dirty girl

I had a dream the other night that is still haunting me with its dark humor and strange depth.
Although first off we must get the facts out there. I am not a full fledged lesbian. In fact, I do not believe that I am any sort of lesbian at all. I like kissing them from time to time and that is about it. well, read on and you will see.
I was on a bed in a pale yellow room with nothing interesting about it save the fact that it was small. I was kissing the most beautiful middle eastern woman ever and her girlfriend was sitting in the chair at the end of the bed, watching. As I kissed the girl I became aware of the way she smelled and I started to panic. I could feel her pushing her body up against mine, trying to force my attention to her vagina..."Oh God," I thought. the last thing I want to do is go down on this girl...but isn't that what she wanted me to do? isnt that what lesbian girls do? was her girlfriend noticing my hesitancy? Am I being rude? As I pondered my situation, The girl pulled away from my embrace and pushed me back on the bed and then stomped out of the room. I sat there stunned for a moment and then looked over at the girlfriend and suddenly noticed her appearance. she had a round face and high forehead, complete with rosy cheeks and blond straight hair, pulled back into a junior high ponytail. she was wearing an old lady blouse that as I watched, she began to remove. underneath she had on a black lacy bra and her tits were just spilling out over the top, crowning the chubby body that bordered on voluptuous. she moved toward me and we began to kiss and this time, I was enjoying it, I was getting excited. especially when she told me her little secret: she could not get off on oral sex alone and felt as though she was living a lie. she pulled out a double ended dildo and told me that she wanted to have sex. She handed the toy to me and I just sat there holding it awkwardly. I did not know what to do. I did not feel comfortable using it and then suddenly realized that I was no longer turned on. I tried to pretend that it was and set it on her stomach and began rubbing it back and forth over her bellybutton. she shuddered in disgust and pulled away from me while telling me calmly that this was why she hated women. they were too unsure of themselves and not aggressive enough. I was indifferent to this information and proceeded to ask her what she was going to do about the girlfriend she had in the other room. she sighed and told me that she did not know what to do because she had a male lover that she saw from time to time. a lover whose presence she was finding it increasingly more difficult to hide from her girlfriend seeing as how he was made of moths and everytime he came to visit her, he left moth residue all over the walls. She then began to tell me that fucking him was great because she could feel the moths moving inside her. as she spoke I began to look around at the walls and could see the moth carcasses stuck to the walls dead and in the final throes of dying, their bodies gyrating, their wings fluttering as their smooshed guts kept them glued to the pale yellow paint. I suddenly realized that I had to get out of there. I got up and fled from the room only to find the girl I had offended originally lying on a yellow beanbag, tears streaming from her eyes. It was then that i realized how beautiful she was. I looked at her blue green eyes framed with thick, straight dark lashes, her short dark hair shining in the light that was streaming in from the window lighting up her olive skin, bringing attention to her dark, perfectly shaped eyebrows and rosy cheeks glowing beneath the smooth light brown of her skin. I had the overwhelming urge to console her and so I crouched down, leaning into her face, smelling her scent and told her how beautiful she was. how radiant she seemed when she had tears in her eyes. she lashed out in anger and hurt and told me to leave her alone and though I wanted to stay and make her feel better, I stood, feeling my knees creak in protest and made my way out through the kitchen door and into the cold sunlight, the only thing on my mind the desire to be what I am not. a lesbian. I wanted to hold her and give her the love she needed. I wanted to hold her beauty and revel in it yet I could not because I knew that despite the moment I was in and the empathy I felt, I still craved the crass, rough sexuality of the man. always have always will...against my better judgment. against all odds and against all the past pain inflicted on my person I still crave the company and sexual attention of the man.

The funny thing about this dream is that i believe that i may not have only been myself, I may also have been the beautiful girl as well. not to say that i am beautiful but to say that I know her pain. I know what it is like to be rejected and confused.
maybe I was the curvy blond as well, dirty and confused, craving the seemingly "disgusting" touch of a man.
who knows. all I know is that the damned dream has haunted me.

the devil beats his wife.
Current mood: amused

I drove home today as the devil beat his wife. The clouds a dark curtain to the left of my vision, the bright sunny rain pouring down on the windshield of my car. I look into my rearview mirror to see the wind whipping the trees and the sun and bright clouds pushing the dark off of the horizon. In the middle of all this is a rainbow and I cannot help but smile at the idiosyncrasy of the term, "The devil's beating his wife"...because it is usually then that the sun comes out through the rain and lights up the rain water like a prism...creating what we all love most: the rainbow. which I guess could also be known as the accidental child of the devil and his wife? a little beautiful, "whoops!" haha. Maybe that is why he is beating his wife.
How ridiculous.

