To put it mildly, I am a fan of the postscript. Otherwise known as the P.S. I have been know to write letters and emails with P.S.s longer than the body of the letter or email. I understand that the lengthy P.S. sort of defeats the purpose but it's one of my quirks. Deal with it.
Any way, I digress. I saw my best girl this weekend for our annual holiday baking gala and get together where we exchange Christmas gifts. A few days before our bake-a-thon, I sent her the link to my Day 51 entry titled "Manderly again." On Saturday, after our kitchen toiling was finished, she gave me a t-shirt that read ""Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
Throughout our 20 plus year friendship, we've never discussed Rebecca--the book or movie from whence the quote came. After opening my gift, I remarked that she really must have ordered the t-shirt fast, thinking that it was chosen in response to my blog entry. She ordered it months ago and had not gotten around to reading my Day 51 entry. (The horror, the horror, I know.)
A sign? Coincidence?
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Day 51: Manderley again
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”*
I have a stuffy head and sore throat so last night, I took some stuffy-head-so-you-can-rest medicine. Okay, the Walgreen's version of the stuffy-head-so-you-rest medicine but in the "death-green" original formula.** It knocked me out and back into the arms of the ONE WHO GOT AWAY. Also known as the ONE WHO CHOSE SOMEONE ELSE.
The first part of the dream was him lamenting everything that he gave up by choosing to be the GOOD GUY WHO STAYED. Passion, intimacy, himself. His true self. He continued to wage this internal war in my dream. Until finally, he snuck in and then out of Germany and back into Detroit, which in my dream apparently borders Germany and Canada. He and his friend were chased by German border agents and after their successful escape to my kitchen, the friend disappeared and the ONE took me in his arms (and on the kitchen counter tops.)
It was during the sweet-spot of this dream that the dream took another twist. As dreams are wont to do. In between passionate, longing kisses, he told me that he often thought of me, especially during play group or when reading a parenting manual when a mom named Julie was mentioned. And my heart dropped. Into my knees. With disappointment.
Then, the slow beep that builds into a series of loud beeps that is my alarm clock. Pulling me from the magic of his arms, from figuring out why the context of which he thought of me made my heart drop, from hearing all the other ways that he thought of me, from having him choose me, to be with me. To be with me for more than one night, for more than a few stolen hours.
And then all day, I am haunted. The elevator door opens as I leave the parking garage at the Greektown Casino Hotel and the first word that I hear is Chicago. Where we met, from whence he hails. Then, this long, rambling discussion with myself on the way into work. Chicago is a popular, storied city that is often mentioned. As is California. It's not unusual that people, books, music, and movies reference Chicago or San Francisco or California. It does not mean anything. There are no signs. There are only hard, cold facts from which to draw a harder, colder conclusion.
And here I am. Still at work. 90 minutes past quitting time. Still haunted.
*From Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
**Dennis O'Leary, No Cure for Cancer
I have a stuffy head and sore throat so last night, I took some stuffy-head-so-you-can-rest medicine. Okay, the Walgreen's version of the stuffy-head-so-you-rest medicine but in the "death-green" original formula.** It knocked me out and back into the arms of the ONE WHO GOT AWAY. Also known as the ONE WHO CHOSE SOMEONE ELSE.
The first part of the dream was him lamenting everything that he gave up by choosing to be the GOOD GUY WHO STAYED. Passion, intimacy, himself. His true self. He continued to wage this internal war in my dream. Until finally, he snuck in and then out of Germany and back into Detroit, which in my dream apparently borders Germany and Canada. He and his friend were chased by German border agents and after their successful escape to my kitchen, the friend disappeared and the ONE took me in his arms (and on the kitchen counter tops.)
It was during the sweet-spot of this dream that the dream took another twist. As dreams are wont to do. In between passionate, longing kisses, he told me that he often thought of me, especially during play group or when reading a parenting manual when a mom named Julie was mentioned. And my heart dropped. Into my knees. With disappointment.
Then, the slow beep that builds into a series of loud beeps that is my alarm clock. Pulling me from the magic of his arms, from figuring out why the context of which he thought of me made my heart drop, from hearing all the other ways that he thought of me, from having him choose me, to be with me. To be with me for more than one night, for more than a few stolen hours.
And then all day, I am haunted. The elevator door opens as I leave the parking garage at the Greektown Casino Hotel and the first word that I hear is Chicago. Where we met, from whence he hails. Then, this long, rambling discussion with myself on the way into work. Chicago is a popular, storied city that is often mentioned. As is California. It's not unusual that people, books, music, and movies reference Chicago or San Francisco or California. It does not mean anything. There are no signs. There are only hard, cold facts from which to draw a harder, colder conclusion.
And here I am. Still at work. 90 minutes past quitting time. Still haunted.
*From Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
**Dennis O'Leary, No Cure for Cancer
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Day 50: Time, memory, and endings
Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated and perplexed by the construct of time. The measurement of time, the passage of time. The idea that time exists as a limitless quantity, as the Rolling Stones famously sang that time is somehow on our side. We waste it and squander it and tell ourselves that there is always tomorrow.
Based on the Brit's recommendation, I began reading Julian Barnes' "the sense of an ending" last night and finished the final 18 pages this morning. I was hooked from the first words to the last sentence on page 163. At 163 total pages, Barnes' style could be characterized as economical but yet it is so densely packed with exactly the right words that conveyed the fungiblity of time, the fragility of memory, the mirage of change.
I admire it for both its technical brilliance and its haunting resonance. Take this passage: "Or perhaps it's that same paradox again: the history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest, and yet it's the most deliquescent. We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and the time is supposed to measure history, isn't it? But if we can't understand time, can't grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history--even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?"
It evoked Salvador Dali's the Persistence of Memory with it's melting clocks and warped landscape.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Day 49, Pt 2
i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
e.e. cummings
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
e.e. cummings
Day 49: Happy Birthday to me or why 40 is the beginning and not the end
I am 40 years old today. Officially as I entered this world at approximately 2:30 p.m.
Let's review. I am not where I hoped to be where I began this blog. I had rather hoped to have myself sorted before this auspicious date arrived; a date that I have been dreading since I turned 20 oh so many years ago. The only goal that I managed was to become blonde for a bit.
The last days of October and the first couple weeks of November may have been the most challenging, frightening weeks of my life. At the beginning of October, I had a "routine" surgery to have my gall bladder removed--an outpatient surgery where I was in the hospital for less than 8 hours. October 29 found me dressed in a ball-gown skirt and at the formal wedding of a colleague. Just as we sat down to eat what promised to be a sumptuous dinner in a room that looked a mirage in a desert, a sharp pain in the middle of my chest that radiated around my side to my back chased with an intense wave of nausea sent me flying to the ladies room and home early without dinner.
A long drive home; the pain abated by a bottle of Maalox procured from 7-11. A hot shower. The pain layered with nausea that intensified as the night wore on. A call to my surgeon on Sunday morning. Hospital admission, narcotic pain killers, anti-nausea medicine, and fluids by IV into my deep, tiny veins as I began to yellow--first my skin and then my eyes. The conclusion that there were gall stones in my main biliary duct. A scope down my throat that revealed and cleared out sludge but no stones. Devils' Night and Halloween in the hospital as the pain abated and my bilirubin levels began to drop. Discharged from the hospital with pain killers after 4 days....
Home sweet home or the closest thing to it--the place where my daughter is, where my heart is. The next day a blur of nausea and pain kept at bay by Vicodin and hourly baths in water just this side of scalding. The following day the pain even more intense than the first time. Urgent care at my doctor's office. Nausea medicine and blood work that revealed that my bilirubin levels had quadrupled since my discharge from the hospital. I am roughly the colour of the cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Admitted to the hospital with nausea-laced pain so intense that I can only crawl into a ball and pray to a God that I believe in but have neglected.
Caring kindness from a nurse ten years my junior who gives me peppermint-saturated cotton balls to keep the nausea at bay and wrangles a shot of morphine until they find an IV nurse to get the pain and nausea meds into my veins. Finally, sweet relief from a strong narcotic, anti-nausea cocktail that keeps the pain at bay for a couple of hours but not the four hours that I have to wait between doses as I hurl into a small, kidney shaped container the colour of Pepto-Bismol. Residents at a teaching hospital that look at me as part freak-show, part experiment convinced that there are gall stones somewhere in the tangled, messed up region of my gall bladder, liver, pancreas.
Terror and helplessness join the nausea-infused pain. The realization that I am mortal and that I have no control over my body. A longing to return to my basically good health. Envy at the healthy people who care for me, who control the pain and nausea. A late-night CT scan that combines my pain medication with anti-anxiety medication that knocks me out as I float in cylindrical space filled with strange lights and sounds--suspended animation that confirms two stones in the duct that once led to my gall bladder. Trapped by the clip placed after the gall bladder was removed
A second scope down my throat the next morning that removes the offending stones wreaking havoc on my body. The pain begins to abate and by Sunday, I am off the narcotic concoction that has made my last days bearable. I press the doctors to go home and am permitted to have clear liquids for the first time in days. I eagerly await Monday morning's blood test results, hoping that my bilirubin levels are on the decline and that I will be discharged. The bilirubin levels are on decline but my celebration is short-lived when the resident returns to tell me that my blood test shows that I am developing post-ERCP pancreatitis, which is a common-complication from having the scope placed down my throat. A complication from a complication that throws me into despair, hopelessness that means at least one more night in the hospital and a return to nothing to drink, not even water as food and drink aggravate the pancreas.
I turn to Google and further terrify myself as I read all about the pancreas and how vital it is too survival. I name my pancreas Polly and begin talking soothingly to her, asking her not to develop full-blown pancreatitis My dad died from pancreatitis, and it is incredibly painful. Yes, he had several bouts of acute pancreatitis brought on by drinking. Yes, it developed into chronic pancreatitis. Yes, he was 20 years older than I am and had many more health problems. Yes, my pancreatitis was sub-clinical and not full blown pancreatitits. And I was not in pain. But it felt like a bad sign. And made me relive losing my dad all over again. And made me think about my beloved daughter growing up without me.
Finally, I was discharged after 8 total days in the hospital. The pain was largely gone, save the occasional twinge, and the nausea was much improved. No caffeine or booze and a low fat diet for one month. My strength and energy are slowly returning. The fear lingers. The sense of my own mortality continues to press upon my psyche. I am still not quite myself. I am trying to be good. To be the "perfect" mom. To be a good daughter and sister and friend. I don't know.
I am incredibly grateful to be out of the hospital, to be on the mend, to be given a new chance to begin again. So, despite the fact that I have not fixed my emotional and financial issues, despite the fact that I am not where I wanted to be by this milestone, I am here and that feels like a pretty, damn good start.
Let's review. I am not where I hoped to be where I began this blog. I had rather hoped to have myself sorted before this auspicious date arrived; a date that I have been dreading since I turned 20 oh so many years ago. The only goal that I managed was to become blonde for a bit.
The last days of October and the first couple weeks of November may have been the most challenging, frightening weeks of my life. At the beginning of October, I had a "routine" surgery to have my gall bladder removed--an outpatient surgery where I was in the hospital for less than 8 hours. October 29 found me dressed in a ball-gown skirt and at the formal wedding of a colleague. Just as we sat down to eat what promised to be a sumptuous dinner in a room that looked a mirage in a desert, a sharp pain in the middle of my chest that radiated around my side to my back chased with an intense wave of nausea sent me flying to the ladies room and home early without dinner.
A long drive home; the pain abated by a bottle of Maalox procured from 7-11. A hot shower. The pain layered with nausea that intensified as the night wore on. A call to my surgeon on Sunday morning. Hospital admission, narcotic pain killers, anti-nausea medicine, and fluids by IV into my deep, tiny veins as I began to yellow--first my skin and then my eyes. The conclusion that there were gall stones in my main biliary duct. A scope down my throat that revealed and cleared out sludge but no stones. Devils' Night and Halloween in the hospital as the pain abated and my bilirubin levels began to drop. Discharged from the hospital with pain killers after 4 days....
Home sweet home or the closest thing to it--the place where my daughter is, where my heart is. The next day a blur of nausea and pain kept at bay by Vicodin and hourly baths in water just this side of scalding. The following day the pain even more intense than the first time. Urgent care at my doctor's office. Nausea medicine and blood work that revealed that my bilirubin levels had quadrupled since my discharge from the hospital. I am roughly the colour of the cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Admitted to the hospital with nausea-laced pain so intense that I can only crawl into a ball and pray to a God that I believe in but have neglected.
Caring kindness from a nurse ten years my junior who gives me peppermint-saturated cotton balls to keep the nausea at bay and wrangles a shot of morphine until they find an IV nurse to get the pain and nausea meds into my veins. Finally, sweet relief from a strong narcotic, anti-nausea cocktail that keeps the pain at bay for a couple of hours but not the four hours that I have to wait between doses as I hurl into a small, kidney shaped container the colour of Pepto-Bismol. Residents at a teaching hospital that look at me as part freak-show, part experiment convinced that there are gall stones somewhere in the tangled, messed up region of my gall bladder, liver, pancreas.
