inching forward...

Moving Day

2008-02-28T15:06:00.002-06:00

I recently decided that I'm tired of looking at the URL for this site, and all of the negativitiy and dwelling in the past that it represents. (Plus, I'm fickle and wanted to try something new) Sooooooooo.....from now on all future posts can be found on my new blog:

http://inchingforward.wordpress.com/

Moving right along now- onwards and upwards. My therapist will be so proud...

Haiku for an extended cold

2008-02-27T20:38:00.002-06:00

Sick at home again-
seems coughing will never stop.
I just want to sleep!

Dammit...

2008-02-26T16:57:00.002-06:00

Argh. Almost forgot to write again. And once again, it was for no good reason, just mindlessly surfing the net and looking up stuff about all of the vacations I want to take. And the food I want to eat. And the houses I want to buy. And Diablo Cody.

Well, I'm writing now, and that's something at least. After all, I didn't pledge to write "prolifically" or even "well" every day, just to write.

It snowed here again last night- 8 inches. I swear sometimes I feel like it will never stop snowing. At first it was charming, in a 'hole-up-in-your-house-and--read-a- good-book-with-a-glass- of-wine-and some-pasta' kind of way. But it's not cute any more. Really NOT CUTE. Now it's making me fat, and lethargic, and keeping me away from my friends. I swear we haven't had a full week with no snow since the middle of January. Enough is enough already!

But, then again, I guess the lack of anything else to do has helped to get me writing again, which is good. And it motivated me to finally get around to reading a book which has quickly catapulted to the top of my favorite books of all time list: "Traveling Mercies" by Anne Lamott. I plan to commit that book to memory- it is truly amazing.

Okay- I wrote. So there. More interesting stuff tomorrow, I promise.

Life's too short, and other lessons I learned from white chocolate and lime

2008-02-25T10:25:00.008-06:00

Okay, so I forgot to write on Friday. I was alone in the office for most of the afternoon and spent the majority of that time filling in blocks on Word document-created "Baby Bingo" game sheets for a baby shower I co-hosted on Sunday (yesterday), and though that is not an excuse, per-se, it is the reason I didn't write. Those suckers took a long time to fill out! (And then only half of them ended up being used, but that's another whiny story...)

But I have refused to beat myself up for failing to live up to my 5 days a week writing goal in the first week of its existence. Because beating myself up about something that is in the past and therefore out of my control would only spark a guilt-ridden backlash which would probably result in my scrapping the whole project. And that's not something I want to do. I've been thinking a lot lately that I need to learn to forgive myself when I make silly, small mistakes. I generally set the bar pretty (some would say unrealistically) high for myself, and then internally berate myself when I fail to live up to my own self-imposed and completely unnecessary/unrealistic goals. That's no bueno, and something I want to work to change. So I didn't write- it's not the end of the world, no one was hurt or killed (myself included), and all I can do is pick myself up, dust myself off, and start writing again this week.

This new and much needed policy of self-forgiveness first popped into existence this weekend as I prepared for the aforementioned baby shower. It just so happens that I am known in my social circle for being both an excellent party planner and dessert-maker extraordinaire. This is mostly based on my Monica-esque tendency to always want to be the hostess and my love for the challenge of tackling very precise and complicated recipes, both roles in which my control-freak/perfectionist personality tends to revel. However, in the process of creating and executing these little labors of love I tend to overextend myself and try to do everything by myself, which usually ends up making me a stressed out crazy person when only 5 of the 6 made-from-scratch desserts (or carefully compiled mix-CD favors, or individually designed "Baby Bingo" cards) turn out perfectly. In typical "Me" fashion, when faced with designing a menu for a good friend's baby shower, I decided to make not one, not two, but three different homemade desserts- coconut cupcakes (from a recipe I'd never attempted), dulche de leche sandwich cookies (with homemade dulche de leche, naturally) and two different variations of chocolate truffles, whose flavors would be inspired by the mother and father-to-be's interests and heritages. Overdoing it a little maybe? Clearly you don't know me very well.

So on Friday night after work, I began my baking extravaganza. Did I mention that despite having a grad school class from 9 to 5 on both Saturday and Sunday, I decided that- in the interest of freshness- I should just make everything on Friday and/or Saturday night? After sitting in class all day? For a shower that would begin on Sunday directly after I got out of class? I'm crazy- I don't deny it. After knocking out the sandwich cookies (which turned out pretty well, even if they a little messier looking than I'd hoped), I was attempting to melt some white chocolate to coat the margarita-flavored truffles I had decided upon for the mom-to-be (she's Mexican and was quite the tequila fan in her pre-preggo days) when I decided to add some lime juice to the chocolate, in hopes of furthering the margarita flavor. As I was tempering the chocolate in the microwave, I simply poured some lime juice over my nicely melting white chocolate chips, gave it a little stir and put the mixture back in the microwave for another 30 seconds. At the ding, I took out the bowl of what I assumed would be citrus-flavored white chocolate goodness, only to find a stiff, globby hunk of white chocolate mess, with a texture closer to dried out kindergarten paste than smooth, silky fondue.

Now, under normal circumstances, I would have freaked out about this, wringing my hands and declaring that I was a truffle-making failure and surely the party would be ruined. But, given the two glasses of wine I'd already consumed, the sandwich cookie's relative success, and the presence of two friends who had come over to help with the wine-drinking and cookie testing, I instead took it in stride. I told myself that my mistake had probably been as simple as microwaving the chocolate for too long, or at too high a temperature, or possibly just inferior white chocolate chips (I knew I should have gone for the more expensive brand). I could just dip the truffles tomorrow night. After class. Before I made the cupcakes. In that generous 2 hour window I'd have for all that, before spending some much needed and faithfully promised quality time with J. Yeah, that'd work... The next night, however, after having great success with the cupcakes (really, some of the best I've ever made, even despite- or perhaps because of- my futzing with the icing recipe), I confidently set about tempering some more white chocolate that Jay picked up for me after he got off work ("I promise honey- this will only take a few more minutes and then I'm all yours..."). This time I used the tried and true double boiler method- that silly microwave wouldn't screw ME up again- and just as the chocolate pieces were starting to soften and blur together, I pulled the bowl from the stove and stirred them into smooth, shiny liquid perfection. I then grabbed my lime, and my cute little citrus reamer, and- almost smugly- poured just under a 1/4 of a cup of lime juice into the melted chocolate. Immediate cloudiness. Then, as I began to stir, my lovely potion began to seize up and clump like bad biscuit dough. I stirred faster, hoping it just need to incorporate. The consistency thickened from that of lumpy batter to wet sand. I put the bowl back over the hot water, hoping the heat would help. It didn't. The mixture began to separate, giving off an oily residue. Meanwhile J sat on the couch. Almost an hour into our "date night".

Then the strangest thing happened. I didn't cry. Or get frustrated. Or declare that surely everyone at the baby shower would scoff at the idea of only one flavor of truffle and all storm out en masse taking their gifts with them, leaving the parents-to-be glaring at me through tears of pain and disappointment. I just scraped the ruined chocolate into the trash, called out to J that "Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go with one kind of truffle", and went to the other room to sit with my husband. And you know what? Everyone loved the one kind of truffle. And the cupcakes. Rave reviews all around. And the "messy looking" cookies were the fan favorite.

So I guess the moral of this story is that self-forgiveness feels pretty darn good. And setting up huge self-imposed hurdles and then worrying about how to clear them is really just a big unnecessary waste of time and energy. And people are usually pretty darn impressed with what I put out there anyway, even if it's not everything I set out to do. And spending time with my husband is much more important than trying to be Martha Stewart.

And white chocolate and lime juice do not mix. Maybe next time I'll try just adding the zest....

This may be cheating...

2008-02-21T11:47:00.006-06:00

but hopefully I'll get around to writing again later. And I did write this, so it has to count at least a little bit, since 'writing every day' is the overall goal of this experiment. I'm justifying, I know. What can I say- my therapist canceled on me today (she's get over cataract surgery.... oops- there I go justifying again), so I must have some built up guilt/self-doubt just looking for an outlet. Anyway, this is an expansion of a response I wrote to a post on a friend's blog, and I like how it turned out:

I admit it- I read Realtor.com, and the local paper's 'Home Finder', and scan the neighborhoods I like for 'For Sale' signs. But that doesn't make me unfaithful. I love my apartment, I really do, but we both knew all along that it wasn't a long-term commitment, that she was just a fling, not marriage material. She's beautiful, my apartment, and quite a catch for the city, but she lacks substance- and reliable plumbing, and consistent heating, and a washer/dryer/dishwasher. She's a high-school drop out with a great stylist. I won't deny it: I'm with her for her huge sun rooms, her fabulous built-ins and her cute little yard. There's no shame in being a sucker for a great set of built-ins. But I'm still single and fancy free in the real estate sense- no mortgage on my finger, no sir, not me. Which leaves me free to flirt with other houses, other neighborhoods, other cities even, on other coasts. Lately I've been carrying on a secret online relationships in several places at once, including two local neighborhoods and some lingering long-distance flirtations with the cities of Philadelphia and Annapolis. And I don't feel guilty. I never said I wanted to settle down.

I blame my realty-commitment issues on my urban surroundings and friends. Of all of my friends here in the city, only one couple has ever owned a real 'house', with a yard and grown-up neighbors, and water bills. And even they're renting right now, as the taxes (and his divorce settlement) drove them out of their charming single family home. My friends all rent. Oh they talk about buying one day, but they don't really mean it. Because buying in the city means paying way too much for a shoe box of a condo, or leaving the city and moving to the burbs, which nobody wants to do. So we keep our downtown mistresses, changing addresses and lease agreements like Hugh Hefner changes blondes, always dreaming of the day that a change in job or financial situation will lead us to a nice girl-next door (or at least 'girl-down-the-block') type, that won't require changing zip codes or neighborhood bars.

But secretly, deep down (or not so deep down, it seems), I want to make that commitment- a real commitment, in front of all my friends and family- to a nice little 3 bedroom, 1 and a 1/2 bath Chicago-style bungalow with a front porch, hard wood floors, a postage stamp yard (just big enough for a tiny garden, a hammock, and a midsummer dinner party), and a garage. I dream about this house. I casually stroll through neighborhoods looking for her. I know she's out there, and I know she's out of my league, but still I think if I can just get the first date I can win her over. We may not stay together forever- so few urban homeowners do- but I know we'd make each other happy while it lasted... at least until the I got tired of sharing a bathroom.

I'd say that I had spring fever, but I know it isn't spring

2008-02-20T13:47:00.006-06:00

I've been coughing non-stop since yesterday afternoon. Perhaps writing that my cough sounds like my mothers' brought about some sort of cosmic intervention, in which I am being forced to acknowledge our similarities and her absence again and again and again.

Or maybe J's right and I have an Upper Respiratory Infection. Could go either way, really. I'm going to see both my therapist and my doctor tomorrow; I'm sure that one of them should be able to get to the bottom of things.

Two posts in a row about coughing- my life is truly fascinating.

It is still bitterly cold here. The kind of cold where the front of your thighs turn numb after walking just a few blocks (in pants and a long coat, mind you- I'm not just frolicking around pants-free and wondering why my legs are chilly). I thought that this winter I was dodging the old S.A.D. blues, but I think they may be beginning to set in. I really want it to be spring, and soon, but eight years of Chicago winters have taught me to know better. I'll have to settle for dreaming or reading of lovely spring mornings, full of crocuses, delicate sunshine and the smell of warm,wet dirt.

I'm thinking of taking J to New Orleans in April, for his birthday. I'd imagine that that's a city where they know how to throw a spring. The first time I went to NOLA was in August of last year, and I quickly found out why any natives with the means leave town in the summer. To say it was hot would be the equivalent of calling the ocean "moist". Heat or not, I fell right in love with that town. It's true southern funk personified- dark and light and rich and poor and good and evil all rolled up and shaken up and completely unapologetic about any of it. Spring time, in particular, seems like it would suit the whole virgin/whore New Orleans vibe: Mardi Gras and Easter, communion wafers and fried oyster po'boys, flowers in the Garden District and naked people in the Quarter. It's all about redemption, the natural progression from debauchery, despair, and death to enlightenment and reawakening- just like spring. Or a Tennessee Williams play.

Right now there's a sunbeam coming in my window and trying to convince me that it's warm outside, that if I just threw open my window I would be greeted by a warm and gentle breeze, redolent of daffodils. Back off buddy- I'm not that naive. I know there's no spring in Illinois. Just snow and coughs fraught with meaning.

Walking from the train

2008-02-19T14:53:00.004-06:00

I have my mother's cough. When I cough, I do this little throat clearing thing at the end that sounds like her, a short but business-like "heh, hem". I can even hear her as I write that: "heh, hem". Funny the things that we remember and inherit. Sometimes I can feel her expressions on my face, or see a picture of myself and see her there, in my features, my gaze, my smile. It feels strange to be a living reflection of a dead woman. My aunt often tells me that I have her hands, and once when I was visiting in the valley where she grew up, a man in a store who had known her as a girl was physically startled by our similarity. Mamaw told me the last time I left that spending time with me was like having her back again. It weighs a lot, the burden of carrying on a memory, a legacy, especially one that is not your own and one you don't even know for sure.

Once more, for posterity

2008-02-19T14:39:00.002-06:00

I'm going to try an experiment- again.

I'm going to try to write on this blog every weekday (weekends are not required, but do earn bonus points) for the next year.

I don't have to write a lot, or write anything meaningful, or good or artistically/intellectually/emotionally relevant, I just have to write SOMETHING.

Let's see how that goes.

so funny i cried

2007-05-25T16:42:00.000-05:00

i found this list on Indiebride under a thread called "Unfunny things that disproportionately amuse you". omigod, these made me LAAAAAAAAUGH! this is a list of actual url names that people maybe should have thought about a little bit longer...

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is http://www.whorepresents.com

2 . Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at http://www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at http://www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at http://www.therapistfinder.com

5. There's the Italian Power Generator company, http://www.powergenitalia.com

6. And don't forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales,
http://www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you're looking for IP computer software, there's always
http://www.ipanywhere.com

8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is http://www.cummingfirst.com

9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site, http://www.speedofart.com

about face aaaaaand forward march...

2007-05-25T10:23:00.000-05:00

my grandad died. which is fine, it's what he wanted and he had the ultimate luxury of choosing when he went as well as where and how. it was as peaceful and ideal as a death could be, and, for my own peace of mind, i got to sing to him and say goodbye, which was a luxury as well.

oddly, his passing marks a major power shift, and subsequently makes me feel that much closer to 90. now a new generation- my aunt and uncle- are the "elders", and i am shifted up to the "adult" category. i'm not sure how i feel about that. it's a bit scary, i've got to say. i'm much more peter pan than i thought i was, which is an interesting discovery to make. and for a girl who considers herself an expert, i'm much more scared of death than i thought. i'm going back to see my therapist in a few weeks, after a year's absence, for a tune-up; hopefully that will help me figure out these new feelings before they get too heavy.

forget 'breaking up', growing up is hard to do...but i have now officially resolved to attempt the job, to move forward steadily, if slowly, and try to walk away from past weights and worries. it seems like the right thing to do, and, much like exercising, i'm sure it will feel good afterwards even if it's hard to get started. i even changed the name of this blog. all my life i've hated being labeled "the girl with the big boobs", so why should i then self-apply the label of "the girl with the dead parents"? much like the boobs, the dead parents are just a part of who i am, and i don't think anyone (myself included) needs a big flashing sign to remind them that that part exists.

but this is not a post about death or growing up or moving on. this is actually a post about a dress. this dress to be exact:

i mean, seriously people- who would look good in this dress? it makes the model look fat. only a two year old child should wear this dress. why are all of this season's clothes designed to make women look as huge or pregnant as humanly possible? it needs to stop. speaking of moving forward, i think the fashion industry needs to do so, as soon as possible, and stop recreating the worst parts of the 60's 70's and 80's. bad clothes happened, but we can't dwell on that. move on, fashion designers of the world- if i can do it, you can do it. calm down, wise up, and step away from the flowy caftans and waist-less mini-dresses. immediatly...

enough already

2007-04-29T22:31:00.000-05:00

so, here i am again, for the second time in six months, on a last minute trip to maryland, waiting for a grandparent to "let nature take it's course". my grandfather is in the process of "letting go" (so many cheesy phrases for death, so little tolerance for phrases in "quotes"...), and i am here, along with my family, waiting for it to happen. his son died three years ago, his wife of 65 years died in november, and he will have been on this earth for 92 years as of august, so i guess it's only fair that he should want out. i can't even truly be sad for any other reason than my own selfish sense of loss; he's lonely, he's old, and he's ready to go- of course he doesn't want to "keep going" under those circumstances. i love him, and i will miss him, but i would never want him to keep living just to make me or anyone else in my family happy.

but to get to the real point: enough already! i'm sick of going to funerals! i'm sick of my family dying! i could do just fine with a decade or two break from hushed voices, sad church services and sprinkling ashes. i get it, okay- people die, life is fleeting, nobody's safe. I GET IT!! can't i just get a break for a while? can't i not cringe whenever i get a late night or early morning phone call from the east coast? can't everyone just live for a while? i need a break, i really really do. i can't even cry anymore, i just feel numb.

death sucks. i think that pretty much sums up what i want to say. it just sucks.

Told you so...

2007-04-24T10:22:00.000-05:00

see, i said i was fickle- i haven't written a post in almost a month, and as far as the other interests i mentioned previously, well, let's just say that i'm wearing clothes from ann taylor loft, i'm buying my lunch today, and it would be a miracle if i went to the gym this week. i do still check bluelines pretty frequently though...

today is J's birthday, and i'm feeling like a failure of a wife, as i don't think he's having a particularly great one. we went out of town with friends this weekend to watch some baseball, and then last night i organized a dinner with the same friends to celebrate (he has to work tonight, unfortunately) and gave him his present (tickets to see the dahli lama speak when he's in town next month). but he was in a funk all last night, and now i'm paranoid that he didn't have any fun. i know that's more his stuff than mine (he's an introspective one, my guy, and tends to get morose around his birthday), but i still feel like i've let him down. will i ever stop feeling the need to please everyone, all the time? when did it become an accepted truth for me that it is my sole responsibility to make everyone happy, all the time, even at my own expense?

sheesh- fickle AND a whiny bitch; this self-discovery thing is not really going my way...

Fickle

2007-03-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

as my horoscope for 2007 said would be the case, this year so far has been all about self discovery. being back in school while also working full time has taught me a lot about how i handle stress and how i prioritize, reminding me that school is about the learning, not about the grades. through WW and some serious diet/exercise evaluation, i have started to examine when and why i eat, helping me to start changing my emotional eating habits. for the last few weeks i have been analyzing why i tend to give myself such strict deadlines for life accomplishments, and how i can stop doing this (as it does nothing but make me frustrated, sad or- surprisingly- much less productive). i have also recently discovered that instead of feeling the baby urges that all of my friends said i would the minute that the wedding dress hit moth balls, i am instead feeling the housing urge, and desperately want to own my own home in the next few years; i want a garden and a porch and the ability to control my own heat and paint my damn walls whatever color i want to.

but here, on a much less serious note, i will explore another of my newly discovered traits: i am extremely fickle. not with the important things, like love or friendship or moral/political beliefs, but with the little things, like maintaining a blog, exercising regularly, and hobbies. i am a big stop-and-start-er, always very very into the activity-du-jour. i never thought of myself as fickle before, but it's true. and not such a bad thing really, as long as it never affects the aforementioned "important things", and as long as i can learn to stop beating myself up for my lack of follow through.

so here are some of my latest interests, pursuits and goals. no doubt i will forget or cease most (if not all) of them by the end of the summer, but i'm totally digging them now, nonetheless:

Blueprint Magazine- they have the coolest blog, called bluelines, that gives all sorts of hip crafty things to do with your apartment and office and clothes. i have always wanted to be crafty, and sometimes i have even eked out small amounts of creative project work. but in my new mode of self-discovery, and self-acceptance, i am currently content to read about other people's hip craftiness and make imaginary mental notes about how i too should become a connoisseur of obscure citrus fruits.

Sewing- based on the blueprint obsession (and on the fact that i HATE the newest fashion trends of leggings, blousy maternity-looking tops and waist-less sack dresses), i've been thinking that i should learn to sew my own cute little tops and fifties style sundresses. sure, i've had this same thought for years, but this could just be the summer i make it happen.

Exercising- ah, my old nemesis, working out! this summer i have no excuse not to break my cycle of letting my exercise regime fall all to hell at the beginning of june- my gym is right across the street from my office, i have one hour lunch breaks just aching to be spent on the elliptical machine, and I HAVE AN ELLIPTICAL MACHINE IN MY FRIGGIN' BEDROOM!!! no excuse, even for those days when i say that walking is exercise enough- i can walk as bonus exercise, after i've gotten my big butt some real action for at least 30 minutes.

Writing (blog and otherwise)- i have been meaning to start writing about my mom and dad for about as long as they've been dead. every week or so i'll get the urge to start this project, and then let myself get distracted and forget it. it's got to stop...or, er, to start. it's time i paid the piper (or the paper, as it were...) and started writing all of these memories of mine down. at the very least it will be good therapy (back to the whole self-discovery theme) and at the very most i will write a brilliant and touching account of an unconventional american family that i will then adapt into a brilliant hollywood screenplay in which i will be played by kate winslet and for which i will be nominated for a best adapted screenplay oscar, earning me a seat at the oscars right next to george clooney (who may play my dad).

Gardening (esp. tomatoes and green beans and herbs)- this year i must plan my little back yard plot and get things in the ground before the middle of june. i want fresh vegetables, and i don't want to have to pay for them! subsequently, this will also help with both my exercising goal, my healthier eating goal, and my spending more time digging in the dirt on a sunny day goal (which i didn't bother to write down).

Cooking (with said tomatoes and green beans and herbs)- i want to start having more people over to dinner. maybe it's the winter blah's or being so busy with school and work that i feel like J is the only person i've seen since january started, but i want to reestablish my social butterfly self this summer and have lots of little dinner parties. this will also serve to remind me that i do actually have friends in this city other than J, a fact which i frequently tend to forget.

Learning Spanish, brushing up my French, and sharpening my computer skills (possibly learning some basics of web design)- all of these things will help my chances when i start looking for a librarian job in the not so distant future. plus, they're things i've always wanted to learn.

and now, in my fickle way, i've lost interest in listing things, so i'm going to stop.

