single origin 60-70% dark preferably, but I'm open to trying new flavor/spice combos as well. I won't mind if it costs me $10, it's a month long savor.
Yay!
(("I Want It Now" by the Oompa Loompas of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Lyrics here:
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/willywonkaandthechocolatefactory/iwantitnowoompaloompa.htm))
I learned today that Hershey's has changed its ingredients in many of its products. It's taken cocoa butter out of many things and replaced it with palm oils. Bah! Cocoa butter is what gives chocolate its creamy texture. Besides tasting better, it offers health benefits by protecting chocolate’s antioxidant properties. What’s more, cocoa butter doesn’t raise cholesterol levels like vegetable oils do.
You can tell what's what by looking at the ingredients. The removal of cocoa butter violates the FDA’s definition of milk chocolate, so look at the label -- if it says “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey” instead of "made with milk chocolate," you know you've got a re-do.
Funny thing though -- I don't know if this is because I've been watching my intake of carbs, but when i got some M&Ms to eat I realized they were making me feel funny. I ate some again today to find out if the result would be identical and it was. Hm. For the first time in a long time I found myself growing a bit uninterested in chocolate! I am thankful for the reaction no matter its origin though, because I needed those bags of M&Ms like a hole in the head.
I don't think they've done this presto-chango with dark chocolate, thank goodness. I rarely eat milk chocolate as it's way too sweet and sticky for me. The recent M&M ingestion was an exception because yeah, there's just something about that candy coating. Hee! Ah, but thank goodness the M&Ms weren't the dark chocolate kind. I would have been lost. Simply lost.
However......
I think once a month I might treat myself to a rich treat just for sticking to my healthier, lower-carb routine. Since chocolate is my drug of choice, where better to start than there? One bar spaced out over each month isn't too drastic and well...chocolate is good for you, especially the dark, deep, intense chocolates that I really love.
So I'll do some research and see what kind of specialty rockin' chocolate I can get for my treat each month. Single origin 60-70% dark preferably, but I'm open to trying new flavor/spice combos as well. I won't mind if it costs me $10, it's a month long savor.
Yay!
(("I Want It Now" by the Oompa Loompas of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Lyrics here:
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/willywonkaandthechocolatefactory/iwantitnowoompaloompa.htm))
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
And The Walls Break, With A Crashing Within
When you're in any relationship there's a lot going on under the surface. There's pushing, pulling, compromising and making do, or saying things you don't really mean just to smooth things over or to keep the peace. Or saying things you do mean at the time because your emotions are swelling and you feel drunkenly full of them. Or maybe the other person's issues or words or proddings have managed to poke you in your own particularly vulnerable areas, and fear of change -- explicitly threatened or implicitly perceived -- drives you to attempt to maintain the status quo.
It sure is exhausting. It really is. It leaves you wondering who the hell you are sometimes. But if you subscribe to the belief that humans rarely do things they don't gain some sort of benefit from -- however twisted it may seem from the outside -- then you must be prepared to admit that all this sturm und drang must be beneficial. It must! Unless you're gaining some sort of cost benefit from doing it, surely the energy you waste and the pieces of your life you give away are not worth it otherwise?
So the next time you reach for your smooth it over paste, take a good look at the person across from you. Then ask yourself.....is it worth it? What needs am I trying to put band-aids on? What am I really getting from all this?
Other than older?
((Song: "Careless Memories" by Duran Duran. Lyrics here:
http://www.geocities.com/ladyxanax13/Lyrics/CarelessMemories.html ))
It sure is exhausting. It really is. It leaves you wondering who the hell you are sometimes. But if you subscribe to the belief that humans rarely do things they don't gain some sort of benefit from -- however twisted it may seem from the outside -- then you must be prepared to admit that all this sturm und drang must be beneficial. It must! Unless you're gaining some sort of cost benefit from doing it, surely the energy you waste and the pieces of your life you give away are not worth it otherwise?
So the next time you reach for your smooth it over paste, take a good look at the person across from you. Then ask yourself.....is it worth it? What needs am I trying to put band-aids on? What am I really getting from all this?
Other than older?
((Song: "Careless Memories" by Duran Duran. Lyrics here:
http://www.geocities.com/ladyxanax13/Lyrics/CarelessMemories.html ))
Saturday, September 13, 2008
And There's A Reason Why I'm Feelin So High
I spent the greater part of the afternoon sitting at a down-home country restaurant chatting with my kiddo. Over chicken and dumplings and coffee for me and root beer for her, we talked about a lot of things. She did most of the talking. Me? I mostly listened. I liked it just fine that way.
Unless you happen to subscribe to the idea of reincarnation that says you're supposed to be living all these chosen lives and doing certain things with each one every time around, you don't pick the people who end up in your family with you. It's random happenstance. You're born and you end up somewhere and you do the best you can and sometimes your best isn't good enough. Sometimes you discover you've ended up with the shoddiest bunch of kooks to ever grace the planet and sometimes your family members end up putting up with you, one of those aforesaid kooks. It's a particularly interesting form of chaos in action.
Parents who have more than one kid -- hell, even parents who don't -- know deep down that they have favorites. They are loathe to admit it but they do and many times the kids are well aware of their parents' favoritism. Some take it personally but others seem to better understand and accept that its origins are not so much anchored in who loves who most, but who likes who most. Parents love their children equally, love just is. But you really get down to the brass tacks of things when you talk about the art of liking. Liking is something that creates friendships out of possibilities. Liking is choice. Liking is when you realize that the person in front of you has something within them that calls to you and that you want to find out what that is. But liking doesn't mean that the person you don't take to as much is a bad person or less worthy of love; it simply means that for one reason or another, two people just seem to feel an inaudible click that two others don't. That is just the way of these things.
I love my kiddo. Dearly, passionately, deeply. But today, as I was listening to her tell me about her school classes, her widening tastes in food, how her best friend needs to stop telling her mother that she hates her and be more positive about life, and how she believes that all bad things that happen end up being beneficial in the end if she just waits them out to see how they pan out, I realized that I truly liked this kid. I liked the person she was now and the person she was in the process of becoming and I couldn't wait to enjoy her as a friend as well as a daughter. I could see the relationship down the road for the two of us would only get better and better and that our personalities meshed for many other reasons than an accident of birth and shared blood.
And life doesn't get any better than that.
((Song: "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers. Lyrics here:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/bellamy-brothers/let-your-love-flow-22054.html ))
Unless you happen to subscribe to the idea of reincarnation that says you're supposed to be living all these chosen lives and doing certain things with each one every time around, you don't pick the people who end up in your family with you. It's random happenstance. You're born and you end up somewhere and you do the best you can and sometimes your best isn't good enough. Sometimes you discover you've ended up with the shoddiest bunch of kooks to ever grace the planet and sometimes your family members end up putting up with you, one of those aforesaid kooks. It's a particularly interesting form of chaos in action.
Parents who have more than one kid -- hell, even parents who don't -- know deep down that they have favorites. They are loathe to admit it but they do and many times the kids are well aware of their parents' favoritism. Some take it personally but others seem to better understand and accept that its origins are not so much anchored in who loves who most, but who likes who most. Parents love their children equally, love just is. But you really get down to the brass tacks of things when you talk about the art of liking. Liking is something that creates friendships out of possibilities. Liking is choice. Liking is when you realize that the person in front of you has something within them that calls to you and that you want to find out what that is. But liking doesn't mean that the person you don't take to as much is a bad person or less worthy of love; it simply means that for one reason or another, two people just seem to feel an inaudible click that two others don't. That is just the way of these things.
I love my kiddo. Dearly, passionately, deeply. But today, as I was listening to her tell me about her school classes, her widening tastes in food, how her best friend needs to stop telling her mother that she hates her and be more positive about life, and how she believes that all bad things that happen end up being beneficial in the end if she just waits them out to see how they pan out, I realized that I truly liked this kid. I liked the person she was now and the person she was in the process of becoming and I couldn't wait to enjoy her as a friend as well as a daughter. I could see the relationship down the road for the two of us would only get better and better and that our personalities meshed for many other reasons than an accident of birth and shared blood.
And life doesn't get any better than that.
((Song: "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers. Lyrics here:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/bellamy-brothers/let-your-love-flow-22054.html ))
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Everybody Loves Me, Baby....What's The Matter With You?
I find box-thinkers more and more irritating as I grow older. You know the types -- without empathy, without tact, without the slightest desire towards self-examination. Assured that their own opinions and thoughts are the only proper and correct ones. Things go over their heads. The blinders they wear prevent them from realizing that there is a vast difference between being correct and being right. I suspect only those who don't understand this difference will be confused by my last sentence.
These sorts of people want to try to help you see the right way of things -- their way, of course. You hear them offer you their help and their opinions, which are often unsolicited and even more often rude and condescending. People don't like the implication that they are considered stupid or irresponsible or unable to decide for themselves. As a rule they don't appreciate hearing that their beliefs and their thoughts and feelings have no validity. The amazing thing is that people who do this honestly believe that they are helping. Helping? Alienating would be a more accurate term.