Terror and helplessness join the nausea-infused pain. The realization that I am mortal and that I have no control over my body. A longing to return to my basically good health. Envy at the healthy people who care for me, who control the pain and nausea. A late-night CT scan that combines my pain medication with anti-anxiety medication that knocks me out as I float in cylindrical space filled with strange lights and sounds--suspended animation that confirms two stones in the duct that once led to my gall bladder. Trapped by the clip placed after the gall bladder was removed
A second scope down my throat the next morning that removes the offending stones wreaking havoc on my body. The pain begins to abate and by Sunday, I am off the narcotic concoction that has made my last days bearable. I press the doctors to go home and am permitted to have clear liquids for the first time in days. I eagerly await Monday morning's blood test results, hoping that my bilirubin levels are on the decline and that I will be discharged. The bilirubin levels are on decline but my celebration is short-lived when the resident returns to tell me that my blood test shows that I am developing post-ERCP pancreatitis, which is a common-complication from having the scope placed down my throat. A complication from a complication that throws me into despair, hopelessness that means at least one more night in the hospital and a return to nothing to drink, not even water as food and drink aggravate the pancreas.
I turn to Google and further terrify myself as I read all about the pancreas and how vital it is too survival. I name my pancreas Polly and begin talking soothingly to her, asking her not to develop full-blown pancreatitis My dad died from pancreatitis, and it is incredibly painful. Yes, he had several bouts of acute pancreatitis brought on by drinking. Yes, it developed into chronic pancreatitis. Yes, he was 20 years older than I am and had many more health problems. Yes, my pancreatitis was sub-clinical and not full blown pancreatitits. And I was not in pain. But it felt like a bad sign. And made me relive losing my dad all over again. And made me think about my beloved daughter growing up without me.
Finally, I was discharged after 8 total days in the hospital. The pain was largely gone, save the occasional twinge, and the nausea was much improved. No caffeine or booze and a low fat diet for one month. My strength and energy are slowly returning. The fear lingers. The sense of my own mortality continues to press upon my psyche. I am still not quite myself. I am trying to be good. To be the "perfect" mom. To be a good daughter and sister and friend. I don't know.
I am incredibly grateful to be out of the hospital, to be on the mend, to be given a new chance to begin again. So, despite the fact that I have not fixed my emotional and financial issues, despite the fact that I am not where I wanted to be by this milestone, I am here and that feels like a pretty, damn good start.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Day 48: One (un)true thing
Things that I think are true but are (1) probably are not true or (2) demonstrably false:
1. Godzilla was part gorilla because of the "illa".
2. There is a correlation between hand size and penis size.
3. Guitar players are good with their hands in sexual ways, especially rock-n-roll guitar players
4. Some things are meant to be, even when contradicted by all available objective evidence and logic.
5. The universe sometimes speaks through signs. Like songs on the radio. The dark blue of the sky.
And here is one undeniably true thing:
1. Godzilla was part gorilla because of the "illa".
2. There is a correlation between hand size and penis size.
3. Guitar players are good with their hands in sexual ways, especially rock-n-roll guitar players
4. Some things are meant to be, even when contradicted by all available objective evidence and logic.
5. The universe sometimes speaks through signs. Like songs on the radio. The dark blue of the sky.
And here is one undeniably true thing:
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Day 47: True Confessions
I am sitting in the basement, typing away with my feet on the bottom of the old office chair to avoid the rain-soaked carpet to write this. Truthfully, I had intended to write about my newly discovered or at least, newly articulated, theory about my attraction to men in transition but a colleague's post on Facebook as led to something entirely different.
She, Mae West, wrote that James Cameron's Titanic was the worst movie ever and its sappy, cinematic awfulness was eclipsed only by sappy, vocal stylings of Celine Dion's song. Now, Mae is a woman with great taste. Just yesterday, she shared a brilliant, heart-rending clip of Pavarotti singing Ava Maria. She also regularly rocks some of the fiercest shoes that I've ever seen.
As a movie lover and music lover, I concur with everything that Mae wrote. Logically. Which does not explain why I saw the movie TWICE in the theater. Or why I feel compelled to sing along every time that I hear that blasted song. Or why I am singing it loudly and badly and with feeling in my damp basement instead of reading my book or doing anything with a quantum of social utility. Say anything short of reading Sarah Palin's ghost-written biography and making moose-flavoured cookies or watching a "reality" TV show about housewives.
Do we all have a "Jack" (or Jesse) that haunts us? A love that refuses to die, that has changes and transforms us forever? Oh dear God. Throwing up a little in my mouth....
One last time with feeling......*
Sigh. Damn you, Mae West!
*Every night in my dreams
I see you. I feel you.
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never go till we're one
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
There is some love that will not
go away
You're here, there's nothing I fear,
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd1uEvyzCmM&feature=related
She, Mae West, wrote that James Cameron's Titanic was the worst movie ever and its sappy, cinematic awfulness was eclipsed only by sappy, vocal stylings of Celine Dion's song. Now, Mae is a woman with great taste. Just yesterday, she shared a brilliant, heart-rending clip of Pavarotti singing Ava Maria. She also regularly rocks some of the fiercest shoes that I've ever seen.
As a movie lover and music lover, I concur with everything that Mae wrote. Logically. Which does not explain why I saw the movie TWICE in the theater. Or why I feel compelled to sing along every time that I hear that blasted song. Or why I am singing it loudly and badly and with feeling in my damp basement instead of reading my book or doing anything with a quantum of social utility. Say anything short of reading Sarah Palin's ghost-written biography and making moose-flavoured cookies or watching a "reality" TV show about housewives.
Do we all have a "Jack" (or Jesse) that haunts us? A love that refuses to die, that has changes and transforms us forever? Oh dear God. Throwing up a little in my mouth....
One last time with feeling......*
Sigh. Damn you, Mae West!
*Every night in my dreams
I see you. I feel you.
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never go till we're one
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
There is some love that will not
go away
You're here, there's nothing I fear,
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd1uEvyzCmM&feature=related
Monday, August 29, 2011
Day 46: Shakabuku*.
*"It's a swift, spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever." Grosse Pointe Blank
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlS_0wNUQg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlS_0wNUQg&feature=related
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Day 45: These dark cafe days or "Jane, get me off this crazy thing..."*
Day 45: Dark cafe days* or “Jane, get me off this crazy thing...”**
When will these dark cafe days be over? They have gone on too long to be a phase. And I just cannot seem to get past them.
Monday found me feeling optimistic and hopeful. Along with the optimism and hope came some flirty chatter. Male attention, being called doll and darlin' equals total kryptonite for me. What's that you say? 1950 called and wants its antiquated attitude back.
Three days of flirty, sexy banter with a blue-eyed man with broad shoulders. Good morning doll emails, sweet dreams darlin' emails, and lots of make-the-day-speed-by-smile-inducing chatter. Then, poof. Gone like Kyezer Soze.* I just don’t get the rules, I suppose.
And I cannot quite root out the genesis of my discomfort, the level of upset-ed-ness. It's only been a few days. We are probably too different for any sort of lasting R-word. Which I don't even want. But he made me smile. And feel pretty. And a little less lonely. And like there could be some physical chemistry.
It is interesting, albeit depressing to watch the pattern unfold, to recognize each crease. The beginning, the middle, and the limbo. To watch from outside of myself as I make the same bad decisions, choose the same wrong path...
So, it's a pattern. It's not manifest destiny. Is it? I am not one of those toiling mortals being bandied about for the Gods' amusement. Am I? I have free will. Right? Just because I have followed the same pattern that could be characterized as banging-my-head against-the-wall-and-expecting-different results, does not mean that I have to bang my head against the wall again. Do I?
Even my horoscope (I generally claim not to believe in such nonsense but sometimes it rings so true) warns about my patterns and letting go: "You are trying to create healthy new routines for yourself with the Moon now activating your 6th House of Habits, but it's challenging to change established patterns. It's as if the weight of the past is leaning heavily on the present moment, restricting the potential of the future. Take the focus off your personal life and concentrate on the bigger picture, instead. This simple shift of your frame of reference can lighten your spirit enough to free you from an old habit or outdated outlook."
Ask me if I have learned anything at all from any of these insights? If I have followed the same patterns today? And how, pray tell, does one shift one's frame of reference...
Mantra for the day: He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He’s just not that into you. He just not that into you. He’s just not that into you.” (How many times till it penetrates my thick skull???)
Song of the Day: Fuckin' perfect, Pink.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1bcQMCZ5gU
*From Joni Mitchell's the last time I saw Richard. "All good dreamers pass this way some day. Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes. Dark cafes. Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings. And I fly away. Only a phase, these dark cafe days." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igj20M84hbo
**Originally from the Jetsons, a cartoon about the future where all food was in pellet form and everyone flew space ships, through the eyes of George, "His boy Elroy. Daughter Judy. Jane-his wife." "Jane, get me off this crazy thing" was uttered by George to his wife, Jane. Also featured is the dog called Astro.
When will these dark cafe days be over? They have gone on too long to be a phase. And I just cannot seem to get past them.
Monday found me feeling optimistic and hopeful. Along with the optimism and hope came some flirty chatter. Male attention, being called doll and darlin' equals total kryptonite for me. What's that you say? 1950 called and wants its antiquated attitude back.
Three days of flirty, sexy banter with a blue-eyed man with broad shoulders. Good morning doll emails, sweet dreams darlin' emails, and lots of make-the-day-speed-by-smile-inducing chatter. Then, poof. Gone like Kyezer Soze.* I just don’t get the rules, I suppose.
And I cannot quite root out the genesis of my discomfort, the level of upset-ed-ness. It's only been a few days. We are probably too different for any sort of lasting R-word. Which I don't even want. But he made me smile. And feel pretty. And a little less lonely. And like there could be some physical chemistry.
It is interesting, albeit depressing to watch the pattern unfold, to recognize each crease. The beginning, the middle, and the limbo. To watch from outside of myself as I make the same bad decisions, choose the same wrong path...
So, it's a pattern. It's not manifest destiny. Is it? I am not one of those toiling mortals being bandied about for the Gods' amusement. Am I? I have free will. Right? Just because I have followed the same pattern that could be characterized as banging-my-head against-the-wall-and-expecting-different results, does not mean that I have to bang my head against the wall again. Do I?
Even my horoscope (I generally claim not to believe in such nonsense but sometimes it rings so true) warns about my patterns and letting go: "You are trying to create healthy new routines for yourself with the Moon now activating your 6th House of Habits, but it's challenging to change established patterns. It's as if the weight of the past is leaning heavily on the present moment, restricting the potential of the future. Take the focus off your personal life and concentrate on the bigger picture, instead. This simple shift of your frame of reference can lighten your spirit enough to free you from an old habit or outdated outlook."
Ask me if I have learned anything at all from any of these insights? If I have followed the same patterns today? And how, pray tell, does one shift one's frame of reference...
Mantra for the day: He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into you. He’s just not that into you. He just not that into you. He’s just not that into you.” (How many times till it penetrates my thick skull???)
Song of the Day: Fuckin' perfect, Pink.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1bcQMCZ5gU
*From Joni Mitchell's the last time I saw Richard. "All good dreamers pass this way some day. Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes. Dark cafes. Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings. And I fly away. Only a phase, these dark cafe days." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igj20M84hbo
**Originally from the Jetsons, a cartoon about the future where all food was in pellet form and everyone flew space ships, through the eyes of George, "His boy Elroy. Daughter Judy. Jane-his wife." "Jane, get me off this crazy thing" was uttered by George to his wife, Jane. Also featured is the dog called Astro.
"Jane, get me off this crazy thing" was introduced to a whole new fan base in the movie "So, I married an axe murderer" as part of Charlie MacKenzie's beat poetry. Naturally, a movie from San Francisco. Because I suck. Because I am unable to break fucking patterns but able to break my phone. So fuckin' imperfect. http://www.youtube.com/watcv=GlkoQ4bUE5k
**From the Usual Suspects which is an excellent cops and robbers drama. As Verbal Kent explained: “Who is Keyser Soze? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, poof. He's gone.”
Friday, August 12, 2011
Day 44, Part Deux...Fetishes
This was initially part of the random quotes section of my first day 44 post, but it snowballed. Besides, it is worthy of its own post. A disclaimer. Sex and the City--the HBO Zeitgeist television series--is sacred to me in the way that Star Wars is sacred to men who came of age in the late 70s and 80s.* When HBO cancelled the series, I actually cried. It was a loss. It was my Sunday night treat enjoyed with Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream from 31 Flavors. Don't judge. At least, I don't have any action figures or kitchenware based on the series.
La Douleur Exquise is from Season 2. My fevered mind sought succor and insight based the following quotes and then it snowballed: Inspired by my own Mr. Big, whom/who I keep trying to untie myself from because he is unavailable in oh, so many ways. But I cannot let go. Not really, not for very long because *something* won't let me. Because, my stupid, deluded heart continues to think that, at some level, it's meant to be, and that letting go, really letting go is a mistake on par with Luke's initial attraction to Leia, who as we all know was his sister. Fuck-a-doodle-do.
BESIDES, it is just a fucking great episode. I urge my sexually adventurous friends who closet their fetishes to watch this episode. You know who you are!
So, these initial quotes are from the middle and end of the episode but fuck it, my head hurts and I have to pick up my sunshine girl soon:
“Why do I keep doing this to myself? I must be a masochist or something. That's when I first realized it. I was in an S & M relationship with Mr. Big. In love relationships, there is a fine line between pleasure and pain. In fact, it's a common belief that a relationship without pain......is a relationship not worth having. To some, pain implies growth. But how do we know when the growing pains stop......and the “pain-pains” take over? Are we masochists or optimists, if we continue to walk that fine line? When it comes to relationships.....how do you know when enough is enough?"