11

2007-03-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

today my alarm clock didn't go off- even though i am sure that i set it before i went to bed- and i overslept by about 20 minutes. when i did wake up and notice the time, i sprang out of bed and ran to the shower, jumping in even before the water had heated up all the way, "damn!"ing and "fuck!"ing the whole time. how could i have overslept when i knew that i needed to catch the train today so that J could study for his psychology class? as i was standing under the luke warm water, J poked his head in and said that he could drive me to work and just take his psych quizzes later in the day; after a few feeble protests, i thanked him (grateful for such a calm and patient husband) and calmed down a bit, realizing that i had just gained back the lost twenty minutes. i relaxed into my morning shower, enjoying the now warmer water and the extra "me" time.

standing there under the shower, my mind began to wander, and then, out of nowhere, i remembered what day it is. at first it was just a thought, just passing through my head, one i've had before, for such a long time now, that i didn't really focus on it. but for some reason it stopped there, and hung there, and for the first time in a long time i really realized that it has been 11 years. and it hit me, like it hasn't hit me in a long time, and my spine felt heavy and my mind felt fuzzy and suddenly i felt sick, and tired, and sad, and standing there under the water was the only place in the world that i wanted to be.

i got out of the shower and went about my business: dried my hair, brushed my teeth, put lotion on my face. and it was still there, like a film or a weight, but i had to get ready for work, i was still running late, and i went to get dressed, waking J up and asking him how he slept. as i thought of what i would wear today, i remembered the silver earrings that were hers, the one's i thought i had lost after christmas but then found again in february, on the day of her birthday in fact, and that J had said she returned to me as a present. i went to the kitchen to fix breakfast and find something to take for lunch. i wasn't hungry, but i made myself fix a bowl of oatmeal, because not eating now, today, seemed so silly and melodramatic, and i'd surely be hungry by lunch time. there was nothing to take for lunch, so i decided to grab something from the cafeteria at work. i ripped open the packet of oatmeal and poured in the milk and set the microwave for 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

i went back to the bedroom and woke J up again- 'we have to leave in ten minutes'- and got dressed quickly. i put on the earrings and my silver locket with her picture (though i never open it to look anymore), and looked in the mirror and noticed that it was too much silver, too close together, but i had to wear them both today, so oh well. i put on my socks- would she have liked the black socks with the butterflies?- and my boots and grabbed my school work from beside the computer in the office, so that i could work on it today at work.

i looked for a twenty dollar bill that i'd had yesterday, going through all of my pants pockets and jacket pockets and even the pockets of my purse that i hadn't been carrying, and i got annoyed that i couldn't find it, mad that i'd possibly lost it- how could i be so careless, so wasteful? as i went back to check the jeans pockets again, i called to J that we needed to get going, then checked again in the pockets for the bill i knew by now i must have lost. J assured me that he hadn't seen it, and that i hadn't spent it yesterday, but that it was 'sure to turn up'; how stupid, i thought, to say that something that was surely lost would just 'turn up'.

i grabbed the bowl of oatmeal as we were walking out the door. walking onto the porch i noticed that it was raining, and i rushed ahead of J down the stairs, not wanting to wait for him.

in the car i noticed the rain again, and thought to myself that it was appropriate. then i thought how on my wedding day rain had been hailed as a blessing, so why should it seem so different now? i looked at the raindrops on the window and felt silly and self-indulgent. i didn't say anything to J. what could he do? he always gets uncomfortable when i bring it up- he doesn't understand, can't relate, it frustrates him that he can't fix it-so why make both of us feel bad. i turned my face away from him and cried, just a little, and suddenly wanted to call in sick to work and curl up on the couch all day and cry and cry and scream, but that would be even more silly, and useless, so i kept my face turned and didn't say a word.

i still want to go home. she would think i was being melodramatic. it's been 11 years- i want to tell everyone and no one- 11 years. i wish that i knew more people who would understand why this day matters, really understand and relate. i wish that i thought about her more often, that i remembered her more. i wish it was just a monday, a rainy monday in march and not this ridiculous, self-indulgent, self-inflicted anniversary that makes me want to throw up and curl up and hide, that makes my mind feel heavy and blurred and useless. that makes me feel like a child, a lost little child, an orphan.

but i'm not a child. and i don't have time to hide. and today is just a rainy monday in march, and i have work to do.

Addicted

2007-02-27T09:24:00.000-06:00

so i recently re-started weight watchers (which i so wisely started for the first time last fall, about two weeks before thanksgiving- not the best idea), and it is really making me examine how and why i eat. i am doing the "points" system, which i really love because it does not make any food totally off-limits, just insists that if you're going to eat pizza or have a few glasses of wine you must watch portion sizes or limit what you eat before or after your splurge. on the points system you must write down everything you eat over the course of a day, in order to make sure that you are sticking to your allotted daily points allowance (mine is 23). i am and always have been a major fan of list writing, so this is very effective for me- i automatically feel accountable for anything that is written down. you also get 35 "bonus points" which you can use at any time during the week for occasions like going out to dinner, or giving in to a chocolate craving after a day of normal eating. i love the bonus points, and tend to hoard them until the end of the week , so that by sunday i have most of them leftover and can park in front of the tv with some cheese and crackers and wine. i have also been exercising more, since that helps you earn more points, or at least cancels out a few if you happen to go over by a point or two one day.

the thing i love most about weight watchers though is how it has helped me recognize my eating habits. i have always secretly known, but now there's no denying it- i am a totally emotion-driven eater. food is my ultimate comfort and reward and special secret grown-up splurge for myself. i eat when i'm bored, when i've had a bad day, when i'm having a low self-esteem day, or when i'm feeling sorry for myself. when i have a friday night home alone, all i want to do is eat a whole pizza and drink four glasses of wine while watching tv. even though the food does not make me feel better, truly, but more often than not just makes me feel worse the next day- which just starts the cycle all over again and gets me back on the phone to Chicago's Pizza.

last night this became particularly clear. i came home from work and spent a quiet night in with J, fixing a nice healthy dinner and drinking a little of the leftover champagne from our tiny oscar party. we also happened to have some of the most amazing homemade chocolate almond pudding left over from the party, and i had been planning to have some (specifically saving points) after dinner, but after i ate found that i was perfectly full, so i had another glass of champagne instead and figured i was done eating for the night. we started watching a movie and that was that. but i couldn't stop thinking about that pudding, right there in the refrigerator, waiting for me. several times i almost got up to get it, rationalizing that i could just dip into some of my bonus points for the week. then i checked in with myself and recognized that i was not hungry, but i still wanted that pudding. even knowing it would make me uncomfortably full, or at least not make me feel any better, i still wanted it. that's when i realized- i am addicted to food. weird. i never thought of it that way. my dad was an alcoholic, and i do like a good end of the day cocktail or glass of wine (or three), so i often wondered if i had inherited his addiction. but apparently i have my very own. i have no problem going several days or longer without a drink, or cutting myself off if i feel like i've reached my limit of drunkenness, but i lack that natural self control with food. i can't even count the times i have continued eating when i knew my body was full, even to the point of discomfort- just because the food was there. and it really was a struggle to talk myself out of that pudding, even though my body didn't want it. it's a habit, eating, treating and coddling myself with food. it was a snowy night, i was cuddling with my husband, what better to fill out that scene than some cozy pudding?

it's official: my name is Chanteuse, and i am a food-a-holic.

so i am glad to be back on WW, monitoring my ideas about food, changing these emotional habits, and facing my addiction. i really do feel like knowing is half the battle. i will always love and enjoy food, and there's no need for anyone to worry that i will swing to the opposite side of the spectrum and dabble in the dark side of food obsession (i may be controlling and obsessive about many things, but i'd never have the delusional self-control to be anorexic or bulimic). it's just nice to actually slow down and enjoy my food now, instead of eating so much and so fast, "as though someone's going to take it away from me"(as my mother always said). and to eat for physical and sensual nourishment, instead of emotional comfort or consolation. it's nice to see food as a fun, good-natured friend, and not a secret, co-dependant relationship.

My Infrared Debut

2007-02-01T09:40:00.000-06:00

Here are some videos that someone shot of my band's regular Tuesday night gig this week. It looks like they were shot with an infrared camera in a dark cave, but the sound quality is not bad. Of course this was shot on a night that I was exhausted and especially pissed off to be there, so I don't actually look or sound my best (Why was I wearing a scarf that made my boobs look even bigger than usual and swaying like a hyper-active monkey that has to pee? Perhaps in hopes that the videos would end up on YouTube and I would look like Mama Cass on Ritalin?), but here they are anyway:

Black Wednesday

2007-01-31T15:36:00.000-06:00

today is sucky. plain and simple. i woke up in a ragingly bad mood, and then instead of trying to talk myself out of said mood, i decided to pick a fight with my perfectly wonderful husband, who got into a nasty mood himself and proceeded to fail a psychology quiz, for which i feel (rightly so) totally responsible. then i got to work and it was picture day- the day we designated a week ago as the day to take pictures for the department website- and, as has been the norm as of late, i looked like total dog crap. now i can't concentrate. and i feel so bad that j failed his quiz- why he married a moody bitch like me, i'll never know. we're going out to dinner tonight after work to cheer him up, and i know i will just spend the whole time feeling like some abusive spouse who doesn't deserve what she's got. man, i need to learn how to control these mood swings of mine; god only knows how he's going to survive it if i get pregnant someday.

so i redesigned my blog- anybody like it? anybody reading it? maybe i'm just typing for my own enjoyment, and that's fine really. it will get me through the dark months, which have now officially arrived. it's cold here now, wicked cold (to steal the new england-ism), and it's looks like winter is here to stay for a while. sometimes i wish i were a forest animal and could just hibernate, at least for the post-Christmas months. all i want to do lately is lie in bed and eat, which- i gotta tell ya- is doing wonders for my ass. i'm trying to psyche myself back into dieting and exercising, but so far the progress has been minimal. i have cut back on drinking lately, due to the school work and busier schedule, which, by association, reduces the chances of 2am pizza feasting, but i continue to stare blankly at the huge elliptical machine in my bedroom as though i'm not sure what it is or how it got there. the thing is in my room- i clearly have no excuse whatsoever. maybe the threat of summer and an end to bulky sweaters and thigh-disguising pants will motivate me. i need to exercise, cuz god knows i don't have the willpower to go on any truly effective diet, and even if i did, my body never changes through diet alone anyway. its just too damn cold to walk outside, which is my favorite way to get moving. i should go back to yoga.

i'm thinking of quitting my band- they're getting on my nerves, and i feel like it's more of an obligation than a joy these days. though i would really miss singing. maybe i should just start looking for a more interesting and motivated band, one that actually gets gigs and rehearses, and has a pre-established leader with some drive and some management skills. i don't want to be the leader, i just want to sing. yeah, that's a good idea, i should give myself another project to go with work, grad school, marriage and trying to work out more- great idea.

sorry guys- now i'm just whining. bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

i should be reading for class or working on my pathfinder or my association project or one of many other assignments i am supposed to be staying ahead of. but all i really want to do right now is dive into a big bowl of pasta carbonara, a glass (okay, a bottle) of red wine and about a million episodes of Friends.

if summertime rolls, winter time blows.

Tagged

2007-01-29T10:49:00.000-06:00

as dictated by the lovely Synge, here are five things that you probably didn't know about me. i find this exercise easier than some, simply because i don't blog as often as they do, i am at least somewhat secretive by nature, and my husband (who knows absolutely everything about me at any given moment, due to my bad habit of babbling-on senslesly to him after a long day locked away in my attic office/garrett with no one to talk to- the man has the patience of a saint, or perhaps he has just trained himself to go temporarily deaf at the appropriate times, in which case he wouldn't know these things either) doesn't read this blog:

1. i started another blog last september when i was going through a brief career mini-crisis, just before i got my current job. it was called "starting from scratch", and i don't remember the address (but it was on blogger).

2. i have a deep fear of falling down stairs, and am convinced that one day i will indeed fall down a flight or two.

3. when i was ten or twelve, i briefly had a huge crush on my third cousin, Rice, who is now a school teacher somewhere in New England. (okay synge, you may have known this one, but you didn't know that he was a teacher now, i'm sure)

4. the only foods i truly hate are radishes, liver and baby corn (and the thought of the three combined almost makes me gag just to type it).

5. i truly enjoy the album "J-Lo: Tha' Remixes", and even went out of my way to buy a new copy of it when it was released. i am not ashamed- it's a great album to work out to. i also appreciate christina aguilera's music, and think her current style phase is quite adorable. so there- i like cheesy modern pop music.

that was fun! i want to name more things (it's so cathartic):

6. i rarely wear socks without a pattern or cutesy design on them- my sock drawer is chock full of novelty socks. one of my favorite pairs has a tiny basket full of apples beneath an apple tree and the rest of the sock is strewn with fruit and leaves. i am also partial to a pair with a tiny little native american couple standing by a teepee.

7. i really enjoyed the movie "along came polly", though i am a little embaressed to admit that; i thought jennifer aniston was really likeable.

8. if i were to win the lottery today, i would immediatly go to school to get a masters in folklore and/or mythology. useless in the world of careers, but absolutely fascinating.

9. when i was little i really wanted to live in a hollowed out tree (like the boy in the book "My Side of the Mountain" ) or in a tree house (like the Disney version of Swiss Family Robinson). sometimes i still do.

10.the sounds of styrafoam being broken into pieces or shoes crunching in (dry) snow set my teeth on edge.

11. i am 1/16th cherokee indian, and when i was applying to colleges, my mom tried to see if that qualified me for a minority scholarship (it didn't- you can't be less than 1/8th).

okay, i should probably stop and get back to my library reading, though i could keep digging up obscure facts about myself all day. does that make me self-centered? probably. oh well. i can't think of anyone to tag, as everyone who reads this blog has already been tagged.

How can you not want this man as your president?

2007-01-23T15:55:00.000-06:00

(And I do mean Obama, not Superman, just to be clear; though the man of steel would sure beat the hell out of the man of putty who's in the white house now...)

Man, I hope this is true...

2007-01-23T11:33:00.000-06:00

After reading Vixanne's blog, I too took the tarot test, and here were my results:

You are the World

Completion, Good Reward.

The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.

The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I hope they're right. My horoscope for the year, says that this will be a year of major self-discovery for me. I feel like that's true already; I am really trying to focus on practicing patience, evaluating my goals and priorities, and maintaining balance in my life. I think that this is already doing great things for my relationship with J- not that it wasn't great before, but I feel like now that we're both back in school and focusing on our goals for ourselves, it's making our relationship with each other even stronger. They do say (who is "they", anyway?) that you must be happy with yourself before you can truly be happy with someone else. Not to ramble on in this sappy manner for too long, but I feel very optimistic, like I have been working so hard for so long to get to a place where I don't wake up in the morning worried about everything, and afraid of everything.

Now if I can just start exercising regularly I will be complete (I keeeed, I keeeeeeeeeeed...)

silly rabbit, nerves are for kids!

2007-01-12T10:54:00.000-06:00

I. LOVE. LIBRARY. SCHOOL. PERIOD.

i know this may seem premature, given my last nervous-wreck-of-a-post, and given the fact that i have only been to one class, but i really feel like this is my jam, the jam i have been looking for for oh so long. i love my teacher (she's actually the teacher for both of my classes)- she reminds me of mary gross (it took me forever to come up with that name- i knew right away she reminded me of someone) from saturday night live, only blonder, and more ironic. the syllabus...- syllabusses? syllabi?- for the two classes are very clear, and neither class requires more than 12 pages of writing (double spaced) which should be a breeze. we also have to give presentations in both classes, which should make handy use of my theatrical background, and i have already picked a topic for one of our presentations- the oral history association (neato!).

okay, i know i am a total dork, but i am so excited to be studying library science! there's so much neat information, and so many interesting applications and research methods and resources to explore.- yippeee! i know there will be boring bits, but it can't be but so bad in a career that's based around learning new information and teaching other people how to find new information- constant intellectual stimulation, just what i've always wanted!!!!

i'll stop now. have to do some reading for class...

nerves

2007-01-11T15:32:00.000-06:00

my stomach is tight, and i feel like i want to throw up a little- in exactly 2 hours and 27 minutes i will be sitting in my first class of graduate school. gulp. what if i'm not smart enough for graduate school? what if i'm not serious enough to be a librarian, if i'm too flighty or artsy or right brained? (or is it left brained- see, i don't even remember which side of the brain is which, how will i ever master an advanced cataloging system?!?)

j has been to each of his two classes twice already, and he really likes them. he's taking an american government course and a class on lexicology. i wish i was taking a class on lexicology. words i can handle, but i don't know about computer resource retrieval.

maybe i'm in over my head...maybe i should just stay at my nice boring but easy university job, and take my $1 a year raise and my good benefits and my ample vacation time and free nights and weekends. maybe i should revisit that 'win the lottery and spend the rest of my life shopping at farmers' markets and browsing in used bookstores' plan. maybe i should resign myself to a life of unchallenging work and wasted intellect and countless hours spent blogging and reading perez hilton followed by long nights of drinking three buck chuck and falling asleep to reruns of law and order SVU (thinking: "hey, maybe i should go to law school...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz")

only 2 hours and 18 minutes to go now. an hour and a half of that being time in the car, sitting in rush hour traffic to drive 16 miles, during which i will probably psych myself into a quivering ball of raw insecurity.

gulp.

maybe my car will overheat again.

maybe that meteor that stephen hawking has been talking about will finally hit.

wish me luck...

new year, new post

2007-01-03T15:27:00.000-06:00

hopefully that won't be an indicator of the frequency with which i blog this year. though with grad school looming on the horizon, and a new quarter starting at my oh-so-preppy new collegiate job, we'll just have to see. i do still have a fair amount of down time on the computer right now, but things could change as of next week.

i always get a little bit (okay, usually a lot) blue after Christmas is over. i'm not such a fan of new years (no caps), as it's really just another amateur night holiday for weekend warriors who don't mind paying $50 to walk into a bar that would otherwise be free. are those paper horns and that glass of korbel they give you at midnight supposed to make you feel better about paying a cover for a sports bar? no thanks. i spent the dawning of 2007 eating a fabulous italian dinner at my mr.'s restaurant, then booked it home to drink in the new year with J, some friends and our very own bottle of real french champagne- low key, just like i like it.

but i do feel sad when Christmas is over, partly because it means that i have to wait another whole year for that particular, cozy Christmas glow that i love so much, and partly because it means that we are entering the very worst possible time of the year- winter, forever and ever and ever. and here in the windy city, that winter can be sure to last at least until the beginning of may; oh no, no soft sunlit springtimes for us here in the cruel midwest. we're lucky we get fall. there are things i really do hate about living here, and winter (the length, not the severity- that's really over dramatized) is top of the list.

but this year i have a beacon of hope to light my way through this tunnel of cold gray bleakness- grad school, starting this thursday. yessiree, i'm starting library school, and in no time at all (or at least not longer than two years) i will be a card carrying, glasses wearing (i need to go to the eye doctor, and i know what they're going to say...), angrily "shusssssh"-ing librarian. yippee! i am really excited to start, though more than a little nervous as well. i haven't been formally "in school" for a very long time, and i am not quite sure what kind of a time commitment it will involve outside of class. well, at least i like to write, so papers shouldn't be so bad. and i am really going to try not to focus on grades as much as fully absorbing the material- that's more of the point anyway, out there in the real world (though i know my overachieving honor student alter ego is sure to pop up at some point to insist that i stay at the head of the class- down girl, down girl!). my first two courses are Intro to Library Science ( "an overview of the history, philosophy, purpose, functions and processes, users, collections and evaluation of academic, public, school and special libraries and information centers; of the history and trends of books and other media, publishing, and information technology; of the principles and basic elements of the collection development process; of relevant legal and ethical topics--intellectual property (copyright), access, confidentiality of records, intellectual freedom and censorship; and of current professional issues." - am i a total dork that that sounds AWESOME to me?) and Reference and Online Services. these are two of the three prerequisites to almost every other course in the program. after that, it gets more specific, and hopefully i will have more of an idea of where i want to focus; right now i am leaning towards academic (university) library work or perhaps archiving, but that could all change once i actually start the program. i know that i want to take the classes on 'early books and manuscripts' and 'history of the printed book', and the story-telling course. i just hope i like this librarian track as much as i think i will, or it's back to the career drawing board for me. well, at least i have my foot in the door of academia with my current job, so i wouldn't be starting totally from scratch.

J starts school today too; i can't wait to see how he likes being back in classes. i think he's more nervous than i am, as he's been out longer. i really think that school is going to be great for him, that it will give him some of the focus he has been wanting in his life. i'm so happy with our little academic family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

2006-12-23T14:47:00.000-06:00

and here's a very special Christmas gift to all of you, from me and J:

ummmmmm

2006-12-21T09:28:00.000-06:00

okay, the titling posts with sounds thing may have to end here- i'm out of sounds. not much to write about today though, so the sound may be appropriate after all.

it's raining here, and will be all weekend- bummer. "i'm dreaming of a wet Christmas" just doesn't have the same ring to it. though i'm sure that there are many colorado-ians (-ites?) who would be more than happy to pass on the white Christmas they're having- yikes, that's a lot of snow! looks like kristoise got out of that state just in time...

had my Christmas night with J last night, and, as usual, it just dissolved into a night of drinking too much wine and falling asleep on the couch watching a Christmas episode of south park (see sarachkah- you're really not missing much). decided to skip "IAWL" (too long to write out), as it's actually a pretty depressing movie, and we were late getting to dinner. our waitress at dinner was a total beeyotch, even though J and i gave her every opportunity to redeem herself ( too bad for her really, as we are very generous customers, and she screwed herself right out of a great tip).the german village thing was fun though, complete with carolers. i love Christmas in the city.

walking around the german bazaar made me think of my Dad. the last time he visited me in Chicago, we went there and he bought me a purple knit hat which i still have, even thought it's too small for my head. i saw the same hat stand and my eyes misted up a bit. i was talking to a co-worker yesterday about him and it re-sparked my interest in writing down my family history (in fictional form, of course). i have been meaning to write a short story/ novella/ play/ screenplay about my father and his various wives and children for some time now, but i just can't seem to get started. maybe i will make that a goal for the new year (i won't say 'resolution'- that's just doomed to fail). i have a snazzy title and everything, and i've already cast the movie (i will be played by ms. kate winslet, of course...), so writing it out should just be cake.

well, back to a long day of not working. my friend R is coming up to meet me for lunch and stocking stuffer shopping, so that should break up the monotony. hope it stops raining by then...

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!