You always hear that ignorance is bliss. Maybe it is. Parts of me envy the black and white world that these people exist in. It must be nice to move through the world feeling confident that your way is so correct that everyone on the planet would live in bliss if only everyone just listened to you.
But you can be correct and still be very wrong.
(Song: Everybody Loves Me Baby" by Don McLean. Lyrics here:
http://www.don-mclean.com/songsearch/viewsong.asp?id=27))
These sorts of people want to try to help you see the right way of things -- their way, of course. You hear them offer you their help and their opinions, which are often unsolicited and even more often rude and condescending. People don't like the implication that they are considered stupid or irresponsible or unable to decide for themselves. As a rule they don't appreciate hearing that their beliefs and their thoughts and feelings have no validity. The amazing thing is that people who do this honestly believe that they are helping. Helping? Alienating would be a more accurate term.
You always hear that ignorance is bliss. Maybe it is. Parts of me envy the black and white world that these people exist in. It must be nice to move through the world feeling confident that your way is so correct that everyone on the planet would live in bliss if only everyone just listened to you.
But you can be correct and still be very wrong.
(Song: Everybody Loves Me Baby" by Don McLean. Lyrics here:
http://www.don-mclean.com/songsearch/viewsong.asp?id=27))
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sex & Chocolate
Guess which one I'm having?
Chocolate, of course. Sex is highly overrated. And chocolate lasts longer.
* * * * *
Let's see......
roomie is off to the Great Northwest for a week, my BFF is getting hitched tomorrow, I spent the weekend with kiddo and she and I had a great time at Queen's house (who is recovering from major surgery that I hope does her a world of good) watching "Firefly" and "Swingtown" and "Hot Fuzz." By the way, "Swingtown" is a great show! The clothes and the hair and the music, down to the telephones and the shag carpet and the avacado kitchen appliances, are spot on. I'm enjoying it immensely. I remember 1976.
I don't remember the swinging lifestyle, of course. I was way too young for that. I'm also not naive enough to think that all swingers act like Trina and Tom (the couple on the show.) I suppose I am naive enough -- or idealistic enough -- to hope that somewhere out there, there will be a man able to indulge all the different things I need in order to have a full intimate relationship. Tom comes about as close to "that man" as I've seen. Maybe he's out there. But if he is, will I believe that he's really being real?
It appears that a national TV news program is interested in doing a story on the case that I was a juror on. I have no idea what that means. Will I be on TV? Will I just get a phone call one day? Will nothing happen at all? I won't know for a while, I'm sure.
Exh is getting married in two more months. They've set a date but I won't divulge it here. He and I had a bit of a talk about a lot of things after I dropped kiddo off this evening. We went all over the map -- how I felt about his upcoming nuptials, how Yo feels about me and some of her insecurities and strengths, about some of mine, and my thoughts on what needs he was satisfying to go so far so fast with this. I told him I knew he just wants to be married and that I knew it was because he has always needed something outside himself to focus on in order to make life worthwhile. He agreed. And when I revealed that I felt "easily replaced," he said, "You're not easily replaced. Believe me," and we exchanged one of those looks that would have inevitably led to a heated kiss in the movies or on TV. But in real life? -- well, I have no idea what he thought or felt -- but no heat, not really, not on my end. I just felt the sharp tang of regret. Maybe he was feeling that same sort of amalgram.
I've not been writing much lately, mainly because I'm struggling with another phase of that grieving process. I've not really been very talkative to friends or family either, and I know at least some of my friends (notably HD) have noticed. I just don't feel like sounding too much like a broken record until I figure it out.
When I was married I pushed and pushed against the gilded cage I'd built for myself. I wanted freedom and I was profoundly frustrated that I couldn't taste of it from where I was ensconced. I resented the people around me that "prevented" me from being my full authentic self, which I felt would only be released when I was untethered by duty, obligation or guilt.
What I never realized until I got divorced -- and even for a long time after that because I was just so giddy with taking full and free breaths! -- was that "those people" had given my life boundaries. I had a place to feel secure and people that depended upon me. I had a sense of belonging. I knew where I was going and I knew why even if I didn't like it all the time. And most vital -- my life had meaning.
Now I come home every afternoon and look around at my empty apartment and wonder what it all means now that I don't have the people whom I didn't realize until I lost them, meant everything in the world to me. Who am I, now? Where is the meaning, now?
I'll figure it out.
Chocolate, of course. Sex is highly overrated. And chocolate lasts longer.
* * * * *
Let's see......
roomie is off to the Great Northwest for a week, my BFF is getting hitched tomorrow, I spent the weekend with kiddo and she and I had a great time at Queen's house (who is recovering from major surgery that I hope does her a world of good) watching "Firefly" and "Swingtown" and "Hot Fuzz." By the way, "Swingtown" is a great show! The clothes and the hair and the music, down to the telephones and the shag carpet and the avacado kitchen appliances, are spot on. I'm enjoying it immensely. I remember 1976.
I don't remember the swinging lifestyle, of course. I was way too young for that. I'm also not naive enough to think that all swingers act like Trina and Tom (the couple on the show.) I suppose I am naive enough -- or idealistic enough -- to hope that somewhere out there, there will be a man able to indulge all the different things I need in order to have a full intimate relationship. Tom comes about as close to "that man" as I've seen. Maybe he's out there. But if he is, will I believe that he's really being real?
It appears that a national TV news program is interested in doing a story on the case that I was a juror on. I have no idea what that means. Will I be on TV? Will I just get a phone call one day? Will nothing happen at all? I won't know for a while, I'm sure.
Exh is getting married in two more months. They've set a date but I won't divulge it here. He and I had a bit of a talk about a lot of things after I dropped kiddo off this evening. We went all over the map -- how I felt about his upcoming nuptials, how Yo feels about me and some of her insecurities and strengths, about some of mine, and my thoughts on what needs he was satisfying to go so far so fast with this. I told him I knew he just wants to be married and that I knew it was because he has always needed something outside himself to focus on in order to make life worthwhile. He agreed. And when I revealed that I felt "easily replaced," he said, "You're not easily replaced. Believe me," and we exchanged one of those looks that would have inevitably led to a heated kiss in the movies or on TV. But in real life? -- well, I have no idea what he thought or felt -- but no heat, not really, not on my end. I just felt the sharp tang of regret. Maybe he was feeling that same sort of amalgram.
I've not been writing much lately, mainly because I'm struggling with another phase of that grieving process. I've not really been very talkative to friends or family either, and I know at least some of my friends (notably HD) have noticed. I just don't feel like sounding too much like a broken record until I figure it out.
When I was married I pushed and pushed against the gilded cage I'd built for myself. I wanted freedom and I was profoundly frustrated that I couldn't taste of it from where I was ensconced. I resented the people around me that "prevented" me from being my full authentic self, which I felt would only be released when I was untethered by duty, obligation or guilt.
What I never realized until I got divorced -- and even for a long time after that because I was just so giddy with taking full and free breaths! -- was that "those people" had given my life boundaries. I had a place to feel secure and people that depended upon me. I had a sense of belonging. I knew where I was going and I knew why even if I didn't like it all the time. And most vital -- my life had meaning.
Now I come home every afternoon and look around at my empty apartment and wonder what it all means now that I don't have the people whom I didn't realize until I lost them, meant everything in the world to me. Who am I, now? Where is the meaning, now?
I'll figure it out.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
I'm baaaaaaack......
Sorry about the long absence from the blogosphere, which is mostly explained by a long vacation to the Midwest. I returned on Sunday and took yesterday as a much-needed recovery period from the long drives I've done in the past week and a half. All total I drove through eight states and logged more than 2400 miles.
It was tiring but very enjoyable. I travelled with the parents and the kiddo. We travelled first to the midwest state where my brother currently hangs his hat. His home is only a few counties over from the one where the ancestors that carried my maiden name had lived in the 1810s-1850s. I wrote a book about these particular ancestors back in 2004 and have been researching them ever since so needless to say, my interest and excitement were high. My ancestors had all moved away by 1852 except one girl who decided to stay behind with her husband. I wanted to find her family's descendents and their family cemetery so I got the chance to drive through the county they lived in and travel all the little roads that they used.
I managed to locate their old homestead, as well as the cemetery -- but the last, only by sheer serendipity. I stopped at a house about an hour after driving around trying to locate the cemetery, meaning to ask the residents if they knew where it was. Not only did they know, but the house just happened to be the home of the great-great-grandson of the woman I was searching for! Talk about fate. I not only found the cemetery (grown over, way back in the woods, I never would have found it myself) but I also found long-lost kin. Life sure is cool some times.