“There were no words left. We'd said them all. After we made love, I knew it was over. Did I ever really love Big or was I addicted to the pain? The exquisite pain of wanting someone so unattainable.....I wanted to go to him, but I felt like I was tied to the chair. Some part of me was holding me back, knowing I had gone too far. Reached my limit. And just like that, I had untied myself from Mr. Big. I was free. But there was nothing exquisite about it.”
And the fact that this episode is all about fetishes. It opens in a S&M restaurant, and the "girls" including Sanford talk about fetishes. Carrie's voice-over opening:
"New York City restaurants are always looking for the next new angle.....to grab that elusive and somewhat jaded Manhattan palate. Last year, it was”Fusion-Cajun.”Last month, it was”Mussels from Brussels.”
And tonight, it's “S & M.” Samantha's PR firm was hired to do the opening party for La Douleur Exquise.
Translation: The Exquisite Pain. Of course, we were all invited. This is what happens when the Mayor shuts down the sex shops. It pops up in your cuisine."
Samantha explains: "Don't be so judgmental. This is just a sexual expression. All these people have jobs and pay their bills. They're just having fun with fetishes...We all have a fetish. The difference between us and them is: They're putting it out there where everyone can see. I think it's healthy and fabulous."
Carrie leaves to see Big, with a riding crop, and reminds her friends that: "Whipping on the first date is considered forward."
Charlotte has a shoe fetish and meets her Prince Charming in Buster, a shoe salesman with a foot fetish. He first gives Charlotte a big discount and then free shoes when she lets him handle her feet. Charlotte returns to the shoe store and Buster literally cums in his pants as he puts new shoes on her feet "Charlotte looked down at the exquisite shoes. The smell of leather was intoxicating. Charlotte felt like Cinderella. Cinderella in a dirty, kinky, freaked out, storybook, parallel universe."
Miranda gets picked up by Jack while shopping for books on the street. Jack likes to have sex in places where he could get caught. In public (outside the house where Twain wrote a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), in his bedroom with his visiting parents in the next room.
Sanford has an underwear fetish and goes to a gay club where the fellows have to strip down to their skivvies...Funk's your brother is playing, which might be one of the best songs ever...
*The HBO series is sacred. The movies are mainly just to feed the withdrawal and the aching, gaping whole left by the series absence. The first movie was decent. And the second movie was an elaborate, extended commercial for high-end clothing and other consumer goods.
**Here is a website that has the scripts from the show. In addition to text, it contains the actual audio from the episodes: http://www.satctranscripts.com/2008/08/sex-and-city-season-2-episode-12.html
***And wisdom from Samantha from the next episode "Games People Play": "The only place you can control a man is in bed. If we perpetually gave men blow jobs, we could run the world." And Carrie observes that "at least our hands would be free to greet dignitaries and stuff."
La Douleur Exquise is from Season 2. My fevered mind sought succor and insight based the following quotes and then it snowballed: Inspired by my own Mr. Big, whom/who I keep trying to untie myself from because he is unavailable in oh, so many ways. But I cannot let go. Not really, not for very long because *something* won't let me. Because, my stupid, deluded heart continues to think that, at some level, it's meant to be, and that letting go, really letting go is a mistake on par with Luke's initial attraction to Leia, who as we all know was his sister. Fuck-a-doodle-do.
BESIDES, it is just a fucking great episode. I urge my sexually adventurous friends who closet their fetishes to watch this episode. You know who you are!
So, these initial quotes are from the middle and end of the episode but fuck it, my head hurts and I have to pick up my sunshine girl soon:
“Why do I keep doing this to myself? I must be a masochist or something. That's when I first realized it. I was in an S & M relationship with Mr. Big. In love relationships, there is a fine line between pleasure and pain. In fact, it's a common belief that a relationship without pain......is a relationship not worth having. To some, pain implies growth. But how do we know when the growing pains stop......and the “pain-pains” take over? Are we masochists or optimists, if we continue to walk that fine line? When it comes to relationships.....how do you know when enough is enough?"
“There were no words left. We'd said them all. After we made love, I knew it was over. Did I ever really love Big or was I addicted to the pain? The exquisite pain of wanting someone so unattainable.....I wanted to go to him, but I felt like I was tied to the chair. Some part of me was holding me back, knowing I had gone too far. Reached my limit. And just like that, I had untied myself from Mr. Big. I was free. But there was nothing exquisite about it.”
And the fact that this episode is all about fetishes. It opens in a S&M restaurant, and the "girls" including Sanford talk about fetishes. Carrie's voice-over opening:
"New York City restaurants are always looking for the next new angle.....to grab that elusive and somewhat jaded Manhattan palate. Last year, it was”Fusion-Cajun.”Last month, it was”Mussels from Brussels.”
And tonight, it's “S & M.” Samantha's PR firm was hired to do the opening party for La Douleur Exquise.
Translation: The Exquisite Pain. Of course, we were all invited. This is what happens when the Mayor shuts down the sex shops. It pops up in your cuisine."
Samantha explains: "Don't be so judgmental. This is just a sexual expression. All these people have jobs and pay their bills. They're just having fun with fetishes...We all have a fetish. The difference between us and them is: They're putting it out there where everyone can see. I think it's healthy and fabulous."
Carrie leaves to see Big, with a riding crop, and reminds her friends that: "Whipping on the first date is considered forward."
Charlotte has a shoe fetish and meets her Prince Charming in Buster, a shoe salesman with a foot fetish. He first gives Charlotte a big discount and then free shoes when she lets him handle her feet. Charlotte returns to the shoe store and Buster literally cums in his pants as he puts new shoes on her feet "Charlotte looked down at the exquisite shoes. The smell of leather was intoxicating. Charlotte felt like Cinderella. Cinderella in a dirty, kinky, freaked out, storybook, parallel universe."
Miranda gets picked up by Jack while shopping for books on the street. Jack likes to have sex in places where he could get caught. In public (outside the house where Twain wrote a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), in his bedroom with his visiting parents in the next room.
Sanford has an underwear fetish and goes to a gay club where the fellows have to strip down to their skivvies...Funk's your brother is playing, which might be one of the best songs ever...
*The HBO series is sacred. The movies are mainly just to feed the withdrawal and the aching, gaping whole left by the series absence. The first movie was decent. And the second movie was an elaborate, extended commercial for high-end clothing and other consumer goods.
**Here is a website that has the scripts from the show. In addition to text, it contains the actual audio from the episodes: http://www.satctranscripts.com/2008/08/sex-and-city-season-2-episode-12.html
***And wisdom from Samantha from the next episode "Games People Play": "The only place you can control a man is in bed. If we perpetually gave men blow jobs, we could run the world." And Carrie observes that "at least our hands would be free to greet dignitaries and stuff."
Day 44: Back in the saddle again...sort of
Sometimes, we have to measure our progress in small steps. Baby steps as Dr. Leo Marvin suggested, and his patient Bob brilliantly implemented. Today, I have been upright for several hours. At work. Today, I have not watched a single episode of Dexter. Today, I am wearing make-up. Today, I managed to drink an entire medium coffee and consume an entire bowl of chicken noodle soup without hurling. Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.
I am blithely ignoring the gnawing headache, general wonkiness, and dizziness. Ignoring the fuzzy hair and pale, sickly look that can only be procured from lying curled on the couch for four days and consuming only white toast and ginger ale. Ignoring the twin piles of work on my desk. (See descriptive photo).
Listening to this woman [who] "was singin' my song."* Not Lisa Loeb but Florence and the Machine singing about the ghost filling up her lungs, sighing in her sleep, entwined in her tongue as she falls at his feet...one of my 2011 functional equivalents of Lisa Loeb's "Stay" who set the bar for being the woman "singin' my song."** Am perhaps a handful of people who know that she once dated Ethan Hawke. And that he memorialized her and their relationship in his first novel.*** His soulmate, who he ditched for his should.
This could be why I am so very fucked up. Layer upon layer upon layer of "tangled, rusted, dented, Goddamned misery"**** from childhood and beyond. I should have been a relationship archaeologist or something.
Quotes of the day inspired by randomness ranging from my own personal obsessions and stray comments made on my friends' facebook posts and the butterfly effect in general:
"You're the reason that cavemen chiseled on walls." As Good as it Gets (From a friend's status update about caving in and finally getting cable and her friend's comment, wondering if she lives in a cave).
"I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me." (Inspired by looking up the cavemen quote to quote it accurately. As Good as it Gets might be one of the best movies ever.)
"I gotta pee." Forrest Gump (Inspired by the fact that I've got to pee).
*Lisa Loeb, Stay. "So I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, and this woman was singing my song:
lover's in love, and the other's run away, lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay. Some of us hover when we weep for the other who was dying since the day they were born. Well, well, this is not that; I think that I'm throwing, but I'm thrown. And I thought I'd live forever, but now I'm not so sure. You try to tell me that I'm clever, but that won't take me anyhow, or anywhere with you. You said that I was naive, and I thought that I was strong. I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave." Oh, but now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you. Yeah, I miss you."
** Florence and the Machine, I am not calling you a liar. "There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep. Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speak. Then it walks, then it walks with my legs. To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet. There but for the grace of God go I. And when you kiss me, I am happy enough to die...There's a ghost in my mouth and it talks in my sleep wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks
Then it walks, then it walks, then it walks with my legs. To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall, to fall, to fall
To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall...To fall, to fall at your feet"
***The Hottest State was Ehtan Hawke's first novel. Yes, that Ethan Hawke, and I did say first novel. His second was Ash Wednesday, which I did not read but will look for at Borders, which is soon to be closed. Forever. And also interrelated to my layers. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
****Jann Arden, Good Mother
My desk:
I am blithely ignoring the gnawing headache, general wonkiness, and dizziness. Ignoring the fuzzy hair and pale, sickly look that can only be procured from lying curled on the couch for four days and consuming only white toast and ginger ale. Ignoring the twin piles of work on my desk. (See descriptive photo).
Listening to this woman [who] "was singin' my song."* Not Lisa Loeb but Florence and the Machine singing about the ghost filling up her lungs, sighing in her sleep, entwined in her tongue as she falls at his feet...one of my 2011 functional equivalents of Lisa Loeb's "Stay" who set the bar for being the woman "singin' my song."** Am perhaps a handful of people who know that she once dated Ethan Hawke. And that he memorialized her and their relationship in his first novel.*** His soulmate, who he ditched for his should.
This could be why I am so very fucked up. Layer upon layer upon layer of "tangled, rusted, dented, Goddamned misery"**** from childhood and beyond. I should have been a relationship archaeologist or something.
Quotes of the day inspired by randomness ranging from my own personal obsessions and stray comments made on my friends' facebook posts and the butterfly effect in general:
"You're the reason that cavemen chiseled on walls." As Good as it Gets (From a friend's status update about caving in and finally getting cable and her friend's comment, wondering if she lives in a cave).
"I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me." (Inspired by looking up the cavemen quote to quote it accurately. As Good as it Gets might be one of the best movies ever.)
"I gotta pee." Forrest Gump (Inspired by the fact that I've got to pee).
*Lisa Loeb, Stay. "So I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, and this woman was singing my song:
lover's in love, and the other's run away, lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay. Some of us hover when we weep for the other who was dying since the day they were born. Well, well, this is not that; I think that I'm throwing, but I'm thrown. And I thought I'd live forever, but now I'm not so sure. You try to tell me that I'm clever, but that won't take me anyhow, or anywhere with you. You said that I was naive, and I thought that I was strong. I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave." Oh, but now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you. Yeah, I miss you."
** Florence and the Machine, I am not calling you a liar. "There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep. Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speak. Then it walks, then it walks with my legs. To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet. There but for the grace of God go I. And when you kiss me, I am happy enough to die...There's a ghost in my mouth and it talks in my sleep wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks
Then it walks, then it walks, then it walks with my legs. To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall, to fall, to fall
To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall...To fall, to fall at your feet"
***The Hottest State was Ehtan Hawke's first novel. Yes, that Ethan Hawke, and I did say first novel. His second was Ash Wednesday, which I did not read but will look for at Borders, which is soon to be closed. Forever. And also interrelated to my layers. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
****Jann Arden, Good Mother
My desk:
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Day 43: Strange currencies or the ramblings of a fevered mind
Day 43 of this blog and this failed experiment to see if blondes have more fun. Day 4 of a strange, painful stomach virus. Like I have been repeatedly (and literally) kicked in the abdomen, nausea (think first tri-mester morning sickness), and burning, stabbing back pains. The doctor diagnosed a bladder infection but was puzzled at the severity of the symptoms and the way my abdomen felt, so blood tests and an abdominal ultrasound next week. (And no, I am not pregnant unless somehow I am the Virgin (re-virginized?) Mary of the 21st Century).
Day 4 of my convalescence. Too dizzy and weak to read. Too nauseated to drink coffee. So, I am halfway into season 4 of Dexter. Finding all sorts of parallels between myself, a Robin-hood-esq Vigilante serial killer, and his sister, who recently earned her detective shield. Like Dexter, said serial killer, all my life, I have donned a series of masks, been an outsider, a stranger in a strange land. Like Dexter's sister, Deb, the attraction to the unavailable men, opening our hearts to men who turn out to be serial killers or sociopaths (Deb--Ice truck killer--season 1; me--Toxic circa late 80s, early 90s; the Oregonian Asshat--this season) or men who leave to follow their own ghosts (Deb and Special Agent Lundy--seasons 2 and 4; Me and Jesse--circa 1995) and then come back to us, seeming heaven-sent, destiny, kismet, all that ridiculous horseshit from too many books, movies, love songs, poems, grand theories before breaking our hearts all over again and again and again (Deb and Special Agent Lundy--season 4; Me and Jesse--circa 2009, 2010, 2011. Really, only 6 months in 2009, a stolen few hours on May 15, 2010, a handful of emails in 2011. Now, silence. Again.).