2006-12-20T16:37:00.000-06:00

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! LET THE FUN BEGIN!! WOO HOOOOOOOOOO!!!
i am officially ready to start enjoying the holiday season- all of my packages are neatly packed and ready to ship, and as soon as i drop them off at the post office (in about an hour) they will be on their way to spread holiday cheer throughout the eastern seaboard! at this point i am so happy that they are done that i don't really care when they get where they're going, but they should (according to the post office...sketchy...) be there in plenty of time for x-mas. YAAAAAAAY!! I'M DONE!!!

so tonight, in celebration, J and i are going to have our annual Christmas night (it used to be a whole Christmas day, but since i have entered the 9 to 5 world, we've had to scale back). we're going down town to the "christkindlemarket", this cute little german village they set up under the huge Christmas tree in daley plaza, where they serve gluuwein (hot mulled wine- yummmmmmm) and sell all sort of very pretty (and totally over priced) hand made ornaments. then we may even catch the late showing of "it's a wonderful life" at the local vintage movie house. fun! it's raining right now, which is kind of a bummer for walking around down town much, but at least it's not terribly cold.

that's it really, that's all i have to say. no bitching today, cuz i am ready to kick back and enjoy my 5 days of Christmas. merry merry one and all!

pffffttttttttttttttttt..

2006-12-19T09:28:00.000-06:00

i think i'm going to start all of my blogs with random, made-up sound words. i like it.

that sound i started with today is something like a long drawn out raspberry of disgust. i'm in a mood, and by that i mean a grumpy one. it's a week til Christmas, how could I be in a mood? i love Christmas (so much that i insist on capitalizing it, which should say something), i truly believe that it's the most wonderful time of the year, magical and tingly and warm and all that jazz. but this year it's stressing me out; i don't know how, but it really snuck up on me. i was so sure that thanksgiving (see, no capitalization there) being so early would put me way ahead of the game, that i would be relaxed and excited by now, all of my gifts bought and wrapped and all of my packages safely en route to my various family groups on the east coast. but no. i may not even get all of my family's packages out on time to reach them by Christmas- &*%((*#&@()@#!!! i did get some good gifts for every one this year, so i guess better late than never, but now i have to print, wrap, bake, assemble and pack them all, then stand in line for five hours at the post office in order to pay an arm and a leg for them to arrive late anyway. AAAACCKKKKK! i wish my family would buy into the grab bag idea; it would save me a lot of time. but, since they don't, i will most likely be up until the wee hours tonight getting everything ready to ship out. ho ho ho.

i want to be able to relax and enjoy this week! after Christmas it's all downhill until summer (which, in this part of the country, is at least a good five months off), so i need to be able to enjoy this time! after wednesday- aka: D(elivery) Day- things should calm down a little. i am happy that we're staying in town this year; at least we don't have to worry about traveling stress. just to complicate things for myself, i have invited several people over for a Christmas Eve buffet dinner, which i will now have to shop and cook for this weekend, but i actually enjoy that kind of thing. J even ordered us a goose for Christmas dinner from the chef at his work; how very Dickensian of us! (i was going to try and make a figgy pudding, but that may be pushing it). so i just need to focus on getting to the weekend. ironically, i have most of J's presents already, and still have all day saturday to shop for him. well, at least i won't be stressed as i battle the panicked last-minute masses to buy a few stray stocking stuffers.

okay, so i'm in the final countdown to Christmas cheer and relaxation. that makes me feel better, to realize that by this time tomorrow it will all be over. i am doing a Christmas show with my band tonight, and i almost wish i wasn't, so that i could have the extra assembly time. but i'll just come home, fix myself a glass of wine and go on a packing spree.

gee, it's not so bad after all (must be the Christmas magic kicking in...)

tah-dah

2006-12-11T15:02:00.000-06:00

well kiddos, i'm back. driven back by boredom- make that extreme boredom- with the internet. that and a guilt-inducing comment made by MAH that i never update my blog. don't know why it induced guilt, actually, but it did, and so i'm here. blogging. but i refuse to capitalize, so there. i'm too tired to capitalize.

last night was my and J's third annual holiday party, and while it went off with nary a hitch, and was a truly delightful evening, it left me plumb tuckered (to steal a descriptive phrase from Hee Haw- damn, tricked into capitalizing by a seventies hillbilly variety show!). i think my tiredness (is that a word? too tired to check...) may be due to the fact that i spent the last week in feverish prepartion for said delightful holiday soiree, including ( i do not know why, so don't even bother to ask) baking over 300 cookies from scratch. right now, of course, all i want to do is lay in a soft clean bed and stuff my face with the (many) leftover cookies and wine currently sitting on my dining room sidebar. i do NOT want to be sitting at work doing absolutely nothing even remotely useful, as i desperately surf the net for new and interesting celebrity gossip/snarky comments and count the seconds until i get to go home to my couch, my tv and the formerly coveted leftovers. as a bonus feature of this tedious, tired-out day, my allergies are acting up and i have already sneezed myself into the double digits. joy. nothing a fistful of lemon bars, a nice glass of shiraz, and a tivo'ed 70's Christmas special can't fix.

the only thing that is not good about having an easy and totally laid back job is that it does often lead to mind-numbingly dull days, especially when the job is at a university and all of the students have left campus for a month but i still have to show up and look busy for eight hours a day. well, it could be much much worse- i could still be shilling tickets to tense, spoiled tourists, riled up to a state of perfectly stunning unpleasantness by the pressure of the holiday season. very glad i'm not doing that. very very. and the boring job provides insurance and paid vacation- double bonus.

so after that whiny little diatribe, is anyone really glad that i started blogging again? maybe i will just turn this into a bitching post, a way to vent my frustrations and practice my typing. god knows i have been meaning to write more, and this is writing- kinda- though hardly deep, pulitzer worthy stuff. a bitching post- i like that. maybe i'll even implement a name change for the page. dead parents is just such a downer way to introduce yourself. i think it's funny, but i have a feeling that most people just find it unsettling.

well now i'm just rambling. and no one will read this anyway. so i should probably stop talking to myself online and go now.

I was tagged, so here goes...

2006-03-17T19:14:00.000-06:00

I guess it's apropos, since I haven't written on the blog in almost a month. So here it is:

4 jobs I've had:
1. Waitress
2. Box Office Assistant
3. Children's Theatre Actor
4. Jazz Singer
(and I was once paid to be a nude artist's model- that was an experience...)

4 movies I can watch over and over:
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Holiday (with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant)
3. Bridget Jones' Diary
4. Singles
(clearly, I am a total girl)

4 Places I've lived:
1. Richmond, VA
2. Oxford, England
3. London, England
4. Chicago (greatest town ever), IL

4 TV Shows I Love:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. The Sopranos
3. Friends (I will watch them again and again and again- and I do)
4. Law and Order SVU
(I also loved 'Six Feet Under' and 'Carnivale', may they rest in peace)

4 Places I've Vacationed:
1. Greece (my favorite)
2. Various campsite, couches and motels across America (my second favorite)
3. Paris, France
4. Florence, Italy
(and various other European cities, in a whirlwind tour)

4 of my favorite dishes
1. Country Greek Salad from Joe's Inn in Richmond, VA
2. My Mamaw's biscuits and gravy- can't be beat
3. Crusty bread and great cheese, eaten in any outdoor setting, preferably with wine
4. Steak Tacos, from Las Pinatas in Chicago, IL (margaritas are imperative)
(I could list about 50 more of these- what can I say, I like to eat)

4 places I would rather be right now:
1. On a beach, any beach, as long as it's warm and not filled with drunk people
2. Sitting in an outdoor cafe in Florence, Italy (also must be warm)
3. Santorini, Greece
4. At my stepmother's house in Annapolis, MD (it's one of my happy places)

Handoff - well, having a limited number of taggable friends, and seeing that they have all been tagged, I guess teh buck stops here. Oh- I guess I can tag Sarachkah.

for the coolest chemist i know (come to think of it, she's the only chemist i know...)

2006-02-18T16:40:00.000-06:00

kristoise, i saw this and thought of you. if i were a better friend i would have bought you the t-shirt...if anyone more generous than me is interested, check out this site.

Moving On

2006-02-17T17:01:00.000-06:00

it's funny how attached you can get to a house, even one you never lived in. four walls and a roof, a floor, some windows- that's all it is, really. but a house and the things in it come to stand for so much more. memories, both good and bad, that color the four walls so much more thoroughly than paint. the couch you used to take naps on when you were a child, as ugly as sin, but still so important; the rickety dining room table that you would never really use, but you'd never have the heart to give away; the old fashioned looking desk where you found your first dirty magazines, stuffed away under stacks of useless papers. these things and this place mean so much, though they are in actuality just that- things and a place.

as some of you know, for many complicated legal reasons my late father's house- which now technically belongs to me and my sister- can never be sold, so for the past few years we have been renting it out. the first couple we rented it to were wonderful tenants and took great care of the house and all of the things in it. they rented it furnished, so all my stepmothers and i had to do to get the house ready for them was clean out drawers and pack away valuables, stuffing everything else- all of my father's towels and sheets and knick-knacks and books and memories- into the attic and leaving the house not terribly unlike it had been when Dad was alive. easy, on so many levels. last summer those tenants moved on, and for the past eight months the house has been vacant, a silent shrine in the woods to my father, as if he would be returning any moment from the duck blind to light the woodstove and watch a basketball game on tv. in other words, just how i wanted it, though knew it could not remain.

a few weeks ago my uncle Robert called to tell me that he had found tenants for the house, a couple of nice older ladies who loved the place and wanted to sign a 5-year lease. they had excellent references, Robert loved them, and they wanted to move in right away. perfect. except that they had their own furniture and they didn't need Dad's, so we would have to empty the house- immediatly. this was the hard part i had been hoping would never come, my shrine was being torn down never to exist again. though the new tenants did very graciously agree to vacate the premises for the week of my wedding so that we can use the house, i had privately hoped that the house would remain unrented until after the wedding, leaving my shrine intact for that highly emotional last unmarried week. no such luck- my last single night will be spent sleeping in a stranger's bed.

to make matters worse, Robert had originally told me that the new tenants were understanding about the quick move and the problems it presented to me and my stepmother in terms of getting there to clean the house out. he said that they were willing to "work around" the old furniture or possibly store it in the basement until we could get there to move it, in march. today i got an email from Robert that, in fact, everything needs to be out of the house by the 27th- 10 days from now. my uncle is a relatively clueless man when it comes to other people's feelings, but this just goes above and beyond all levels of common sense or consideration. even if i was unemployed and in possession of a private jet to fly me to maryland at a moment's notice, it would still take more than a few hours to go through my dead father's house and pack it up for the last time ( by myself, as my stepmother has a demanding 50 hour week job and my sister is in school).

basically i just feel overwhelmed. angry and frustrated and sad and overwhelmed. my hero of a stepmother found a moving company who would pack up the house and drive everything to richmond to a storage unit, but that means that strangers will be packing up my father's house and i will never see it intact again. then all of his things- which now belong to Rachel and me, but which neither of us currently have a place for- will be sitting in some depressing tomb of a storage unit in richmond, a town i rarely visit. all of my memories, all of his things, all that i have left of him, just sitting in a climate controlled box among many other climate controlled boxes, being forgotten.

why can't i just keep my shrine? why do i have to be the one with no parents? wasn't losing my mother enough, did i have to lose my dad too? it's not fucking fair- i don't want money or furniture or pictures, I WANT MY FUCKING PARENTS BACK!!!! everyone gets to have parents, why don't i? what did i do? WHAT DID I DO????

i suppose this post was misnamed- i'm not doing a very good job of moving on at all.

Lamest Holiday Ever

2006-02-14T11:12:00.000-06:00

i hate valentine's day, have always hated it, from my elementary school years (when i was forced to send valentines to kids who had either ignored or made fun of me all year) to my middle school years (when i never got as many stupid paper hearts as my more popular classmates) to my high school years (when those ghastly 'heart-with-arms-and-legs' floating mylar balloons entered the picture). it is a needless, useless, ridiculous holiday that reinforces the stereotypical idea that love is better expressed through scheduled meaningless material gestures than through spontaneous and regular expression of true caring. stupid, stupid, stupid.

and i AM in a very happy and romantic relationship now, so this is no mere bitterness. we just don't happen to need a calender to tell us when to be affectionate.

J and i very deliberately do NOT celebrate valentine's day, and this article i read this morning on cnn.com does a very nice job of summing up just why we don't. why are people such sheep that just because the card and candy companies tell them that today's the day to express their love, they DO IT! and, apparently, to make matters more pathetic, they all express their assigned emotion of the day THE EXACT SAME WAY! why not tell people you love them on some random thursday in march? or- better yet- why not say it every day? and why not do it in with your own words, actions or some creative form of self-expression, instead of with cheap, mass-produced hallmark sentiment?

okay, i'm getting off my soapbox now. i have to go glare at the lemming couples who are coming to my job to 'celebrate their love', which is clearly so much stronger today than it will be next week.

The Color Quiz

2006-02-09T18:47:00.000-06:00

Take this quiz- very interesting results. Here are mine:

Your Existing Situation
Working to improve her image in the eyes of others so as to obtain their compliance and agreement with her needs and wishes.

Your Stress Sources
Has an unsatisfied need to ally herself with others whose standards are as high as her own, and to stand out from the herd. Her control of her sensual instincts restricts her ability to give herself, but the resulting isolation leads to the urge to surrender and allow herself to merge with another. This disturbs her. as such instincts are regarded as weaknesses to be overcome; she feels that only by continued self-restraint can she hope to maintain her attitude of individual superiority. Wants to be loved or admired for herself alone; needs attention, recognition, and the esteem of others.

Your Restrained Characteristics
Circumstances are restrictive and hampering, forcing her to forgo all joys and pleasures for the time being.
Clings to her belief that her hopes and ideas are realistic, but needs encouragement and reassurance. Applies very exacting standards to her choice of a partner and wants guarantees against loss or disappointment.

Your Desired Objective
Desires a tranquil, peaceful state of harmony offering quiet contentment and a sense of belonging.

Your Actual Problem
Needs to achieve a stable and peaceful condition, enabling her to free herself of the worry that she may be prevented from achieving all the things she wants.

Your Actual Problem #2
Wants to be valued and respected, and seeks this from a close and peaceful association of mutual esteem.

old dog, new patent

2006-01-29T22:17:00.000-06:00

i just spent an hour or so catching up on the phone with my first 'boyfriend', a certain tall red-headed skater boy who now resides on a farm in Idaho with his wife and (coming very soon) daughter. and look what he is up to now.

an inventor- who'd have thunk it? he may even make it to the wedding. wouldn't that be a trip!

it's funny how life turns out.

anxious

2006-01-23T10:09:00.000-06:00

i don't know where to begin. i feel like i'm losing my mind. this morning (and, come to think of it yesterday morning, and the morning before that..) i woke up with my mind racing with fears and anxiety, about everything from money to my relationship to life and the universe in general. i wake myself up with fears. and i can't get back to sleep. i try to calm myself down, i lay there diligently repeating in my head "calm, calm, everything is okay," but it never seems to work and eventually i am driven out of bed, tired or not, to the computer, to face more fears and dire headlines and overwhelming responsibilities.

i really am afraid i'm losing my mind. or control of it, anyway. and the worst part of it is that when these anxieties pile up on me i take them out on J, sure that if HE were working more often, if HE were being more responsible that I would feel better, less afraid. where does this come from?

here's a more complete background on that particular strain of anxiety: as usual, i am worried about my and J's financial situation. he is 32 years old, and a waiter. january is a traditionally slow month for waiters, so lately he has been working anywhere from four shifts a week (that's about 28 hours a week) to none (that's NONE), with an average of two shifts being the norm. that means that there are weeks when i work 36 hours a week and he works 12 to none. this bothers me. my job is not exactly a high-paying position either, but at least i'm working. i hate my job, but at least i go. true, when he works, J can often make more in two nights than i make in a week, but that hardly makes it feel more fair. initially, J was waiting tables because it was the only job that gave him the flexibility to pursue his improv and performing dreams, but lately he is not doing any improv (or performing of any kind), so i am starting to wonder why he can't work a regular (read: stable) job. i hestitate to ask him to take a second job during these slow months, but then i reconsider when i realize that even a second job would just require him to work the same amount of hours that i ALWAYS work. i hate having this resentment. i hate that i take out my anxieties on him, but i don't know how to stop myself. the best i can do is not to tell him about my resentment and worry every time it springs to mind, but even that is not something that i can always control, and there are times when i just want to yell at him at the top of my lungs that he is he is LAZY AND IRRESPONSIBLE AND IT'S NOT FAIR THAT I AM DOING ALL OF THE WORK!!! the thing is that none of these things are true- he is not irresponsible, he's not really any more lazy than i am, and he does work, just not as regularly as i do. he has still managed to pay his bills and set some money aside for the wedding, or if he does fall behind one week he always gets me back the next; he has been fabulous about sticking to his budget, and not going out if he has not been working; and since he's been working less he has started to single-handedly handle all of the housework and has been very involved and helpful with the wedding planning stuff. if i am doing more work outside of my job, driving myself nuts with my obsessive and maniacal need to always be 'doing something' it's because i choose to. well, because i need to to feel useful, and productive, and whole. lately i cannot relax, because downtime makes me feel guilty.

like i said, i'm going crazy.

actually, yesterday during one of my now regular mini-anxiety attacks, my friend R threw out a word that may apply more aptly than "crazy". i think i may have a codependant personality. i looked up 'codependent' today on the web, and a lot of the symptoms(who am i kidding, MOST of the symptoms..) sound eerily familiar. for example:
-Inability to know what "normal" is
-Difficulty in following a project through.
-Difficulty relaxing or having fun.
-Judging self, others without mercy.
-Low self esteem, often projected onto others. (eg: Why don't they get their act together!)
-Belief that others cause or are responsible for the codependent's emotions. (Codependents often use language like "you make me feel ______", or "I was made to feel like____")
-Overreacting to change. (or intense fear of / inability to deal with change.)
-Inability to see alternatives to situations, thus responding very impulsively.
-Constantly seeking approval and affirmation, yet having compromised sense of self.
-Feelings of being different.
-Confusion and sense of inadequacy.
-Being either super responsible or super irresponsible. (Or alternating between these.)
-Lack of self confidence in making decisions, no sense of power in making choices.
-Feeling of fear, insecurity, inadequacy, guilt, hurt, and shame which are denied.
-Isolation and fear of people, resentment of authority figures.
-Fear of anger or bottling anger up till it explodes.
-Hypersensitivity to criticism.
-Being addicted to excitement / drama. (Chaos making.)
-Dependency upon others and fear of abandonment.
-Avoidance of relationships to guard against abandonment fears.
-Tendency to look for "victims" to help.
-Rigidity and need to control.
-Feelings of responsibility for other people--their feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being and destiny.
-Feeling compelled to help people solve their problems or by trying to take care of their feelings.
-The feeling that it is easier to feel and express anger about injustices done to others than about injustices done to you.
-You feel safest and most comfortable when you are giving to others.
-You feel insecure and guilty when someone gives to you.
-You feel empty, bored and worthless if you don't have someone else to take care of, a problem to solve, or a crisis to deal with.
-You are often unable to stop talking, thinking and worrying about other people and their problems.

this would explain why i think that controlling J and "fixing" his "inadequecies" (instead of just "fixing" myself) would solve my esteem problems . this would explain my extreme need for control in every aspect of my life and my feelings of failure when i fail to achieve this totally unreasonable control of the uncontrollable. this would sync perfectly with my sometimes debilitating fear of abandonment and loss.

so i've possibly identified the problem, now for the solution. what do i do? how do i learn to trust myself and relax? how do i learn to trust J and have faith in his ability to be a grown up and take care of himself as well as pull his weight in our relationship? how do i learn to trust that everything will indeed "be okay" without my worrying about it and fixating on it every waking moment?

for now i will try yoga, and therapy, and b-vitamins, and a little more self-love and patience. this last one will be the hardest; it appears i have a lot of bad habits to break, and a lot of fear to let go of.

quickly

2006-01-08T19:01:00.000-06:00

exercise really is the best cure for the blues. true, booze or chocolate may be quicker and easier to reach for, but with exercise you actually feel BETTER about yourself afterwards, which is a nice side-effect. this winter i am determined to exercise away both my blues and my ass- what could make me feel better than losing both of those?
that's all i have to say.

a smack in the face

2006-01-07T17:24:00.000-06:00

it's funny how death just sneaks up on you. i am sitting here at work, the beginning of a regular saturday night shift, and suddenly we get word from one of the producers that a popular actor here at the theatre has died of a heartattack on his way to a gig. he was young, less than forty years old. he emceeded a show that my band played in less than three months ago. he was just a regular guy- funny, talented, full of life. he wasn't a thin man, but he was no chris farley, and in fact he had been trying to lead a healthier life as of late, exercising, eating better, drinking less. i did not know this man in more than a passing manner- i'd seen him at parties of friends, around the building, and around the neighborhood- but i knew who he was, i had met him, and said hello to him, and made small talk and snide remarks with him, and i knew him as a living breathing person.

and now he is dead. in just an instant. no warning, no hint, no preparation at all.

death is like that, it can come out of nowhere, like a phone call in the middle of the night, or in the middle of a sunny afternoon, or the middle of a regular saturday night shift. it can come to anyone, at any time, and there's nothing we can do to predict it or to stop it. yesterday you're alive, today you're not.

and it's just not fair, it's just not FUCKING fair.

i think i need to go cry now.

scary thought

2006-01-01T18:26:00.000-06:00

it just occurred to me that we are more than half way through the 2000's. we are four years away from '2010:a space odyssey', four years away from VH1's 'i love the 2000's'.

wow.

scary.

bye bye 2005; 2006, pull up a chair

2005-12-31T19:59:00.000-06:00

as i sit here in my stupid, meaningless job on new years eve, handing out tickets to people naieve enough to pay twice as much as they would have paid last night for the exact same show just because of the date on the calender (not to mention the ass-raping {i.e. $50 cover charge for $2 paper party favors} they will receive should they try to enter their friendly neighborhood bar this evening), i feel the desire to reflect on the year gone by, and anticipate the year to come.

for the world at large, 2005 was not the greatest of years. that it started with the SECOND innauguration of George "i'm an idiot" W Bush, certainly did not bode well. tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, riots, bombings, and war; the continuing erosion of political systems and freedoms around the globe, the death of a pope, two more conservative supreme court judges, and britney spears was actually allowed to breed.

well, at least Chicago won the world series.

for me personally, it was not such a bad year. i got engaged just before it started, and consequently had 90% of my wedding planned by the end of it's first month. february brought the first child born to one of the "old gang", (and november welcomed the second!). J and i discovered in May that our building had been sold for condos, and found our much beloved (and much more fabulous) current home by the end of June. summer held an engagement party on the east coast, moving, my grandfather's 90th birthday (hope i inherited his longevity!), and more wedding planning. the fall was all about weddings: first one of my closest friend's- the tall and lovely R- in which i was the maid of honor, then J's best friend's, in which he also stood. then came the usual holiday madness, my big 3-0, and the startling realization that my own wedding is now less than 6 months away. this year i returned (briefly, but i'll start again next year, i swear!) to therapy, procured health insurance for both J and myself (it only took me nine years), finally finished paying the government back for those tax years that had 'slipped my mind', went to my first writing conference, conquered my fear of writing fiction, received my first paycheck for singing with my band, discovered that i do indeed remember how to make friends, and began to think seriously about babies and graduate school (though not in that order).

all in all this year was about growing up, which- now that i'm actually doing it- really isnt' as bad as i thought it would be (though in have no plans to ever complete the job). for the world, i hope for better times in 2006; for myself, i know they will come. this next year holds my wedding to a wonderful man who is my best friend, a return (hopefully) to the world of academia, and continued growth and adventure all around. this 'life' thing is pretty fun- bumpy at times, sure, but overall well worth the price of admission.

happy new year to all of you and yours, and may life in 2006 continue to be a wild and wonderful ride.

is this what thirty has in store?