Kiddo hadn't ever seen the area of the country that I was born, since the last time she was there was when she was only a few years old. I really enjoyed taking her into the woods I used to wander and introducing her to the man that bought them from my grandfather; the one who used to tell me to watch out because "there are bears in them there woods!" We ate wild blackberries and wandered barefoot and didn't have to watch for bugs or snakes or scorpions, which freaked her out because everything is poisonous or stickery in Texas. I introduced her to sweet Midwest corn (instead of this field corn crap here in Texas) and dark red tomatoes as big as softballs. She ate fresh cucumbers she helped my brother pick from the garden and baked bread with flour that my sister-in-law got from the Amish people near their house. We saw beatiful green grassy meadows, acres of corn and soybean fields bursting with bounty, the hills of the Appalachians, dark rich soil with the smell of the earth rising from it, the heavy weight of the humid air, the hoots of mourning doves, the trills of the wrens, and the constant buzzing of cicadas. Home.
I own land there....or will, once my parents deed it to me as they plan to do in order to make sure it remains in our family. It's been in my family for 130 years. I would really like to go back someday. It's mid-america and the people work with their hands in factories and in the fields. They're good hearted and down to earth. Not much market or need for professional jobs there. But when I go back, I feel at home. Who knows what I might do. I do know my daughter loved it and it pleased me. I am glad that -- although she was born and raised here -- that she can feel a bit of love for her mother's roots.
In other news, it appears that exh will get married again this month. A friend of mine heard it from his sister. He hasn't mentioned it to me and I doubt he will until he actually does it. Or I'll hear it secondhand from kiddo. We'll see.
So, I'm back here, and it's back to my old routine. I sure did have a good time.
It was tiring but very enjoyable. I travelled with the parents and the kiddo. We travelled first to the midwest state where my brother currently hangs his hat. His home is only a few counties over from the one where the ancestors that carried my maiden name had lived in the 1810s-1850s. I wrote a book about these particular ancestors back in 2004 and have been researching them ever since so needless to say, my interest and excitement were high. My ancestors had all moved away by 1852 except one girl who decided to stay behind with her husband. I wanted to find her family's descendents and their family cemetery so I got the chance to drive through the county they lived in and travel all the little roads that they used.
I managed to locate their old homestead, as well as the cemetery -- but the last, only by sheer serendipity. I stopped at a house about an hour after driving around trying to locate the cemetery, meaning to ask the residents if they knew where it was. Not only did they know, but the house just happened to be the home of the great-great-grandson of the woman I was searching for! Talk about fate. I not only found the cemetery (grown over, way back in the woods, I never would have found it myself) but I also found long-lost kin. Life sure is cool some times.
Kiddo hadn't ever seen the area of the country that I was born, since the last time she was there was when she was only a few years old. I really enjoyed taking her into the woods I used to wander and introducing her to the man that bought them from my grandfather; the one who used to tell me to watch out because "there are bears in them there woods!" We ate wild blackberries and wandered barefoot and didn't have to watch for bugs or snakes or scorpions, which freaked her out because everything is poisonous or stickery in Texas. I introduced her to sweet Midwest corn (instead of this field corn crap here in Texas) and dark red tomatoes as big as softballs. She ate fresh cucumbers she helped my brother pick from the garden and baked bread with flour that my sister-in-law got from the Amish people near their house. We saw beatiful green grassy meadows, acres of corn and soybean fields bursting with bounty, the hills of the Appalachians, dark rich soil with the smell of the earth rising from it, the heavy weight of the humid air, the hoots of mourning doves, the trills of the wrens, and the constant buzzing of cicadas. Home.
I own land there....or will, once my parents deed it to me as they plan to do in order to make sure it remains in our family. It's been in my family for 130 years. I would really like to go back someday. It's mid-america and the people work with their hands in factories and in the fields. They're good hearted and down to earth. Not much market or need for professional jobs there. But when I go back, I feel at home. Who knows what I might do. I do know my daughter loved it and it pleased me. I am glad that -- although she was born and raised here -- that she can feel a bit of love for her mother's roots.
In other news, it appears that exh will get married again this month. A friend of mine heard it from his sister. He hasn't mentioned it to me and I doubt he will until he actually does it. Or I'll hear it secondhand from kiddo. We'll see.
So, I'm back here, and it's back to my old routine. I sure did have a good time.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
WTF?
I'm seriously grossed out.
There are a lot of good things about my roommate. So far it's been pretty easy living with him, all things considered. He gives me plenty of space and is generally pretty laid back. But sometimes -- like now -- I have to question his sanity. Here's why.
The other night after dinner I was relaxing with a glass of wine and happened to notice he was doing the dishes. He's done them, for the most part, the entire time we've been roommates because he was unemployed until the last month or so. It's been great. Anyway, I looked over and watched him a moment and one of those observations you sometimes have come out of nowhere suddenly struck me: I hadn't heard the water running to fill the sink. So I get up, curious, and go into the kitchen.
I was right, there was no sink full of water. But no. He's standing there, running tepid water, and RINSING the dishes we'd just used! And putting them in the dishwasher to air dry (we don't use it as anything but a drying rack.) I asked him what he was doing, hoping he couldn't possibly be doing what it looked like he was doing. He told me that his ex-girlfriend had told him that if you got to them fast enough you didn't have to wash them. And that I needn't complain about it now because he'd been doing that for a year.
I was stunned. I just stood there speechless.
So sure, I've been under a lot of stress and I'm sure my immune system is a little shaky because of it. I've been figuring that susceptibility was why I've been getting sick more often in the last year. But you know, maybe that's only part of it. Maybe....just maybe....I've been exposed to more as well. Maybe THIS is why I've been sick more this last year than any years previously.
Is he seriously that much of an idiot?
There are a lot of good things about my roommate. So far it's been pretty easy living with him, all things considered. He gives me plenty of space and is generally pretty laid back. But sometimes -- like now -- I have to question his sanity. Here's why.
The other night after dinner I was relaxing with a glass of wine and happened to notice he was doing the dishes. He's done them, for the most part, the entire time we've been roommates because he was unemployed until the last month or so. It's been great. Anyway, I looked over and watched him a moment and one of those observations you sometimes have come out of nowhere suddenly struck me: I hadn't heard the water running to fill the sink. So I get up, curious, and go into the kitchen.
I was right, there was no sink full of water. But no. He's standing there, running tepid water, and RINSING the dishes we'd just used! And putting them in the dishwasher to air dry (we don't use it as anything but a drying rack.) I asked him what he was doing, hoping he couldn't possibly be doing what it looked like he was doing. He told me that his ex-girlfriend had told him that if you got to them fast enough you didn't have to wash them. And that I needn't complain about it now because he'd been doing that for a year.
I was stunned. I just stood there speechless.
So sure, I've been under a lot of stress and I'm sure my immune system is a little shaky because of it. I've been figuring that susceptibility was why I've been getting sick more often in the last year. But you know, maybe that's only part of it. Maybe....just maybe....I've been exposed to more as well. Maybe THIS is why I've been sick more this last year than any years previously.
Is he seriously that much of an idiot?
Thursday, June 19, 2008
And I Thought, "Hello New Shoes!"
I am unlike a lot of women in that I only have less than a dozen pairs of shoes in my closet.
There are my black heels and my white heels, dressy and rarely used. My black flat sandals that tend to slide off my feet so they sit in the back of my shoe tree. I have two pairs of sneakers, one for the angel side of me and one for the devil -- one is a white pair of Keds and the other is a black and white Converse sneaker. Both pairs match all my jeans. There's a pair of camel-colored mules with black tire tread bottoms and a tan pair of Timberlands that squeak with each step. Oh, and a couple of pairs of all purpose suede pumps -- one brown, one black -- that can be dressy with slacks or be just this side of casual with denim. And for very casual, I have this great pair of Premier Italian suede sandals that resemble Birkenstocks. God, they're comfortable.
And last but certainly not least there are my pair of black zip-up ankle boots. They are my go-to shoe; my default when all else fails or I just don't feel like standing there all wishy-washy-ing. They go with absolutely everything and if I had to make the proverbial "on a desert island" choice, these would be what I'd take along.
Until now, I've been very happy with my shoes. All of these pairs have been with me a long time and have had plenty of time to mold to my feet and I like them that way. I know what outfits they all go with and I don't have to stand there in my closet and fret about what shoe to wear with what shirt. I don't have to try. Or think. Or wonder. I just knew.
So imagine my surprise when I realized just last night that I'd left a pair of shoes behind in the Exh's closet! It was the pair I'd grown used to the most. I'd done all the breaking in I'd needed to do with those. They fit me to a T.
Well, at least I thought they had....until I saw Yo wearing them. Apparently she's trying like hell to fit into my shoes.
You know what, though? Looking at those shoes on her feet, I realized something. And no, it wasn't bitterness that she was trying to borrow my shoes. It must be hard to try to fit into someone's else's shoes and walk in them in all the places they used to go with their previous owner. No, those old things have outlived their usefulness to me, so much so that I'd forgotten I even left them behind. I don't have to (much less want to) wear hand-me-downs from someone's else's life. I get the chance to break in another pair.