the bond of family
Current mood: nostalgic

I race through the downpouring of rain to pick up my kids from school today. I am in a hurry because the one time I was late, my five year old was crying and worried. I make it just in time and as I pull up I see my little one waving at me wildly, her hair escaping from her hairtie and plastered to her forehead, her sweater sagging off her shoulders from the weight of her back pack. standing next to her is her big sister, staring at me with an expression of disdain that only a pre-teen can execute with such ease. they are like night and day, the younger clad in pink stripes and black mary janes, hair slicked back in a sagging pony tail with little strings of hair escaping around her face, the elder in baggy jeans and a powell peralta long sleeved t-shirt complete with baggy black zipper hoody, her hair hanging in her face, her vans untied with trailing, dirty white laces.
at home they fight and argue, pitting themselves against one another as though their livelihood depended on it and yet whenever I see them outside with other kids, at school or in the front yard of our home, they always seem to be huddled close, the eldest standing tall and awkward, the younger pressing against her while standing on one foot, her hands on her hips, her other foot thrust forward, her face a study in tough, while her big sister talks it up, leading the way with her words while her little sister backs her up with her body language. out there it is them against the world, at home it is always the older telling the younger how annoying she is, the younger telling the older to get away from her. out in the real world, the roles change and they back eachother up or seek eachother out. as I pull up today, they both spot my car and big sister registers my presence before trudging sullenly toward my car while little sister bounces and skips half a step behind, her little hand thrust out to grab onto her "arch nemesis/ best friends" backpack, to find safety and confidence through family.
something about this makes my heart feel tight...maybe because it reminds me of me and my big brother. He is the first one I ever looked up to, my first hero, my first enemy, my first friend. I recognize this relationship dynamic and I approve. It makes me more happy than they will ever know.
life may be hard when you have two mouths to feed but life would be lonely and boring without them.

Threes company + me
Current mood: amused
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

I dreamed that I was on the set of Threes Company. I was actually part of the show but of course, since I was, things took a turn for the worse. They were asked to leave their apartment and jack called me to come over and deal with mr. ferley. I went over and the house was empty no furniture, no nothing. there was a couple there looking around and talking about renting the place. I ran them off by telling them that somebody had died there. as they walked out the door, the phone rang(everything was gone except for the phone I guess) and I answered. it was Mr. Ferley calling to see if everyone had left yet. He thought I was janet but I told him I was cindy so that I could play stupid. he commented on my deep voice and I told him I had a cold. that was when I heard a rustling in Jacks room. I opened the door and there was ALL the furniture from the house and jack, janet and cindy...hiding behind the upturned couch. I gently closed the door behind me and made sure to take a good look around before I asked them what they were doing. I had never seen the rest of the house before. I had only seen certain angles of it and I was dying to see the rest. the weird thing was that my mind made sure that all of the furniture was there. the couch, the phone stand, the painting on the wall. so enough about that for now, apparently jack and janet had decided that they were not moving out at all and that they would just hide all of the furniture in the room figuring mr. ferley would be too lazy to ever look. they were counting on me to distract him and keep the other people from moving in...which I did. at that point, there was a knock at the front door and I ran out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind me. I sprinted up the living room step to the door and opened it on a real life mr. ferley dressed in a blue jumpsuit. he asked me if I was the new tenant and i said yes. I began to nervously walk around showing him how much I loved the place. I walked toward the back wall and opened the blinds that never opened during the show and found that they were broken. I told him i wanted them fixed and he left. I looked out the window and was surprised by what I saw. there was a whole sunken stone back deck, complete with firepit. I wondered why this was never in the show. I remember larry having an outside but not these guys. at this point I decided to go back in and find the gang. I heard them talking and the shower running. I always wanted to know what the bathroom looked like so I went in. the girls were in there trying to coax jack inside(funny, I remember him never being allowed). I helped them, telling him that now was his chance. He ran in there and they told us that they were going to make out. janet was on top of cindy on a bench like the ones in the gym or sauna room. it was steamy and cindy was naked, janet was not. they started to kiss as jack and I stood there openmouthed. that was when it got weird. janet pulled back and just started slapping the shit out of cindy. over and over as her cheek got redder and redder and her fogged glasses flew off. I was mesmerized but jack walked out, breaking the spell and waking me up.
God, I am so fucked up.

hahaha the things that are not funny are so funny.
Current mood: amused
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

as I drove home on my break from work last night I saw the most beautiful sunset. flaming orange and hot pink light reflecting off of storm clouds as the sun made its descent. I saw pink light blazing on the steeple of the church as I passed. I looked away because it was just so overwhelming, so bright...and that is when I saw it. The most magnificent rainbow ever. it had every color that a rainbow should have and I could see the entire arc of it, where it began and where it ended and it looked to me as though it may end over my house...and that is when I knew that it was a sign...from God. a sign from God that I should be gay. because well, I mean it is so obvious right?
such beauty has to mean something right?

mice make me want to run screaming.
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Life

I think there is a mouse in my house and I really should be sleeping because I am so exhausted my mind is barely in working order.
But I am scared of mice and I am scared of my dreams tonight.
This past week, my dreams have been littered with old lovers and connections lost or never even found. I dreamed of pulling one of said lovers from a dark pit where he was being attacked by something otherworldly...I was at the top of a slide, on my stomach reaching down into the abyss... I grabbed him by the wrists and pulled him up to me, pushed him up above me so that I could climb up and over him, look down at him, admire him...love him...if you know what i mean.