Season 4 with (retired) Special Agent Lundy's return has really resonated, even though his return was to track his ultimate ghost--a serial killer whose existence that he was never able to prove to anyone in the F-B-I (ala Hannibal Lecter). There are no serial killers in my life, fortunately, just living ghosts, one ghost that continues to haunt me. Anyway, Detective Debra Morgan ("Deb") was involved in a great relationship with the victim of a serial killer (The Skinner, Season 3) and had just received her detective's shield, when Lundy walked in. ("Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, []he walks into mine."). Her response: "Mother fuckity fuck." Indeed. I probably talk more like Lundy but I have resolved to talk more like Deb and probably get my hair cut and return to my dark-haired girl roots. His response: Destiny. Or some shit like that--(see already channeling my inner Debra Morgan). And the push and pull, resistance for a couple of episodes after he has turned her world upside down. Again. Turned her heart inside and outside. Again.
And this exchange in the cafe between Lundy and Deb.
Deb: "Look, don't make me come up with thought bubbles to put over those silent looks of yours. Just say what you're thinking.
Lundy: All right. I, I though that I could keep my feelings for you as background noise to this investigation. But in working with you, that noise has gotten...
Deb: Loud?
Lundy: Deafening."
Then, Deb winds up at his hotel room. Kisses him when he starts to talk, silencing all the words. All the stupid, white noise. Tells him to shut up. And then he is killed after the spend the night together; she is shot. She has to survive, go on living without him. Again.
Sound, noise. As the Bard wrote: "It is a tale. Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing." My head, full of white noise and whirling noises and dizziness and heat.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Because my mind is beyond fucked up, the loss of Lundy makes me think of Grease 2 when Stephanie thinks that her cool rider is dead and sings this sappy, treacly song that makes me teary. Always. In the middle of the song, there is a little scene between her and her cool rider with some sung dialogue. I think that the term is recitative in opera. She tells him: "It all seems so unfair. Just when I found you, I lost you..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUIwhikyo6A
Day 4 of my convalescence. Too dizzy and weak to read. Too nauseated to drink coffee. So, I am halfway into season 4 of Dexter. Finding all sorts of parallels between myself, a Robin-hood-esq Vigilante serial killer, and his sister, who recently earned her detective shield. Like Dexter, said serial killer, all my life, I have donned a series of masks, been an outsider, a stranger in a strange land. Like Dexter's sister, Deb, the attraction to the unavailable men, opening our hearts to men who turn out to be serial killers or sociopaths (Deb--Ice truck killer--season 1; me--Toxic circa late 80s, early 90s; the Oregonian Asshat--this season) or men who leave to follow their own ghosts (Deb and Special Agent Lundy--seasons 2 and 4; Me and Jesse--circa 1995) and then come back to us, seeming heaven-sent, destiny, kismet, all that ridiculous horseshit from too many books, movies, love songs, poems, grand theories before breaking our hearts all over again and again and again (Deb and Special Agent Lundy--season 4; Me and Jesse--circa 2009, 2010, 2011. Really, only 6 months in 2009, a stolen few hours on May 15, 2010, a handful of emails in 2011. Now, silence. Again.).
Season 4 with (retired) Special Agent Lundy's return has really resonated, even though his return was to track his ultimate ghost--a serial killer whose existence that he was never able to prove to anyone in the F-B-I (ala Hannibal Lecter). There are no serial killers in my life, fortunately, just living ghosts, one ghost that continues to haunt me. Anyway, Detective Debra Morgan ("Deb") was involved in a great relationship with the victim of a serial killer (The Skinner, Season 3) and had just received her detective's shield, when Lundy walked in. ("Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, []he walks into mine."). Her response: "Mother fuckity fuck." Indeed. I probably talk more like Lundy but I have resolved to talk more like Deb and probably get my hair cut and return to my dark-haired girl roots. His response: Destiny. Or some shit like that--(see already channeling my inner Debra Morgan). And the push and pull, resistance for a couple of episodes after he has turned her world upside down. Again. Turned her heart inside and outside. Again.
And this exchange in the cafe between Lundy and Deb.
Deb: "Look, don't make me come up with thought bubbles to put over those silent looks of yours. Just say what you're thinking.
Lundy: All right. I, I though that I could keep my feelings for you as background noise to this investigation. But in working with you, that noise has gotten...
Deb: Loud?
Lundy: Deafening."
Then, Deb winds up at his hotel room. Kisses him when he starts to talk, silencing all the words. All the stupid, white noise. Tells him to shut up. And then he is killed after the spend the night together; she is shot. She has to survive, go on living without him. Again.
Sound, noise. As the Bard wrote: "It is a tale. Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing." My head, full of white noise and whirling noises and dizziness and heat.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Because my mind is beyond fucked up, the loss of Lundy makes me think of Grease 2 when Stephanie thinks that her cool rider is dead and sings this sappy, treacly song that makes me teary. Always. In the middle of the song, there is a little scene between her and her cool rider with some sung dialogue. I think that the term is recitative in opera. She tells him: "It all seems so unfair. Just when I found you, I lost you..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUIwhikyo6A
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Day 42: Superwomen, Ms. Pac Man, and the perfect storm
I am blonder than ever but I am sure not having more fun. To start with, I am word-constipated, and it's even worse than the other kind of constipation. Except that it is my head and heart that feel bloated with words that need to come out, that are making me toxic.
I am not Superwoman. Not even close. Not even on my best days have I stopped a speeding bullet or flown faster than a speeding plane. I don't have a cape. Lately, most days have felt held together by scotch tape--the generic kind--and a prayer or what passes as prayer for a natural doubter who feels like a hypocrite.
But this week, it has taken super human strength just to get up, to brush my teeth, to breathe in and out.
I am falling apart yet I cannot fall apart. But I am. Falling apart. I am Ms. PacMan, out of power pellets with all four hungry, neon ghosts bearing down on me, and down to my last life. I can hear that sound--that awful sound where the ghosts eat her alive--that mechanical, robot-y sound that signals that the game is over. That terrible sound has begun to haunt my dreams.
I am not Superwoman. Not even close. Not even on my best days have I stopped a speeding bullet or flown faster than a speeding plane. I don't have a cape. Lately, most days have felt held together by scotch tape--the generic kind--and a prayer or what passes as prayer for a natural doubter who feels like a hypocrite.
But this week, it has taken super human strength just to get up, to brush my teeth, to breathe in and out.
I am falling apart yet I cannot fall apart. But I am. Falling apart. I am Ms. PacMan, out of power pellets with all four hungry, neon ghosts bearing down on me, and down to my last life. I can hear that sound--that awful sound where the ghosts eat her alive--that mechanical, robot-y sound that signals that the game is over. That terrible sound has begun to haunt my dreams.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Day 41 still going:
Have cheered up a bit. The blonding not only lightened my hair; it also seems to have lightened my hair. And the thought of a margarita with one of my favourite women warriors from the gym, who has gone through a divorce and lived to tell about it.
Fingers crossed that they a pomegranate margarita. Or peach. Who am I kidding as long as it is slushy and has booze, I am gonna suck it down.
Fingers crossed that they a pomegranate margarita. Or peach. Who am I kidding as long as it is slushy and has booze, I am gonna suck it down.
Day 41 continued:
I am not this girl. How can I still be this girl? I am smart. And kind. And attractive. And funny and fun. And loyal. And I always try to make the people that I love feel loved and supported and secure in my love. Why isn't this enough? More than enough?
I am a lawyer. And a mom. And a friend. And a daughter. And a sister. I have an imagination. A sense of humour. I am passionate. I am soulful. Why isn't this enough? More than enough?
I have a roof over my head. And a job. And a car. And clothes. And central air. I have my (physical) health. Why isn't this enough? More than enough?
Why do I need the attention and affirmation and acceptance of a man? Why do I make such bad decisions that end in such pain and such angst and self doubt? Why do open my heart and give like this? When the ending is always the same, like a fucking Danielle Steele novel without the happy ending--me coming unglued.
And the un-gluing is always somewhere inappropriate. Never in the privacy of my bedroom or even a dark bar. And this time? I am crying in the middle of my fucking salon. That I have been frequenting for 20 years. On a Saturday afternoon. In broad daylight. In public. Big fat, stupid tears falling down my stupid cape and onto the wooden table. While my hair is covered in foils and I strongly resemble a troll that somebody has rubbed back and forth in his hands.
Why?
I am a lawyer. And a mom. And a friend. And a daughter. And a sister. I have an imagination. A sense of humour. I am passionate. I am soulful. Why isn't this enough? More than enough?
I have a roof over my head. And a job. And a car. And clothes. And central air. I have my (physical) health. Why isn't this enough? More than enough?
Why do I need the attention and affirmation and acceptance of a man? Why do I make such bad decisions that end in such pain and such angst and self doubt? Why do open my heart and give like this? When the ending is always the same, like a fucking Danielle Steele novel without the happy ending--me coming unglued.
And the un-gluing is always somewhere inappropriate. Never in the privacy of my bedroom or even a dark bar. And this time? I am crying in the middle of my fucking salon. That I have been frequenting for 20 years. On a Saturday afternoon. In broad daylight. In public. Big fat, stupid tears falling down my stupid cape and onto the wooden table. While my hair is covered in foils and I strongly resemble a troll that somebody has rubbed back and forth in his hands.
Why?
Day 41: The more things (seem) to change,
the more they stay the same. Yes, after an extended absence, I thought that I'd begin with a cliche. But cliches are words too and perhaps we refer to them so derisively is because the kernel of truth inherent in a cliche clutches at our hearts and our failure to recognize it, how it drives our actions makes us feel even more stupid for behaving in a way that is so very cliched.
Yes, it is another angst-y Saturday (wonder why the Bangles did not sing about that besides the lack of alliteration, I mean). I went to kickboxing and am not hormonal. Or at least no more than normal. I am going to get more blonded. I have the evening free to do as I wish. Yes, I remain broke and about to get broke-r. Am still living with my ex, albeit in my own bedroom.
Yet, I continue to be tormented by my sweet maybes, my attraction to unavailable men who are obviously unavailable, i.e. married and thousands of miles away, and not so obviously unavailable, i.e. single but haunted by their own ghosts. What the fuck? After a kick-ass workout this morning that left me sweaty and panting but smiling and feeling strong, I drove home on another perfect summer day. Hot and blue-skied but with a breeze. A full afternoon of things that I generally enjoy--blonding, shopping, and getting ready to do something tonight.
OR
Then, a shower epiphany. Another one. One that has left me shaken and teary and on the verge of doing something that in my heart, I know that I need to do to move on. And have not been able to do because of the way that I have been haunted by, driven by the if-only-s, by the possibility of my sweet maybe. Such a deliciously sweet maybe. It hit me like a ton of bricks as the hot, soapy water washed away the sweat, revealing yet another pattern, a pattern within a pattern. A pattern disguised as something else that really is just another pattern. Me trying to change, to mold myself to some idea to match someone's ideal person even as it becomes clear that no matter what I do, no matter how much I change, no matter how patient I am, how much I compromise, how much I settle for, that I will never be that person's ideal. Which is really the same pattern that I, at last, recognized and broke free from with my soon-to-be-ex husband.
I have to let go. Don't I? To move on, I have to let go. What will be will be, right? Que sera sera and all that horseshit.
Fuck-a-doodle-do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXQTWCTc0aI (Que sera sera)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDEEzS7OV2k&feature=related (Goodbye, my almost Lover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwtr19HHB4U (Falling for you)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUhc8D7pQlQ&feature=related (Corner of my heart)
Yes, it is another angst-y Saturday (wonder why the Bangles did not sing about that besides the lack of alliteration, I mean). I went to kickboxing and am not hormonal. Or at least no more than normal. I am going to get more blonded. I have the evening free to do as I wish. Yes, I remain broke and about to get broke-r. Am still living with my ex, albeit in my own bedroom.
Yet, I continue to be tormented by my sweet maybes, my attraction to unavailable men who are obviously unavailable, i.e. married and thousands of miles away, and not so obviously unavailable, i.e. single but haunted by their own ghosts. What the fuck? After a kick-ass workout this morning that left me sweaty and panting but smiling and feeling strong, I drove home on another perfect summer day. Hot and blue-skied but with a breeze. A full afternoon of things that I generally enjoy--blonding, shopping, and getting ready to do something tonight.
OR
Then, a shower epiphany. Another one. One that has left me shaken and teary and on the verge of doing something that in my heart, I know that I need to do to move on. And have not been able to do because of the way that I have been haunted by, driven by the if-only-s, by the possibility of my sweet maybe. Such a deliciously sweet maybe. It hit me like a ton of bricks as the hot, soapy water washed away the sweat, revealing yet another pattern, a pattern within a pattern. A pattern disguised as something else that really is just another pattern. Me trying to change, to mold myself to some idea to match someone's ideal person even as it becomes clear that no matter what I do, no matter how much I change, no matter how patient I am, how much I compromise, how much I settle for, that I will never be that person's ideal. Which is really the same pattern that I, at last, recognized and broke free from with my soon-to-be-ex husband.
I have to let go. Don't I? To move on, I have to let go. What will be will be, right? Que sera sera and all that horseshit.