I'm looking forward to shopping for a new pair of shoes.
((Song: "New Shoes" by Paolo Nutini. Lyrics here:
http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/paolo_nutini/new_shoes/))
There are my black heels and my white heels, dressy and rarely used. My black flat sandals that tend to slide off my feet so they sit in the back of my shoe tree. I have two pairs of sneakers, one for the angel side of me and one for the devil -- one is a white pair of Keds and the other is a black and white Converse sneaker. Both pairs match all my jeans. There's a pair of camel-colored mules with black tire tread bottoms and a tan pair of Timberlands that squeak with each step. Oh, and a couple of pairs of all purpose suede pumps -- one brown, one black -- that can be dressy with slacks or be just this side of casual with denim. And for very casual, I have this great pair of Premier Italian suede sandals that resemble Birkenstocks. God, they're comfortable.
And last but certainly not least there are my pair of black zip-up ankle boots. They are my go-to shoe; my default when all else fails or I just don't feel like standing there all wishy-washy-ing. They go with absolutely everything and if I had to make the proverbial "on a desert island" choice, these would be what I'd take along.
Until now, I've been very happy with my shoes. All of these pairs have been with me a long time and have had plenty of time to mold to my feet and I like them that way. I know what outfits they all go with and I don't have to stand there in my closet and fret about what shoe to wear with what shirt. I don't have to try. Or think. Or wonder. I just knew.
So imagine my surprise when I realized just last night that I'd left a pair of shoes behind in the Exh's closet! It was the pair I'd grown used to the most. I'd done all the breaking in I'd needed to do with those. They fit me to a T.
Well, at least I thought they had....until I saw Yo wearing them. Apparently she's trying like hell to fit into my shoes.
You know what, though? Looking at those shoes on her feet, I realized something. And no, it wasn't bitterness that she was trying to borrow my shoes. It must be hard to try to fit into someone's else's shoes and walk in them in all the places they used to go with their previous owner. No, those old things have outlived their usefulness to me, so much so that I'd forgotten I even left them behind. I don't have to (much less want to) wear hand-me-downs from someone's else's life. I get the chance to break in another pair.
I'm looking forward to shopping for a new pair of shoes.
((Song: "New Shoes" by Paolo Nutini. Lyrics here:
http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/paolo_nutini/new_shoes/))
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Let's All Celebrate and Have A Good Time
Tonight I submitted my last assignment for school. I will find out by Wednesday if I passed, although my other grade in this segment of the course was an A so I would have had to fail miserably to get anything other than a passing grade. So for all intents and purposes, I have graduated. I've earned my paralegal certificate.
Now on to the resume building and the recruiters and the job searching and the interviewing. Oh joy. With any luck, I'll find a great job within a year and me and the roommate can go our separate ways and I can find a great place to call my own.
I've got a rum and coke in my hand and the stress has slipped off my shoulders. For the moment, life's looking and feeling pretty good.
((Song: "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang. Lyrics here:
http://www.oracleband.net/Lyrics/celebration.htm ))
Now on to the resume building and the recruiters and the job searching and the interviewing. Oh joy. With any luck, I'll find a great job within a year and me and the roommate can go our separate ways and I can find a great place to call my own.
I've got a rum and coke in my hand and the stress has slipped off my shoulders. For the moment, life's looking and feeling pretty good.
((Song: "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang. Lyrics here:
http://www.oracleband.net/Lyrics/celebration.htm ))
Friday, June 13, 2008
All Those People, All Those Lives
Things are going better now. All my tests came back normal, even my thyroid. Well, borderline normal. I firmly believe that my thyroid has been spiking and when it does, it sends me into these crazy, shaky episodes. Whether or not my labwork shows me anything concrete, I know my own body and I know that I am symptomatic on occasion. I am pleased that I don't have any serious health issues -- my MRI looks fine as does my nerve conduction tests -- so I will be extra vigilant and pay extra attention to my symptoms when they occur. My doctor will retest me in 2 months and we'll go from there. In the meantime I'll do some research for natural ways to self-regulate. I'm also considering yoga classes. Getting some flexibility back and some meditative time sure sounds attractive about now. I have to admit I'm feeling better just knowing I can retain some control. Goodness, I'm Type A. Hah!
I've planned a family vacation for the end of July to visit my brother and his wife as well as a few more scattered family members. My parents and the kiddo and I are heading to the land of my birth; the Midwest. I have lived in Texas for 3/4ths of my life but the Midwest has always remained my "center" no matter how much family I establish here. My family lived in the Midwest since 1839 -- almost 160 years on the same piece of land. There is a marker from the state commemorating this fact on the front part of our property. My parents own part of that land and they intend to deed it to me in the next five years so that in case they should have unforeseen medical expenses and/or go to a nursing home, the state cannot take the land from them to pay debt. I don't know that I'll ever live there again -- there's virtually no job market and it's very agrarian -- but it is important to me. Each time I've ventured back (1982, 1995, 2001) I've felt this tug in my soul akin to a spiritual coming home and it shakes me to the core every time. I love that place. Who knows....I might build there when I retire.
Anyway, I'm an avid genealogist and have been for the last sixteen years; one of my points of pride has been the book I've written about my family. It was based on an ancestor of mine and his fifteen children. I traced the lineage of all fifteen so it took me eight years to complete and when all was said and done, it consisted of a little over 3000 people. This ancestor lived in the Northeast, then moved to the Midwest as well but in a different state than the one I was speaking of earlier. I never expected to see this area for myself because I had no real reason to go there.....until now. Why? Because by an odd twist of fate my world-traveling brother and his wife (they once lived in the foothills of the Himalayas) decided to settle in the Midwest. The two of them had not read my book and were not aware of the state our ancestor had once lived in, but by damned if they didn't go and buy a house 30 miles away from the county where he once lived! Isn't that incredible?
I'm excited as hell because now I get to traipse through courthouses and cemeteries and libraries full of old documents and pedigrees. I get to walk the land that he did. I get to see if I can locate graves of aunts and uncles and cousins. I will do all this with my daughter in tow and hopefully she too will grow to appreciate these tangible threads of family when she sees the excitement in my face. When she was younger she called them "Mom's Dead People." Yeah, they are. But they're all alive in us.
((Song: "Cemetary Gates" by the Smiths. Lyrics here:
http://www.davemcnally.com/lyrics/TheSmiths/CEMETERYGATES(239).asp ))
I've planned a family vacation for the end of July to visit my brother and his wife as well as a few more scattered family members. My parents and the kiddo and I are heading to the land of my birth; the Midwest. I have lived in Texas for 3/4ths of my life but the Midwest has always remained my "center" no matter how much family I establish here. My family lived in the Midwest since 1839 -- almost 160 years on the same piece of land. There is a marker from the state commemorating this fact on the front part of our property. My parents own part of that land and they intend to deed it to me in the next five years so that in case they should have unforeseen medical expenses and/or go to a nursing home, the state cannot take the land from them to pay debt. I don't know that I'll ever live there again -- there's virtually no job market and it's very agrarian -- but it is important to me. Each time I've ventured back (1982, 1995, 2001) I've felt this tug in my soul akin to a spiritual coming home and it shakes me to the core every time. I love that place. Who knows....I might build there when I retire.
Anyway, I'm an avid genealogist and have been for the last sixteen years; one of my points of pride has been the book I've written about my family. It was based on an ancestor of mine and his fifteen children. I traced the lineage of all fifteen so it took me eight years to complete and when all was said and done, it consisted of a little over 3000 people. This ancestor lived in the Northeast, then moved to the Midwest as well but in a different state than the one I was speaking of earlier. I never expected to see this area for myself because I had no real reason to go there.....until now. Why? Because by an odd twist of fate my world-traveling brother and his wife (they once lived in the foothills of the Himalayas) decided to settle in the Midwest. The two of them had not read my book and were not aware of the state our ancestor had once lived in, but by damned if they didn't go and buy a house 30 miles away from the county where he once lived! Isn't that incredible?
I'm excited as hell because now I get to traipse through courthouses and cemeteries and libraries full of old documents and pedigrees. I get to walk the land that he did. I get to see if I can locate graves of aunts and uncles and cousins. I will do all this with my daughter in tow and hopefully she too will grow to appreciate these tangible threads of family when she sees the excitement in my face. When she was younger she called them "Mom's Dead People." Yeah, they are. But they're all alive in us.
((Song: "Cemetary Gates" by the Smiths. Lyrics here:
http://www.davemcnally.com/lyrics/TheSmiths/CEMETERYGATES(239).asp ))
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Venting....
Sick again. Sore throat and the beginning of congestion. I've got no more sick time because of the pneumonia I had in January and precious little vacation time because of the trial. And here it is only June.
I'm stressed to the max. I'm imagining things I never used to consider at all -- health issues, general obsessiveness. I feel on edge all the time. My sleeping patterns are strange; anyone who knows me knows I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and stay asleep all night, but recently I've started waking many times during the night and tossing and turning. I don't get restful sleep, which I know is incredibly important.