I dreamed I was a teacher at a boarding school and and almost got fired for being out too late with a man that I had been seeing. I was confronted with evidence of my rendezvous in the form of dirty green and gold feathers that had fallen off of my dress as I ran through the dark streets knowing I was late and not wanting to be stuck with the man in question. after being chastised and told to go to my room and pack my things, I found myself in the corner wedged between the wall and the bed with another old flame that still has yet to go out and I curled up with him, only to have him flip over and hold me down, overpowering me, making me love him...

I dreamed of sitting, holding hands with the one time love of my life, looking down and seeing our hands old and liverspotted, with nothing but swirling dark space below us.

I dreamed of running, running, running, faces blurring past in my desparation to create a distance between myself and a man who still to this day tries to suck my strength away. I woke up sweating from that one, knowing that I of course...was born to run.

This weekend my real life was a menagerie of new flames flickering and old flames sparking in agitation as I was bombarded by a series of situations that I could in no way, deal with because really, there was no time to and there was just too much of it at once.
I move forward too quickly and my heart flutters too rapidly to be seen clearly or felt intimately for any long period of time and so the flames grow brighter, feeding on the energy I seem to create in my frenzied motion and as they do, they sometimes manage to hem me in, making me vulnerable to their heat.
I can't help it, I love them all so much yet not any one of them enough(o.k. well maybe one, you know who you are...stalker). It is just that I find myself overwhelmed with the belief that I am meant to be just this...an independent woman that is free to experience whatever affection she may come across and affect their lives and my own in the process...for better or for worse but I would like to think better for the most part because I am meant to be the woman that runs. the rapid accumulation of experience is what I need because whether it is in my life or in my dreams I am always running, the faces blurring past, my feet light as air and my mind higher than the sky...only once in a while my feet pausing in midstride, bringing the faces into focus and making my heart beat in time with another...sometimes it lasts days, sometimes it lasts months, sometimes it lasts years...but it never lasts forever because when I have learned what I can, my body and mind get the itch to move forward, to gain more understanding and the weight of another seems to hold me back, still my motion, slow my mind, stop my heart and when that happens, my creativity atrophies.
So, this may be my truth. o.k. I suppose but sometimes the damned dreams threaten to break my sanity, leaving me feeling empty and confused. I miss them all, I love them all...even when they don't love me anymore because they are still a part of me and I know that the reason it ended was because I had to let it go, I had to run and move forward in space in time, to be what I am and fulfill my need for independence. I usually know what I am letting go of and though it hurts everytime, I know that doing it was right because I am a bad girlfriend(not a bad lover, only a bad girlfriend) and that am not meant to be pinned down and held captive, forced to be content with the same face day after day. I do not like being an object that can be held, can be owned. I like being an object that can be desired, an object that is in motion while creating energy in its wake...whether that energy haunts me later or not.
so it goes, I am a fickle bitch.
or maybe I just have not found somebody that can keep up with my rapidly changing mind, my high energy life...or maybe I have and he just keeps eluding me...running from me.

knowledge is power.
Current mood: thirsty

First of all, let it be known that this is not so much a political rant as a spiritual rant about politics and the life we as americans or better yet humans, are all in together.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have never been so excited about a presidential race...ever. yeah yeah yeah, the last time, when Bush fought for his second term, I was on the edge of my seat, my heart in my throat, my fear taking over because I already felt that I knew the outcome. I knew that his charisma would win out once more despite the obvious fact that he was an imbecile. Kerry just was not powerful enough. Not charismatic enough because I hate to say it but that is what it has boiled down to over the years, a popularity contest. We could be sad about this or we could do what I have already done, see a glimmer of hope or better yet a bit of amusement at the thought that the stupidity of the masses may just tip the scales...in the right direction, or at least the direction that may make this country salvageable for now. Of course everybody has their opinion on the matter and mine does not matter much in the big scheme of things and really, nobody elses does either and that is why i am not giong to go into the details of the election or my particular views on the matter. I just wanted to take a moment and appreciate the beauty of a growing consciousness (within this country at least) that has slowly been making an effort to defy violence and vote for beauty, whether that be literally or figuratively.
I have lived so much of my life in fear. In fear of the future, in fear of fate. Having children at first only intensified my fears, made them even more real, more imminent. I have, over the course of my career as a mother, learned to let go of those fears and embrace the strength within. I guess that is why I take interest in these things...politics and such. Not that I believe in them or really care all that much about them, I know that there are a lot of untruths littering our perspective of our government. I only like to keep up, arm myself with what knowledge I can to keep my fears at bay and teach my daughters that knowledge is power and you have to know exactly what is going on so that you can attempt to make your decisions wisely. so yes, i take an extreme interest in this election, knowing that history is being made and that we are on the verge of destruction, another empire possibly about to expire. I am intrigued by this race, this competition to see who will come out on the proverbial top and inherit this giant pile of decaying shit...and that my friends, is how I keep the fear tamped down...I take it all for what it is and keep my eyes wide open because life is what it is and that is all that is. we are all going to die, in fact we are all dying right now so let's have a good time, find amusement where we can and love and nurture our children to give them the strength to reach adulthood and be able to experience every range of emotion and physical sensation because I guess that is what it is all about. Living. So, here we go.