Fuck-a-doodle-do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXQTWCTc0aI (Que sera sera)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDEEzS7OV2k&feature=related (Goodbye, my almost Lover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwtr19HHB4U (Falling for you)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUhc8D7pQlQ&feature=related (Corner of my heart)
Monday, June 27, 2011
Day 40: The Distance
3:29 a.m. Watching a movie about a long distance relationship that kind of broke my heart when I saw it the first time at the theater. It has been several months since I've seen it and so I thought that I'd rip the band aid off.
She's in San Francisco, and he's in New York. Seeing that dramatic sweep of red iron over the deep blue always makes my heart seize. And it transports me back in time to a few days in late April 2009. Halcyon days when hope was the best thing. When I believed in magic, that I was on that elusive road to happily ever after...my at last, at last....Silly not-so-little girl...
Her favourite movie is the Shawshank Redemption, which she tells him on the night that they might cute at a bar and bonded over a shared love of Centipede and bar trivia. After she reveals that Shawshank is her favourite movie, he immediately does Morgan Freeman's "I hope" speech..."I hope the Pacific is as blue it has been in my dreams....I hope, I hope." Except he does Red's voice and knows the whole speech cold.
And it has the happy ending that follows the meet cute beginning as sold by Hollywood. Except, it's a bait and switch. At least in real life. I, of course, know this logically. An I know it practically. And I know it by experience. Fuck, I
am a veteran, a gold-card member of this bait and switch.
Yet, I still cannot give up the ghost, The illusion of one day...
She's in San Francisco, and he's in New York. Seeing that dramatic sweep of red iron over the deep blue always makes my heart seize. And it transports me back in time to a few days in late April 2009. Halcyon days when hope was the best thing. When I believed in magic, that I was on that elusive road to happily ever after...my at last, at last....Silly not-so-little girl...
Her favourite movie is the Shawshank Redemption, which she tells him on the night that they might cute at a bar and bonded over a shared love of Centipede and bar trivia. After she reveals that Shawshank is her favourite movie, he immediately does Morgan Freeman's "I hope" speech..."I hope the Pacific is as blue it has been in my dreams....I hope, I hope." Except he does Red's voice and knows the whole speech cold.
And it has the happy ending that follows the meet cute beginning as sold by Hollywood. Except, it's a bait and switch. At least in real life. I, of course, know this logically. An I know it practically. And I know it by experience. Fuck, I
am a veteran, a gold-card member of this bait and switch.
Yet, I still cannot give up the ghost, The illusion of one day...
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Day 39: At the Duck or a progress report
At the Duck wishing that I was really in Margaritaville instead of listening to barely legal frat boys singing about it.
It's been a long while since I've been to the Duck or here to write about my bold and glorious experiment. Of becoming blonde and getting my act together. The blonding is going well. The rest is one step up and one step back to quote Bruce. Still broke. Even broker. Even more broken. In nearly every way that I vowed to fix before I turn 40.
So perhaps, this should be called a lack of progress report?
It's been a long while since I've been to the Duck or here to write about my bold and glorious experiment. Of becoming blonde and getting my act together. The blonding is going well. The rest is one step up and one step back to quote Bruce. Still broke. Even broker. Even more broken. In nearly every way that I vowed to fix before I turn 40.
So perhaps, this should be called a lack of progress report?
Monday, June 13, 2011
Day 38: Booty calls
I absolutely detest being called to court for a hearing that was adjourned due to the closure of the courthouse without any notice that today was the new date. it's like being on-call for a judicial booty call; the assumption being that I am always available.
Adding insult to injury is that the clerk told me: "we're ready for you." So not only am I "that" girl, I have been waiting for 30 minutes. I showed up for a booty call and my "date" is late.
As I explained recently (Saturday night) to a former booty caller, I have outgrown my booty call, beck-n-call girl days. I was so proud of myself but was it all for naught if I always at the beck-n-call of the court?
Of course, if I resist the judicial booty call, the Judge could hold me in contempt of court and throw my booty into the hoosegow. Which would make me a legend but the hoosegow is icky and I am a girl about things like bugs and filth and sharing close quarters with hardened criminals.
So, here I sit in the courtroom. In Lawyers Row. Waiting, waiting, always waiting like a refugee in Casablanca trying to procure an exit visa. Now, my wait approaches an hour and cuts into lunch. I am wedged between two male lawyers who apparently bathed in and then dipped themselves into vats of cologne. The cologne is so thick that I can taste it.
Am back in my office and can still taste it. How does one remove the taste of cologne from one's mouth?
Adding insult to injury is that the clerk told me: "we're ready for you." So not only am I "that" girl, I have been waiting for 30 minutes. I showed up for a booty call and my "date" is late.
As I explained recently (Saturday night) to a former booty caller, I have outgrown my booty call, beck-n-call girl days. I was so proud of myself but was it all for naught if I always at the beck-n-call of the court?
Of course, if I resist the judicial booty call, the Judge could hold me in contempt of court and throw my booty into the hoosegow. Which would make me a legend but the hoosegow is icky and I am a girl about things like bugs and filth and sharing close quarters with hardened criminals.
So, here I sit in the courtroom. In Lawyers Row. Waiting, waiting, always waiting like a refugee in Casablanca trying to procure an exit visa. Now, my wait approaches an hour and cuts into lunch. I am wedged between two male lawyers who apparently bathed in and then dipped themselves into vats of cologne. The cologne is so thick that I can taste it.
Am back in my office and can still taste it. How does one remove the taste of cologne from one's mouth?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Day 37: The art of letting go
Half-awake, wishing that I would have not hit the snooze button so many times that it was impossible to stop for coffee without being late for my appointment. Sleep or liquid crack? Talk about a Hobson's choice....
Sitting in the parking lot, appointment over, wondering if it is strange to take pleasure in the ultrasound technician deeming my wardrobe choice perfect for the procedure. Am I the only woman who prefers to wear her own clothes pushed up as opposed to being naked from the waist down, covered by a crinkly sheet of paper? Smiling a bit to myself as I thought how easy access is important for the lady parts' doctor and certain other types of appointments. Appointments that generally involve drinks and much more pleasurable probing.
.
Now, I have returned to my own personal den of iniquity. One of them. Sipping my liquid crack; the hot, caramelized bitterness a benediction to my still-sore throat. Thinking how hard it is to let go. At least for me. Certain people, especially those in my orbit, seem to have mastered the art of letting go. At least letting go of me.
"...I am not the kind of girl who gives up just like that, oh no....the tide is high but I am holding on. I am gonna be your number one....".
Sitting in the parking lot, appointment over, wondering if it is strange to take pleasure in the ultrasound technician deeming my wardrobe choice perfect for the procedure. Am I the only woman who prefers to wear her own clothes pushed up as opposed to being naked from the waist down, covered by a crinkly sheet of paper? Smiling a bit to myself as I thought how easy access is important for the lady parts' doctor and certain other types of appointments. Appointments that generally involve drinks and much more pleasurable probing.
.
Now, I have returned to my own personal den of iniquity. One of them. Sipping my liquid crack; the hot, caramelized bitterness a benediction to my still-sore throat. Thinking how hard it is to let go. At least for me. Certain people, especially those in my orbit, seem to have mastered the art of letting go. At least letting go of me.
"...I am not the kind of girl who gives up just like that, oh no....the tide is high but I am holding on. I am gonna be your number one....".
Monday, June 6, 2011
Day 36: Confusion is nothing new
"Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick, and think of you. Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new
Flashback--warm nights-- almost left behind. Suitcases of memories, time after time."
Oh, what are we doing? Marching through our days to the dull beat of routine. Going through the motions, turning our backs on the things that make us feel alive, gloriously alive. Because we are afraid. Because it will make waves. Because it is unconventional. Because it means risking our hearts. Or shattering those masks, facades that we have struggled for so long to perfect, to maintain, especially to ourselves. For fucks sake, what are we doing?
Motion for the sake of motion is not movement. I know this to be true. But how do you know when it's time to move? That you won't be left behind, fall behind? That movement is progress and not just white noise that will lead to the same revolving cycle of bullshit that got you in the stuck position in the first place? Why? Where? How? When? Who?
Frustrated. Confused. Weary. Head aches, heart longings in this lonely wilderness of the soul. And yet, sort of alive again after feeling half-dead inside, after my self-induced coma of comfortable numbness. Wound up. Feeling over-caffeinated, even though I am drastically under-caffeinated today. Listening to Cyndi Lauper sing Time after Time over and over again and wondering how in the hell anyone can get wound up listening to Time after Time.
Goosebumps and the chills. Like someone just walked over my grave. What the fuck am I doing?
“Sometimes you picture me-- I'm walking too far ahead. You're calling to me,
I can't hear what you've said-- Then you say--go slow-- I fall behind-- the second hand unwinds”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1VlRqeTkE0
Flashback--warm nights-- almost left behind. Suitcases of memories, time after time."
Oh, what are we doing? Marching through our days to the dull beat of routine. Going through the motions, turning our backs on the things that make us feel alive, gloriously alive. Because we are afraid. Because it will make waves. Because it is unconventional. Because it means risking our hearts. Or shattering those masks, facades that we have struggled for so long to perfect, to maintain, especially to ourselves. For fucks sake, what are we doing?
Motion for the sake of motion is not movement. I know this to be true. But how do you know when it's time to move? That you won't be left behind, fall behind? That movement is progress and not just white noise that will lead to the same revolving cycle of bullshit that got you in the stuck position in the first place? Why? Where? How? When? Who?
Frustrated. Confused. Weary. Head aches, heart longings in this lonely wilderness of the soul. And yet, sort of alive again after feeling half-dead inside, after my self-induced coma of comfortable numbness. Wound up. Feeling over-caffeinated, even though I am drastically under-caffeinated today. Listening to Cyndi Lauper sing Time after Time over and over again and wondering how in the hell anyone can get wound up listening to Time after Time.
Goosebumps and the chills. Like someone just walked over my grave. What the fuck am I doing?
“Sometimes you picture me-- I'm walking too far ahead. You're calling to me,
I can't hear what you've said-- Then you say--go slow-- I fall behind-- the second hand unwinds”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1VlRqeTkE0
Friday, June 3, 2011
Day 35: 2:45 a.m.
Still awake and highly susceptible to what I am reading, often believing that the book was written for me, that somehow the author has some unique insight into my soul, my mind, my heart. When really she or he has the magic to translate those discordant feelings, desires, fears, thoughts, and longings universal to humankind into relatable readability.
(Are there really any new stories or are all stories just a variation on themes universal to the human condition? Updated with technological advances and modern conveniences to make them palatable, understandable to a new generation of readers? This leads me to dangerous ground because one might ask aren't those faux books another medium for expressing the plight of the universal condition to a new generation? After all, ancient men inscribed their stories in pictures and symbols on cave walls and slaves sang their stories disguised in songs passed down through the generations, and the elders passed down their stories orally. And yet, there is no substitute for the feeling of the thickness of the book in your hand, the excitement of turning those first pages to get to that first sentence that leads you into another world, allows you to see the universal condition through other viewpoints, genders, situations, through another's eyes. Tangents. This entire paragraph is a tangent.)
Anyway, back to my literary susceptibility. It is almost a form of hypnosis. I am worn down as my body fights off an infection. My elevated white blood cells valiantly fighting against alien invaders aided by their antibiotic ally. I slept hard and woke up and could not fall back to sleep. So I returned to my book---the Thirteenth Tale--which is a story within a story within a story. It is a story about the power of storytelling that pays homage to power of the story, to words, paper and ink books.
The heroine, who works in a bookstore with her father and has a troubled relationship with her mother and who prefers books to life and who measures the timing of the resolution of the story by the thickness of the pages remaining to be read, cannot sleep. By the time that I reach this part of her story, I have been awake and reading in my own story for a bit. I know that I need to be up early, that I have to wash my hair, that I am sick and need the healing power of sleep when I read Margaret's words:
"I rubbed my tired eyes and knew I ought to go to bed. But I was too tired to sleep. My thoughts, if I did nothing to stop them, would go around in circles all night long. I decided to have a bath."
So, I had a bath. While I waited for the tub to fill with hot water, I read the book just as Margaret tried to work out a clue in her story as she waited for her own tub to fill. Except that the water filling her tub thundered in the background, while the sound of my tub filling in the background was muffled by the thick silence of mounds of opalescent bubbles. Ivory bodywash transformed into airy bits of magic.
Like Margaret, I give myself to the steamy hot water and read several pages as the water cools while she continues to solve the mystery of her story.
Back to Margaret's story which has about a 1/4 of an inch left. And then to sleep, perchance to dream? For about a 1/4 of an inch....
,
(Are there really any new stories or are all stories just a variation on themes universal to the human condition? Updated with technological advances and modern conveniences to make them palatable, understandable to a new generation of readers? This leads me to dangerous ground because one might ask aren't those faux books another medium for expressing the plight of the universal condition to a new generation? After all, ancient men inscribed their stories in pictures and symbols on cave walls and slaves sang their stories disguised in songs passed down through the generations, and the elders passed down their stories orally. And yet, there is no substitute for the feeling of the thickness of the book in your hand, the excitement of turning those first pages to get to that first sentence that leads you into another world, allows you to see the universal condition through other viewpoints, genders, situations, through another's eyes. Tangents. This entire paragraph is a tangent.)