So far I can't seem to get rid of all my worries completely, but I've definitely noticed that I can "talk" myself down. That's a start. I've got thyroid issues and I hope once they're addressed it'll be one more help to getting myself back on track. And two more weeks of school. Two more! Yay!
It occurred to me the other night that unlike all the other times in my life, I have no one to fall back on. If I get sick and don't have vacation time, I lose wages. If I get really sick, there is no one there to help me. I took on more debt to get another job so now I have more bills than I ever used to when I was single way back when. I am solely and utterly responsible for myself.
While on one level this exhilarates me, on another level, I am terrified. My safety net is gone. I never realized how fucking easy my life had been married to Exh and how much I'd taken for granted until I started worrying that a few days off work meant my bills wouldn't get paid. I cried last night, feeling frightened and alone, wishing I'd stayed married so I wouldn't have to worry. Behind all this bravado I'm just another scared little girl.
I'm stressed to the max. I'm imagining things I never used to consider at all -- health issues, general obsessiveness. I feel on edge all the time. My sleeping patterns are strange; anyone who knows me knows I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and stay asleep all night, but recently I've started waking many times during the night and tossing and turning. I don't get restful sleep, which I know is incredibly important.
So far I can't seem to get rid of all my worries completely, but I've definitely noticed that I can "talk" myself down. That's a start. I've got thyroid issues and I hope once they're addressed it'll be one more help to getting myself back on track. And two more weeks of school. Two more! Yay!
It occurred to me the other night that unlike all the other times in my life, I have no one to fall back on. If I get sick and don't have vacation time, I lose wages. If I get really sick, there is no one there to help me. I took on more debt to get another job so now I have more bills than I ever used to when I was single way back when. I am solely and utterly responsible for myself.
While on one level this exhilarates me, on another level, I am terrified. My safety net is gone. I never realized how fucking easy my life had been married to Exh and how much I'd taken for granted until I started worrying that a few days off work meant my bills wouldn't get paid. I cried last night, feeling frightened and alone, wishing I'd stayed married so I wouldn't have to worry. Behind all this bravado I'm just another scared little girl.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
It's A Nice Day For A White Wedding
My roommate has a job now, finally, so I get an average of three hours alone every day after I get home from work. It's been fantastic! Of course when I finish with my own school and secure a "real" job I won't have that time, but then again, I'll be making plans to find a place by myself. I'll be a big girl!
There was this issue I haven't mentioned it in here yet because I wanted to make sure it was happening before I did? I mentioned it first in my post of 6 May and mentioned it a few times thereafter. Well, it seems like it's happening so I might as well just address it. Looks like Exh is going to ask Yo to marry him.
Yes, indeed. To marry him.
I can't begin to list the reasons why it's just an unwise decision at this juncture. Really, do I even have to?
When I first mentioned it here in early May the kiddo was having a difficult time adjusting to it. This was not because of Yo, since they get along well enough, but because of Yo's 3-yr old son. Kiddo's been an only child her whole life and seeing the amount of time her father had to spend on this boy was arousing her jealousy and insecurity. When she found out Kiddo posted a not-so-nice bulletin complete with expletives on her MySpace page, forgetting that Yo would also receive it as she was one of her Friends. (I'll admit to a secret giggle about that here, but to kiddo's face I made different noises, heh.)
In the last month Exh and I have had ample opportunity to discuss the changes. I've had a bit of time to sort through most of my own feelings about it and though they're not gone by any means, they've subsided a bit. All petty jealousies and insecurities aside, I do earnestly hope he finds in her what he didn't get from me, and that this is not the rebounding mistake it appears to be, and that he finds happiness. Everyone deserves that in their lives. More importantly, my kiddo's adjusted to it. She is very much like me in that we don't take to change easily. When confronted by any change in our routines our first instinct is to buck and resist, but when we have a while to think things through we usually come around to adjusting quite well.
I've done more than my share in helping to accomplish kiddo's adjustment. She's a very loyal person and I was aware she needed me to adjust first so she didn't fear that enjoying all that would come her way wouldn't be disloyal to me. It's been very hard for me to do that when inside I feel a host of conflicting emotions, but I've done it. I wanted to help her see that there's more benefit to be had from embracing others and letting them enrich your life than in being insular. I wanted to give her permission to enjoy benefits that could range from possibly having a half-sibling of her own as well as having Yo's son for a step-brother.
There was another incident that happened this week involving Yo's insecurities with me, but I'll leave that for another day. As it is, they probably will not marry for a year or so. He hasn't asked her yet but they've discussed it. He tells me he intends to ask her soon but also mentioned it would be a while before they actually marry because he told her to go ahead and sign a year's lease on an apartment a month ago. So a lot can happen between now and then.
In the meantime, my responsibility is to my kiddo. I'm not dividing my time between her and some guy and I don't need to consider anyone else's feelings but hers, so I'm in a good position to make sure she adjusts well to everything that happens around her.
Don't think I didn't make sure the exh knew that regardless of my feelings about his decision, I was going to present a supportive and encouraging face to kiddo. First off, I refuse to be one of those ex-spouses that denigrate the other or try to pit the children against the other to make themselves the favorite. And secondly, it gives me the high road and believe me, in our marriage, I didn't have it often so I'm sure enjoying walking it now!
I had my moments of satisfaction, though. Don't think for a minute I didn't remind him about all the years he'd spent insisting he'd never be one of those types to ignore the reality of a situation because he fell into the trap of thinking it was different for him and different from everyone else's experiences.
And I relished another, most enjoyable morsel: I made sure he knew that I knew that all that posturing was just holier than thou bullshit and that he could be a dumbass just like the rest of us.
God, that makes me feel good. Is that wrong? :D
((Song: "White Wedding" by Billy Idol. Lyrics here:
http://www.asfradio.com/lyrics.asp?ctype=4885 ))
There was this issue I haven't mentioned it in here yet because I wanted to make sure it was happening before I did? I mentioned it first in my post of 6 May and mentioned it a few times thereafter. Well, it seems like it's happening so I might as well just address it. Looks like Exh is going to ask Yo to marry him.
Yes, indeed. To marry him.
I can't begin to list the reasons why it's just an unwise decision at this juncture. Really, do I even have to?
When I first mentioned it here in early May the kiddo was having a difficult time adjusting to it. This was not because of Yo, since they get along well enough, but because of Yo's 3-yr old son. Kiddo's been an only child her whole life and seeing the amount of time her father had to spend on this boy was arousing her jealousy and insecurity. When she found out Kiddo posted a not-so-nice bulletin complete with expletives on her MySpace page, forgetting that Yo would also receive it as she was one of her Friends. (I'll admit to a secret giggle about that here, but to kiddo's face I made different noises, heh.)
In the last month Exh and I have had ample opportunity to discuss the changes. I've had a bit of time to sort through most of my own feelings about it and though they're not gone by any means, they've subsided a bit. All petty jealousies and insecurities aside, I do earnestly hope he finds in her what he didn't get from me, and that this is not the rebounding mistake it appears to be, and that he finds happiness. Everyone deserves that in their lives. More importantly, my kiddo's adjusted to it. She is very much like me in that we don't take to change easily. When confronted by any change in our routines our first instinct is to buck and resist, but when we have a while to think things through we usually come around to adjusting quite well.
I've done more than my share in helping to accomplish kiddo's adjustment. She's a very loyal person and I was aware she needed me to adjust first so she didn't fear that enjoying all that would come her way wouldn't be disloyal to me. It's been very hard for me to do that when inside I feel a host of conflicting emotions, but I've done it. I wanted to help her see that there's more benefit to be had from embracing others and letting them enrich your life than in being insular. I wanted to give her permission to enjoy benefits that could range from possibly having a half-sibling of her own as well as having Yo's son for a step-brother.
There was another incident that happened this week involving Yo's insecurities with me, but I'll leave that for another day. As it is, they probably will not marry for a year or so. He hasn't asked her yet but they've discussed it. He tells me he intends to ask her soon but also mentioned it would be a while before they actually marry because he told her to go ahead and sign a year's lease on an apartment a month ago. So a lot can happen between now and then.
In the meantime, my responsibility is to my kiddo. I'm not dividing my time between her and some guy and I don't need to consider anyone else's feelings but hers, so I'm in a good position to make sure she adjusts well to everything that happens around her.
Don't think I didn't make sure the exh knew that regardless of my feelings about his decision, I was going to present a supportive and encouraging face to kiddo. First off, I refuse to be one of those ex-spouses that denigrate the other or try to pit the children against the other to make themselves the favorite. And secondly, it gives me the high road and believe me, in our marriage, I didn't have it often so I'm sure enjoying walking it now!
I had my moments of satisfaction, though. Don't think for a minute I didn't remind him about all the years he'd spent insisting he'd never be one of those types to ignore the reality of a situation because he fell into the trap of thinking it was different for him and different from everyone else's experiences.