2005-12-30T23:46:00.000-06:00

about a week ago, as i was innocently walking to work, along a street i walk down almost every day, passing by windows i see almost every day, in one particular clothing store window i spied the cutest little pajama set you've ever seen- all pinks and purples and fuzzy baby goodness- and i think my uterus actually did a backflip.

BABY URGES STARTING SO SOON!

now this may be as much a 'getting married' thing as a turning thirty thing, but it took me completely by surprise. i know that several of my blog readers have babies and are crazy about them, and i have always been happy for my childbearing friends and their respective offspring, but i never really saw that as the path i wanted to take just yet. i am too selfish, too irresponsible, too often drunk to be a parent. but lately i have been wanting a squeaming, spitting, peeing, pooping bundle of joy of my own. especially around christmas. i love christmas, i always have, but lately i can't help but think how much more amazing it will be when i have kids: J all dressed up as santa, sneaking outside to shake jingle bells and stomp around on the roof; actually buying toys for presents; leaving out cookies and milk; 'babies first christmas' ornaments...

whoa! slow down little ovary! let's get past the wedding first!

i'm such a softie...

2005-12-29T14:45:00.000-06:00

this story made me cry- in a good way. i'm such a sucker for pet stories. happy new year everyone, hope we are all so 'lucky' in 2006.
(more on turning 30 in later posts, i swear!)

approaching the new frontier

2005-12-21T17:38:00.000-06:00

in three days time i will turn thirty. i will have been on this earth for a full three decades, and i must say that i could not be more excited.

i wondered how i would react to this latest milestone, but really i am thrilled. i feel good about thirty, i sense good things ahead, and most of all i am overjoyed that this decade will be welcomed in with a wedding instead of a funeral.

i enjoyed my twenties. they were full of firsts and adventures and world travel. i graduated college, traveled all over the united states, moved to europe, acted in london, sang jazz in oxford, moved to chicago, 'fell in love'(or so i thought) several times over, and explored and abandoned countless careers. those are all things that i will remember fondly from this era of my life. my twenties were also full of loss and heartbreak and a whole boatload of drama. these are the things i am fully ready to leave behind. i'm ready for some roots, some grounded-ness, some semblance of self-awareness and confidence. i am fine with restricting my traveling to vacations and actually settling in one place for a while. i am more than fine with restricting my romantic drama to sunday night television, and marrying a man who makes me feel loved and happy and safe.

on sunday night my wonderful and amazing husband-to-be threw me a 'surprise' birthday party which was made ten times better by the surprise appearance (the night before) of my dearest little sister, synge. seeing synge (and the surprise birthday video message from sarachkah and vixanne- thanks gals!) reminded me how lucky i am to have such a wonderfully strong foundation of old friends in my life; these friendships give me perspective and history and make me aware of who i am and where i have come from. it was also wonderful to look around the room and see that i have created a new life and home for myself here as well, full of interesting and amazing people who love me enough to come out in the frigid chicago cold to celebrate my birthday.

all in all, i'm feeling good, ready for the serendipity of a new age. and i'm hoping that life in my thirties will continue to please and surprise me.

is this normal?

2005-12-12T23:22:00.000-06:00

to all the married ladies (and the singles too, of course, it's just a matter of situational semantics):

did you get ex-boyfriend urges before your wedding?

just last week i changed email servers- as you probably all know since you all got the email about it- and one of the first people to write me back was a certain irish ex of mine who i haven't talked to in about a year. i loved this man, it's true, but that was long ago (six+ years, to be exact), and last time i checked i was totally over him and totally in love with my current betrothed. but after C wrote to me i had a dream about him, and lately he keeps popping into my mind. a few days ago i wrote to him and told him i'm getting married, and he wrote back and told me he's living with some girl named suzanne, and for some reason that made me incredibly jealous. i know it is horrible and selfish to think that he should be languishing somewhere, sick with the thought of me marrying another man (since he is obviously still madly in love with me, the woman of his dreams- duh), but truly, there is a part of me that wants that to be the case. and i'm disappointed that it's not.

maybe this is all because i recently developped a crush on Harry Potter, and this particular ex kind of looks like a grown up Harry Potter (yummmmmmmm). or maybe (more likely really ) i am just experiencing pre-hugest-commitment-of-my-life jitters.

but i do miss C, i really do. and i do wish that he was somewhere pining over me, i really do. there is a part of me that is still pining over him; besides J, he was the next biggest love of my life, and sometimes i wonder where we could have gone together if circumstances (and geography) had been more aligned.

any comments or suggestions? did this happen to any of you?

maybe i'll call this my monthly blog...

2005-11-25T20:12:00.000-06:00

i just noticed (and so might you- if anyone actually still holds out hope and reads this blog) that my last entry was exactly one month ago. wow, sorry about that, but it's been an action packed month with no real signs of slowing down. so for right now i will call this my 'november entry' and make no promises of more frequent entries (except for the implied 'december entry') until after the crazy holidays wind down in january. ( just in time for the 'january entry', but you get the gist by now). since most of my readers are probably just as frazzled as me right now, i doubt that anyone will mind the infrequency.

on to the blogging.

first and foremost i must send out a hearty and heart-felt congratulations to vixanne and her hubby, who welcomed their beautiful son (lets call him angel) into the world on the day before thanksgiving. truly something to be thankful for (i'm sure he won't be hearing THAT for the rest of his life, just like i don't get told that i must be 'my parents favorite christmas present' every time someone sees my birthdate. nowadays i counter with, 'i don't know, they're dead, so they don't talk about it much'- or at least i desperately want to. but i digress...). welcome to the world little angel!

in other news, with the holiday season now upon us, i am starting to show symptoms of a wicked holiday blues coming on. i am fighting it tooth and nail, hoping that it's nothing that some christmas music, mulled wine and a return trip to my therapist can't cure. i haven't seen my therapist in over a month, and i definitely need to return. a few weeks ago my band played at a funeral (the deceased was in his forties and left behind a wife and eight year old son) and i think that's what started the emotional ball rolling. today i went to see Harry Potter and experienced a strong desire to jump into the world of the movie and never come back (i also experienced an inappropriate attraction to Daniel Radcliffe, especially considering he is a 16 year old boy, but that's another story). with the wedding a mere seven months away, i am starting to panic again, and dream of a world without adult responsibilities or worries (and WITH unicorns and magical candy). my old escapism tendencies are slipping out. i hosted thanksgiving at my house this year and got disproportionately upset that things did not turn out picture-postcard perfect; this need for perfection is becoming a troublesome pattern in my life. i am starting to wish my life was more like fiction or the movies- exciting and pretty and full of happy endings.

i am excited about christmas though, mostly. it is my absolute favorite time of the year, probably because it is the one time that a huge portion of society buys into my unrealistic fantasy-land image of the world for a month or so. even if it's saccharine and materialistically driven, at least around the holidays people pretend to love their fellow man and believe in magic and miracles. i'll take what i can get. it was also my mom's favorite time of year and i have a lot of happy memories of christmas. the holidays are the one time where my memories of my mom make me more happy than sad.

i am also excited because this year i turn thirty, and that is actually something that i'm looking forward to. my twenties, though full of adventure, were also full of drama and pain and lots and lots of self-doubt and confusion. i am hoping that my thirties will be more grounded. i still may not know for sure what i my doing with my life, but i have a way better idea of who i am and what i want now than i did at 20 or 25. so bring it on. after all, thanks to the baby boomers, 30 is now practically infancy!

let's see, what else...oh- the other day i wrote a long and cleansing email to my evil stepfather who i have not spoken to in over 5 years. it felt good just to get my gripes and grievances down on 'paper'. i sent it to him at his old email, but it was sent back as an inactive account. and now i am wondering if i should search out his current email address and send it to him, or just take it as a healthy exercise and move on. i have no desire to revive my relationship with him, the damage is done and i am perfectly happy without him in my life, but he does still have a few of my mom's things that i want, and i do want him to know how much he hurt me and why i stopped trusting him. there is also a part of me that wants to hear his side of the story. i don't know that he would respond even if i did send him the email, but i am curious. it is a pretty diplomatic diatribe, i think, especially given how coldly he treated me after my mom died. i guess i just remain eternally and naively hopeful that he would get the email and coming crying back admitting all his wrongdoings, begging my forgiveness and offering me all of her things on a silver platter (i said it was naive). maybe i should just do what my aunt says and consider all of that stuff 'lost in a fire'. they are just things, after all, and i have the most important of her belongings- her journals and photo albums (and her boobs).

so that's it for now. i'll be back in december with wedding dress news and holiday cheer. and since that's only next week, that's not too bad.

more wedding stuff

2005-10-24T17:03:00.000-05:00

thanks for the input on the dresses and the place card dilemma (funny to call that a dilemma, considering the state of the world...); i responded to everyone's advice in the comment section of the last post. as i head off for a few days of family visiting and reception tent scouting, here are some more of my current wedding ideas for you all to chime in on if you feel the urge. watch out- i'm on a roll now!

here are some examples of the style of invitation i want. like i said, my friend jen is a letterpress printer/designer and she's going to do all of my print work. i love her stuff- it's really simple and classy and old-fashioned (like moi), and she gives me an extra discount if i run the presses for her, which is actually a lot of fun. our stuff would all be in shades of blue or green, possible with a daisy motif (jen found an old print plate she thinks would be perfect):

these are some bouquets i like. i want to use daisies and blue hydrangea (both of which grow on the farm) and go for sort of a wildflower look. i'm also thinking of putting mint (which also grows ALL OVER the farm) in the bouquet to make it smell nice:

and here are some cake ideas- nothing too wild. i'm more concerned with taste than look (ours is going to be a lemon cake with fresh blueberry filling and vanila buttercream icing- yummy), because cake is just not where i want to spend a lot of dough (pun intended). we're using fresh flowers (probably daisies again) to decorate, cuz it's about a million times cheaper than sugar flowers. oh, and vixanne, yes, cupcake cakes are still popular, and i originally thought i wanted one, but i couldn't find any that looked quite as neat as i thought they would:

yay! wedding planning! only eight months to go! (though i'm not going to go on about this for eight months, i promise...) oh, and synge, as far as bridesmaids dresses go, the color is probably going to be a dark shade of blue- either navy or something the dress company calls "sailor". i decided to go with the dessy line (which sarachkah recommended) and just let everyone pick their own style. it seems pretty reasonably priced and there are a lot of different designs, so everyone should find something that makes them feel pretty but doesn't break the bank.

the thing i'm most excited about is having all of my very favorite people in the world together in one of my favorite places in the world. that's what i'm really looking forward to (well that, and a kick-ass open bar with fresh margaritas and mojitos for five hours along with an i-pod full of all of my favorite dancin' tunes- woo hoo!).

lightening the mood

2005-10-22T18:35:00.000-05:00

okay, no one reads my blog, i get it. or, if they do, they are too depressed by the content to comment, i get that too. i have no exciting dating life, adorable baby pictures or mucous plugs with which to draw in the readers, therefore i am making a switch. i am not promising that i will never again talk about death or fear or abortions- i gotta be me- but i am now adding wedding planning to the mix- a significantly more upbeat topic.

so settle back and breath easy; no death talk today. today is wedding talk day.

for those of you who i haven't told, we have set a date- Saturday June 24th, 2006. all of the wedding activities will take place on my grandparent's farm on the eastern shore of maryland, and all of you are invited. (well, most of the people who read this blog are invited...you know who you are...if i haven't met you in person or seen you in the last 10 years, you're probably not invited, sorry)

i have already gotten a lot of planning stuff started, because i hate my job and have a lot of free time to surf the internet and read wedding porn. i have a caterer booked (who will also do the cake and act as a day-of-event manager), an officiant (my stepmother, who is a judge), my bridal party chosen (including synge, naturally), we're using an i-pod for the music (a method i tested to much sucess at R's wedding), and, of course, we have the property reserved (being that i own 1/8th of it). i've booked a block of hotel rooms at the local comfort suites and researched all of the local b&b's; a good friend of mine who own's a letterpress printing company is going to do the save-the-dates, invitations, programs, etc.; we're making our own favors; and i am thinking that i may want to do the flowers by myself too, with a lot of help from my crafty and talented aunts. i am meeting with the rental company to go over rental and tent needs on tuesday and going dress shopping in november- though i think that i already know which dress i'm going with.

probably either this (with a blue sash):

or more likely this (with light blue or ivory detail):

the second one is the front runner- i know you can't really see it from the picture, but it looks great on- very curvy and trumpet shaped- and the ribbon detail on the back looks really cool when it's bustled. the greatest part is that both of these are BRIDESMAID dresses, which means they only cost around $300. i am still going to go out and try some more on, but i already love both of these and i know that if i keep looking for too much longer i wll fall in love with some $1000 number that would blow my budget out of the water.

that's my wedding news so far. J is being wonderful and wants to help and be involved as much as possible. he just started a second job to save up because he insists that he wants to pay for half of everything, even though i insisted that my dead folks left me plenty to foot the bill (oops! i guess i just can't do a post without mentioning the DP's at least once). now all i have to do is pray for sunshine and start hitting the gym. and about a million other details that i'm sure i haven't even considered yet.

oh, and kristoise and MAH (if you're reading), in reference to the post on MAH's blog, do you really think that i need placecards for everyone at the reception? we're doing a buffet dinner and not having any specifically designated time to sit down and eat- more of a mingling atmosphere. we're not expecting more than 90 and everyone should at least know several people they could sit with besides me and J- is it too terribly improper to ask people to seat themselves?

a day in a life

2005-10-15T20:40:00.000-05:00

yesterday was a beautiful day in chicago; temperatures were in the low seventies with a slight breeze, bright fall sunshine, and a perfect blue autumn sky. in the morning two of my friends woke up with very different plans for the day. one got up early to catch a plane to miami to begin her three day honeymoon with her new husband. the other woke up around nine in order to make her eleven o'clock appointment at planned parenthood to have an abortion.

i spent the bulk of the afternoon before work wandering in the park and thinking about the distance and closeness between these two significant days. both women faced the day with the man who shared their position, men they love, though differently. each woman will most likely remember the day for the rest of her life, though one was starting down a path, while the other was choosing not to follow the map. both are truly adult actions, the kind i still have a hard time imagining myself old enough to experience. both are very concious decisions on how each of these women want to live their life; neither is a better or worse decision (though, in the eyes of many people, they represent the two opposing ends of the scale of social acceptablity).

thinking about my friends' days, i felt an odd mix of sadness and hope. sadness for the loss of innocence and the frightening ineveitability of adulthood; i cannot protect or prepare either my friends or myself for the whirl of emotions we are bound to experience over the next few months and years, or the highs and lows we are each bound to face. hope for what is still to come for each of us, for the support and love that they had going into their respective days, and which- hopefully- we will all have for the many other wildly divergent days to come.

i love these women. i champion their choices, and am glad that they each had the chance to make them. i hope that women can always make such choices, and do so always with love and support.

growing pains; or the one where i make a wedding all about death

2005-10-11T15:14:00.000-05:00

this sunday my friend R got married. R and i have been friends since the first day of college, some 12 (!!really?!!) years ago, and while that is less than the 16 years i have known many of you, my small but important group of blog readers, that is still a long time. R is a part of my everyday life, she has been for the last six years, and we have very much wandered into adulthood together, both at college and here in chicago. i was MOH in R's wedding, a job which she will also serve in mine. her wedding was fun and beautiful, and totally 'them'; the bride and groom were ridiculously happy and in love, and a good time was had by all. i am very very happy for her newly married status- i adore her new husband K, they are a perfect fit, and though i am not a huge fan of his children (they are cute, but they are also spoiled, totally undisciplined and ridiculously hard to control), i know that she loves her stepsons very much and they love her. over all they make a lovely little family.

so why did i wake up the morning after her wedding feeling so depressed?

i feel like i have lost my friend, which i know is stupid, because things will not be any different now than they were for the last three years that she has been dating K, and, on an even more relevant note, i am in my very own happy, headed-to-the-altar relationship. so why the blue mood?

well, here's what my therapist thinks. we had something of a breakthrough in our last session. we figured out that absolutley all of my relationships are deeply affected and influenced by my fear of death. not just loss, but death. and not my own death, but the death of people around me. this is not really a breakthrough to many of my loyal readers, as i have discussed this before, but we did get more specific with the exact impact of my fears. i am freaked out about everyone around me getting married (myself included) for several reasons: 1. there is a part of me that thinks that anyone would be crazy to put all of their emotional eggs in one basket and count on one person to be there for them for the rest of their lives. i did that with my mom, and look where it got me. 2. being someone who has an extremely difficult time living in the present instead of worrying about the future, i see this rash of weddings as one in a predictable timeline of major life phases- everyone gets married, then they have kids, then some of them get divorced and remarried, then they start to die off. i know this is extremely morbid, but it is just the way my mind works. i guess in a more normal timeline i would include the mileposts of their kids graduating from college, geting married and having their own kids, but my parents didn't make it that far, so my timeline is a little shorter than most. i guess seeing R get married just reminds me that most of my friends are approaching phase two, which leads to phase three and then- my ultimate fear- to phase four. my therapist has already helped me discover that the reason i put so much pressure on myself to adhere to a strict deadline (funny choice of words) with my own life achievements is because a part of me is convinced that i won't live longer than my parents did. so in my mind, time is literally running out, i've only got 16-29 years left. and even if i do make it further than they did, growing up just puts me that much closer to losing more of my loved ones, and i don't think i'm going to react so well to that.

which way is Neverland?

man, i need to lighten up. and being obsessed with CSI, a show about random and unusual deaths, is probably not a healthy choice right now. i need to get a more cheerful hobby. maybe i will revisit pottery.

on a happier note, J and i were both approved for health insurance by (my hero) Aetna. so that makes us a little less likely to die young, right? at least now i can make J go the hospital when my hypochondriac death paranoia kicks in.

and the wedding really was beautiful. and a lot of fun. R looked like a princess, the ceremony was short but emotional, the space was fantastic, the food was good, the music was great (my band, i might add, playing instrumental jazz- my boys did good!), and the whole thing went off without even one snafu (well, one of the bridal party members' leather coat caught on fire in the dressing room- burned a hole right through it- but that didn't really affect the day). i only hope for such smooth sailing on my own day. though i must say that being a MOH is hard- lots of work and not a cheap job either. i'm glad that R is now experienced in the difficulty of wedding planning; it should make her a supremely sympathetic and supportive MOH for me!

well, that's my depressing ramble for the day. now i must go write fiction- at least in fiction i actually CAN control death.

a little test that told me what i already knew

2005-10-05T16:49:00.000-05:00

a friend sent me this test that determines your political belief system. as i suspected, i am a social and economic liberal and best classified as a socialist. on their celebrity chart i fall between hilary clinton and ghandi- not a bad spot. i think it's funny that someone on the opposite side of the chart would be between darth vader and stalin. and there are also apparently also ideologies that would place you between ted nugent and donald trump, or between adam sandler and martin luther king. creepy.

anyway, enjoy. hope none of you fall on the dark side.

tagging is for grafitti artists

2005-10-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

okay synge, here is my shamefully shaggable list, also in no particular order. i hope i did this picture thing right.
and the winners are:

i don't know why, but i have always found Ice Cube sexy. maybe it's the gangsta thing. maybe it's the fact that he's not a half bad actor, and he is definitely a smart business man, but he's still also a total badass. who just happens to make kiddie moves and silly comedies. he just such a renaissance man

talent, it's all about the talent. and PSH has got plenty of that. i can't wait to see capote. he's also kind of sloppy/cocky sexy, and that is oddly attractive to me (from a distance).

recently i have been obsessed with CSI, and therefore i think that Grissom is totally hot. it's all the science talk and his slyly condescending intelligence. and the fact that he's an entomologist who signs, speaks fluent spanish and just happens to be a sensitive- if somewhat emotionally detached- forensic genius. once again, he's a renaissance man. ( i think i see a pattern)

i can't explain it. and i won't try. burt reynolds is sexy, even as an old man. he's just is.

how can you mess with a classic? yes, he's eighty years old, but paul newman will always be beautiful .

i removed mick jagger from my original list because Ice Cube is sexier, and Mick is kind of small in stature which has never turned me on. if i believed in such things as tagging people, i would say i tag sarachkah and vixanne. but i don't really believe in such actions, so do as you please.

shared experience

2005-09-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

i recently received an email from someone from my past who just lost her mother. much like myself she was feeling a little at a loss to talk to her "normal" (read: have both parents) friends, and asked if i would be willing to talk to her. naturally, i was more than willing- i was touched and honored at the chance to talk and listen to a fellow parent-less person. we "dead parents society" members have to stick together. anyway, here is part of my response to her, just in case there are any other DPS members lurking about who could benefit. i will preface this by saying that in no way do i propose that i'm an expert on parent loss- just because i've been through it does not make me the end-all, be-all parentless guru- i am just speaking from my own experiences in hopes that they may help provide a sense of common experience or understanding. here it is:

Where to begin...I know that there is nothing I can do or say to make you feel any better. The most that anyone can do for you right now is to listen, endlessly listen, and give you full and unapologetic permission to feel any and all of the awful emotions that you will feel over the next several months. I do say 'months', because I believe that after the first year it does get more bearable, not better really, but more bearable. I like to equate it to a debilitating injury or handicap- you will never again be able to run or jump just like the other kids, but you do learn to adjust to your limitations and live a fairly normal life. It's been almost ten years since she died and I still think about my mom at least once a day. Though it doesn't always make me cry, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever anyone mentions their own mom, I think of mine. Whenever anyone bitches or complains about their own mother, I hate them just a little for having a mother to bitch about. Don't get me wrong, I like to be reminded of her, I still want and NEED to remember her, it's just hard, and- I won't lie to you- it probably always will be. I wish I could give you better news.