Anyway, back to my literary susceptibility. It is almost a form of hypnosis. I am worn down as my body fights off an infection. My elevated white blood cells valiantly fighting against alien invaders aided by their antibiotic ally. I slept hard and woke up and could not fall back to sleep. So I returned to my book---the Thirteenth Tale--which is a story within a story within a story. It is a story about the power of storytelling that pays homage to power of the story, to words, paper and ink books.
The heroine, who works in a bookstore with her father and has a troubled relationship with her mother and who prefers books to life and who measures the timing of the resolution of the story by the thickness of the pages remaining to be read, cannot sleep. By the time that I reach this part of her story, I have been awake and reading in my own story for a bit. I know that I need to be up early, that I have to wash my hair, that I am sick and need the healing power of sleep when I read Margaret's words:
"I rubbed my tired eyes and knew I ought to go to bed. But I was too tired to sleep. My thoughts, if I did nothing to stop them, would go around in circles all night long. I decided to have a bath."
So, I had a bath. While I waited for the tub to fill with hot water, I read the book just as Margaret tried to work out a clue in her story as she waited for her own tub to fill. Except that the water filling her tub thundered in the background, while the sound of my tub filling in the background was muffled by the thick silence of mounds of opalescent bubbles. Ivory bodywash transformed into airy bits of magic.
Like Margaret, I give myself to the steamy hot water and read several pages as the water cools while she continues to solve the mystery of her story.
Back to Margaret's story which has about a 1/4 of an inch left. And then to sleep, perchance to dream? For about a 1/4 of an inch....
,
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Day 35:1:48 a.m.
Asleep. Deeply. Awake. Abruptly. Sleep. Elusive. Chocolate ice cream. Creamy, icy sweetness soothing my sore throat. Wine. Crisp, tart coolness soothing my mind. Book. Black words written in ink from deep inside soothing my soul. Peace?
Still Day 34: Media support for curly-haired girls
Please do not judge but I enjoy reading fashion magazines, including Glamour.* Here is one of their bloggers' blog entry in favour of curly hair:
"So there's a funny thing about red carpets and Hollywood events in general: You see wavy hair, sure. But curly hair? Curly hair is a rare thing to spot. OK, you've got Taylor Swift—she wears hers with pride—and maybe a handful of others. And yesterday Emmy Rossum let hers out for all the world to see...
Well, not so much all the world but the people and photographers at the P.S. ARTS Bag Lunch Sponsored By Dior Beauty. And I appreciate it.
You see, it's not that only straight-haired ladies become famous. No, it's that most of the curlies blow out their coils for a few reasons. The first is that straighter styles often reflect more light, so they look shinier in pictures. The second is the frizz factor--easier to control when you blow-dry smooth. And the third is that you've got more hairstyle options if you're not working around curls. But I'd argue that curls are an adorable hair option, and more Hollywood ladies should let theirs show. And therefore I'd like to take a sec to applaud Emmy for showing her spirals off yesterday. Bravo.
Have you ever noticed this before--that there isn't a lot of very curly hair on the red carpet? Are you a curly who wears hers with pride? Discuss."
Hi, it's me again. Bravo to the Girls in the Beauty Department.**
*Because this seems to be the day for Seinfeld references, I include this bit of trivia. Glamour was the magazine that George's mother caught him pleasuring himself to in the infamous masturbation episode aka "The Contest." In addition to bringing masturbation to prime time television, it also introduced the following euphemisms for masturbation abstention: "Master of my domain"; "Lord of the Manor"; Queen of the Castle." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkklW7VEBHA
**http://www.glamour.com/beauty/blogs/girls-in-the-beauty-department/2011/05/id-like-to-give-props-to-emmy.html?mbid=beautytipsnl
"So there's a funny thing about red carpets and Hollywood events in general: You see wavy hair, sure. But curly hair? Curly hair is a rare thing to spot. OK, you've got Taylor Swift—she wears hers with pride—and maybe a handful of others. And yesterday Emmy Rossum let hers out for all the world to see...
Well, not so much all the world but the people and photographers at the P.S. ARTS Bag Lunch Sponsored By Dior Beauty. And I appreciate it.
You see, it's not that only straight-haired ladies become famous. No, it's that most of the curlies blow out their coils for a few reasons. The first is that straighter styles often reflect more light, so they look shinier in pictures. The second is the frizz factor--easier to control when you blow-dry smooth. And the third is that you've got more hairstyle options if you're not working around curls. But I'd argue that curls are an adorable hair option, and more Hollywood ladies should let theirs show. And therefore I'd like to take a sec to applaud Emmy for showing her spirals off yesterday. Bravo.
Have you ever noticed this before--that there isn't a lot of very curly hair on the red carpet? Are you a curly who wears hers with pride? Discuss."
Hi, it's me again. Bravo to the Girls in the Beauty Department.**
*Because this seems to be the day for Seinfeld references, I include this bit of trivia. Glamour was the magazine that George's mother caught him pleasuring himself to in the infamous masturbation episode aka "The Contest." In addition to bringing masturbation to prime time television, it also introduced the following euphemisms for masturbation abstention: "Master of my domain"; "Lord of the Manor"; Queen of the Castle." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkklW7VEBHA
**http://www.glamour.com/beauty/blogs/girls-in-the-beauty-department/2011/05/id-like-to-give-props-to-emmy.html?mbid=beautytipsnl
Still Day 34: How to save books
"We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them." - John Waters
This, I believe, is how we stop the spread of that devil's tool, the Kindle and all its variants. No slap-and-tickle. No me-love-you-a-long-time. No hand jobs or blow jobs or any kind of jobs. Unless you have books. Real books with paper and ink words on shelves. To paraphrase Sir-Mix-a-Lot: You don't get none unless you got books hun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4he79krseU
This, I believe, is how we stop the spread of that devil's tool, the Kindle and all its variants. No slap-and-tickle. No me-love-you-a-long-time. No hand jobs or blow jobs or any kind of jobs. Unless you have books. Real books with paper and ink words on shelves. To paraphrase Sir-Mix-a-Lot: You don't get none unless you got books hun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4he79krseU
Day 34: Stalled
The blonding went well. My sunshine girl was delighted that her mommy has yellow hair like her.
But the jumpstart that I was hoping for has yet to materialize. Of course, I have been felled by a sinus infection and what turns out to be a bladder infection. Relationship Rule #27: Do not get a ten-year birth control device implanted in your uterus until he has proven himself long-term-birth-control-device-worthy.* Even if he says exactly the right things, like I will always fight for you or I am proud of you or I like emotionally high-maintenance women. Take it from me--no foreign bodies in your sensitive lady parts. Just don't do it!
So, not only have I failed miserably at my goals since the blonding but I also have not been able to collect empirical data on whether or not blondes really do have more fun. Of course, I can report fairly confidently that being blonde did not make sick being more fun.
*Elaine Bennis adopted "sponge-worthy" as her measuring device as to whether she would sleep with a man after learning that her preferred birth-control device, the Today Sponge, had been taken off the market and that she would have to ration those that she had left. (Watch the clip below. Bonus the fellow is Luke from Gilmore Girls).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FjmbRParcc&feature=related
**"Just do it!" being Nike's (the shoe, not the Goddess of Victory) slogan for many, many years.
But the jumpstart that I was hoping for has yet to materialize. Of course, I have been felled by a sinus infection and what turns out to be a bladder infection. Relationship Rule #27: Do not get a ten-year birth control device implanted in your uterus until he has proven himself long-term-birth-control-device-worthy.* Even if he says exactly the right things, like I will always fight for you or I am proud of you or I like emotionally high-maintenance women. Take it from me--no foreign bodies in your sensitive lady parts. Just don't do it!
So, not only have I failed miserably at my goals since the blonding but I also have not been able to collect empirical data on whether or not blondes really do have more fun. Of course, I can report fairly confidently that being blonde did not make sick being more fun.
*Elaine Bennis adopted "sponge-worthy" as her measuring device as to whether she would sleep with a man after learning that her preferred birth-control device, the Today Sponge, had been taken off the market and that she would have to ration those that she had left. (Watch the clip below. Bonus the fellow is Luke from Gilmore Girls).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FjmbRParcc&feature=related
**"Just do it!" being Nike's (the shoe, not the Goddess of Victory) slogan for many, many years.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Day 33: Getting Blond Now
(Cue today's theme music: Getting Strong Now from Rocky---http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnqZl_blT7E)....
Even though this is my 40th year, I am really a 12-year-old at heart about some things. Today is the day that I am going to become considerably blonder. Excited and nervous. Feeling a bit like a cowgirl in old western as the blonding commences at high noon. Thinking that I should have worn my cowgirl boots and spurs instead of black dress pants and a teal blouse.
(Wardrobe digression but somewhat relevant to the issue of being a 12-year-old--the teal blouse is new, bought on clearance last night. Paired with new vintage-y earrings with teal and tiny seed pearls and matching nail polish, even though I seldom wear polish on my fingernails, named "Mermaid to Order" and matching eyeliner "sparkling emerald" and a matching, vintage-y bracelet, which I already had in my jewelry arsenal. Both the matching and the purchasing of nail polish based largely on the name also serve as evidence of my inner 12 year old self. For the record, the earrings were also on sale!)
On the way to work, excited about the next step in my blonding, I catalogued my progress on my other--mental, emotional, and financial stability. So far, my progress has been mixed on the mental and emotional and a failure on the financial with one notable exception. Today marks my 9th day sans liquid crack from Starbucks which is a $50 savings. Progress on my other recently added goals--drinking more water, a minimum of 3 gym workouts per week, and more sleep have also been a mixed bag. Near total fail on the drinking more water, at least 1 workout per week, and some real progress on the sleep. Hoping that the getting blond now will help ignite a spark and get me strong.
So, in sum, the state of my union remains in flux but with forward progress. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. It's training to build up endurance for challenges big and small. Here's to moving forward, embracing our inner 12 year olds, and discovering the beauty in the ordinary....And to the weekend as an almost blonde! Cheers.
Even though this is my 40th year, I am really a 12-year-old at heart about some things. Today is the day that I am going to become considerably blonder. Excited and nervous. Feeling a bit like a cowgirl in old western as the blonding commences at high noon. Thinking that I should have worn my cowgirl boots and spurs instead of black dress pants and a teal blouse.
(Wardrobe digression but somewhat relevant to the issue of being a 12-year-old--the teal blouse is new, bought on clearance last night. Paired with new vintage-y earrings with teal and tiny seed pearls and matching nail polish, even though I seldom wear polish on my fingernails, named "Mermaid to Order" and matching eyeliner "sparkling emerald" and a matching, vintage-y bracelet, which I already had in my jewelry arsenal. Both the matching and the purchasing of nail polish based largely on the name also serve as evidence of my inner 12 year old self. For the record, the earrings were also on sale!)
On the way to work, excited about the next step in my blonding, I catalogued my progress on my other--mental, emotional, and financial stability. So far, my progress has been mixed on the mental and emotional and a failure on the financial with one notable exception. Today marks my 9th day sans liquid crack from Starbucks which is a $50 savings. Progress on my other recently added goals--drinking more water, a minimum of 3 gym workouts per week, and more sleep have also been a mixed bag. Near total fail on the drinking more water, at least 1 workout per week, and some real progress on the sleep. Hoping that the getting blond now will help ignite a spark and get me strong.
So, in sum, the state of my union remains in flux but with forward progress. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. It's training to build up endurance for challenges big and small. Here's to moving forward, embracing our inner 12 year olds, and discovering the beauty in the ordinary....And to the weekend as an almost blonde! Cheers.
"It was chaos. Rocky, you went the distance. You went the 15 rounds. How do you feel? "
"[about Apollo] I've never seen a fighter that concerned about his hair."
"Tonight, we have had the privilege of witnessing the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring!"
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Day 32: On sex and other random musings
Let's talk about sex. Frankly. I like to talk about sex and sexuality and various sexual acts. In generalities. Not who did what to whom and when and where. I find the topic fascinating and under-discussed. But is it possible to talk about sex, especially with men, without been viewed as a sexual object or a pervert or a bad girl? Does living in a Christian society guarantee that we cannot talk about sex or that we must necessarily view sex and sexuality as something inherently secret or bad or sinful or dirty? And is the intimation that sex is secret or inherently sinful part of what makes it thrilling? In other words, would we still like sex as much as we do, if we discussed it openly and frankly?
(Am listening to Salt-n-Peppa singing "Let's talk about sex."* I do tend toward being thematic, apparently even when blogging.)
Theoretically, men want a woman who is sexual and open about her sexuality. Maybe, even practically, men want to have a sexual relationship with a woman who is sexual and open about her sexuality. But, do men marry women who are sexual and open about their sexuality? Do men take women who are sexual home to meet their mothers? Or are sexual women destined to be relegated to the category of "whores in the bedroom", playthings--online or in the imagination? Or is being sexual and open about sexuality tantamount to being a bad girl? And I am not even talking about women who look overtly sexual or who you meet online in a sexual chat-room. I am talking about real-life women, who do not look like they work the pole. Who are ladies in the parlour. Can a man have a long-term, serious relationship with a woman that he sees as sexual and open about her sexuality? Or does the sex get in the way?