And I relished another, most enjoyable morsel: I made sure he knew that I knew that all that posturing was just holier than thou bullshit and that he could be a dumbass just like the rest of us.
God, that makes me feel good. Is that wrong? :D
((Song: "White Wedding" by Billy Idol. Lyrics here:
http://www.asfradio.com/lyrics.asp?ctype=4885 ))
Monday, May 26, 2008
Try To Realize It's All Within Yourself
Eh, life's been throwing me a few curve balls lately.
I've been dealing with a number of strange "symptoms" over the last month, some of which are almost assuredly physical and some that might have their origins in anxiety. I've experienced a number of warm flushed feelings, following by shortness of breath and numbness and tingling in my hands and arms.
The symptoms I've just described, I've decided, are probably 90% anxiety. I went to the ER last month when I experienced them for the first time and they ran a CT scan and an EKG and did blood tests. Then they sent me for a stress test. The tests all came back normal....at least I thought they had. More about that in a moment.
For the last couple weeks, my right shoulder's been painful. I've experienced numbness from the shoulder to my fingertips on that hand. You know that place in between the time that your limb goes numb and the time it wakes up and gets tingly and painful? Where it burns with that heated feeling and you know it's about to hurt? That's how it's felt for the most part. It gets tingly too, but mostly just burns.
And lastly, on two separate occasions, I've had difficulty getting the thoughts I think to come out of my mouth in the normal amount of time it takes for me to speak. In other words, things seem to slow down and I have to think extra hard and concentrate a bit more in order for my mouth to form the sounds. This has scared me both times because -- to be frank -- it reminds me sharply of my grandmother's TIAs. TIAs are tiny strokes.
So, I went to a doctor that was recommended to me. He asked that I gather all my medical records and send them to him -- a first for any PCP I've seen. I liked him! He was thorough and spoke to me of where I felt I was mentally as well as physically. Another first. Then he looked at my medical records from the ER visit and let me know that my thyroid and liver functions were a bit abnormal.
Really now? I wonder why they didn't mention that when I was there? Damned people. I am sure that my thyroid is causing a bit of this stuff but how much I won't be sure.
My doc let me know he was most concerned about my speech and my shoulder. He scheduled some lab work for me (thyroid, cholesterol, liver) and then he's going to set me up for an MRI to rule out any brain issues that might be causing the speech thing. We'll also do an EMG (electromyography) on the shoulder to see if I might have a pinched nerve. Those 2-3 weeks of neck pain a couple months ago or so might have been another sign of this, who knows.
Anyway.....
There is the anxiety issue. I've managed to calm myself through one of these episodes of flushing and stuff, so I suspect anxiety is at the root of some of it. I'm ashamed to admit it, but my paranoia about medical procedures due to my coding on the table during my hysterectomy and my fear of dying just compound and make me anxious to the point of silliness.
I refuse to take any anti-anxiety meds unless I can't get a handle on it myself, so I'm going to take this step by step and first look into yoga to try to ease my anxiety and learn to self-soothe. I've been under a lot of stress lately -- more than I think -- and I've always prided myself on being generally mellow. Hell, I've always thought I was extremely so! But it appears I might be more like my high strung mother than I thought.
I'm too young for this shit. I've got a good life. I have a great kiddo and a budding fantastic relationship. I have schooling that's almost over and a chance to start a new career and have a new place of my own.
Jesus, no wonder I'm stressing.
Bedtime now. More later.
((Song: "Within You Without You" by the Beatles. Lyrics here:
http://www.stevesbeatles.com/songs/within_you_without_you.asp ))
I've been dealing with a number of strange "symptoms" over the last month, some of which are almost assuredly physical and some that might have their origins in anxiety. I've experienced a number of warm flushed feelings, following by shortness of breath and numbness and tingling in my hands and arms.
The symptoms I've just described, I've decided, are probably 90% anxiety. I went to the ER last month when I experienced them for the first time and they ran a CT scan and an EKG and did blood tests. Then they sent me for a stress test. The tests all came back normal....at least I thought they had. More about that in a moment.
For the last couple weeks, my right shoulder's been painful. I've experienced numbness from the shoulder to my fingertips on that hand. You know that place in between the time that your limb goes numb and the time it wakes up and gets tingly and painful? Where it burns with that heated feeling and you know it's about to hurt? That's how it's felt for the most part. It gets tingly too, but mostly just burns.
And lastly, on two separate occasions, I've had difficulty getting the thoughts I think to come out of my mouth in the normal amount of time it takes for me to speak. In other words, things seem to slow down and I have to think extra hard and concentrate a bit more in order for my mouth to form the sounds. This has scared me both times because -- to be frank -- it reminds me sharply of my grandmother's TIAs. TIAs are tiny strokes.
So, I went to a doctor that was recommended to me. He asked that I gather all my medical records and send them to him -- a first for any PCP I've seen. I liked him! He was thorough and spoke to me of where I felt I was mentally as well as physically. Another first. Then he looked at my medical records from the ER visit and let me know that my thyroid and liver functions were a bit abnormal.
Really now? I wonder why they didn't mention that when I was there? Damned people. I am sure that my thyroid is causing a bit of this stuff but how much I won't be sure.
My doc let me know he was most concerned about my speech and my shoulder. He scheduled some lab work for me (thyroid, cholesterol, liver) and then he's going to set me up for an MRI to rule out any brain issues that might be causing the speech thing. We'll also do an EMG (electromyography) on the shoulder to see if I might have a pinched nerve. Those 2-3 weeks of neck pain a couple months ago or so might have been another sign of this, who knows.
Anyway.....
There is the anxiety issue. I've managed to calm myself through one of these episodes of flushing and stuff, so I suspect anxiety is at the root of some of it. I'm ashamed to admit it, but my paranoia about medical procedures due to my coding on the table during my hysterectomy and my fear of dying just compound and make me anxious to the point of silliness.
I refuse to take any anti-anxiety meds unless I can't get a handle on it myself, so I'm going to take this step by step and first look into yoga to try to ease my anxiety and learn to self-soothe. I've been under a lot of stress lately -- more than I think -- and I've always prided myself on being generally mellow. Hell, I've always thought I was extremely so! But it appears I might be more like my high strung mother than I thought.
I'm too young for this shit. I've got a good life. I have a great kiddo and a budding fantastic relationship. I have schooling that's almost over and a chance to start a new career and have a new place of my own.
Jesus, no wonder I'm stressing.
Bedtime now. More later.
((Song: "Within You Without You" by the Beatles. Lyrics here:
http://www.stevesbeatles.com/songs/within_you_without_you.asp ))
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Time Out...
Sorry about my absence. Dealing with a few health issues and more than a few homework assignments. Will return as soon as all that gets straightened out.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Ah Ha! I Knew It!
Grrrrrrr.......
---
How Fat Works
Question: The masses of fat in our bodies are made up of millions of individual cells called adipocytes. There are two differences between fat stores in obese and in lean people. Obese people have a larger total number of fat cells, and their individual fat cells are larger, plumper, fuller of fat. What is it that controls these differences? Is there, perhaps, a hormone that signals fat cells to multiply as we gain weight or to stop multiplying as we shed pounds? Or maybe fat cells are like brain cells, and we acquire a number of them early on that remains constant in adulthood?
New research: The answer to these questions was a complete mystery until the publication in Nature this month of this new research. The answers it provides may result in an entirely new way to promote weight loss or gain. The study depends on finding a way to determine the age of the fat cells that make up fatty tissues. The method is an extremely clever one; the researchers made use of the small amount of radioactive contamination absorbed by people who lived during the era of aboveground nuclear weapons testing, from 1955 until testing was banned in 1963.
Findings: Using their method, the authors of the study showed that by the time we end adolescence, our number of adipocytes has been set. Heavy people begin adulthood with more fat cells, and lighter people with fewer, and the numbers won't change as we age or as we become more obese or leaner. The only thing that does change, if we gain or lose weight, is how plump with fat each cell becomes. Meanwhile, however, even though the total adipocyte number remains constant, the cells themselves don't just sit there getting bigger and smaller. Instead, they constantly turn over. Whether you are heavy or lean, losing weight or gaining it, the same rule applies—every year about 10 percent of your body's fat cells die, and they are replaced by the same number of new ones.
Conclusion: We have no idea yet what controls and regulates the one-for-one turnover rate of fat cells. But if we could find and readjust the control mechanism—for example, setting it to replace an annual loss of 10 percent of fat cells with only 8 percent of new cells—we might find a whole new approach to the treatment of obesity. This research is likely to lead us in that direction.
---
How Fat Works
Question: The masses of fat in our bodies are made up of millions of individual cells called adipocytes. There are two differences between fat stores in obese and in lean people. Obese people have a larger total number of fat cells, and their individual fat cells are larger, plumper, fuller of fat. What is it that controls these differences? Is there, perhaps, a hormone that signals fat cells to multiply as we gain weight or to stop multiplying as we shed pounds? Or maybe fat cells are like brain cells, and we acquire a number of them early on that remains constant in adulthood?