Though I don't have great news of total recovery, I do have a few bits of advice that may help with the coping. I preface this with the fact that my advice can only come from my own experiences, and therefore it may not apply to or work for you at all, but then again they might, so here goes. My first recomendation is to keep a journal of this time. Write down your memories of your mother, now, while they are fresh in your mind. I did not do this, and I wish I had; my memories of her are growing fuzzy and slipping away and if I lose my memories I will never forgive myself. I know it may be hard, but I'm sure it will also be comforting to remember her, and believe me, you will be glad later on to have those memories preserved. Besides, journaling is an incredibly theraputic experience, releasing all of your deepest and darkest thoughts into a forum where they cannot be judged or make other people uncomfortable. It feels very freeing to get all of those hard and painful thoughts out of your head and onto paper- like cleaning the muck out of your mind. My second suggestion is to keep your mother in your life. This applies very specifically to my own experience. When my mom died I ran away and tried very hard to put her, and losing her, as completely out of my mind as I could. Years later, when my Dad died, all of that boxed up and ignored grief floated right back up to the surface, just as big as before and worse than ever. It was overwhelming. Grief cannot be avoided, so let yourself go through it. As I am sure you are already learning, ignoring it will not make it go away. Keep her in your life, talk about her when she's on your mind, remember her- she was and will always be a major part of your life. If you are ready, tell the people in your life not to avoid the subject or steer away from parent talk. I know that people seem uncomfortable talking about it around you, but the more normal you make it the more normal it will become for them. The big pink elephant in the room will not get any smaller or any less pink, so why not learn to live with it.

That's a lot for now, so I will stop. I am glad you wrote to me, and I am more than happy to listen. I know how valuable that is- I need it too. It may sound morbid, but I am always excited when I meet someone else who has lost a parent; it makes me feel more normal, less alone, it reminds me that I am not the only one who knows what this feels like and how much it sucks. That's why I started the blog (though from time to time I do stray off topic...), to share my experiences in hopes that it will make someone else feel less alone. I have been taking some creative non-fiction classes and some day I hope to put together a collection of essays about my own and other people's similar experiences with parent loss. There is almost nothing written about people who lose their parents in their 20's- young children and middle-aged people have cornered the parent-loss market. I am also working on adapting some of my memories of my parents into a collection of short stories. They were wonderful and interesting people, and I don't want them to be forgotten, by me or anyone else.

I will end on an up note by informing you of the perks you will receive as a new member of the "Dead Parents Society". You now have the unique power to make a whole room full of people squirm and laugh uncomfortably at crass dead parent jokes that only you can get away with. You have a new holiday to add to the calender- your mother's "death day"- which you can milk for time off, fancy dinners and foot rubs. You can totally crush anyone out dated enough to use the lame-o "Yo Momma!" comeback. Welcome to the club- the support is great, but the membership dues are a bitch!

On a more sincere note, you can also now be assured of your own strength of character, because after you have survived this, you can survive almost anything. Life seems a little less scary when you know you can handle whatever comes your way. I don't know what your religious beliefs are- mine are a little fast and loose to say the least- but I find a great deal of comfort in knowing that I now have two kick-ass guardian angels watching my back (and you wouldn't believe how many raffle grand-prizes I have won in the last few years- thanks Mom and Dad!).

Feel free to write to me any time, about anything at all. I will always listen and I will usually understand.

risky business

2005-09-22T11:21:00.000-05:00

it's official: i am uninsurable. yep, i'm a huge risk, me and my CRAZY therapy going ways. i mean, that makes sense, it would follow that since i went to therapy after the sudden death of my one remaining parent i CLEARLY have mental problems that will end up costing blue cross blue shield MILLIONS of dollars. and my instability is even more clear considering i then went BACK to therapy a year later, which proves that i was not effectively cured of my sadness in a reasonable time frame. terminal case. who takes longer than a year to grieve their parents? a HUGE insurance risk, that's who!

fuck blue cross. i wouldn't want to be insured by someone with "cross" in their name anyway. i'm applying to aetna, they have dental (nyah, nyah, nyah-stupid blue cross!). and if they ask me about therapy, i'm going to lie my ass off. aetna doesn't cover mental health unless you have a genetic or biological imbalance (ie. a REAL mental health issue) anyway, and apparently the only way to get by in the world of corporate america (which, sadly, in this fucked up system includes healthcare) is to lie. pants on fire, here i come.

on the topic of other risks, today i start a ficiton writing class at northwestern. i am terrified. i can't even make up a lie to cover my ass with insurance investigators, how am i going to make up a whole story? but that's why i'm doing it, i like to scare the shit out of myself from time to time. it keeps me on my toes, keeps me moving forward. i love my teacher, that was a big motivation too. he taught my last two nonfiction classes, and he really likes my work. i am thinking that what i want to focus on is fictionalizing stories from my own life and my parents' lives. that may sound like a cop out, but i think it could be a good balance for me. this summer at the iowa festival i met a writer whos work i loved, and when i asked him about his stories he admitted that several of them were deeply based in his own experiences. he too lost his parents, but when he went to write about it literally it just wouldn't come out. so he embellished a little, moved some things around, made some stuff up, and found that that method worked much better. i have a feeling it may work for me too. whenever i try to write about them i get so bogged down with the imprecision of my memories. i am the only one still alive to tell a lot of these stories, i can't double check the facts, so it would be so much easier if i could just write what i do remember (or in some case what i WANT to remember) and make up the rest. that would allow me to fill in some of the gaps in my own memories as well. or is that propagating an illusion, a deuluded reality, making fact into fiction to suit my own desires and help me cope with pain?

maybe blue cross is right, maybe i AM crazy....

nah, fuck them.

i am officially a simon and garfunkel song

2005-09-18T15:55:00.000-05:00

my therapist told me on friday that he gets the impression that i have made myself into some sort of an 'island', that i isolate myself from people and from life because of my fears of getting hurt. the therapist i went to right after my mom died used the same metaphor, that i was 'an island', and 'a ship lost at sea'.

synge and i used to laugh at these psycho-babbly images.

i always wanted to say, "but an island never cries, and i cry all the time..."

thptttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

2005-09-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

(WARNING: today i am bored, and i have exhausted the internet, so i am taking out my boredom on my blog. feel free to stop reading now if pointless rambling, whining and bitching are not what you're in the mood for. THIS IS A LONG POST! read at your own risk; and don't say i didn't warn you.)

first and foremost, i want to thank everyone who responded to my last post (including those who repsonded via email). that was a crappy day, and i really did appreciate your support and sympathy. you are all wonderful friends, and i am glad to have you in my life, even if i don't say it often enough (or talk to any of you often enough, for that matter). i am back in therapy now, and slowly but surely working through my grief issues. hopefully someday i will not automatically sink into a funk every time labor day rolls around.

on a similar note, i have recently- after many many years of foolish and forgetful avoidance- applied for health insurance (which i will pay for out of my own pocket, since i seem destined never to hold a job which gives me any benefits whatsoever) with blue cross & blue shield. now, i am an overly honest person, honest to a genuine fault, honest to the point that i find it nearly impossible to lie to people when asked a direct question. in the realm of insurance, that fault may have bitten me in the ass. when asked on the application, amongst a million different questions of non-existant ailments, if i had attended therapy in the last ten years, i said yes. and apparently that is an automatic red flag, because- even though i have never taken or been prescribed any psychiatric drugs, been diagnosed with depression or anxiety, or even seen an actual psychiatrist or psychologist(my therapists were all liscensed clinical social workers)- this may mean that i have mental problems that may end up requiring expensive treatment or medication in the future, therefore driving up my premium by a ridiculous degree or even making me uninsurable. when the nurse called to "ask a few questions" about my application, she told me that they always call for a phone interview when someone lists that they've been to therapy. so, they will make me pay more because i chose to handle my problems instead of ignoring them; they will make me pay more because i pay someone to listen to me talk about my life; they will make me pay more, ultimately, because i was too stupid to just lie to them and say that i had never been to therapy. i never gave my SSN to any of my therapists, and they were both in private practice; the insurance company would never have found out about it. and they never asked about my family medical history, which happens to contain a startling amount of cancer and alcoholism. no, they are far more concerned that i am talking to a stranger about my problems. THAT is what makes me a risk.

i hate being honest.

on a totally different note, i must explain why i never blogged about the hurricane. i tried, but i didn't have anything to say that everyone else has not already said. jay's good friend dave is from NOLA, and all of his old high school friends are now moving to chicago because their houses are gone. it is such a tragic and infuriating situation. our government should be ashamed of what happened, and what is still happening in this, the richest and most arrogant nation in the world. and it sucks that bush will never really have to pay for his blatant failure to take care of american citizens, because he can't be re-elected anyway.

i donated some money to mercy corps and felt guilty that i couldn't do more.

other than that, well, i guess i am left with just pure rambling. i am annoyed at britney spears; she is FROM louisiana, and all she did was "pray" for the hurricane vicitims. how about writing out a big fat check, you white trash, no-talent home-wrecker? now i'm just being bitchy. i am so proud of synge for helping out in a more direct way, by protesting and helping out with people relocated to brooklyn. i wish i could be more selfless and involved like that. i am bored with wedding planning. i feel like i have done as much as i can do for now, and now i just have to wait around until the date is a little closer, when i am sure that i will realize that i have been wasting all of this time and have way more to do that i thought. i am the MOH at my friend R's wedding in just about a month, and right now i am focused on fulfilling all of those duties, and hoping that people show up the shower i'm throwing for her this weekend (no one is rsvp'ing, so i have no idea what to expect). then i feel guilty for even thinking about wedding stuff when there are 100,000 new homeless people in the south.

i have recently discovered that i have seasonal allergies, which sucks, because i have never been allergic to anything before, so i thought i was safe, but apparently you can develop allergies at any time. so now i sneeze a lot and my eyes are constantly itchy because- i'm told- the ragweed is blooming.

and today it looks like winter, but it is september and way too early to be winter, even here in the cold cold north, and if it IS winter already that means i have almost eight months of cold grey weather, weight gain and the blues to look forward to and I AM JUST NOT READY!!!!

can you tell that my period is right around the corner?

i am also (surprise, surprise) having school and career doubts again. will i ever figure out what i want to do with my life??? my therapist tells me that i don't need to have everything figured out right now, that i will know what's right for me when i am ready, that i am exactly where i need to be right now, and i need to stop being so hard on myself. and i can buy that, most of the time, and it is very comforting, but then old habits of worrying and pressuring myself pop up. i have been talking about the writing thing, but whenever i am between classes i never have the discipline to make myself write on a daily basis, so i wonder about my devotion. and i am not sure if journalism is the right thing for me; i may be too emotional or too loose in my writing style for straight reporting. and if i go for a masters in creative non-ficiton or fiction instead, well that doesn't leave me any more employable than i am now, except that i could teach at a community college, but do i want to do that or would i be any good at it or would i even be able to find a job doing that anyway?

as you can see, i am a jumbled, hormonal mess.

thpppppppppppppppppptttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!

thanks for listening, if you made it to the end, you deserve a medal. seriously, you are a saint, go out and buy yourself an ice cream or something.

another crappy holiday

2005-08-29T16:45:00.000-05:00

today is my dad's death day. i totally forgot it, i didn't remember it at all until a friend of mine sent me an e-card this morning to see how i was 'holding up'.

two years, he's been dead for two years.

last session i talked to me therapist about J, and through that discussion we also ended up talking about my dad. i said that i think that already, at 32, J has accomplished what my dad never managed- he recognized his weaknesses and his mistakes and then he willingly made a change in himself and his behavior. my dad, at 59, was just starting to work on these things when he died. it makes me so sad to think that he was so close to finally figuring himself out, but he never got a chance to finish the job.

my therapist - i'll call him scott (cuz that's his name)- asked me if i felt like our relationship was resolved when he died. i said no, that we had just started down that path when he went off and drove into a ditch. that makes me even more sad. we were so close to being friends, so close to finally having a real relationship with each other, and that chance was taken from us. again. i had resolved myself to the fact that we would never have a normal father/daughter relationship, but we could have been friends. we were so close. it's not fair that we never got that.

i envy people who are close to their parents as adults. hell, i envy people who can't stand their parent's as adults. i want that. i want to know my parents as peers, as real people, to have a friendship with them. i want to argue with my mother as her equal and say 'no' to my dad as a grown-up. i want to go to dinner with them and pick up the check. i want to call them and ask them for relationship advice. i want to get tipsy with them and talk about my fears and hopes and dreams for the future.

i miss my dad. i'm not even close to recognizing his death, and i don't know when i will be. at my wedding? when my first child is born? every holiday and birthday that he's not there for?

this sucks. it just really sucks.

dreaming of tall towers and deep, blue ponds

2005-08-26T13:57:00.000-05:00

Kristoise asked an interesting question on a comment to the last post which peaked my scientific interest, and i ran with it much further than i had expected to, so i decided to make it it's own post. she asked me what the difference is between therapy, cognitive therapy and psychoanalysis. i kind of knew, but not as clearly as i would like, so i did a little research, and here is what i found:

-"therapy", as i have known it, is just basic listening and responding; most of my therapists have been licensed clinical social workers, who are defined as follows: 'A social worker trained in psychotherapy who helps individuals deal with a variety of mental health and daily living problems to improve overall functioning. A social worker usually has a master's degree in social work and has studied sociology, growth and development, mental health theory and practice, human behavior/social environment, psychology, research methods.' pretty general stuff, but it gets the job done.

- 'cognitive' and 'behavioral therapy' (or 'cognitive behavioral therapy') is more about recognizing patterns and behaviors in order to change them. to be more specific: 'Cognitive therapy teaches you how certain thinking patterns are causing your symptoms — by giving you a distorted picture of what's going on in your life, and making you feel anxious. Behavior therapy helps you weaken the connections between troublesome situations and your habitual reactions to them. Reactions such as fear, depression or rage, and self-defeating or self-damaging behavior. It also teaches you how to calm your mind and body, so you can feel better, think more clearly, and make better decisions.depressed or angry for no good reason, or provoking you into ill-chosen actions.' sounds good and logical to me- this i am looking forward to trying.

- 'psychoanylisis' is the juicy stuff, the stuff that everyone wants to learn about in psychology class (or at least i did); it was freud's baby, and includes all of those crazy, subconcious freudian ideas. even it's definition sounds wack: 'Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods that work to elucidate connections among unconscious components of patients' mental processes, and to do so in a systematic way through a process of tracing out associations. In classical psychoanalysis, the fundamental subject matter is the unconscious patterns of life as they become revealed through the the patient's free associations. The analyst's goal is to help liberate the patient from unexamined or unconscious barriers of transference and resistance, that is, past patterns of relatedness that are no longer serviceable or that inhibit freedom.' it's all about dreams and repressed behavior and suconcious desires as being the root of and answer to your neuroses; you know, oral fixation and anal retentiveness as a child, penis envy as an adolescent, a secret desire to bed your mom and kill your dad (or vice versa), all as evidenced from free associative (aka: babbling) observations made while lying on your back on a couch. freud thought everything was really about sex or death; though i don't totally disagree, i think psychoanalysis is a load of hooey. but the theories are interesting to hear.

so, kristoise, there is my (lengthy) answer to your question. i wonder if i only answered so thoroughly because i knew i was talking to a scientist? freud would probably say i have some deep seeded desire to please you in order to enhance my own sexual identity. i think i am just curious and like looking things up on the internet. i'll ask my therapist tomorrow and see what he thinks.

do i look like brenda to you?

2005-08-22T13:43:00.000-05:00

therapy went very well. i like my new therapist guy; he seems smart and empathetic and much much more proactive that my last one (and that's just from one meeting). i also like that he seems closer to my own age. i was thinking about this after our session and wondering why it made a difference, and i think that my last therapist just seemed to have this detached, older, grandmother-figure vibe about her that did not make me feel totally open to sharing every tawdry detail of my life. she seemed more removed and 'above it all' than the new guy, and that was not effective for me at all. i also like the new guy because he has a background in cognative therapy and pscyho-analysis, though he said he would only throw in those viewpoints if the client wants them, if they seemed to fit the situation and if the client was up to it intellectually. the cogantive therapy background is particularly interesting to me because it's all about recognizing behaviors and then learning to change them, which is what i want to do. the psycho-anaylis could be fun just for laughs, as i tend to think it is rather subjective bullshit. mostly, i am just honored that he clearly thinks i am "up to it intellectually".

for our first meeting we mostly just got to know eachother, him telling me about his training and professional background and me answering his many questions about my own background with long, tangential rambles. i realized that i like talking all about myself and my background in a guilt free setting. i guess everyone would. it's nice to talk about yourself and not feel selfish, boring or self-centered. ah, the joys of paying someone to listen.

somewhere near the end of the session i casually mentioned 'six feet under' and he asked me if anyone had ever told me that i look like brenda (Rachel Griffiths) from the show. i said yes, many times, though he didn't have to worry as i am not a recovering sex addict atheist with an odd attraction to my twin brother. i have been getting the brenda thing a lot lately as the show is drawing to a (sniff,sniff) close. i think she is beautiful, and certainly an amazing actress, but i do not think that we look all that alike. mainly it's just the hair and the eyes; her face is much more square and mannish than mine, and she's about three feet taller. plus, she named her child 'banjo', and i would never do that to a child. i liked it better when people used to say i looked like Juliette Binoche.

in reference to a few responses to my last post, i feel i must clarify. my fear of marriage has nothing to do with a fear of the instituion itself, and i also suspect that once it is done i will feel no differently towards J. my fear of marriage comes from a fear of formally bringing someone into my life knowing that i may lose him someday, either to death or abandonment. i am not afraid that my relationship with J will weaken or grow stale when we get married, i am afraid that he wil die. which i know is silly because of course he will die, some day. kristoise, i think you are right, that i would feel just as bad if i lost J now as i would if we were married. but it's the public proclamation of it all, the 'we will be together forever and ever, or til DEATH do us part' that seems daunting. forever and ever has been a cut a little short and death had done me part a few too many times for my taste, and i almost feel like publically proclaiming it is a jinx. i may not even include that line in our vows, or may reword it somehow. if J can ask me not to include 'god' in the ceremony, i can ask him not to include 'death'. vixanne, i agree with you too; it really is just a huge party, and in that respect i am definitely looking forward to the wedding. and no, we haven't registered yet, but we will soon, i promise,; we are thinking it will be at Target and Crate and Barrel. as soon as we get it done you will be the first to know.

well, i just took two benadryl, non-drowsy formula, and they are making me feel high, so i must cut this short for now. i will post again very soon though, because i am desperate to chime in on the last episode of 'six feet under', and i have more to say about weddings and loss and my new favorite therapist (who i will see again this weekend- yea!).

in the meantime, i highly recommend taking two benedryl non-drowsy pills if you want a quick and legal high. i haven't felt this wacked out in a while...

therapy-eve (like christmas eve...only not at all...)

2005-08-19T18:47:00.000-05:00

so tomorrow i start therapy with the guy that J's therapist recommended. that's right, a guy, but he's gay, so that made it okay for me. call me crazy (no joke intended), but i would not feel comfortable with a straight male therapist; somehow a gay man is not so threatening. not to stereotype, but i assume a gay man would be more sympathetic. i talked to him on the phone, and he sounded cool- he congratulated me for recognizing that my old therapist wasn't working for me, said that lot's of people just stay with people they don't really like. he also said that he is very interactive and hands on in his style, which is much more of what i'm looking for. my last therapist just sat and listened and then basically repeated back to me what i had said. i could accomplish that with a tape recorder.

in the spirit of my upcoming emotional exploration, i had a pre-therapy session of my favorite kind last tuesday with J: magaritas at our favorite mexican restaurant. whenever we go there (which is as often as the budget permits) we end up having very postive, soul-searching talks, and this week was no exception. in fact, about a half a pitcher in, we had an epiphany, or at least a very interesting realization. all of my fear of commitment and fear of marriage and fear that everyone around me is dead if they are five minutes late comes directly from my belief that everyone i get close to will be taken away from me. because they always have been- from my dad (as a child and then literally, with his death), his wives, K and C (my childhood surrogate family), my stepfather and stepbrothers, my mom's boyfriends, to (the ultimate) my mom, the one person who swore she would never leave. so now i am trying to push J away, because i assume he will leave anyway. i am testing him to see if he will leave, because i assume he will. i am freaked out by marriage because i am terrified to count on someone again, to cast myself in with someone else who i believe will get taken (or go)away again. in other words, MAJOR fear of abandonment. and maybe this doesn't sound like such a revelation, but for some reason it seemed like it to me. i guess because i looked beyond the normal 'people who left me' list and noticed that there were even more, that almost everyone i had grown attached to as a child had gone away. i grew up so seperated from my extended family, and anyone else i tried to 'adopt' went away. i grew up expecting to be left or forgotten about.

the only exceptions, and they came later in my teens, are my friends, many of whom read this blog. so thank you all, thanks for being the ones who stayed. i guess that means i'd feel okay about marrying any of you.

the greatest thing about this revelation is that J made it. and so now he understands why i run away and why i sometimes act crazy and try to push all of his buttons at once. so maybe now it won't work on him. i guess i will just have to try to accept that he'll be the exception to the rule, that he won't leave, or at least not for a really, really, really long time.

and i want to believe that so very much. i am tired of being scared, i want to just be happy and trusting and open. i love J and i want to believe that we will be allowed to grow old together.

maybe my new therapist will help me begin to believe. i'm sure he'll be impressed that i'm coming in with so much homework started (but then i always have been a teacher's pet). maybe i should suggest to him that we have margaritas for our session, just to get the ball rolling...

watch this, you'll like it

2005-08-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

i have been desperately in need of a laugh lately, and this did the trick. hope it works for you too.
watch it, really, it's very very weird and funny.

more blogging soon, i promise.

and i'm not Jewish OR Catholic...