But hey, that is not to say that I have not studied the logistics of sustainable living, gardening and pretty much surviving if our current political climate grows hotter, even less stable and our food/oil/energy sources grow more scarce because as I said before, knowledge is power. and the real, inevitable truth is right there on the horizon.

catholic remnants
Current mood: amused
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

Last night my head hurt and my throat hurt and my dreams were fucked.
It seems that the moment my head hit the pillow, the dreams began...starting off with me driving a trailer(actually driving the trailer, no car attached) that used to be a slaughterhouse on wheels, it was painted with red and black laquer on the outside and had just a bed and yellow walls on the inside. I had to sit on the edge of the head of the bed and keep my feet crossed at the ankles to work the pedals, the outside of my right foot worked the brake, the outside of my left foot, the gas, and the steering was a bitch seeing as how I was facing the axle side and the stupid thing kept turning...I was trying to move the trailer away from the busy street that it was on so that I could sleep in it. It had no locks and i was scared of sleeping in it with all of those people walking by. I ended up driving up a mountain and parking it at the edge of a cliff ...I lay down and there was a knocking at the door. an exboyfriend(no names here) had come to visit me, to lay down with me. I was happy. I turned, wrapping my arms around him to cuddle him and kiss his neck but he shoved my arms away and told me that he did not want me(this was the story of our real life relationship as well). I turned away feeling terrible and found that I could not sleep so I got out of the bed. I stepped out of the trailer and spotted a red truck with a red camper coming toward me in the distance. there was an old toothless man driving it, his hair matted and grey. I thought that he was making his way toward me to run me over but he instead yanked his steering wheel to the right veering off over the edge of the cliff. I got scared and ran to the edge to see how far he had to drop only to find that he was not dropping. he was driving...well actually skidding, down the cliffs face, rocks spraying up behind him. Curiosity got the best of me and I turned, looking for a way down the mountain and spotted a stairwell at the far edge of the cliff. it wrapped around and around the sides of the mountain. I ran, hoping not to miss anything. finally, the stairs ended in a clearing that was not quite the bottom of the mountain for the ground was still sloped and gravelly, dotted with low lying shrubs and boulders. I looked around and(for those of you who know me, this is gonna seem weird) spotted God. He was God like in the cartoons. in fact he was God like in the family guy, and he seemed to be waiting, checking his watch, tapping his foot. it was then that I heard it, the sound of crunching gravel and I looked up and saw him, the toothless man. he was sliding down into the clearing on his truck though all that was left was the axle and floor of the truck. no wheels or body. he was using a giant ten foot staff that looked like a crowbar and was made out of plastic to guide himself into the clearing. His face was lit up like christmas and turned toward God who waited with open arms. he slid right into God, toppling him over into the dirt and dust, scraping him underneath the floor of his truck and they just kept on going down the mountain and out of my sight. I just stood there confused as to what I should do. I suddenly realised that I had my sidewinder?(the little thing from the eighties that you sat on and it had handles that you turned from right to left to gain momentum. it was really just a seat and some wheels that you could turn) so I decided to get on it and make my way down the mountain. The going was easy for me as though either the rocks did not exist any longer or I was now floating, looking up at the sky and realising that the sky was blue and you could see the moon. this is what I was thinking when I woke up

no violent rain, only violet rain.
Current mood: happy
Category: Life

My daughter and I sat outside the coffee shop today, she played with her miniature barnyard jungle animals, I sat talking to my best friend. The sky was overcast, the sun hiding his face. I promised her yesterday that we would go to the pool today. She reminded me every time the clouds shifted, letting in a bleak little ray here and there. It was too cold to go swimming so I began to bribe her with trips to the park in hope of a distraction. She agreed with an audible sigh and we went to the local park next to NC states campus. The park that has its own little ghetto train that circles the playgrounds and man-made pond complete with little wooden bridges. I was feeling lazy and wanted her to play on the playground without my assistance while I read my book...of course that was not going to happen. She began trying to coerce me into taking her on the train "just once...pleeeaaase," I agreed and we made our way over there, I with my step slow and disinterested, she with her feet barely skimming the sidewalk in her excitement. We climbed into the miniature cars and I felt her lean her sweaty little body into mine,swinging her feet, bouncing with excitement. I looked over at her noting her red little face, her freckles darkened from the sun and began to feel a little more conscious. conscious of the moment, conscious of my company...a little girl at the park with her mom, getting to ride on the train that goes over the bridge "so fast it feels windy". I listened to her rattle on about each and every part of the ride and even the park that she deemed her favorite as we made our way through the tunnel and over the pond. we looked down and saw the pedal boats and I started to think about taking her in them. I commented on them and she thought them to be "too scary" and it was then that I decided that we would go on them before we left. when the train ride was over I said nothing of my intention as I led her to the little dock and heard her squeal behind me. she asked me why we were going down there and I told her that I was going to take her UNDER the bridge and then maybe she would have a new favorite thing about the park. when we got to the bottom, she got herself as close as humanly possible to my legs without actually tripping me and let me put a lifevest on her. We got in the little blue boat fairly uneventfully and set off for the middle of the pond my hand firmly on the steering wheel, hers firmly under her bottom, gripping the seat she was on. she slowly began to relax as I pedaled and skimmed our way toward the ducks commenting on each one. She began to point out to me their various colors and what each one was doing. she pointed out the lost feathers floating on the water and asked me if the birds missed them. she pointed out the flowers blooming on the bank guarded by the "pretty mean gooses" that hissed and flapped as we floated by...a little too close for comfort. she pointed out the ducks that were sleeping with their heads tucked under their wing and asked me if they were shy. she pointed out the ducks hiding in the branches of the low lying juniper bushes around the water. we talked about the differences between the girl ducks and the boy ducks and why they were so different looking. the little girl noticed every little thing and I found myself really listening and really enjoying her 5year old company. I should really do that more often because after we picked up her sister from camp and went home, I still craved her company so much that I decided to play barbies with her, dressing them