New research: The answer to these questions was a complete mystery until the publication in Nature this month of this new research. The answers it provides may result in an entirely new way to promote weight loss or gain. The study depends on finding a way to determine the age of the fat cells that make up fatty tissues. The method is an extremely clever one; the researchers made use of the small amount of radioactive contamination absorbed by people who lived during the era of aboveground nuclear weapons testing, from 1955 until testing was banned in 1963.
Findings: Using their method, the authors of the study showed that by the time we end adolescence, our number of adipocytes has been set. Heavy people begin adulthood with more fat cells, and lighter people with fewer, and the numbers won't change as we age or as we become more obese or leaner. The only thing that does change, if we gain or lose weight, is how plump with fat each cell becomes. Meanwhile, however, even though the total adipocyte number remains constant, the cells themselves don't just sit there getting bigger and smaller. Instead, they constantly turn over. Whether you are heavy or lean, losing weight or gaining it, the same rule applies—every year about 10 percent of your body's fat cells die, and they are replaced by the same number of new ones.
Conclusion: We have no idea yet what controls and regulates the one-for-one turnover rate of fat cells. But if we could find and readjust the control mechanism—for example, setting it to replace an annual loss of 10 percent of fat cells with only 8 percent of new cells—we might find a whole new approach to the treatment of obesity. This research is likely to lead us in that direction.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
You’re in Living Color, It's Your Picture Show...
I went out for coffee last night with Music Man (MM for short), my guitarist ex-coworker. We met at a Starbucks about five minutes from his place and ended up spending a little over an hour drinking and chatting.
He looked the same as I remembered though it's been at least three or four years since we saw each other last. He's only a few years younger than me but no gray yet in his hair, which was still more than a few inches below shoulder length and pulled back in his characteristic ponytail. When he walked in the 'Bucks and saw me in the corner his face lit up in this fantastic grin. That was quite nice to see.
We spent a very pleasant hour or so catching up. I didn't notice too many awkward pauses and topics ranged anywhere from my kiddo to my divorce, to his job and stints in bands and touring, to world events, religion and politics, and our thoughts on relationships. We asked each other why? a lot and reminisced about days at the workplace. We caught each other up on mutual friends and told each other where we were at mentally at this point in our lives.
It wasn't a date. I paid for mine, he paid for his. Neither one of us treated it like a date though I have to admit, he is a very attractive man. I thought so years ago and still think so today. It's funny, though....he just about covers every sort of man I would have never considered dating. Long hair? No dependable employment? A musician? A democrat? A confirmed bachelor?
If he asked me out, I'd go. I like him well enough to continue to spend some time with him. There are more than a few things that would probably make us incompatible over time, but that's not something I'm too concerned about given my thoughts about how I should approach this new phase in my life. I want relaxed, casual, no frills. I listened to him talk about his thoughts about dating and what he wanted and though he was vague, he came across slightly wistful, as if he was about ready to do all the things I've already done and that maybe we're trading places in that arena. I've gone the marriage and family route, he hasn't. He's gone the loner route; I haven't.
Whatever. I enjoyed the time I spent with him. I didn't sense much if any underlying chemistry of attraction between us, though -- he was always a hard read and last night was no different. I've never been sure whether he even found me attractive at all. That doesn't give me too much to bank on as far as going out with him in any aspect other than good friends.
That reminds me of a conversation that HD and I had last night on IM. HD told me that air of reticience that MM had was a good thing; that the sense of mystery he gave me made me all the more interested in him. HD said that it was good for a man to treat me less like a sex object and more like he was pleased to be in my company. Ah, my dear smart HD.
So yes, that's all right, it's nice (not to mention safe) for the men I surround myself with to treat me in a relaxed manner. We had a great time and we spoke of meeting up again soon when he played a gig with his band in the town where I used to live. As we left and we hugged and I breathed in his nice scent, he told me that next time he'd try to get to my neck of the woods.
I think I'll be looking forward to that.
((Song: "Movie Man" by the Osmonds. Lyrics here:
http://thefamily.com/thefamily.com/theplan/songs/movieman.html ))
He looked the same as I remembered though it's been at least three or four years since we saw each other last. He's only a few years younger than me but no gray yet in his hair, which was still more than a few inches below shoulder length and pulled back in his characteristic ponytail. When he walked in the 'Bucks and saw me in the corner his face lit up in this fantastic grin. That was quite nice to see.
We spent a very pleasant hour or so catching up. I didn't notice too many awkward pauses and topics ranged anywhere from my kiddo to my divorce, to his job and stints in bands and touring, to world events, religion and politics, and our thoughts on relationships. We asked each other why? a lot and reminisced about days at the workplace. We caught each other up on mutual friends and told each other where we were at mentally at this point in our lives.
It wasn't a date. I paid for mine, he paid for his. Neither one of us treated it like a date though I have to admit, he is a very attractive man. I thought so years ago and still think so today. It's funny, though....he just about covers every sort of man I would have never considered dating. Long hair? No dependable employment? A musician? A democrat? A confirmed bachelor?
If he asked me out, I'd go. I like him well enough to continue to spend some time with him. There are more than a few things that would probably make us incompatible over time, but that's not something I'm too concerned about given my thoughts about how I should approach this new phase in my life. I want relaxed, casual, no frills. I listened to him talk about his thoughts about dating and what he wanted and though he was vague, he came across slightly wistful, as if he was about ready to do all the things I've already done and that maybe we're trading places in that arena. I've gone the marriage and family route, he hasn't. He's gone the loner route; I haven't.
Whatever. I enjoyed the time I spent with him. I didn't sense much if any underlying chemistry of attraction between us, though -- he was always a hard read and last night was no different. I've never been sure whether he even found me attractive at all. That doesn't give me too much to bank on as far as going out with him in any aspect other than good friends.
That reminds me of a conversation that HD and I had last night on IM. HD told me that air of reticience that MM had was a good thing; that the sense of mystery he gave me made me all the more interested in him. HD said that it was good for a man to treat me less like a sex object and more like he was pleased to be in my company. Ah, my dear smart HD.
So yes, that's all right, it's nice (not to mention safe) for the men I surround myself with to treat me in a relaxed manner. We had a great time and we spoke of meeting up again soon when he played a gig with his band in the town where I used to live. As we left and we hugged and I breathed in his nice scent, he told me that next time he'd try to get to my neck of the woods.
I think I'll be looking forward to that.
((Song: "Movie Man" by the Osmonds. Lyrics here:
http://thefamily.com/thefamily.com/theplan/songs/movieman.html ))
Monday, May 12, 2008
It's Istanbul, not Constantinople...
I'm so proud of myself! I did what I said I'd do and left my old coworker (I should say ex-coworker, since he's not old) a voicemail last night, saying I'd like to get together for coffee sometime this week if he had the time and inclination.
He called this afternoon while I was at work and we spoke briefly to set it up. We'll be meeting up for coffee tomorrow night to chat a bit and catch up with each other's lives.
It's not a date, people.
((Song: "Istanbul" by They Might Be Giants. Lyrics here:
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~yavuzcet/lyrics.htm))
He called this afternoon while I was at work and we spoke briefly to set it up. We'll be meeting up for coffee tomorrow night to chat a bit and catch up with each other's lives.
It's not a date, people.
((Song: "Istanbul" by They Might Be Giants. Lyrics here:
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~yavuzcet/lyrics.htm))
Friday, May 9, 2008
Dating And Mating
I may have discovered what caused my little medical incident a few weeks ago. I was eating sunflower seeds and suddenly got that same warm flush/rapid heartbeat feeling I did the last time. Thinking about it, I remembered using those sunflower seeds in the power bars I'd made and ate an hour or so before my first incident. So hm, am I allergic to sunflower seeds? Maybe so. I do know I'll avoid them from now on, that's for sure. Maybe I'll go in for testing as well.
Still stewing on that issue I mentioned in my last post. I would love to speak more of it but until I get solid assurances I'll leave my thoughts and speculations floating around in my head. It's probably best that I do so, since to do otherwise would be akin to vomiting up a maelstrom of internal conflictions upon this page. I'll be better able to practice the art of restraint in my words at a later date.
The cute juror hasn't called and I am quite sure he won't. As I said, that's okay. I put myself out there and that was the point, after all. I moved beyond my comfort zone a little -- at least that's how Irish referred to it today during a conversation we were having. I think I'll move beyond it a little more and give my old co-worker a call like I said I'd do and go grab a coffee with him. Jesus, it's not like I plan to marry the guy!