2005-07-26T17:02:00.000-05:00

why do i always feel so guilty? even when i am completely innocent, or at least guilty of nothing more than doing something for myself, i feel totally and utterly stricken with guilt. sick with it. to the point that i write long, guilt-stricken letters to people that i'm not even close friends with, just so that they won't hate me or think i'm a bad person. and, i stress, people i'm not even close friends with. why do i feel this constant need to solve everyone's problems, make everyone happy, and generally try to save the day?

i need to get over this. i need to realize that i will never be able to make everyone happy. full stop. end of story.

so here's the beginning of the story: a girl i work with asked me to pick up a shift for her next month. she is going out of town and misjudged the dates of her trip when she put in her schedule request, so she is scheduled to work one day that she'll be gone. i told her i'd probably be able to work, but i'd have to check. i checked, and, sure enough, that is the day that i was planning to go to 'movies in the park', a big outdoor film festival held on tuesdays in july and august. it runs several tuesdays, but that week's film is the only one i am interested in seeing- 'the hustler', with paul newman. J and i go to movies in the park every summer, it's one of our traditional summer outings, and sad as that may be, it's a big deal to me. so i stupidly told my co-worker that i couldn't work because i really wanted to go to movies in the park that night. silly me, i didn't just lie and say i had something i couldn't get out of that night, i told the truth. bad move. she kind of huffed away, saying nevermind, and mumbling something about how no one ever covers hers shifts. beyond that, another guy we work with, someone i actually consider a friend, already told her he would work if she couldn't find anyone else- he wanted to be a last resort because his dad and little sisters are in town that night. i, of course, immediatly felt crippled with guilt. why? because i didn't give up my own plans and my own night off to help out a co-worker- no, make that TWO co-workers, one of which is a friend.

and now i feel like an evil, evil, EVIL bitch.

so i wrote this co-worker an email (even worse, i'm a PASSIVE evil bitch), telling her of my overwhelming guilt, my future willingness to help her out in any other situation that i can, and calling myself all sorts of bad names. she wrote me back: "Not your problem. I'll be home in California so I won't be working that day anyway. I'll just be more careful about when I work for other people from now on."

man. talk about salt on the wound.

so my question is this- why do i feel so guilty? i am not killing her family, causing her bodily harm, emptying her bank account or otherwise hurting her in any way. i made her no promises, and i have absolutley no obligation to work- it's my rightful, scheduled day off. and this girl is not even my friend. she won't have to work- essentially the shift is covered. i even called around for her to see if i could persuade someone else to work- did her job for her, technically. as she said herself (though snarkily):THIS IS NOT MY PROBLEM.

but still the guilt persists. if it wasn't too repetitious, i would say this is yet another sign that i need therapy. guilt complex, irrational need to please others, probably because of something my parents did or did not do...

dammit- i get all of the guilt of religion, with none of the comfort.

(totally off the guilt subject: if you're looking for news from my iowa city workshop experience, read below. i actually used links, and i'm pretty proud of myself)

catch up

2005-07-26T12:48:00.000-05:00

okay, so like a rodent's advanced scheduling, my plan to blog more often is once again unraveling. but i perservere...

thanks to everyone who sent kind and supportive words in response to my iowa city post. i felt the love, really i did. actually, my time in iowa turned out to be a great experience- i met some fantastic fellow writers, made some friends, gained some perspective and focus on my writing goals, bought a ton of books, and found some vintage scarves for wedding decorations. i realized (and was reminded by one of the women i met there) that i am much better at making friends than i thought i was, and generally recharged my independance and self-esteem. i also decided that i could never live in the middle of the midwest; lake michigan may not be an ocean, but at least it gives the illusion of coastal living.

my workshop itself was a little less than gratifying, but i made the most of it. the teacher was not what i wanted her to be- she was a little cold and withdrawn, not quite as hands on and inspiring as i had hoped- and the workload did not kick my butt as much as i had expected, but i got a good start on some stories about my dad that have been floating in my head for a while. and, most importantly, i met some other writers who are interested in sharing work and critiques online. yea for community! i also met some really cool writers/speakers, including one who was my mini intellectual crush for the (last two days of) the week, and who agreed to help me with my submission to the Oxford American.

(in case Julia or Lauren are reading: i emailed him telling him how much i love his book, and he emailed me back right away- {girlish squeal!}. for the rest of you, his book really is great, you should read it)

(and in case any of the rest of you are indignantly judging my betrayal of J, he knows all about my little literary crush. 'i'm a good girl, i am...' )

(you should also check out this book- she was a great speaker as well)

another interesting outcome of the week was that i realized there are a lot of people around my age who have lost parents. at least half of our class had lost at least one parent, and one other girl had lost both. i always like to meet other "adult orphans"(does that sound morbid?). it's good to share experiences and it makes me feel less freakish, which is nice. it also made me realize that a lot of really great writing has been (and is being) inspired by loss, and that's something i know i've got down. i like to think of it as my artistic liscense- i have suffered, therefore i am validated in my artistic expression. therefore my pain and my point of view are interesting enough to subject others to. total bullshit, i know, but it works for me. anything that keeps the ink flowing. i think i am going to write a collection of stories about my father.

so that's enough for now. more later. i hope, i promise... (squeak squeak)

stretching

2005-07-12T18:31:00.000-05:00

so here i am in lovely iowa city. trying to be a writer. ho hum.

i was terrified of coming here, for so many reasons. first and foremost, i am not particularly good at making friends, and though i like being alone, i do need social contact after a while, so the thought of spending six days in a strange town surrounded by no one i know was a bit unnerving. secondly, the workshop i am taking is called 'family memoirs' and the thought of spending six days in a strange town surrounded by no one i know while being forced to think about my dead parents thrilled me even less. oh, and then there's the whole 'who am i fooling, i'm not a real writer and i probably never will be; this is just another wild goose chase for a career that i will never be able to decide upon' line of thought.

fun stuff.

but, so far so good. i have actually managed to bypass my usual shyness, and (with the help of two nerve building glasses of reisling) i actually initiated a group dinner last night. and i have been talking to strangers left and right.
in fact, i am off to dinner right now, so more later, but so far so good. all i have to do now is deal with the parents stuff, and that should be a piece of cake...

right?

thanks...

2005-07-02T20:00:00.000-05:00

for the support everyone. not that i was surprised to get such a pro-therapy response from all of my therapy-attending friends... i am going to call J's therapist for a recommendation as soon as i get back from iowa city. i know it will take time, and it will be hard, and that i will never be totally "cured" of being sad about my parents. i just want to be able to think about them without crying.
lately, i have been getting really sad about my dad. today, J and i were driving in to work along lakeshore drive, listening to a sam cooke tape that belonged to dad, and i was suddenly overcome with sadness and started to cry. i saw the beach that we went to after he helped me move to chicago, and i was listening to the music that he loved to dance to, and i just started to miss him so much. i hate that he won't get to dance with me at my wedding. i know it sounds stupid, but i think that his death has not really hit me yet. i think that his death brought back my mom's death so strongly that it distracted me from actually losing him.
yikes, i don't like the idea of another wave of grief just building offshore. i suppose therapy can help me batten down the hatches.

on an even sadder note- is anyone else scared as hell of our supreme court now? sandy, why are you leaving us? who's going to save us from the church? who's going to be our moderate voice of reason? i'm glad i'm still renting; it will make it easier to move to canada when the crazy christians finish conquering our government.

movin' and shakin'

2005-06-30T09:49:00.000-05:00

i am moving- again. it has been less than a year since i packed up everything i own and walked it down the block, and i would be immensely happy if it could be at least three more until i did it again. but no such luck. the swell of chicago condos must march on. my place is apparently going for $390k. i mean, this is a nice apartment and all, but seriously- four hundred thousand dollars? when i was growing up in richmond, that kind of money could buy a house with a three acre yard and an elevator. here, just a two bedroom condo rehab. the world's gone mad.

speaking of going mad, apparently i need therapy. or at least, J thinks it's a good idea. i agree, i have been a bit of a mess lately, with mood swings to rival a six flags ride, and bouts of minor depression, oh, and the fact that i'm obsessed with my dead parents. and antisocial behavior- if that's what it means when you're always crabby and you can't make friends. (these are all my words, not his). lately i just feel blank and desperate. i can feel totally alone and isolated sitting in the middle of a crowded room. and- i think this is J's issue- i have been getting my familiar born-to-run feelings again. a few weeks ago, out of nowhere, i drank a whole bottle of wine and decided i was furiously mad at J (who had the NERVE to go out with his friends and then call me several times to tell me where he was and when he would be home, the bastard), so i ran away from home, thirteen-year old style. i went down the street to my old (now my new again) house, and lay down in the back yard and fell asleep, deliberatly hoping that J would be worried when he got home. he was. luckily, he found me right away, and then we had a ridiculous fight, in which i tried to act like i was the one who had been slighted, and told him several times that i had HOPED that he was worried. in the morning, it all came back to me in an oily haze, and i felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. i'm lucky he didn't dump my crazy ass right there. he was very hurt, but also very forgiving, saying that he had panicked when he got home and i wasn't there, and that he didn't know what he would do if he lost me. and the night before i actually told him that this was the reaction i wanted! i've never done something so mean hearted and vindictive, especially to someone that i love who in no way deserved it. it was so clearly just a plea for attention, which he would willingly give me at any time, if i just TELL HIM WHAT I NEED. i have such a hard time asking for what i need, and a nearly impossible time asking for help. when did i become such a passive aggressive coward? and where did all of this anger that i have come from? i love J more than anything in the world; he is so sweet and understanding and good to me. and yet i still find myself questioning our relationship, wondering if this is the right thing for me, so scared of a future that involves counting on one person.

he's right, i do need a therapist. and i'm such a stuck-up hippocrite for being so surprised that that's true. J has worked so hard on himself and this relationship, has made it such a priority to be the man he thinks i deserve, the absolute least he deserves is the same effort from me.

(and synge, don't think i am missing the irony of being told i need to go to therapy. talk about the pot calling the kettle crazy...)

tell me i'm not crazy...

2005-06-27T00:42:00.000-05:00

i never thought it would happen to me. i thought i would be safe. i saw it happen to my other friends, read about it in magazines, saw it in the movies and on tv, but i thought i would be different. i thought i was stronger. but it has happened.

i am obsessed with wedding planning. and i've got it bad.

i buy every wedding magazine i can get my hands on, even the ones in the sealed plastic bags with the free budget planner notebooks and the target gift registries. i log on to indiebride or the knot at least twice a day. i can't wait to go to flea markets this summer and look for interesting stuff for centerpieces. recently i even had the urge to rent "my best friend's wedding" and "runaway bride" JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE ABOUT WEDDINGS!!!!

i have a problem. it has to stop. the wedding is still a year away, and i have everything done except for buying the flowers and writing my vows.

i fear i am lost.

tell me i'm not completely out of my mind. tell me this is normal. at least tell me this is normal for ME....

a response to a fellow mourner

2005-06-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

Dear Vixanne,

i agree and disagree with you. all grief is indeed very different, and losing a parent is not like losing a child, that's true. but, ironically enough, when i lost my parents, i felt very similar feelings of isolation and exclusion to what you have felt, and much of that came from how other people 'expected' me to grieve. everyone seemed to think that it was so much 'worse' for my grandparents to lose their children than it was for me to lose my mother, because your parents are supposed to die before you and your children aren't. maybe that's true, but your parents aren't supposed to die before you're thirty, and even if they are, it doesn't make it any easier. everyone 'expected' me to be over it by now, because i am young, and resiliant, and i have my whole life and future ahead of me. so now it makes people uncomfortable when i talk about my pain, and it makes them feel guilty when they tell me their mother's day plans, because they don't know how to 'handle' my grief that has lasted so much longer and affected me so much more than it 'should'.

true, your grief and mine are very different, just as our experiences and our personalities are very different. but i think that there are also a lot of similarities which you don't see.

i very much mourned the future when i lost my parents; every day i mourn the fact that they are not with me in my life to see the directions i am taking and that they will never see me grow or know my family or my achievements. i do feel that my mother's death is a reflection of me as a woman and a person- through my most formative adult years, i didn't have a MOTHER, i still don't have a mother, i don't have that most essential of female relationships that every other woman in my world has, and that makes me feel freakish and abnormal and faulty. no one knew knew what to say to me when they died- sure, i got the prerequisite 'i'm sorry' and ' how are you?', but no one really knew what to say, yourself included. just because there's a card for it, doesn't mean people feel comfortable discussing it with you. i do have many many memories of my parents, but they are fading every day, and for many of them, there is no one left who shares those memories; they will die forever when they leave my mind, because all of the people in those memories have died. i certainly felt bitterness and jealousy, and i still feel bitterness, every time i see a mother and daughter or a father and daughter laughing and talking together. it makes me FURIOUS that that can't be me, that my parents were taken from me while other people will have theirs for their whole lives. and lastly, yes, hundreds of people mourned my mother and my father, but i mourned them, and still do mourn them, very much alone, every day. in fact, the further i get from their deaths, the more alone i feel in my grief. because i'm supposed to be over it.

because grief is supposed to be simple.

but you and i both know that it is not.

for anyone.

day by day

2005-06-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

i fear i am falling back off the blogging wagon. some days it's easier to write than others. in fact, i have fallen off the writing wagon in general lately, and that's no good. but i have a workshop and a new writing class both coming up soon, so that should help me stay focused. sad that i need such structure to keep me on task, but such is life. i have been distracting myself lately with wedding stuff and finding a new apartment (my building's going condo, so we have to go), and apparently i can't mentally walk and chew gum.

we did find a new place- well actually, an old place. we're moving back into my old building, four doors down the block. in an uncharacteristically shrewd bargaining move, i talked my old landlord into renting us the third floor unit in my former building- the owner's unit, a three bedroom, and the nicest aprtment in the building- for $300/per month less than he was asking. it had been vacant for three months, and i knew that he was desperate, so i thought he might bite- and he did! talk about a renter's market...if anyone wants to rent an apartment for a great deal, move to chicago, now's the time. now i have my old yard back and more space than i know what to do with. J is thinking of turning the back sunroom into a meditation room- just because he can- and we will now have an official guest bedroom, so if any of you east coast slackers ever want to go (mid)west, you have a place to stay. it is a little more money than we pay now, but not a ridiculous amount, and i figure if you're going to splurge it might as well be on your home. i know all of you homeowners out there are going to tell me i should buy, but i'm just not ready yet (nor is the chicago housing market, by my budget). one major life commitment at a time- talk to me after i'm married and through grad school.

i am just a little worried about J's reaction to the new place though. he seems a little weirded out about moving back into what was essentially my old apartment, in a building with all of my friends. he says he feels like he's moving further into my life, and that strikes me as an odd phrase from someone who is planning to marry me in a year. as i see it, i spend a LOT of time with his friends, much more than he has ever spent with mine, so in fact moving in there kind of balances the scales. i know that the extra money worries him too, but as i see it, we have the money my parents left me as a cushion for us and in order to enable us to live a little more comfortably, so why not use it to live in a really nice place? it's really only $150 more a month than we were looking to spend, and that's what, like two dinner dates or a couple of cab rides a month we'll have to cut out? i do not count on my parent's money, and i have never squandered it, but dammit, my parents are dead and that really sucks, so why shouldn't i get some happiness from the money they left me? i have so much guilt and so many bad feelings about that money, i am trying to get to a place where i can just enjoy it- not waste it or depend on it, but enjoy it and appreciate the security and flexibility it offers me. using it to enable me to live in an apartment that i love, in a building full of people that i care about, with a yard where i can dig in the dirt- that is how i lose the bad vibes of that money. and that's okay........right?

damn. i need to go back to therapy.

is anybody out there?

2005-06-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

or am i writing this for an entirely empty room? lurkers, unmask yourself (if you exist)- i'm feeling neglected here...

stop the world, i wanna get off

2005-06-10T20:55:00.000-05:00

right after my mom died, my dad gave me a book called 'when bad things happen to good people'. i never read it. when my dad died i looked at the book and thought it was ironic that he was the one who had given me the book and now he was 'good person' i was missing. when my mom died another friend of mine gave me a book called 'motherless daughters' which i also did not read for a while, though i eventually stop/start-ed my way through most of it (the crying made it hard to read, hence all the stopping). this summer i will attend a writing workshop in iowa city led by the woman who wrote 'motherless daughters', hope edelman; the workshop is called 'writing about family'. yesterday one of my closest friends told me that she had some irregular, possibly pre-cancerous cells on her cervix, and would have to go in for minor surgery and, if that didn't work, she might have to have a hysterectomy. this morning i broke down crying on my way to the gym, overcome with a terrible sadness, suddenly absolutely exhausted by the world. i am tired of trying to fix everything. i am so tired. i am tired of bad things happening to good people. i am tired of worrying that more people i love might die. i am tired of putting forth a brave face, and being positive, and supporting everyone else, and taking care of everything. i want someone to take care of me. i want someone to make everything okay. i just want to stop and be happy for a while.

i want my mommy.

digging for roots

2005-06-09T17:58:00.000-05:00

today i spent the entire afternoon on my hands and knees in the dirt planting my vegetable garden. the weather was hot and the work was strenuous, but there are few things in the world that i love more than sitting in the sun wiggling my toes into the dirt, so overall it was a wonderful afternoon. i finished the day dirty, tired and amazingly satisfied.

crouching there, placing each tiny little plant into the earth, i thought of my mother. when i was growing up, every single saturday morning i can remember found my mom in our back yard, on her knees, messing with her flowers. i would wake up, usually hours after she had, to a pan of bicuits on the kitchen counter, a pitcher of sweet tea on the back stoop and mom, dressed in an old sweatshirt and cutoff jeans with a bandana holding back her hair, half covered by plants somewhere in the yard. she loved her garden, it was her haven. she told me once that that was her release after a long and emotional draining work week, the only time she could really call her own. though at the time i didn't understand how working could be a release from working, now i understand. just the sensation, the satisfaction of doing a job that you want to do, on your own time, in your own way, and for only your own reward, is an amazingly calming thing. gardening makes me happy in a way that few other 'hobbies' can; part of that is the activity itself and part of that is the nostalgia and sense of private indulgence i associate it with.

as i realized how much i share my mother's love of gardening i was faced with the fact that i am like her, and unlike my teenage years, when that would have terrified me, i found that idea very comforting. maybe it's because my parents are gone, but now i'm pleased when i notice their traits in my own actions. it makes me feel closer to them, it reminds me that they were a part of my life and they will always be a part of me. when i catch myself making up silly songs, i remember that i am like my dad. i catch myself making facial expressions that remind me of my mom. i hear the tone of my voice and it sounds like dad. i share both their good traits (curiousity, generosity, friendliness) and their bad ones (arrogance, impatience, lateness), but the important thing is that i am LIKE them, they are still in me. i am their daughter, here or gone, and no amount of time or distance will change that. they are my roots, they are my foundation. though i am my own plant now, producing my own fruit, it is my parents who first helped me grow. to grab for another plant metaphor, i guess the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

wow. all of this, found in an eight by four plot of dirt. who'd of thunk it.

these boobs are made for walkin' (but DAMN, my feet hurt!)

2005-06-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

this weekend i participated in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (not 'against' breast cancer, 'for' it-?!?) and my body is now in complete revolt (well, that, and the tequila-soaked congratulations dinner i ate last night didn't help much either). it felt good to finish though, and though it may not sound like much, i must say that walking 40 miles is HARD! it was primarily through the city, and yesterday was steam-heat hot, so that added to the discomfort level. but it was all worth it when people along the route cheered us on, and when cancer survivors thanked us for walking- it's the least i can do to fight a disease which has taken the lives of my dearest loved ones. so many of the teams were walking in honor of someone they had lost, and it really hit home for me how very common this disease has become. there were all sorts of signs along the way reminding us that one in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, and those are some scary odds. it also reminded me, on a much more selfish and superficial level, how hard it is to stay in shape, and how much i need to keep up regular exercise. i consider myself in pretty good shape, i go to the gym at least four or five times a week and i try to eat well, but MAN, my body was pushed to the limit this weekend, and i was only walking! i have told myself that some day before i die, i want to run a marathon (in honor of my dad, who was planning to run one when he turned 60), but i don't know how i will get into that kind of shape. if walking a marathon nearly killed me, how could i possibly manage to run one? but i have time, and exercise is a habit i am trying hard to form, so maybe one day...

i did think a lot about my mom and dad this weekend. along the route there were lots of families out, holding up signs to support their loved ones who were walking, and it made me wish that my mom and dad were there to cheer me on. they both would have been so proud and supportive of me for doing this ( and doing it 2 years in a row now); my dad in particular would have been really impressed. most of my family didn't even donate, let alone call me up to cheer me on (except my stepmother M, who totally rocks). i guess this is just another incident in which i have to consider my friends as my family, because all of my friends were so very encouraging and generous in their donations. i also thought of my mom as i saw so many mothers and daughters walking together and once again i wished that she were here so that we could do the walk together. i wish so much that i could walk and celebrate with my mother the cancer 'survivor', instead of desperately missing my mother the cancer 'victim'.

recently i heard on the news somewhere that they may have found a cure for cervical cancer, the disease that killed my mom. some doctor said that now no woman should ever have to die from cervical cancer. i have such mixed feelings about this news. while i am happy that no other women will lose their lives, i feel so angry that this should arrive too late for my mom. she fought so hard, and so valiantly, and to hear that the disease that beat her is now not even a threat makes me absolutely furious at the unfairness of her death. too little too late seems like the biggest understatement of all time.

so if i can walk, and raise money to help find a cure so that generations of other daughters will not have to feel the anger and the sadness of losing their mothers, so that even one woman will not have to feel the pain and frustration that i feel every day, then give me my damn shoes, i'll walk it again right now. it would be worth it.