The ins and outs, ups and downs.
Current mood: sad
Category: Life

I make it through my life, day to day, still breathing, still "feeling" but sometimes, sometimes I just collapse. Sometimes the feelings of loneliness and despair are so strong I can barely move.

My mother has that effect on me at times. I have spent my whole life trying to get her to notice me, to want to understand me but all I have ever been awarded is her blind eye, her aggressive indifference. The things in her life are more important. If I am not in the hospital or about to be homeless, her mind is checked out, on vacation. This may seem like nothing, this may be more than some people get. I know this. I know that some peoples mothers abandoned them, I know that some peoples parents abused them, I know that some people have no parents. I am not talking about them. I am talking about the way it feels to be alone. To feel as though you have nobody to reach out to, nobody to be proud of you, nobody to recognize that you have emotions that are a little different. because the person who is your designated parent is just a body that only exposes surface emotions, a person who checks out 90% of the day and has no interest in who you are. They are all consuming, they are big and dramatic but they EXIST. What does it do to a person to never have them embraced? Recognized? It turns them into me, a beaten down, commitment phobic, attention starved little girl in a womans body.

I talked to my mother today, told her about my art show…like I always do. She acted like I was not talking, like she always does. She just continued to yell at the dog, talk to my daughter, intermittently seguing into coversation about my brother, his wife, her eye dr. visit. It was like my emotions were just being sucked into a void, disintegrated in the fire of her fear. Her fear of my heart, my weirdness, my intensity. How are you unconcerned with your own flesh and blood? How do you overlook the things that matter to your only daughter most? Does it stem back to her childhood, back to her abusive mother that pushed her into abusive relationships with men later in her adult years? Meanwhile, trying to tow two children around, children with no fathers to speak of, children who only managed to burden her in her quest for a man, her need to indulge her insecurities with sex and attention, children that she eventually left behind, left with her mother, her lifejob far too tiring. Or is it just me, is it just that I somehow inspire this sort of behavior., this need to hurt me, shoot me down, make me know that I do not matter that much? Or is is just sheer disappointment in who I have become? No need to acknowledge her art, she should not be doing it anyhow. She should have a job "in the real world" being "successful", doing what her mother did…going to school, getting a "real job". Now keep in mind that I have long since understood what "success" means to me and it is not necessarily monetary. Not that it would not help but ultimately, I want to make money doing something I love…and I will, I have drive, I have initiative, I have desire. I have just taken the long way around and that is what has put me in the place I am In currently. Success means raising my children to be good, open people while giving them the attention that they need and proving to them that with a little hard work and initiative you can do whatever you want. That is why I do what I want. That is why I try to explore my own mind, my own emotions. To teach them that they can too. Success means knowing my children and learning to love the people they may grow up to become. Success means learning to love myself. Jesus. Sounds so cliché but it is just so true.

None of this matters and in the long run, the way my mom treats me, the way she is so good at sucking the wind out of my lungs, forcing my stomach to ice over, my limbs to turn to lead just from her indifference in the face of my very real excitement…it does not matter because it will not change. The only thing that can change in a situation like this is my ability to deal with it and grow, keeping up with my forward momentum. I will not let let my pain arrest my development any more. My life may already be 1/3 over, maybe less than that. My mom has issues, she has transferred some of them onto me but I am creative. I write, paint. I love to paint. I need to paint, it lessens my lifes hurts. Keeping up with it helps me move through my self loathing, my insecurities, it gives me strength and proves my mother wrong…I guess. God, after all of this, I know that I would still rather her have her be proud of me, be impressed by me and my strength. I want her to see that I learned to be a good single mom…against the odds. Ah maybe that is exactly it. She knows that she let me down when I was young, deep down she knows that but does not understand that I love her anyhow. I want her to love me anyhow. Maybe she instead, feels a little bit of anger, a little bit of jealousy, a little bit of insecurity. Maybe? That sounds egotistical but what else could it be? I know this is deep and way too exposing but I bare my soul to strangers for a reason. To know tha t I am not alone, I am not the only one who has felt neglect, I am not the only one who is scared, overwhelmed and unsure. Unsure of my place in the world, in my mind, in my heart.