Speaking of that, I've been doing some thinking about my reactions to the idea of "dating" and I've come to see that it's never been in me to casually date. I don't really know how! I ended up engaged to the first man I ever really dated. I had a few relationships (2) in between, all serious that broke up for one reason or another, then married the ex. And now here I am. I found something a while ago that I'd written as a teenager that was in response to something my mother had said about dating around. I said that I didn't want to do that, that being in a relationship was what I planned to do and to be serious. I certainly meant what I said, didn't I!
So that is my goal -- my growth experience, if you will. I need to practice the art of casual dating instead of using my normal barometer, which essentially is not consenting to go out with any man that I wouldn't consider a long term choice if it should evolve that direction. I know myself and know that I tend not to make the best choices when my heart becomes involved. I've always thought that making sure the man is decent at the outset was a good weeding process to perform before I get emotions in the mix instead of later on, when I'm swimming in a hormonally stupid fog.
I'm not going to say this will be easy, nor will it be something I'm just going to jump into willy-nilly. I am certainly not in any rush whatsoever. I am still a choosy woman and always will be. I don't want to get involved at this point in my life and I have other directions I intend to go that I've never bothered to pursue before -- my long-ignored career for one. Most importantly I have my daughter. I have no doubt that soon she'll demand even more of my time and attention and I have both to give to her without hesitation. She and I are developing what I think will become an amazing relationship and I won't push it aside for anything in the world.
All I'm saying is this: my ex mother in law told me last night to leave my heart open. This coming from a woman who's spent the entire time I've known her (20 years) completely alone. She's met a man and she's feeling attractive and strong for the first time in a long time and I could hear her joy through the phone last night. She told me she understood my fears of hurting others like I hurt her son, and that I was a wonderful woman who didn't need to shut down or close off and do what she'd done, but just take the time I need to heal and regroup and then move forward in life instead of standing still. I'm older now and wiser than I used to be and I know to listen to my elders with an open ear. So maybe I should listen to her.
Still stewing on that issue I mentioned in my last post. I would love to speak more of it but until I get solid assurances I'll leave my thoughts and speculations floating around in my head. It's probably best that I do so, since to do otherwise would be akin to vomiting up a maelstrom of internal conflictions upon this page. I'll be better able to practice the art of restraint in my words at a later date.
The cute juror hasn't called and I am quite sure he won't. As I said, that's okay. I put myself out there and that was the point, after all. I moved beyond my comfort zone a little -- at least that's how Irish referred to it today during a conversation we were having. I think I'll move beyond it a little more and give my old co-worker a call like I said I'd do and go grab a coffee with him. Jesus, it's not like I plan to marry the guy!
Speaking of that, I've been doing some thinking about my reactions to the idea of "dating" and I've come to see that it's never been in me to casually date. I don't really know how! I ended up engaged to the first man I ever really dated. I had a few relationships (2) in between, all serious that broke up for one reason or another, then married the ex. And now here I am. I found something a while ago that I'd written as a teenager that was in response to something my mother had said about dating around. I said that I didn't want to do that, that being in a relationship was what I planned to do and to be serious. I certainly meant what I said, didn't I!
So that is my goal -- my growth experience, if you will. I need to practice the art of casual dating instead of using my normal barometer, which essentially is not consenting to go out with any man that I wouldn't consider a long term choice if it should evolve that direction. I know myself and know that I tend not to make the best choices when my heart becomes involved. I've always thought that making sure the man is decent at the outset was a good weeding process to perform before I get emotions in the mix instead of later on, when I'm swimming in a hormonally stupid fog.
I'm not going to say this will be easy, nor will it be something I'm just going to jump into willy-nilly. I am certainly not in any rush whatsoever. I am still a choosy woman and always will be. I don't want to get involved at this point in my life and I have other directions I intend to go that I've never bothered to pursue before -- my long-ignored career for one. Most importantly I have my daughter. I have no doubt that soon she'll demand even more of my time and attention and I have both to give to her without hesitation. She and I are developing what I think will become an amazing relationship and I won't push it aside for anything in the world.
All I'm saying is this: my ex mother in law told me last night to leave my heart open. This coming from a woman who's spent the entire time I've known her (20 years) completely alone. She's met a man and she's feeling attractive and strong for the first time in a long time and I could hear her joy through the phone last night. She told me she understood my fears of hurting others like I hurt her son, and that I was a wonderful woman who didn't need to shut down or close off and do what she'd done, but just take the time I need to heal and regroup and then move forward in life instead of standing still. I'm older now and wiser than I used to be and I know to listen to my elders with an open ear. So maybe I should listen to her.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
We The Jury
I was finally released from jury duty yesterday evening. I served on a criminal trial, one that (I've been told) received a bit of national attention. It's certainly garnered more than enough attention from the news media in my area of the country. Having avoided the news and radios and the like for the last week, I was not aware of its import in the legal world. I'll be interested in reading about the precedent it may or may not have established as the weeks progress.
I can only say that I did what I was charged to do: follow the law. It wasn't pleasant, it certainly wasn't easy, and sometimes it didn't feel "right" -- and I mean that in the moral sense. I was uncomfortably close with the case at times because the defendant in the case reminded me so much of someone close to me, situationally speaking. But given the facts and the law, we had no choice but to do what we did. I've heard people casually pass judgment on what a person should serve or if they should be convicted or worse, say that if they had served on that jury that it would have been easy for them to just render a decision. I say that any person that can say that has either never served on a criminal jury -- where people's real lives and their families are deeply and permanently affected -- or does not have a vital and necessary component to be an effective jury member: compassion.
That might sound counterproductive. But it is not. Having compassion does not mean that one is incapable of following the law. It does not mean that one would follow one's gut instincts and not be able to peer into the objective facts and abide by the rules that our justice system has put in place. Having compassion is vital because without it, our justice system and the people in it lose their heart. No one holding someone's life in your hands as you weigh the facts should be without it.
I did what I knew I had to do, for the victim and for the defendant. I am comfortable with my decision and it is my passionate hope that some good may come out of it. I had to accept the consequences -- one of which was the opportunity for one of the victim's family members to yell at me and tell me that I made a stupid decision. But my objectivity, and that of the jury I served with, was vital in this case -- and in others -- lest we become a nation of vigilantes and murderers in the name of revenge and pain and loss. I would not like to see that happen.
I chose the legal profession to go into, before doing this....before understanding what it meant. I think I chose the right profession. It's going to be hard, but I feel it's the right choice for me. I also feel that everyone should do what I just had to do. I truly believe that feeling the pain of agonizing over the fact that you hold a person's life in your hands has made me think differently. I think it would be one of those lessons that changes a person. It certainly has changed me.
And oh yes, I met a cute juror. I gave him my number unsolicited by him -- the first time I've ever done that in my entire life! He won't call, I have this feeling that he won't call, but that's all right. It was the doing that was the important thing. Whether he calls or not, I've lost nothing, and I gained a bit of confidence.
And there's another matter heavy on my mind, but that I will save for another day soon. I suspect that within a week I'll be making that matter well known.
I can only say that I did what I was charged to do: follow the law. It wasn't pleasant, it certainly wasn't easy, and sometimes it didn't feel "right" -- and I mean that in the moral sense. I was uncomfortably close with the case at times because the defendant in the case reminded me so much of someone close to me, situationally speaking. But given the facts and the law, we had no choice but to do what we did. I've heard people casually pass judgment on what a person should serve or if they should be convicted or worse, say that if they had served on that jury that it would have been easy for them to just render a decision. I say that any person that can say that has either never served on a criminal jury -- where people's real lives and their families are deeply and permanently affected -- or does not have a vital and necessary component to be an effective jury member: compassion.
That might sound counterproductive. But it is not. Having compassion does not mean that one is incapable of following the law. It does not mean that one would follow one's gut instincts and not be able to peer into the objective facts and abide by the rules that our justice system has put in place. Having compassion is vital because without it, our justice system and the people in it lose their heart. No one holding someone's life in your hands as you weigh the facts should be without it.
I did what I knew I had to do, for the victim and for the defendant. I am comfortable with my decision and it is my passionate hope that some good may come out of it. I had to accept the consequences -- one of which was the opportunity for one of the victim's family members to yell at me and tell me that I made a stupid decision. But my objectivity, and that of the jury I served with, was vital in this case -- and in others -- lest we become a nation of vigilantes and murderers in the name of revenge and pain and loss. I would not like to see that happen.
I chose the legal profession to go into, before doing this....before understanding what it meant. I think I chose the right profession. It's going to be hard, but I feel it's the right choice for me. I also feel that everyone should do what I just had to do. I truly believe that feeling the pain of agonizing over the fact that you hold a person's life in your hands has made me think differently. I think it would be one of those lessons that changes a person. It certainly has changed me.
And oh yes, I met a cute juror. I gave him my number unsolicited by him -- the first time I've ever done that in my entire life! He won't call, I have this feeling that he won't call, but that's all right. It was the doing that was the important thing. Whether he calls or not, I've lost nothing, and I gained a bit of confidence.
And there's another matter heavy on my mind, but that I will save for another day soon. I suspect that within a week I'll be making that matter well known.
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