I guess that I will have to keep this one in the category of things to be continued and that make you go hmmmm....**
Day 2 of No Starbucks fared better than Day 1. Just like my merry band of supporters said it would. Of course, I started my day off with a large, black coffee from McDonald's with a shot of espresso. At 12 pm. After I woke up with a combination extreme migraine and sinus headache. And locked my house key and link to civilization (blackberry) in the house. I proceeded to break into my ex-laws house (not really--I know where they hide the key) and obtain their spare key. I am fairly certain that it is not breaking and entering as they have given me permission in the past to do that and have not yet revoked their permission. I also took some lilacs from the large lilac bush. (Is it a bush or a tree? Believe it or not, I once got into a debate with someone over the difference between a bush and a tree. The green thumb having skipped a generation when it got to me, I still have no idea what the difference is or why it makes a difference in the context of a general, non-gardening conversation).
I love lilacs. Lovely and fragrant. My dream is to someday have one outside my bedroom window.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0E72qnjro
**Things that make you go hmmm was a regular segment on a late-night talk show hosted by Arsenio Hall in the late 80s and 90s. This segment inspired a song by C & C Music Factory called "things that make you go hmmm." In addition to hosting this show, Hall was also known for dating Paula Abdul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2ayWcJfxo
(Am listening to Salt-n-Peppa singing "Let's talk about sex."* I do tend toward being thematic, apparently even when blogging.)
Theoretically, men want a woman who is sexual and open about her sexuality. Maybe, even practically, men want to have a sexual relationship with a woman who is sexual and open about her sexuality. But, do men marry women who are sexual and open about their sexuality? Do men take women who are sexual home to meet their mothers? Or are sexual women destined to be relegated to the category of "whores in the bedroom", playthings--online or in the imagination? Or is being sexual and open about sexuality tantamount to being a bad girl? And I am not even talking about women who look overtly sexual or who you meet online in a sexual chat-room. I am talking about real-life women, who do not look like they work the pole. Who are ladies in the parlour. Can a man have a long-term, serious relationship with a woman that he sees as sexual and open about her sexuality? Or does the sex get in the way?
I guess that I will have to keep this one in the category of things to be continued and that make you go hmmmm....**
Day 2 of No Starbucks fared better than Day 1. Just like my merry band of supporters said it would. Of course, I started my day off with a large, black coffee from McDonald's with a shot of espresso. At 12 pm. After I woke up with a combination extreme migraine and sinus headache. And locked my house key and link to civilization (blackberry) in the house. I proceeded to break into my ex-laws house (not really--I know where they hide the key) and obtain their spare key. I am fairly certain that it is not breaking and entering as they have given me permission in the past to do that and have not yet revoked their permission. I also took some lilacs from the large lilac bush. (Is it a bush or a tree? Believe it or not, I once got into a debate with someone over the difference between a bush and a tree. The green thumb having skipped a generation when it got to me, I still have no idea what the difference is or why it makes a difference in the context of a general, non-gardening conversation).
I love lilacs. Lovely and fragrant. My dream is to someday have one outside my bedroom window.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0E72qnjro
**Things that make you go hmmm was a regular segment on a late-night talk show hosted by Arsenio Hall in the late 80s and 90s. This segment inspired a song by C & C Music Factory called "things that make you go hmmm." In addition to hosting this show, Hall was also known for dating Paula Abdul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2ayWcJfxo
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Day 31 or Day 1 without Starbucks
A great workout and 8 hours of sleep last night should have been the perfect set-up for Day 1 without my liquid crack. Should have been. Am currently on cup number seven of super-duper French Roast brewed in my office and I cannot wake up. It is is like I am running in slow motion, my thoughts and words are moving in slow motion, and I cannot seem to utter an articulate sentence. There is a space missing between the thing-y that transmits the brain words into spoken words. (See, the preceding sentence pretty much proves the point).
My co-workers are urging me on, suggesting that my espresso-addicted body needs a couple days to adjust. My hands are shaking. My brain is in open revolt, refusing to do any concrete work until it gets its fix. And all I want to do is go to sleep. Like for about 30 hours. The siren song is strong through the waves of fog, the slow-motion water--just one more quad-grande-skinny-upside-down-caramel macchiato, just to get the brain fired up. Maybe, Indy's dad is there getting an afternoon fix, and your shared addiction will lead to true love. As a Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald duet plays from one of the Starbucks compilations, the earthy, warm smell of fresh, hot coffee brewing, the soft whirl of the milk steamer, the sharp hiss of the liquid crack dropping into my cup....Mmmmm....
Alas, I have .75 in my checking account, which makes me about $5.00 short of a fix. So unless I am willing to become the first liquid crack whore in history, it looks like I will have hold fast to my NO-Starbucks vow. And make another pot of coffee.
My co-workers are urging me on, suggesting that my espresso-addicted body needs a couple days to adjust. My hands are shaking. My brain is in open revolt, refusing to do any concrete work until it gets its fix. And all I want to do is go to sleep. Like for about 30 hours. The siren song is strong through the waves of fog, the slow-motion water--just one more quad-grande-skinny-upside-down-caramel macchiato, just to get the brain fired up. Maybe, Indy's dad is there getting an afternoon fix, and your shared addiction will lead to true love. As a Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald duet plays from one of the Starbucks compilations, the earthy, warm smell of fresh, hot coffee brewing, the soft whirl of the milk steamer, the sharp hiss of the liquid crack dropping into my cup....Mmmmm....
Alas, I have .75 in my checking account, which makes me about $5.00 short of a fix. So unless I am willing to become the first liquid crack whore in history, it looks like I will have hold fast to my NO-Starbucks vow. And make another pot of coffee.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Day 30: Things that make me smile
I am trying to make good on my vows. So far, with the work day over in 25 minutes, I have drank almost an entire 16.9 ounce bottle of water. It's a start, and I have several hours to make good on the remaining 40 or so ounces. The others are more long term goals or cannot be accomplished yet.
I am beginning to feel melancholy. Listening to Rain Delays by Crash Parallel and Somewhere out there by Our Lady Peace a gazillion times is probably not helping. Yet, somehow, I cannot seem to stop myself from hitting replay.
So, I am going to work on Vow 6 and list some things that have made me smile today. First, the drive into school and work for me and my sunshine girl. She was in a particularly silly mood, and her silliness and smile are always contagious. We were pretending to be mice/mouses. She pointed out that her nose (and mine) are already pink and that she has whiskers like her dog except that hers are invisible. I have my rear-view mirror titled so that I can see her sweet face. She can also see my face so we were twitching our noses at each other and cracking up. When we got to her school, I made another comment about our mouseness, and she felt the need to remind me that we were just "pretending, mommy, to be mouses." In fact, I smiled so much that I thought my face might freeze in a permanent smile.
Second, after dropping my sunshine girl off, I decided to get my next-to-last coffee at Starbucks. The magic Starbucks is right by her school, and in the back of my mind I realized that given the lateness of the hour that I might run into my Starbucks crush. Just in case, I freshened up my lipstick, ignoring my frizzy, rain-affected hair. As I walked in and headed to the counter, I saw his shoes, combination running/hiking shoes, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was him. Indy's dad! Another addict, er patron, separated us in the line. He looked over at me, his blue eyes met mine, and we smiled at each other. Sometimes, I am shy. And I quickly rifled through my bag looking for a distraction. Our eyes met a couple more times, including when he passed me again as I placed my order and he heading down the long aisle to the door. He stopped and talked to a barista on her break as I had moved to the other end of the counter--leaving us at separate ends of the store. He looked down at me, smiling again, and I got those jittery, roller coastery butterflies. I pulled out a business card and wrote my cell number on the back. Alas, the dealer, er barista, took too long with my drink, and he was gone, walking off into the morning rain and fog. Ah, maybe next time....
Third, snow showers of apple blossoms falling from the row of trees along my building. Lovely, magical, bits of flowered hope on a cold, rainy day.
I am beginning to feel melancholy. Listening to Rain Delays by Crash Parallel and Somewhere out there by Our Lady Peace a gazillion times is probably not helping. Yet, somehow, I cannot seem to stop myself from hitting replay.
So, I am going to work on Vow 6 and list some things that have made me smile today. First, the drive into school and work for me and my sunshine girl. She was in a particularly silly mood, and her silliness and smile are always contagious. We were pretending to be mice/mouses. She pointed out that her nose (and mine) are already pink and that she has whiskers like her dog except that hers are invisible. I have my rear-view mirror titled so that I can see her sweet face. She can also see my face so we were twitching our noses at each other and cracking up. When we got to her school, I made another comment about our mouseness, and she felt the need to remind me that we were just "pretending, mommy, to be mouses." In fact, I smiled so much that I thought my face might freeze in a permanent smile.
Second, after dropping my sunshine girl off, I decided to get my next-to-last coffee at Starbucks. The magic Starbucks is right by her school, and in the back of my mind I realized that given the lateness of the hour that I might run into my Starbucks crush. Just in case, I freshened up my lipstick, ignoring my frizzy, rain-affected hair. As I walked in and headed to the counter, I saw his shoes, combination running/hiking shoes, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was him. Indy's dad! Another addict, er patron, separated us in the line. He looked over at me, his blue eyes met mine, and we smiled at each other. Sometimes, I am shy. And I quickly rifled through my bag looking for a distraction. Our eyes met a couple more times, including when he passed me again as I placed my order and he heading down the long aisle to the door. He stopped and talked to a barista on her break as I had moved to the other end of the counter--leaving us at separate ends of the store. He looked down at me, smiling again, and I got those jittery, roller coastery butterflies. I pulled out a business card and wrote my cell number on the back. Alas, the dealer, er barista, took too long with my drink, and he was gone, walking off into the morning rain and fog. Ah, maybe next time....
Third, snow showers of apple blossoms falling from the row of trees along my building. Lovely, magical, bits of flowered hope on a cold, rainy day.
Day 30: Try, try, trying again
If at first you don't succeed, try again and again and again. Last week was definitely a week that tried this woman's soul and resolve. A week where it seemed that nothing could ever be good again, that my goals of becoming blonde, financially solvent, a fully-realized, fully-actualized person seemed destined for failure. For a millisecond, I even considered trying to reconcile with my ex. We have been getting along and it's nice to be part of a team, a unit, a traditional family. But the end of the week demonstrated that he will never change, compromise, or fight for me, for us. It would be me alone, trying to change, compromise, fight and nothing will ever be enough for him, and he is incapable of giving me what I need, long for--intimacy, emotionally or physically--a true partner.
It's a new week, and I vowed to try again. As Annie* was told in Bridesmaids, "you're your problem, Annie, and your solution." This resonated with me and drove home the point--again--that the crucial part of this journey that I am on is learning to be self-sufficient, to fill myself up, and not to count anyone other than myself. Appreciate and savour my friendships and "friend"ships but do not count on them. Don't use them as oars. I am the captain of my own ship, my destiny. Only I can save myself and get where I need, where I want to be.
So, I have set some new goals to strive toward this week. First, I vow to give up my daily Starbucks habit. My daily crack is $5.67, before tip. Or over $40 per week. Or over $160 per month. At least until I get my financial house in order. This is vital because I need to get out of my current physical house and into my own place. I have $2.99 left on my card and when it's done, no more Starbucks. I am not giving up coffee (I am not insane, just a little nutty from time to time) but will stick with that brewed in my office or in my home.
Second, I vow to get to the gym and my classes this week. At least, three times. I went to kickboxing on Saturday morning. Got my ass kicked but kicked some metaphorical ass myself. I have a lot of anger right now. It scares me and kickboxing provided the perfect outlet for releasing it. Master Sensei T taught our regular teacher V, who is pregnant and has been ordered to take it down a couple notches for the duration of her pregnancy. Master T is a former Navy Seal and is tough as nails but he also has this zen-like quality about him. He started from the beginning and to the chagrin of some of my fellow women warriors, he began with the fundamentals. Think wax-on, wax-off. Teaching us the correct form and breathing for each punch, cross, hook, and kick. Integrating some yoga and core work into the class. The first class was even without music. Last Saturday, we had music and it was more intense, more cardio. We are still mastering the fundamentals but we did end the class with the crane technique as Master T chanted "Ralph Macchio, Ralph Macchio, RM, RM" as we jumped from leg to leg trying to perfect the crane technique.* Plus, I got to punch him several times, very hard, on his rock hard stomach.
Third, I vow to drink at least 64 ounces of water per day.
Fourth, I vow to try and get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep per night.
Fifth, I vow to stop living in the past and ruminating over the "if onlies" and the "why not mes?." It is counter-productive and lacking a time machine, I cannot go back and change anything. Truthfully, much of what I'd like to change would also alter the best parts of my present and my future, specifically my daughter's existence. She is the best thing that I have ever done or will do. As much as I have come to accept that her dad was unavailable to me and that I knew that before I married him, before I created a human life with him, she is my true love, my destiny. She is what keeps me here on my worst days and what propels me forward on my best days. She makes me want to be a complete, whole woman so I can help her become a complete, whole, self-sufficient, confident woman who cannot be held back by her fear, her insecurities.
Sixth, I vow to acknowledge every day at least one moment of beauty or one moment of goodness or one thing that has made me smile
Seventh, I vow to stop making decisions based on superstitions or stemming from "magical thinking" or acting for the sake of acting. But I vow not to do this at the expense of acknowledging that magic and beauty and passion do exist. (I have already broken this vow because I wanted to end my vows with an odd number, which is superstitious. Baby steps.)
So, it is written. So, it shall be done.
*Bridesmaids is Judd Apatow's new movie that has been marketed as The Hangover for chicks. It was good and funny but Apatow did not quite hit his mark. Annie reminded me very much of Meg Ryan, like a 2000s version of the character that Meg Ryan perfected in the 80s and the 90s. But updated to fit the current times and current challenges--the failing economy, the new un-dating dating rules like Friends with Benefits.