I know that I love my kids. I know that. Maybe this is a sign that I need to pull my head out of my own stressed out ass and pay attention to my kids. Don't do what my mother has done. Break the cycle.

phases of life
Current mood: contemplative

I woke up this morning my head dream free for once, leaving my train of thought unclouded. It was eight am and the shower was already running meaning that my oldest daughter was up, getting ready for school. She does that these days. all on her own no less. I rolled over, attempting to wake up my four year old daughter from her apparently dream filled sleep. She just hummed a muffled little"loveyoumommy" and rolled over. I cuddled her for a moment and then ripped her covers off and asked her what she wanted to wear today. she informed me that she wanted to be pretty today. Not surprising for a young girl like herself. any girl really, who doesn't want to be pretty? anyhow, I picked her out a black skirt pink shirt and brushed her hair up into pigtails urging her to brush her teeth and then made my way downstairs to wait for my oldest to be ready to go to school. few moments later, Lily(my oldest) made her own way down the stairs her face puffy and tired, her mood questionable, hair dripping wet down her back, an old grubby tye dye shirt with the names of all her friends written across the front and back. for pants, she had on some old grey ones that were getting a bit too tight and she had of course, failed to do up the zipper all the way. on her feet were old flip flops despite the cool weather this morning. I sighed, resigned to say nothing because it is her decision these days. She is ten years old and I let her make decisions concerning her appearance for the most part. This is part of the reason I am writing now.

we piled into the car, windows down partway, the cool air blowing over sleep warm skin. I tuned into NPR listening with one part of my brain while turning over the things I wanted to do today with the other part. Paint, pay bills, write, excersise...I looked into the rearview mirror, focusing in on Violet(my youngest) and saw that she had plugged Lilys earphones into her ears and was singing out loud, her face filled with emotion for the song she was hearing. Waiting for the light to turn, I then looked over at Lily watching her as she stared out the window, her eyes dreamy, her brow furrowed. I wondered what she was thinking and it was then that I thought of the thing I am trying to get at now:

My daughters are themselves just as I am myself and was myself when I was their age. The things that they do, the clothes that they choose to wear are their own decisions to make. Decisions that are made to bring them closer to be people that they will become. We are all constantly going through phases in our lives, phases that we must go through to find ourselves. to become comfortable in our own skins. I am no exception. when I sit, contemplating what I will do each day, what I will paint, what bills I will pay, what thoughts I will ponder, I am bringing myself closer to the person I will ultimately be in the end. the better painter, the more responsible woman, the healthier minded adult. when Violet tells me that she wants to be "pretty" she is excercising her choice to present herself to the world in the way that she sees fit. when Lily decides to go against her peers standards by not caring about her appearance, she is making a choice to be herself despite what others think. these are all just different phases in our lives and I find it interesting and anxiety inducing all at once. I worry for my children, what their decisions will bring them or not bring them. the people that they may become on their own and with my help.

These are the things going through my mind as I drop off my oldest daughter with a kiss and a wave, watching her as she plods toward the school entrance, head down face firmly set as she readies herself for this world that she inhabits everyday...without me. I then continue on, driving my youngest to her school. We get out and I hold my hand out to her to cross the parking lot. I lead her into her classroom and watch her as she shyly greets her classmates. She drops my hand, making her way toward the line at the sink to wash her hands, giggling a greeting to her friends. I have been dismissed. I sigh inwardly and turn toward the door...it is then that I see her classmate Ahmads mother. She has two girls in tow with her that I have never seen. They look to be about four and five and they both have face masks on. The kind of masks that cancer patients wear to keep away the germs only theirs are decorated with pictures of minnie mouse. Apparently these two children are her neices and I watch as they look on at the other children, eagerness and excitement all over their timid little faces. The other children eye the girls with curiosity wondering about their masks. I over hear the woman talking with violets teacher, telling her that the youngest of the two girls was born without an immune system. She was given a marrow transplant but they had yet to find out whether it had taken hold yet. Until then they are not allowed to attend school...either of them because of the germs they may come into contact with. My heart flips inside my chest as I think of the phases these two girls will go through. The sick one will obviously have a lot of emotions and obstacles that most people will never have to go through...especially at such a young age...fear,, hope, isolation. Her sister, the one who is NOT sick will have her own obstacles. she will no doubt have to deal with a huge responsiblity for one so young. She cannot attend school and be with her peers for fear of getting her sister sick. I am sure that the two sisters do not have many friends other than eachother. It is then that I think, with guilty relief that my daughters may never have to go through this sort of thing. they are lucky. the obstacles that they will go through will be no more, no less than any other. I find my anxiety flooding away at this thought.

sigh. life can be so interesting and yet so tragic and the lessons learned within all that are what make us who we are.

the day I fucked Jack White
Current mood: talkative
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