Dreams

2005-06-01T10:35:00.000-05:00

i woke up this morning from a night full of dreaming, and the dreams were so close to the surface and clear in my mind that i felt i must write them down. the first one i remember was more fantastic and indulgent than significant- i dreamed of an elevator bar. i was in a big fancy hotel with two other people ( a man and a woman, i'm not sure who) and i wanted to show them an elevator i had found that somehow served cocktails. i went to the elevator bank, pressed the button, and the door opened on a long, steel gray metal room with an older, salt-and-pepper haired black man in a tuxedo standing behind a beautifully laid out table. the table was dressed in perfect white linens, set with bottles of liqour and wine, a silver ice bucket and several kinds of glasses. there were three black stools pulled up to the "bar" and when i explained that we were only here to get a drink and return to our rooms, he shook his head and told us we should come in and sit down. we did. he poured us drinks (once again, i don't remember what) and then began to produce (from nowhere) small plates of the most extravagant food- a mound of caviar with small round toast points and sour cream, a hunk of very nice french cheese, chocolate mousse, raspberry trifle, and minature lobster rolls. we began to eat and drink, and i had the distinct feeling that the room was moving, in fact i could see it rotating so that the elevator door was pointing away from the outside lobby- so that no one else could get in. i wasn't afraid, it seemed to make sense to me, to close the bar off. the older gentleman bartender explained that this was a very exclusive bar and that not many people knew about it. he told us that he had many regular clients, and that they all had their normal visiting hours- one man always came by with a friend or two at 1am- and that this was good, since the bar only held four people and if it was full when you arrived, you would open the door to find only the back of the elevator car and you would not be able to get in. all the while i was eating this amazing food, going for the caviar first, since i knew it must be good caviar and i have never eaten good caviar. i picked upa toast point (well, a toast circle, really) and noticed it was soft and flexible, not crisp as i had thought it would be. the man across from me ( i'm still not sure who it was) had folded his toast point into a kind of caviar taco, and i remember thinking that seemed odd and very decadent. i loaded my taost with caviar, put some sour cream on, and then ate it, but do not remember how it tasted. in fact i remember thinking it did not have much taste, not as much as i had expected. the man acrosss the table from me ( i almost want to say he was like a young tony randall) noticed a crock topped with white whipped cream and dug in to discover it was raspberry trifle. we both commented on trifle and then dug in. that had lots of flavor, very sweet and light and fluffy, sugary and rich. after that things began to fade. i remember being away from the table for a moment and turning back to find that the food had disappeared, except for a crock of chocolate mousse and a small bowl of cocoa powder. our drinks were still there, and the linen was spotless, as if nothing had ever been there or been removed. i remember thinking that i had never gotten to try the cheese.
the second dream was much more significant, but i'm not sure where it came from. i was sitting in a small room, like a screened in porch type of area, with most of my mother's family- her sisters, nieces, nephews and her mother. we were all sitting there talking and clearly waiting for something or someone, and i eventually got the impression that we were waiting for my mother in some way, though i'm not sure why. as we waited, my aunts and my oldest cousin, dawn, were talking about my mom and they were saying all kinds of bitchy things, like how she would put on airs, that she thought she was better than everyone else, that she was really irresponsible, that she was just as much of a good time girl as everyone else but she pretended to be so good, that she was always running late and making people wait for her. i got more and more angry as they talked, and yet i didn't say anything, until finally dawn was saying something in a particularly sneering tone and i broke down and told them all that they shouldn't talk about her like that, how dare they, she was my mother. they all gave me a look and were quiet, then slowly drifted back into their conversations. i remember catching my aunt katy's eyes and she looked so sorry for me, so pitying, and i felt like she was the only one who understood. that's all i remember of that one, but i woke up wanting to talk to my mom and talk to my aunts.

there's the dream report. discuss amongst yourselves.

only thirteen months to go!

2005-05-31T12:41:00.000-05:00

i must confess, i am beginning to get a little wedding-happy. i know it only springs from too much free time between classes and my upcoming visit to MD to start talking to vendors, but i fear i am becoming somewhat obsessed. and i still have a year to go. yikes.

i was in NYC recently to visit synge, and we went to try on wedding dresses. i have come up with the brilliant money-saving idea that i will buy a bridesmaid's dress for myself instead of a wedding gown because they are cheaper, simpler and more in keeping with the style that i'm looking for (and most of them can be ordered in ivory- suckers!). so we went to vera wang maids, and tried on two absolutley beautiful dresses. but right before we got to VW, i was looking at a dress in a window on madison avenue, and it suddenly hit me that i am actually going to buy MY WEDDING DRESS, and i kind of freaked out for a moment. i have been so caught up in planning the wedding (ie: the party), that i have not really thought about the marriage (ie: the point). this is actually the second time i have gotten chilly feet since the engagement (in december), and i still have a year to go. once again: yikes.

so i am officially admitting that in my return to blogging i am going to start writing about my wedding journey. my everyday friends are already starting to get tired of me talking about wedding stuff, so i will use this as a guilt-free outlet for all of my obsessing and worrying (and, oh yeah, joyous excitement, blah, blah, blah). i feel better already. not to say that i will never talk about anything else, but it is nice to know i have this as an option. there will be discussions of "together forever?!" fears, and "i want my parents" moaning, and "what do you think of ___ as a centerpiece?", as well as the usual general life insecurities, self-pitying and doubts that i have already displayed on this page.

buyer beware, i'm on the bridal path now! read at your own risk....

what not to do

2005-05-29T00:39:00.000-05:00

if both of your parents are dead, and you loved them both, and you miss them both very much, and you happen to be planning your wedding to a wonderful man who they never got to meet, oh, and you were just getting close to your dad when he died quite suddenly and unexpectedly, just about the WORST thing you can do is watch the movie "Father of the Bride" with Steve Martin. especially when you have been drinking wine. and it is the first day of your period.

now i am going to drink more wine and cry. a lot. and watch the rest of the movie, because i am a glutton for punishment. for those of you that will be at the wedding, know that this is why i will be crying when the song "the boy i'm gonna marry" (by some 50's girl band- it 's a nice song) comes on. and it will, because (did i mention that i'm a glutton for punishment?) my dad loved that kind of music.

i am sad and pathetic. so sad, so pathetic. but thank god for the indiebride website and all of the other motherless and fatherless brides i found there. they reminded me that at least i am not sad, pathetic and the only one of my kind.

grumble grumble grumble

2005-05-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

okay, so i just wrote this nice, clever, funny, light-hearted account of my return to the writing world, and my recent success in the music world, and my day to day battle with living in the moment, and then i went to spell check it and it went away.

dammit.

i am too irritable to write it again. dammit.

i'll write again later.

boo.

promises, promises

2005-05-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

after a three month absence, i am planning a comeback to the world of blogging. i have throughly exhausted the merely observational interest potential of the internet and have found myself with nothing left to do but to add my own two cents on this 'life' and 'living' phenomenon. i will be back soon. i promise.

i'm beginning to see the light

2005-03-25T13:50:00.000-06:00

it's true, i have been beating up on myself a lot lately, and that does need to come to an end. funny that i am the meanest to myself right about 21 days apart each month. hmmmmmm.... but i do need to stop comparing myself to other people and start giving myself credit for all of the wonderful things i am capable of. synge is right, i am not sans career right now because i am stupid or lazy or untalented, but just because i have not found the right thing yet. and so i have been looking....

i spent the whole day online on wednesday trying to be proactive with my non-career-gal blues. for those of you who don't know, i have been taking creative non-fiction (read: personal essay/travel essay/memoir) writing classes at northwestern since last fall, and i love them. i have always wanted to write, i have had ideas swirling in my head for a long time now, and finally doing it has felt great. and the cherry on top is that i really think i am good and so do my teachers and the people in my classes. that's certainly a start. so when i began my career search i thought to myself, 'how can i turn this writing thing into a situation that would be more steady and employable than constantly submitting essays to magazines and This American Life but would still allow me to do that?' (and no, teaching is not an option for me- i don't like children particularly, i am not patient with strangers and i am not good at explaining how i get from a to b). i have always known i would have to go back to school at some point, because i just don't want to work in theatre and i don't have the training to do anything else. so i began to scan some local colleges' grad school majors and that's when it hit me (bear with me; i am trying to walk to the fine line of being positive and not belittling myself while still acknowledging that some of you may be thinking you've heard it all before as far as me and my job ideas, but i really do think this is different): journalism.

in the fall of 2006, i am going to go to columbia college in chicago to get a masters in journalism. i can finish it in one to two years, and they are very big on getting their graduates internships and helping them get jobs in the city. i had always thought about journalism, but i thought it would involve many many more years of school or that as a theatre major i would have to start from scratch. but not so at columbia- they don't even require the GRE (yipee! i won't have to relearn math!). and though columbia college may not be columbia university, it is still a well known school locally and, like i said, they are good at making sure you leave with contacts and job possibilities. as i see it, a journalism degree is somewhat like a law degree for writers in that it can turn into a million different jobs, including many of the more creatively bent ones that i have always dreamed of (travel writer for Gourmet anyone??).

so, having that goal in mind, i feel much better. i am attending a workshop at the Iowa summer writer's workshop this july (taught by hope edelman, who wrote 'motherless daughters'- i'm so excited!), i hope to begin submitting pieces to local publications by the fall, i will finish up my creative non-fiction courses at Northwestern by next winter, that leaves the spring free to fully immerse myself in wedding planning, and then i go off to get my masters! so maybe my life is fuller and more exciting than i thought. i just need to keep my eye on the big picture and not get bogged down by my little jealousies or my hormones. that said, i am off to let a woman insert a cold metal device into my vagina and scrape my uterus with a stick. (as sarah jessica parker says, ' i love being a girl!)

more of the same

2005-03-23T11:05:00.000-06:00

it seems that i have taken this blogging as jounal phenomenon to the darkest extreme and turned this into a place where i can bitch and pity myself in public in order to get nice reassuring comments from far away friends. i suppose with a title like 'the dead parent's society' one could deduce that i am a bit of a dark wit anyway, and i was setting myself up for melancholia; i'm beginning to think that maybe i should have gone with something cheerier, like ' rainbow brite and the chirpy sunshine band' or ' happy tales of bliss and glee", but really, wouldn't everyone just hate me even more for posting on somthing like that? i think reading blogs can be a nice way to remind yourself that everyone's got their shit to deal with, it's not just you. and so i continue the trend...

i am having major career envy. i finally understand my friends that are sick of hanging out with married or engaged couples. my on-again-off-again friend Sunshine (with whom i am currently mostly on-again) is always bitching about the fact that everyone she knows is getting married and how it makes her feel so alone and single and how she hates hanging out with couples and people who are always talking about their boyfriends. well last night, i spent a very nice girls' night out with some of my career gal friends, and today i feel like a big worthless pile of shit. they were all talking about their jobs, and how much they love their work, and how hard their jobs are, and how busy they are, and how so-and-so had just asked them to be on such-and-such board, and how this project and that project was coming along. and i just sat there, seething with jealousy and feeling about as stupid and uninteresting as i've ever felt in my life. as much as anyone has ever wanted a boyfriend, i want a career, and, dispute it or not, i think that it's much easier to find a boyfriend than a career (though techincally both have about equal power to make you feel miserable and insecure). i listen to my friends who have great jobs that they love and i just feel so lost; i don't know what i want to do, i am almost 30 years old, and i don't know what i want to do! and everyone keeps telling me, "oh you've got plenty of time" and " you don't have to know what you want to do right now" and " you can do many different things in your life", but none of those things make me feel better, especially when faced with so many of my friends and my peers who started out at the same place as me and are now so far down their own paths that i can hardly even see them anymore. i feel like i am sitting at the starting line, and i don't know how to start the race.

i feel like i've become a joke, every week i've got a new career idea, and every week i either lose interest or momentum. i'm too picky, i want my dream job, but i don't have the follow through, and i feel like everyone is just looking at me and clucking their tongues and saying, " if only she wasn't so lazy...". but it's not that i'm lazy (well, not primarily), it's that i don't know where to go. i don't know which path i want to start down, and so i keep putting a foot on one path and then doubting it and then turning around and putting a foot down another path and so forth and so on. not to keep speaking in metaphors, but i feel like i'm standing in the middle of a train station with a ticket in my hand, all paid and ready to go, but i can't read the destination, and my platform doesn't exist. so here i am, a traveler with no destination and no mode of transportation, everything i need except where to go and how to get there.

and J trys to help, but he is so goddamned confident and patient with life. and i can't talk to R, because she's the queen of the career gals, she has always known where she was going and how to get there. and i keep trying to think about my mom, and how she started her career in her late twenties (with a three year old, no less), and my stepmother, and how she didn't go to law school until she was in her thirties, but those things become less comforting as i slip closer and closer to the age that they were when they did finally make up their minds, and i still don't have a clue.

it's at times like this that i really and truly envy my old across-the-street friend Jill. she knew she wanted to be a math teacher from the time we were in middle school. so she went to college, she majored in math and education, and now she teaches high school algebra. just as easy as that.

the other night at work, i overheard a young girl who was in town visiting colleges with her mother. she was fresh-faced and old-fashioned pretty, with the look and the attitude of a girl from a J.D. Salinger short story, all intelligent innocence and grown up idealism. she and her mother were the second pair in line for the show behind an older couple who were asking her about her school visits and her college ambitions. i was inspired by her youth and freshness, happy for her in all of her yet-to-come-ness, until they asked her what she wanted to major in. she said she wanted to double major in theatre and english, she wanted to be a playwright, and the bitterest, most beaten-down part of my soul wanted to run up to her and scream out "NOOOOOOOO!" i was shocked and appalled with myself, but my instinct was to tell her to major in pre-law or business or at least to take some education courses, because you can't do anything with a theatre degree or an english degree (bear with me synge) and you'll just end up careerless and struggling and confused when you're thirty or you'll have to go back to school later. and of course, this instinct made me feel horrible, like i had lost all of my own youthful resolve and hopefullness and creative idealism. of course there are exceptions to the rule, there are people who do make wonderful use of these degrees (ie. Synge, and MAH, and R), who do get a job in their art, and who do find wonderful careers, but could someone please tell me their secret, because i am sick and tired of standing in this train station.

anniversaries

2005-03-14T13:05:00.000-06:00

mondays are going ot be my special days from now on, my days just for me to write and think and clear out my brain, to spend a little time checking in and taking care of myself. a much needed day. and this particular monday is an especially free one, as i have no writing class tonight, and J is working a double, so i have the whole house and the whole entire day to myself. yea. but strangely, even with all of this free time and space, all i have motivated myself to do so far is eat and sleep, and it is almost afternoon, so here goes.

last saturday was the ninth anniversary of my mother's death. it's strange how her death day has become almost more significant to me than her birth day. sad. friday night at midnight i was over at my friend R's house and my phone started beeping right at midnight. i'd forgotten that i had programmed the day into my phone's calender, unaware that that also set an alarm. what a wake up call- " your mother died today! your mother died today! remember, remember! your mother died today!" most of saturday i tried not to dwell on it, and i worked that night, with plans to go out drinking later that night with J and some friends, so i figured i would be fine, plenty to distract me. but both of my aunts called me at work to see how i was doing. and later that night at the bar it was all i could talk about, until i got myself distractingly and purposefully drunk. but i woke up sunday morning just fine, sure i had made it through another one, better than usual, less drama, less mess. we had friends coming over for dinner that night, so that whole day was full too, cleaning the house, going to the grocery store, cooking like a madwoman. so much to do, no time to dwell, busy busy busy!

the trouble started with the red wine, though even that took time.

dinner was great, company was great, except for a slightly runny cheesecake, all was well. when everyone left, J and i settled into the couch and watched Carnivale, a show i have become totally obsessed with, while my giddy, tipsy hostess high wore down. the house was warm, my belly was full, i had spent the evening with some of my favorite people, now i was watching my favorite show with my favorite man, and all was well in the world. until the show ended, and the wine began it's usual tricks.

red wine makes me sad and emotional. i don't know what it is, or why it's so, but it always happens. i love it- last night we had a rich zinfandel, so deep and dark and sweet like cherries and smoke- but it is always a dangerous thing to play with if i have anything important on my mind. even things that are deeply buried will come out when i am drinking red wine. (remind me not to drink it at my wedding...)

as J turned the tv to a sports channel, and i got up to go to the bathroom, the sadness began to hit me. suddenly everything that i had been trying to ignore on saturday began trickling through my brain. i felt sad, and hopeless, and lonely, and isolated, and scared, and hard, and cold. i told J i was going to take a shower. i stripped off my clothes and crawled under the hot spray. (i wonder why it is that when i am upset i always want to take a shower- is it a womb thing? a water as redemption thing? just a sensory distraction, a guiltess indulgence?) but even standing there in the water i could not cry, either for myself or for her. lately i have been sad, but i cannot seem to cry. i just stood there, with the water hitting my back and thought about how alone i have felt since she left. how i have never let anyone into my life all the way, even J (though he's come the closest), since she died. and how i am so sick and tired and frustrated and angry at the way i have shut myself off. how desperately i want to be open and brave and hopeful like i was when i was a child, when i felt safe and protected and sure of myself. i hate remembering her death day. i hate always noticing that she's gone. i hate that now i have to do that with my dad too, and i can feel myself not believeing that he is dead. i want a day when i do not think of them. i want a day when it does not cross my mind. or i want

hell, i don't know what i want, but this melancholy thing is not nearly so romantic in real life as it is in tennessee williams plays, and i am more than a little tired of being so damn introspective and aware of my feelings. sometimes i see stupid shallow people and i envy them. it must be nice to go through life not thinking about things all of the time, just doing what you're told or what you're supposed to do. and who can i blame for my acute self-awareness? my mother, of course.
i just miss her. i want her back. i want my dad back too, but my mom more, because i am starting to forget what she looks like. i am starting to forget what she sounds like. and i don't know if i do remember who she was. we never got to be friends. we would have been great friends. i wish i had gotten a chance for her to drive me crazy, like everyone else is always saying their moms do. i wish she had been the first one i called when i got engaged. i wish she was pressuring me to have grandkids, or pushing me to get a better job, or calling at the most inconvenient times, or trying to treat me like a child even though i'm all grown up. i wish that i had been the one to let her go, to push her away as i grew, instead of her leaving me first.

three thousand days. next year it will be ten years. and ten years after that she will have been gone from my life longer than she was in it. right now i am becoming a grown up, and my mom is not here to see it. i will start my own family some day, and no one in it will have known her but me.

roller coaster

2005-03-07T11:43:00.000-06:00

boy, reading back through my entries, it seems like i am in a bit of a permanant flux- i go from emotional to recovered, to emotional to recovered like some sort of moody rocking horse. i guess i have always been emotionally close to the surface... but thank you all for the support and tales of understanding. really that's all i needed- to know that i am not the only one feeling this way and therefore not some sort of flawed, socially retarded freak. and i am trying to take a step back and see that i do have friends here, i just tend not to call on them as much as i could, guarded little minx that i am, but they are there if i want to make the effort. J and i were discussing it (poor thing, he gets to hear about all of my ever-changing anxieties) and we decided that i am typically more of a one-on-one gal, i am more of a lone wolf than a social butterfly, but the problem lies in the fact that i have always wanted to be a social butterfly, and therefore felt inadequate. actually, i decided that lone wolf was not quite the right term for me, i am not so fierce, i am more like a lone chipmunk ( i gather nuts...for me).

here comes that indecisive streak....

2005-03-03T23:23:00.000-06:00

no, i do want to write about it now. i am not happy. well, that's not entirely true; i love my boyfriend/fiancee/whatever (let's just call him J) very much and he is my best friend, and our relationship is wonderful, and i am happy that i am back in the habit of going to the gym, but other than that, i am just not very satisfied with my life right now. i don't have any friends. not other than J, and not any here in town anyway, and though that is all entirely my own fault, because i am distant and shy and cowardly and REALLY bad at making new friends, it still sucks. i mean i do have a few friends, but not many, and i miss having a close group of girlfriends. i miss girl nights. i have my friend R, but she is busy running a major comedy theatre and being a stepmom and is hardly ever free, and i have my other 'friend' Sunshine, but she is really negative and makes me feel bad about myself, and i have a few other friends, but they are not really close friends like i used to have. i miss being able to call someone up in the middle of the night to go get ice cream or get drunk or jump in fountains or drive to the beach, and no one could do that now anyway because everyone is all grown up and has a real job and responsibilites and all that stuff. and that leads me to my second major whining point: i hate my job, and i want to know what the hell i am going to do with my life. i want a career, or at least career ambtitions. all i have is a bunch of half-explored paths and a totally useless theatre degree. i feel like my whole life has been about 'what am i going to do with my life THIS week?' be an actor? a waitress? a singer? a writer? a party planner? a yoga instructor? work in non-profits? WHAT??? i might as well start saying i want to be an astronaut or a ballerina when i grow up- i might want to NEXT week! (though honestly, the ballerina thing would never work with my boobs) i just feel like i'm drifting. i feel like my relationship and getting married is the only thing i have going for me right now, and i never wanted that to be all i had going for me. i want ME to be going for me. but going where? and with what friends? i miss my old friends and my old friendships. aw hell, you guys are the only ones who read this anyway, so let's just say i miss you guys. i know it has been a long time, and i know everyone tried to keep in touch with me and i was never very good at it, but it was never because i didn't think of you guys or miss you. i am just scatterbrained and lazy, i get off track easily, maybe i'm ADD like my dad. and i know it was all so long ago, and everyone has their own lives now. and i know that we are still friends, sort of, but i just feel like all of you have stayed so close and i let myself drift away, and i guess lately i really regret that. i hope i can still come back, still try to be better about keeping in touch and checking in. i know it will never be like high school, and i'm not even saying i would want that, i just miss having such a really close group of friends around. emails and the occasional phone call are nice, but i miss late night coffee and board games. i get so jealous when i read Synge's posts about hanging out with MAH and her Viddipookins (or whatever the nickname is, i know who it is) and other old friends, and when i read about everyone visiting eachother for the weekend. i barely get to see my family- they're so spread out and far away, and none of them ever come to visit me- and i wish i could come to visit everyone, but it's just so hard.
i'm sorry to anyone who happens to read this. like i said, i am just feeling poopy and lonely and feeling sorry for myself. and i'm on my period, that's a big part of it, i'm sure. i love chicago, but i miss the east coast. i love J, but i miss my friends. kristoise told me when i got engaged never to 'act like a married woman' and stop going out with my girlfriends. i don't want to. but what if i don't have any girlfriends?
(sorry again for the whining- can't you just hear the nasal tones? being moody sucks)

quick

2005-03-03T23:13:00.000-06:00

it's been a very long time (in blogging world anyway) since i posted, so i thought i'd just check in to say that i am alive and nothing much is happening in my life, hence the no blogging. well, actually i have a lot to talk about, but it's all mostly whining and self pity, and right now i just don't have the energy to go into it. i don't think anyone reads this blog anyway (see? blatant self pity). but i will try to sit my butt down and write tomorrow sometime. they took away the internet from our computers at work (the only thing i had to distract me from the fact that i'm a college graduate -with honors, i might add- who works at a job that monkeys could do) so i am not online as much as i was before. boo. blah. blub blub blub. i feel poopy.

not so much a change as a straightening of heart

2005-02-09T16:41:00.000-06:00

many thanks to all of you married(and non-married)gals who weighed in with advice about the inevitable monotonies of relationships. as you all know, though i have been in many relationships in my day, this whole substantial/happy/long-term relationship thing is fairly new to me. i went to the superbowl party, i managed not pick a fight, J was very sweet and understanding about my funky panic mood, and though i did pick a fight with him the next morning, it was fairly short and non-destructive, and it gave me a chance to tell him what had been on my mind. (i know, i know, i'll work on being more direct and less passive aggressive. next time; i'm learning...) strangely enough, he loves me even though i am crazy and emotional. weird(wonderful)boy. reading everyone else's blogs, i have noticed the trend of waxing poetic about loved ones, and so i want to throw a little wax J's way. in short, he rocks. he is so patient and understanding and calm with me. he doesn't freak out when i am freaking out, he doesn't mind that i am emotional and obsessive, he makes me laugh, he makes me smile, he is always thinking and listening and so curious about people and the world around him. he cooks, he sings, he loves politics, he loves music, he loves to read. he makes me tingle when he kisses me and sometimes i catch him looking at me across a room and it makes me feel like the most important woman in the world. he is always there for me when i need him, and at the most important moment, when it would have been so easy for him to run away, he stood beside me and held me up. he loves my friends, my friends love him, my family loves him, and his family loves me. he admits that he is lazy, and he never calls me out for being lazy too. he is so loyal and generous and caring with his friends- he would step in front of a bus for any one of them. he acts like a little kid, and he is trying so hard to become an adult(and succeeding!). he likes to play. he loves my cats. he is everything i never knew i wanted, he is my best friend, and no, i could not imagine my life without him. i will gladly take the moments of annoyance, and doubt, and anger, and the boring/bored days if it means i get to be with him for the rest of my life. he is worth it, and even more so because he reminds me that i'm worth it too.

old feelings...

