what not to do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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....

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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).