For the past five days, I have lain around my house getting fatter and fatter due to an absolute lack of upper moibility. I thought I would be able to excercise but I was mistaken. too much activity makes my shoulder throb so I have been just here, drifting in and out of sleep and you know what that means...the other night I had a dream that I was at a white stripes concert, waiting with the rest of the crowd for them to start playing. I was standing off to the right of the stage out of the way of the bright lights. The venue was oddly built, kind of like a coliseum with liveable rooms like houses all around the edge of the pit that was there for the band and the audience. outside of that, at the edge of the liveable spaces was a sort of glassed in track with trees and shrubbery on either side of the actual pavement that let you walk the circumfrence of the building without having to leave it, meanwhile being able to see the trees blooming and the cars zooming by outside. o.k. back to me, standing at the side of the stage, there I stood, listening to the impatient clamoring of the audience as I peered around curiously at the non white stripes seeming crowd, littered with children and mothers, young people and old people. Suddenly I felt somebodies hands on my shoulders, attempting to turn me around. I complied and found myself face to face with JACK WHITE(for those of you who don't know, I am in love with him and would like nothing better than to have tenthousand of his babies) as he looked into my eyes soulfully and leaned in to kiss me. I kissed him back with my eyes closed only to find that when I opened them I was no longer standing at the side of the stage but lying in some shrubbery that grew along the edge of the track around the coliseum. Jack was gone but apparently we had sex and I missed it. I was terribly upset but none of that mattered because before I could even throw a tantrum, I looked up to see the glow of police lights flashing through the glass of the building and it looked as though there were barricades set up and I could suddenly hear the roar of the crowd as they sped past me laying in the dirt, attempting to bum rush the exit in hopes of escaping. I looked up to see them being beaten back by police with batons, shields and protective masks. As the crowd shrank back for a moment in confusion, the doors were barred from the outside...at this, the mob began hurling themselves at the glass walls that kept them from the world outside. it did not shatter nor crack. The realisation slowly dawned on me...we were trapped. As I felt the panic rising in my throat at the thought of being trapped with thousands of people I did not know, I noticed a crackling over the P.A. system. The police outside were informing us that we had all been infected with a skin eating virus and were not allowed out of the building...ever. I looked around me and began to see the effects of this skin eating virus taking place. people around me foaming green at the mouth, their skin beginning to slough and bubble off. the result was a crowd of people with leprosy like sores that were green and foamy that left viscous trails behind them when they moved. The people that were already really far gone were almost skinless, having traded their epidermis for something that looked a bit like green floam(kid stuff). The sick, scary thing was the far goners started to get a sort of rabid gleam in their eyes when watching the others who were beginning to shed the foamy green trails. I watched in horror as they suddenly swooped down and began eating the green shit that was bubbling out of those around them. It was then that I regained some semblance of composure and immediately tried climbing up a nearby tree in an attempt to keep myself healthy. no sores yet. I remember the view from up there so clearly, directly below me were the gyrating, skin sloughing mass and to the right of me, through the glass, was the regular world, cars zipping by, the sun beginning to fade, a few police officers standing about next to their cars watching us through the glass their mouths turning up in satisfied smiles, knowing that we had all been sufficiently quarantined. it was then that I got my so called brilliant idea. I hopped down intent on baring my breasts to distract the police guard fiddling with the barred door, making sure it was locked...it worked but as soon as I set foot outside of the door, an angry mob of police officers and civilians materialized out of nowhere and catching me by the arms and throwing me to the ground while alternately kicking and punching me in the upper body until I lost consciousness. when I came to, I was in my own bed and the dream was over.

sheesh. what will my cracked, warped brain come up with next?

loneliness, my savior
Current mood: thankful
Category: Life

I welcome loneliness like an old friend. I wrap myself in the silence happy to be able to hear my thoughts once more. I find it comforting that sometimes the only human contact that i get comes from the giggles and screams of my children. Their questions and far fetched stories, their cries in the night. Whenever I try to incorporate another adult into my life on a more intimate level than friendship, I find myself growing tense. Wondering how it will ever work, how I will ever be able to integrate the two. I enjoy wandering around my house alone, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes late at night on my porch, my phone turned off, my book in my hand. I enjoy busting out my paint at eleven pm, letting my imagination run wild. I enjoy thinking and writing whatever I feel without the heart of another tangling my thoughts, my visions and dreams. why is this? is this just fierce independence? or is it maybe just too much damage in my past so that I have now curled in upon myself seeking solace in my own mind?

Taking care of my children and watching them grow was once a task that seemed too overwhelming to attempt alone but as we grow older, I find myself happier with the small family that I have cultivated. Content to write about the things that they do, the things that touch my heart and move me to feel. I once wanted somebody to share all this with but now, things have changed and I feel as though we have moved too far away from the beginning to turn back. Too many events have come and gone with only me to witness that now the wall around our family has grown and it is just too high for anybody to scale, the door rusted shut unable to be opened again. the loneliness permeates the air inside and though this may seem sad there is something comforting in its consistency. I will always be here and so will my daughters. This is something I can count on...so I guess I will.

dreams and nightmares
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

hmmm. o.k. this one is VERY disturbing...for the record. I am now officially afraid of my own mind.