2005-02-06T15:49:00.000-06:00

i am getting the strangest urge lately to run away, from work and life and J and everyone. that is not a good thing. i have always been a runner, not in the exercise or marathon sense, but in the emotional cowardace sense. and now, after i finally thought i had dealt with that problem, put away my running shoes, settled myself down and started about the business of being a responsible grown-up, here i am again, looking longlingly at the door. why? am i scared or bored or just a creature of habit? i love J, he is great, but lately i don't miss him when he's gone. i even want time away from him, he gets on my nerves a little, annoys me over nothing. but at the same time i want him to notice my distance, i want him to worry that he might lose me, to feel sad and worried like i do. he probably doesn't notice because i keep it to myself, like everything, i just go about my day as if nothing is different or unusual, even though inside i'm seething and crying and restless. god i hate feeling restless. but what if i'm making a mistake in getting married? what if i'm just like my dad and a few years down the line i get bored or "unhappy" and mess things up just to keep my mind busy and my ego stoked? or what if he's like his dad and one day he leaves me? i don't feel comfortable counting on everlasting happiness, or even everlasting 'good'. i haven't seen it, how am i supposed to know it exists? so i revert to old ways, and i just want to run away to Oregon and live the life of a small town spinster in a big house making jam or something. lately i feel like this thing i have with J could slip away from me. sure he says he loves me now, but what about in twenty years, or even five years? what if he doesn't love me then? or what if i don't love him? if i were to run away right now, who would notice? who would really miss me, and how long would it take until the hole where i was is filled and forgotten? i want to go away, i want to go away, i want to go away....but instead i will go to a superbowl party, and probably spend the day feeling resentful and brooding, and then if i'm really lucky i'll get drunk and pick a fight with the man who stupidly wants to spend the rest of his life with a crazy woman like me. and he'll never see it coming. and god knows, i'll never tell.

cabin fever

2005-02-01T20:53:00.000-06:00

i sprained (or fractured, but without insurance, we'll never know...) my ankle on sunday night, so for the past few days i've been rather house-bound. i feel like i'm cracking up. not a sylvia plath, i-think-i'll-go-stick-my-head-in-the-oven type of cracking, up, but i'm feeling a little cage-sick at the least. it isn't very nice to lose your mobility, especially if you're the 'born to run'-type like myself. not that i'm particularly industrious, i just like the option of movement. so tonight i am dragging my crippled ass out to sing and to drink, two of my favorite things. i might add that this emotional sludgy place is also helped along by my monthly cycle and lack of sunlight. i wish that winter would go away. i want summer. is it alright to whine, when i don't really have anything to whine about? i just want to bathe in chocolate cheescake and meg ryan movies while getting a pedicure and a shoulder rub. is that so much to ask? oh, and can i have a nice glass of pinot noir?

wonderful news

2005-02-01T01:34:00.000-06:00

a big congratulations to Sarachkah and Raul, brand spankin new parents of a beautiful and healthy baby girl- Ruby Magdalena. may they all sleep soundly tonight. welcome to the world lovely Ruby, may your journey be a pleasant one...

back on track

2005-01-28T13:01:00.000-06:00

so i'm feeling much better. i guess i just had what holly golightly would call a case of the mean reds. that happens. but it's passed for now. and i know that my friends aren't going anywhere, and i know that my happiness is in my own hands, and blah blah blah. i bought a wedding planning book (though it is a year and some months away, i admit i have become slighlty obsessed) and it keeps mentioning all of theses things that the parents are supposed to do. i'm glad i'm not going for traditional, because if i was i would pretty much be screwed, what with having no mother or father of the bride around to fulfill their myriad duties. my stepmother M did say the sweetest thing the other day, though. she said that she would be glad to stand in as mother of the bride and help us with anything that we need. i'm glad she feels like the mother of the bride, that's how i like to think of her. at christmas she said that she felt like i was her daughter, that she and i relate to each other like mother and daughter, and it made me cry. i love her so much, and honestly, i don't know how i would get through this without her. she even reminds me of my mom- she's smart and strong and funny and just the slightest bit guarded. she's overwhelmingly independant, but still soft and vulnerable deep down. and she just oozes with intellectual curiousity. just like my mom. they aren't personality twins, but they're alike enough to feel comfortably familiar. and i need that now. i know my aunts will also swoop in to help with wedding duties. i know i will be covered. the part that makes me the saddest is the father-daughter dance. my dad was such an incredible dancer. he loved music as much as i do, actually both of my parents loved music, and i know that he would have been so proud to dance with me on my wedding day. and i would have been so proud to dance with him. i really hope my grandfather is still well enough to dance with me. he's quite the smoothie on the dance floor too, but at 90+ years old, he may not be up to it. i do need to stop with the wedding obsessing. i basically have the whole thing planned and i still have 18 months to go. well, they say you can never be too prepared...

blue on ice

2005-01-24T00:52:00.000-06:00

tonight feels blue, deep dark blue, like not quite blackness but almost. i don't know what brought it on, maybe hormones, maybe the clausterphobic weather, maybe the fact that tonight i watched a show about a woman going to her mother's funeral- no, maybe it's that i watched it twice (stupid, stupid girl!). i just sat in the shower, yes SAT in the shower, how pathtic is that. but i don't know, i just feel like my mind is a blender full of garbage tonight, just the really bad, old, smelly stuff. maybe it's just this time of year, right between my dead father's birthday and my dead mother's birthday and the day my mother died. i'm sure i sound like the world's biggest baby, how can i still be using the dead parent thing as an excuse, hasn't it been long enough? i mean jesus christ it's been nine years (or eighteen months), so why the out of no where blue streaks? what's with the unexplained midnight pity parties and the sitting in the shower bullshit? i guess i am realizing things about myself lately, things that make me feel even more alone than usual and even weaker. why do i constantly push people away or hold them at arm's length? what am i so goddamned afraid of? well, that's easy, i've got textbook abandonment issues, but i wish i would just get over it already, because i'm tired of feeling so damned self-isolated. take my friends, i have some wonderful friends, old friends, wonderful people who i have known for most of my life and who have always been there for me when the going got really rough. but i have neglected them, they hardly even know me now, i have let them go to seed. i never call, i never email, i never visit, and now i feel like a phoney for trying to reconnect. i feel like it's too late, like i have waited too long, like i don't have a right to try and waltz back into the picture because i'll probably just fuck it up again, stop calling, stop writing, stop being a friend. and yet, i know that is all just an excuse. the truth is, i am afraid to reconnect because i am afraid i will be rejected, i'm afraid i will knock and find no one i home, or at least no one who is interested in answering the door. in my fucked up mind, it's better to let people drift away or to take them for granted than to stay close and risk losing them completely and suddenly. and now, here i am in love with a wonderful man, and now i'm really screwed because i DID let him in, i did let myself get close to him, i have learned to depend on him and what the hell will i do if he ever goes away? every time he's running five minutes late i imagine horrible car accidents, bloody muggings, and every other variety of unreasonable death. i have stuffed in my grief for my parent's to the degree that i can't even make myself cry about them without a tv show or movie to spur it on, but if i lost J i don't think i could take it. and how is it that i let someone become that valuable to me? i have been pushing and holding everyone else that i love away for nine years, how did he sneak in? i guess i am trying to say, to anyone who is listening and to whom it may concern, that i am so sorry if i seem aloof, or distant or disinterested in our friendship. i'm not at all, not any of those things. the truth is i am scared of loving people, scared of counting on people or being close to people. you are all so important to me, so important that i felt the need to try and let you go. because the most important people in my life seem to have a bad habit of dying. i am sorry. i love you all. i miss you. and i am trying, slowly but surely and so so hard, to break down my own walls and stop being afraid. they say identifying the problem is the first step right? how very AA; my dad would be so proud. the truth is, i don't really have a family now, at least not one made up of people who know me and my history. my closest blood relatives weren't really there when iwas growing up, it was my Mom and Dad who knew my everyday, the rest of my family just got it second hand. my friends are the only remnants of my childhood. and i am so afraid i am losing them too. FUUUUUUUUUCKKKK!!!! i just want to scream! i am so sick and fucking tired of being scared! i just want to feel safe.

talk about your gender-based oversights...

2005-01-19T12:24:00.000-06:00

my good friend jen called me about a two weeks ago and said she wanted to throw me an engagement party. i was flattered, i was pleased, i said of course she could. robin joined in on the planning and the three of us put our heads together to pick a date. jen's husband (and my good friend) brad is out of town for the rest of january, so that narrowed us to dates in february. sunday was chosen as the best day, as both J and i work on friday and saturday nights, and, for many of our friends saturday night is either a work or a date night. brad's birthday and valentine's day both take place too close to the second sunday, and any later than that was later than jen wanted, so we decided whole-heartedly on the first weekend in february, perfect, sunday february 6th would be our party day. i mean what else could possibly be happening on the first weekend in february? (anybody catching on yet? most of you are girls too, so you may be just as in the dark as i was) so today i was taking to J (who, i might add spends every sunday watching football with his friends), and he causally mentioned that there won't be any football on sunday the 30th. "Why?", i innocently inquired. "Because they always take a week off before the superbowl", he informed me. the WHAT!!?? the SUPERBOWL is the same day as our engagement party??!! how much of a girl am i? it never even crossed my mind. between all three of us- jen, robin and i- it was never even the slightest consideration.
boo. boo football.

a quick note on spelling

2005-01-16T10:48:00.000-06:00

have you ever noticed that the word 'complaint' is same as the word 'compliant' except for the postion of the 'a' and the 'i'? and someone who is compliant (like myself) would be unlikely to make a complaint (like i just did, though passively). interesting. i love words!

venting...sort of

2005-01-16T10:11:00.000-06:00

okay, so i've come up against a blog point of complaint. as a now official addict to this self-indulgent online babbling, i find myself upset to realize that it is not a good place to vent when my anger/frustration/righteous-indignation is aimed at someone who may actually read the blog. no, loyal freeman/tucker/hermitage alumni, i am not talking about you, and chances are the person i am talking about will never read this since i told her it was just about dead parent's, but i am MAD, like, let it all loose, catty, bitchy, "i'm right and you're wrong and that is so obvious" mad, but if i really do let it all loose and then she someday actually logs in to check out my blog, then where am i? so i find myself with a conundrum. but i will vent a little...this person, let's ironically call her Sunshine, just drives me crazy sometimes!!(and this is one of those times, in case you didn't get that) she can be so sensitve about certain things, but if i do happen to trip up on one of her personal landmines, she absolutley refuses to talk about it, to tell me that she is really mad/hurt/whatever or why.....okay,change of tack. she just called back and i talked to her, and kind of (sort of) told her how i feel. so i feel a little better, though i still feel like i kind of wussed out. i am so bad at standing up for myself! i am so bad at just telling people how i feel, unabashedly defending my own (totally legitimate) feelings! and i know damn well that it all goes back to my fear of losing people, of driving them away. man, yet another thing to work on. but it does still bug me that i can't fully vent on my blog.

looking in

2005-01-14T20:41:00.000-06:00

get comfortable, this is a long one.
i must begin by mentioning that i have become a bit obsessed with blogging.all of my old(not old like that, and you know it)east coast girlfriends (and i think MAH counts as a girlfriend) have blogs now, and it is a nice way to keep in touch with them, considering that i am otherwise horrible about keeping in touch. i know quite well that i am known as the girl who never calls/email back, so you can all come out from behind your fans and stop whispering. but blogging somehow seems to be doing the trick. so far i have commented on two out of four of my friends sites, and that's half way to correspondance as i see it. to put an even better spin on it, i have talked in person to the two people who's blogs i have not yet commented on in the last month (well, i will be talking to one of them in person tonight, anyway, close enough), so that's still better than my average for the last few years. but anyway, i like this thing. it makes me feel closer to people who, frankly, i have been missing lately. good stuff. and in fact, the thing i wanted to talk about tonight comes from a posting on someone else's blog. (i may not always comment, but i am often there lurking in cyberspace). MAH (short for Mister Artsy Hotpants) wrote his first blog about my oldest and dearest (bumpy spots and long distances included) friend Le Synge Bleu (what does that mean, by the way? I gave up French after highschool). Synge and I have seen each other through some pretty horrible times, and though we have certainly had our good and our bad moments, she is one of my favorite people on the planet, now and forever. MAH was waxing similarly poetic about this wonderful lady, and in doing so he noted her amazing sense of self. I agree totally (though, I have to add, because she would, don't look behind the curtain), and I must say that she is one person who has always had a very distinct and memorable presence, a real sense of being who she is, almost shamelessly so(another nod to another post). and i think this is especially true since she moved to new york, a venture she had been planning for far too long and which she boldly achieved at the end of last summer. i have been especially bad about keeping in touch with her since she moved there, but i have heard, through (often unreturned) emails and phone messsages, of her many adventures and dramas there(including lawful protests,unlawful arrest, and a strange attraction to sick men). and this holiday season, mere hours after i was successfully popped the question, we met in new york, for the first time in over a year, for celebratory cocktails. and i immediatly remembered why she is one of my favorite people. she is just so very alive and so aware. synge know her own strengths and she knows her own weaknesses. she is tremendously intelligent and curious and giving and loving and attentive. synge never holds back her emotions. at least not anymore, and for that i am so very proud of her. she has learned to stand up for herself, to be proud of, or at least not ashamed of, who she is, and it is with this revelation that i come to my rather buried point. i do not know who i am. i am really not sure at all lately. and i wonder if this has something to do with my parents. last summer, another close friend of mine, who has known me since i was a child told me that she worried that since my mom died i have been coasting, and, essentially,that she feared i was not living up to my own abilites. she told me that i was too smart and talented to be working in a box office, and she's right, monkeys could do my job(totally stoned people seem okay at it), and that is frustrating. her comments really got to me, probably because i know they're true, but i don't know what to do about it. everyone has told me how strong i am and how they would fall apart if their parents died. and i have even convinced myself that i'm that strong from time to time. but the truth is i haven't really faced it. Kristoise once assigned us all Springsteen songs, and mine was- very appropriatly- Born to Run. i've just been packing my grief away into boxes and trying not to look at it, either running away from it (two years in europe anyone?) or pretending that i'm dealing with it while trying not to with all my might. it's ironic too, that i used to chastise Synge for the same practice. well she took my advice, stopped hiding from her past, and now she's better than ever. but i didn't take my own advice. and i just feel so goddamned lost. i feel like i am trying to be a million people, for a million different reasons, but i don't know exactly who 'me' is. i feel like i spend so much time trying to impress people, trying to please people, trying to be loved, and really i'm not very good at it. not to say that no one loves me, i'm actually pretty lucky to have so many wonderful friends in my life, but i am just not good at meeting new people. my fiancee (i'll bow to pressure and use the 'f' word)J is so good at it, he's a true extrovert. he can talk to anyone, make friends anywhere. he loves people and people are drawn to him. not that i'm a total shrinking violet, i'm just very particular in who i open up to. i'm like those flowers that are called four o'clocks because they just open up and bloom fully at 4pm. i need just the right conditions to show myself fully (liquor helps). and i think that's because i'm so unsure of myself. it takes a lot for me to feel safe with people, i'm afraid they will reject me, afraid they will leave me, because my parents loved me, and they left me. i just wish i could be more brave, more confident. i am drawn to people who are. i've been thinking about it, and maybe i'm looking for excuses, but i feel like when my mom died, my confidence went with her. when she was here i felt so strong, so sure, because she told me i was amazing. she was so sure of me and so proud of me that i couldn't help but be proud of myself. and then my number one cheerleader went away, before i had learned fully how to be that for myself. and after that, since then, i have been sort of hiding out inside myself, very cautious to make friends, very cautious to show anyone who i am. J's friends all love me now, but they didn't know what to make of me at first. J always said that i should just show them the person that i showed to him and they would be sure to love me too. he said they didn't know what to make of me because i never acted like my true self around them. i have been in chicago for over five years and i really only have a few good friends to show for it. i am afraid that losing my parents, and especially losing my dad right as i was starting to recover from the shock of losing my mom, has thrown me into some sort of permanant adolescence, self-doubting and unformed.
whew. that was alot. i need to sit back and soak it in now. more later....

generalities..or not

2005-01-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

boy, well i don't want this thing to become too somber, the whole point was that it was done with a sense of humour...but those things can't be forced ("hey, did you hear the one about the 29 year old orphan?")...and why am i feeling self-concious about writing in a place that i created just to talk about things that i feel too self-concious to talk about in general company...and i guess, really, the joking thing is usually done for the benefit (or to induce the discomfort) of other people anyway, and here is a place where no one has to be, where people come by choice...so fuck it. i'm not worrying. (yeah right) but there are other things in my life besides my dead parents, i mean they do cross my mind every day, but not always in a sad way. lately more sad than usual though. i am getting married next summer, and that is an incredibly happy thing. but god does it make me miss my parents. last night J (my boyfriend, well, my fiancee but i hate that word) and i were talking about music for the reception, and we came to the subject of the parents dance and he asked me who i wanted to represent my parents. we decided on both of my stepmothers and my grandfather, but it was just so weird. who do i want to represent my parents? well my parents, goddamnit! my father was an incredible dancer. and my mother loved to plan a party. they should be there. i should dance with my dad on my wedding day, he should walk me down the aisle. my mother should be there wearing a "mother of the bride" dress and hovering over the caterers. this makes me angry, this makes me furious, that they, who have the most right, do not get to come to my wedding. i am honoring my mother, i'm carrying daises, her favorite flower. i am honoring my father; the ceremony and the reception will both take place on my grandparent's farm, his favorite place on earth. but that's not good enough. i want them there! it's my wedding and i want them there!! yeah, i guess i do have some anger issues. i have never been one to express it well in the moment. i tend to repress, to silently seethe and then yell and scream and cry once i am safely alone (or in my car, because that feels like alone).i should talk to my therapist about that (if i ever go back to her).

frustration

2005-01-08T17:27:00.000-06:00

on a totally non-dead parent sort of note (which i will go off on more than occasionally)this whole blogging thing can be a bit frustrating for a newbie. or maybe it's just me.

dreams

2005-01-08T16:37:00.000-06:00

last night i had a dream about my father. it was so realistic, like ones i have had before about my mom. i dreamed that he was alive but i knew that he had died; it was almost as if my concious self was trying to remind my unconcious self that he was gone, but my dreaming self didn't want to believe it, like i was trying to convince myself that i must have made a mistake, that i must have dreamed his death..confusing, i know, but i have had the same sort of dream about my mother, and wonder if it is common...anyway, in my dream he was alive and i had gone to visit him for the weekend and i was so happy to see him and get to visit with him. but then he said that he was going out until late that night with friends and that he had to go out again on saturday night, and i knew that i was leaving on sunday. i was instantly angry and hurt. i turned to him and pleaded with him not to go, saying that i had come just to see him and spend time with him, and that my visit was so short and couldn't he just stay and spend time with me. he looked surprised at first and then genuinely distraught. i was crying and desperately begging him to stay and visit with me. he got out of the car (where we were talking) and i got frustrated and started to drive away. i could see him in the rearview mirror, walking with his head in his hands, torturing himself. i only drove a few yards away and then stopped to cry and fume and wait. eventually, when he did not come to me, i got out of the car and walked back towards the house. he was standing there with my aunt and grandparents and cousins, all of them chatting and settling in for the weekend, and when he saw me he approached me and said that he would stay, that he could not get out of his plans for that night, but he would cancel his plans for saturday and stay with me. he told me he loved me and he was sorry he had upset me. i hugged him and cried and felt so warm and grateful. boy, that's pretty obvious i guess. not wanting my dad to go away, wanting to spend more time. when i have had similar dreams about my mom, i have the same feeling, such an overwhelming relief that she is not really gone, that i was wrong and i do still have time with her, and that each moment i have is so precious and important. i wonder when these dreams will go away- it has been almost nine years since my mom died- i wonder when i will stop wishing it was all just a dream. probably never. though the dreams of my mom do come less and less. and for my dad they are just starting. great. my sub-concious sure has a way with timing...

Prologue

2005-01-07T15:14:00.000-06:00

so, just to set the record straight, before people think this is some kind of weirdo matricide/patricide site, i want to lay out my intention: i am 29 years old and i have lost both of parents. i don't mean in an irresponsible, they went away for the weekend and didn't leave a contact address sort of way, i mean that they have both died. my mother died when i was 20, from cancer, and my father died in a car accident just last year, four months before my 28th birthday. and i have dealt with that pretty well, considering, minus a few years of running away to europe and drinking and smoking myself into a stupor and the occasional out-of-the-blue crying jag. and my boyfriend and my friends and family have all been great, very understanding, very patient. but i have always felt awkward and guilty when i talked about my parents' deaths too much, even if i needed to, even if they said they didn't mind. so i wanted to create a place to vent. i know a lot of people, far too many people, my age (and younger) who have lost a parent or two, and i'm sure there are a lot more out there. and i wanted a place where we could all feel safe, to talk as much and as long as we want to without the guilt and the weirdness. oh, and the blog title is there to thin the herd, because a sense of humour is required, i think, for anyone who has dealt with death. i mean, if we can't make dead parent jokes to make everyone feel uncomfortable and mask our own pain, who can? so feel free to join in, or just read ("lurk", as my blog-savvy friends tell me it's called)- i plan to pour out my heart and mind, and you are welcome to do the same. just don't make fun of my typing; sometimes i get caught up in a moment and i am not the best typist to begin with (in fact i just re-typed that sentence five times). besides, if you make fun of me, i might cry, i'm sensitive. my parents are dead, after all, and it's not nice to make fun of orphans....