**Ralph Macchio was the original Karate Kid in 1984 (what a great year--the Karate Kid and the Tigers won the world series after a magical start that included over 20 wins in a row to start of the season and a no-hitter). I was in middle school and we got these magazines every week, and they featured bits of screenplays or just regular plays and we had to read them in class. The Karate Kid was one of them.
Ralph Macchio starred in two Karate Kid sequels but there was no improving on the first, which also had a killer soundtrack, including Banarama's Cruel Summer. Naturally, I had a crush on him. Back then, I fancied myself a would-be novelist and wrote a novel about a girl named Elizabeth Sanderson who was selected to be an intern with him in real life and live in his house. Of course, we had Tiger Beat back then and so I knew all the details of his life, which I integrated into my novel. (Tiger Beat was a magazine geared to teenagers and their celebrity crushes. All told, my novel consisted of over a 100 handwritten pages, which I burned in a fit of temper and the recognition that I would never be a great writer and was unwilling to settle for being a mediocre writer. During my tempestuous 20s is when I burned it along with a bunch of short stories and poems. Of course, now, in my reflective 30s, I wish that I had not burned these artifacts of my youth.
Besides the dreaminess of Daniel-san and the David vs. Goliath, rich vs poor themes, the Karate Kid contains several quotable lines that are often uttered by those of us who came of age in the 80s and that have become enmeshed in later incantations of pop culture. For instance, the evil sensei who leads the Kobra Kais instructs one of his students to "sweep the leg" during the karate match. "Sweep the leg" found its way into an episode of the Office where Michael took the office on a field trip to watch a match between himself and Dwight. Kevin utters the infamous line "sweep the leg." Those already of age in 1984 (my ex) and those not born until the 1980s undoubtedly missed this reference which increased the hilarity of the scene by a thousand-fold.
Moreover, Mr. Miyagi shares several bits of wisdom imbued with good-old fashioned common sense that seem relevant to my own "vision quest": (1) "We make sacred pact. I promise teach karate to you, you promise learn. I say, you do, no questions"; (2) "First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, Daniel-san, not mine"; (3) "Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important"; (4) "Punch! Drive a punch! Not just arm, whole body! Hip, leg, drive a punch! Make "kiai." Kiai! Give you power. Now, drive punch"; (5) "I tell you what Miyagi think! I think you *dance around* too much! I think you *talk* too much! I think you not concentrate enough! Lots of work to be done! Tournament just around corner!"; (6) "Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?"; and (7) "Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?"
The first photo is Daniel-san (Daniel Russo) and Mr. Miyagi. Daniel-san demonstrates the crane technique on the beach. The second photo is just the Karate Kid in his dreaminess. Elisabeth Shue was his love interest, Ali Mills.
It's a new week, and I vowed to try again. As Annie* was told in Bridesmaids, "you're your problem, Annie, and your solution." This resonated with me and drove home the point--again--that the crucial part of this journey that I am on is learning to be self-sufficient, to fill myself up, and not to count anyone other than myself. Appreciate and savour my friendships and "friend"ships but do not count on them. Don't use them as oars. I am the captain of my own ship, my destiny. Only I can save myself and get where I need, where I want to be.
So, I have set some new goals to strive toward this week. First, I vow to give up my daily Starbucks habit. My daily crack is $5.67, before tip. Or over $40 per week. Or over $160 per month. At least until I get my financial house in order. This is vital because I need to get out of my current physical house and into my own place. I have $2.99 left on my card and when it's done, no more Starbucks. I am not giving up coffee (I am not insane, just a little nutty from time to time) but will stick with that brewed in my office or in my home.
Second, I vow to get to the gym and my classes this week. At least, three times. I went to kickboxing on Saturday morning. Got my ass kicked but kicked some metaphorical ass myself. I have a lot of anger right now. It scares me and kickboxing provided the perfect outlet for releasing it. Master Sensei T taught our regular teacher V, who is pregnant and has been ordered to take it down a couple notches for the duration of her pregnancy. Master T is a former Navy Seal and is tough as nails but he also has this zen-like quality about him. He started from the beginning and to the chagrin of some of my fellow women warriors, he began with the fundamentals. Think wax-on, wax-off. Teaching us the correct form and breathing for each punch, cross, hook, and kick. Integrating some yoga and core work into the class. The first class was even without music. Last Saturday, we had music and it was more intense, more cardio. We are still mastering the fundamentals but we did end the class with the crane technique as Master T chanted "Ralph Macchio, Ralph Macchio, RM, RM" as we jumped from leg to leg trying to perfect the crane technique.* Plus, I got to punch him several times, very hard, on his rock hard stomach.
Third, I vow to drink at least 64 ounces of water per day.
Fourth, I vow to try and get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep per night.
Fifth, I vow to stop living in the past and ruminating over the "if onlies" and the "why not mes?." It is counter-productive and lacking a time machine, I cannot go back and change anything. Truthfully, much of what I'd like to change would also alter the best parts of my present and my future, specifically my daughter's existence. She is the best thing that I have ever done or will do. As much as I have come to accept that her dad was unavailable to me and that I knew that before I married him, before I created a human life with him, she is my true love, my destiny. She is what keeps me here on my worst days and what propels me forward on my best days. She makes me want to be a complete, whole woman so I can help her become a complete, whole, self-sufficient, confident woman who cannot be held back by her fear, her insecurities.
Sixth, I vow to acknowledge every day at least one moment of beauty or one moment of goodness or one thing that has made me smile
Seventh, I vow to stop making decisions based on superstitions or stemming from "magical thinking" or acting for the sake of acting. But I vow not to do this at the expense of acknowledging that magic and beauty and passion do exist. (I have already broken this vow because I wanted to end my vows with an odd number, which is superstitious. Baby steps.)
So, it is written. So, it shall be done.
*Bridesmaids is Judd Apatow's new movie that has been marketed as The Hangover for chicks. It was good and funny but Apatow did not quite hit his mark. Annie reminded me very much of Meg Ryan, like a 2000s version of the character that Meg Ryan perfected in the 80s and the 90s. But updated to fit the current times and current challenges--the failing economy, the new un-dating dating rules like Friends with Benefits.
**Ralph Macchio was the original Karate Kid in 1984 (what a great year--the Karate Kid and the Tigers won the world series after a magical start that included over 20 wins in a row to start of the season and a no-hitter). I was in middle school and we got these magazines every week, and they featured bits of screenplays or just regular plays and we had to read them in class. The Karate Kid was one of them.
Ralph Macchio starred in two Karate Kid sequels but there was no improving on the first, which also had a killer soundtrack, including Banarama's Cruel Summer. Naturally, I had a crush on him. Back then, I fancied myself a would-be novelist and wrote a novel about a girl named Elizabeth Sanderson who was selected to be an intern with him in real life and live in his house. Of course, we had Tiger Beat back then and so I knew all the details of his life, which I integrated into my novel. (Tiger Beat was a magazine geared to teenagers and their celebrity crushes. All told, my novel consisted of over a 100 handwritten pages, which I burned in a fit of temper and the recognition that I would never be a great writer and was unwilling to settle for being a mediocre writer. During my tempestuous 20s is when I burned it along with a bunch of short stories and poems. Of course, now, in my reflective 30s, I wish that I had not burned these artifacts of my youth.
Besides the dreaminess of Daniel-san and the David vs. Goliath, rich vs poor themes, the Karate Kid contains several quotable lines that are often uttered by those of us who came of age in the 80s and that have become enmeshed in later incantations of pop culture. For instance, the evil sensei who leads the Kobra Kais instructs one of his students to "sweep the leg" during the karate match. "Sweep the leg" found its way into an episode of the Office where Michael took the office on a field trip to watch a match between himself and Dwight. Kevin utters the infamous line "sweep the leg." Those already of age in 1984 (my ex) and those not born until the 1980s undoubtedly missed this reference which increased the hilarity of the scene by a thousand-fold.
Moreover, Mr. Miyagi shares several bits of wisdom imbued with good-old fashioned common sense that seem relevant to my own "vision quest": (1) "We make sacred pact. I promise teach karate to you, you promise learn. I say, you do, no questions"; (2) "First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, Daniel-san, not mine"; (3) "Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important"; (4) "Punch! Drive a punch! Not just arm, whole body! Hip, leg, drive a punch! Make "kiai." Kiai! Give you power. Now, drive punch"; (5) "I tell you what Miyagi think! I think you *dance around* too much! I think you *talk* too much! I think you not concentrate enough! Lots of work to be done! Tournament just around corner!"; (6) "Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?"; and (7) "Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?"
The first photo is Daniel-san (Daniel Russo) and Mr. Miyagi. Daniel-san demonstrates the crane technique on the beach. The second photo is just the Karate Kid in his dreaminess. Elisabeth Shue was his love interest, Ali Mills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T99hbumhePA (Cruel Summer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCRTbh3D_us&feature=related (You're the Best)
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Day 29: My Dad
May 15 was my dad's birthday. May 15, 2005 was his last birthday. It was sunny and warm, and he grilled cheeseburgers for us. We sat in his backyard, in lawn chairs near his Japanese koi pond. Owing to distance and my evil stepmonster and her reciprocal, mutual affection for my dad's offspring, we generally only saw my dad on holidays, his birthday, our birthdays, Father's Day. I always remember his birthday being sunny and warm.
This year marks the fifth anniversary of my dad's death. Several of my friends lost their dads last year, and I have reassured them it gets easier. And it has gotten easier. But sometimes, it comes rushing back and the loss feels palpable and new, like it just happened. And this year, this May 15, I really miss him. His sarcastic, at times caustic wit, his politically incorrect sense of humor, his dark eyes exactly like mine and my daughter, his granddaughter who he never got to meet. Yes, he was the tough guy who pushed a burning plane off his base in Vietnam, who scared the hell out of my sister's beaus with a single look, and who his co-workers called Rambo at work. But he had this inner gentleness. Gentleness is not the right word. He was much more emotional and passionate than my mom. Kindness, maybe. Behind this gruff, tough exterior, he was kind. Taking my nephew downstairs into his basement at Christmas to feed the Japanese koi that he kept there during our freezing months.
Today was dreary and rainy and cold. (Yes, more weather talk). My dad hated the cold, and yet, he spent his entire life in it, working outside in it. He loved going on trips to warm, exotic locales. To see giant turtles and snorkel, to watch scantily-clad women frolicking on the beach. About our "fair" state and its highly changeable weather, he always said "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute and it will change."
Anyway, I woke up feeling empty and sad, the steady rain providing a maudlin soundtrack. My sunshine girl asked me if she could sit on my lap, and as I held her close and breathed in the scent of sunshine and joy and loveliness, she told me that she loved me and gave me a big hug. I told her that I love her hugs and that I really needed one today because I was sad. She turned and looked into my eyes and touched my face and asked me why I was sad. I told her that it was my dad's birthday, and she asked if I was sad that I missed his birthday party. I reminded her that my daddy was in heaven and our guardian angel but that I really missed him today. She said: "you don't miss me, because I am not dead, right?" I have explained to her that my daddy is dead but being 4, she does not grasp the finality of death and easily tosses the word "dead" around. Hell, I am going to be 40 all too soon, it has been nearly 5.5 years, and I still cannot fully grasp that my dad is dead.
Dead. Just writing that word made my heart seize and the tears flow. What is it that makes certain words seem so taboo? We try to disguise the word and make it more palatable with sayings like "we lost him" or "he passed away" or "he is no longer with us" or "he has gone onto a better place." What horse shit. I do it too but it's utter horse shit and I feel Holden Caulfield's disdain for phoniness even though I am equally phony for mouthing similar platitudes. My dad is fucking dead. He will never breathe in the sunshine that is his granddaughter, who has his eyes, his no-bullshit look, his love of nature and gardening. He will never get to feel the love and light of her hugs, her kisses (real and fake), her wonderfully twisted sense of humor, her laugh that is joy and silliness personified. She will never get to feed the koi with him or sit on his lap and pull at his beard. I will never get to hear another man, another person tell me that I was the best thing that he ever did. I will never get to argue politics with him again; he probably would have thought that Sarah Palin was hot. I will never get to watch another Michigan football game with him or a Tigers' game or listen to him rail against the government, his wife, or the democrats.
He is dead. I tell my daughter that Papa John is our angel in heaven and watches over us and keeps us safe. But I have never been sure that I believe in heaven or angels. I was raised to believe that there is a heaven, but I am a doubter, a skeptic, and have never been able to take things on faith. I wish that I could but I cannot. My dad was a doubter and skeptic and questioner but he did believe in God. He claimed to have seen Jesus when he returned from Vietnam.
Later in life, after having a falling out with the religion of my youth, I attended a Catholic law school and was impressed with the compassion, intelligence, and social justice of the Jesuits. My ex's
Yet, still I doubt. Not in the existence of God or a higher power. I do believe in that. I am just not sure that I believe in the constructs and tenets of religion, like heaven and hell. It seems to me like it is a way to hedge our bets and a useful construct to keep humankind from contemplating the inescapable truth--that we are all born to die. I hope that I am wrong. That there is a heaven after we fulfill our ultimate destiny and that it is filled with unimaginable joy and peace and that it is never, ever cold.
The last time we celebrated my birthday together at a steak house playing country music, you expressed a desire for some rock-n-roll, and specifically mentioned Honky Tonk Woman. You also loved One Night in Bangkok. These are for you, dad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kve_N8rmmQ (Honky Tonk Woman)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9mwELXPGbA (One Night in Bangkok)
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