I was in what seemed to be a bar and all around me were asian people(chinese to be exact) with the exception of about three white people other than myself. one of these people was a boy that I guess was my friend and the other two people were girls, one of which had short dark hair and freckles while her friend had long flaming red wavy hair with creamy pale skin. they stood out in the sea of dark round faces and hooded, slanted eyes. I was sitting at the bar and out of the corner of my eye, caught some movement at the back of the dark bar. Two men(asian of course), one tall and lanky, the other grizzled and stocky were making their way toward the caucasian girls at the table behind me. I turned to see their eyes widening as the short man came at the redhead with a machete that seemed to come out of thin air. I heard a muffled moan and saw the lanky one making a grab for the dark haired one. she turned and ran and like it tends to be in dreamworld, just disappeared. I turned to my friend and he was just shaking his head back and forth, a look of confusion on his face. He mouthed, "she's dead" I asked, "how do you know?" he nodded toward the bar and I turned to see the stocky one now manning the bar. He asked if I was hungry and I slowly shook my head from side to side too fearful to even speak. it was then that he produced a blender from underneath the bar and carefully set on the bar, a little bit to the side. after that he turned to get a cutting board and a I suddenly heard the rustling of a garbage bag. 'Oh God' I thought, 'he is going to chop the girl up' and that he did...piece by piece, with his back turned to us, muttering under his breath. talking about her nipple piercings, musing aloud about how good hers looked and how he wished that he himself had gotten his so straight and maybe if he had not killed her so soon, he may have been able to ask her where she got them done. it was then that I heard a females sharp staccato voice, speaking in chinese(which of course, seeing as how this was dreamland, I understood). She seemed to be berating him for his clumsiness, his stupidity. We (my friend and I) both looked up at this point to find that the woman was heading straight for us, her eyes boring into mine. she was short, asian and seemed to be in her mid to late forties, her hair curled into a puff that framed her dark face. she was dressed in plain, frumpy clothes, polyester pants, button up houseshirt but there was something undeniable about her power. we both knew immediately that she was the one in charge in this place. at this point, we heard the whir of the blender being fired up. I looked and saw what seemed to be a reddish orange sauce being mixed. I was asked again if I was hungry, after shaking my head, no the woman cut in and told me that I was...it was then that she plopped two bowls in front of us and I looked down only to feel my stomach leap into my mouth. in my bowl was what looked to be some sort of pickled gelatinous meat, coated with the reddish sauce with maybe some mushrooms or something floating throughout. Upon second inspection, I found that on top , where there was no sauce, was a tongue...complete with tastebuds and...tongue ring. that was when I realised that the mushrooms were in fact eyeballs and that I had no choice but to eat it because my seemingly angry hostess was now brandishing a knife, swinging it from me to my friend, a sneer on her face as we started to eat. I felt as though I could feel each piece, gluey in my mouth, my body attempting to gag and rid itself of this disgustingly foreign object.

cut to my friend finishing his food and then offering to finish mine. after it was gone, we were free to wander outside into what seemed like a courtyard, with chainlinked fences hemming us in. it was beautiful outside, with the sun shining through the trees but when I looked up I saw that there were strange hoses and pipes weaving in and out of the branches. at this point i overheard the woman again and noticed that she was making her way outside with two men behind her and the young, short dark haired woman between them, struggling against the hands that were pushing her forward. The woman was now shouting and wailing as they made their way toward a glass room located at the far corner of the courtyard. the older woman swung open the door and the men shoved the young woman inside. they bent her over roughly and starting shoving tubes up what I think must have been her ass. the woman was now screaming and I could hear the older telling her that it was for her own good. that this would help here to be more fertile. they shut the door, pushed a switch and a loud whining sound pervaded the entire courtyard. my friend and I decided to make our way to a what seemed like a nice parkbench far away from the action only to find that they were sucking out shit and blood from this womans body cavities and it was making its way through the clear tubes directly above us and of course, the tubes leaked. I began to feel droplets hitting my face like a slow rain beginning and my friend grabbed my arm and we ran. we ran to the very corner of the yard and found that part of the chainlink had been pulled back. we climbed up as quickly as we could and shoved our way through the hole scraping our stomachs and arms in the process. we tumbled headfirst into a quiet suburban neighborhood. we ran into what seemed to be a familiar house and heard a baby crying. I went to pick up the baby and found that the baby was pale skinned with round eyes. I sighed with relief thinking that we were finally safe when I heard the floor creak and turned slowly fearing the worst and there she was. the older asian woman. I tried to run but she was advancing quickly. more quickly than I could respond and it was then that she began pulling knifes out from under skin. from between the joints in her knees, her elbows, her neck. I felt each stab of these tiny daggers and began trying to pull them out and throw them back at her. ppppppppffffttt. then my alarm went off and I was awake and I was scared but so damned glad to be awake.

he golden elevator
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

my dreams are strange yet cohesive, my mind a tangled web of thought, knowledge and imagination. I woke up with the last shreds of my subconscious falling away, only to grab onto them for fear of losing them. this was one I wanted to remember. I was on a boat, travelling to the man made edge of the world. I was part of a research team that was attempting to stop the effects of global warming. There had been a brick wall built in an attempt to stop the water from rising. we thought that keeping some of the water at bay would help keep the water from rising up onto the continents. when the boat docked at a ledge about four feet wide that travelled for miles and miles, I looked up only to find that the wall was so high that it blotted out the sun and the end of it could not be discerned. I turned my gaze back out to the sea and beheld a cluster of islands and an expanse of glittering, turquoise ocean. where I stood it was dark, but out there, the sun was shining bright and hot. My companions and I started to walk down the ledge toward a door in the wall, we were there to meet the team who had been living there for the past three months. On the way, we encountered a large grey and black bird who was rather cute, but as I approached it, it puked up strands that looked like tongues or ribbons that were about six to seven feet long, they covered my body and felt sticky like a sea anenome, at that moment I heard the door in the wall open and a hand grabbed my arm pulling me in and away from the creature and its probing tongues. the rest of my team was already inside and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, I saw all kinds of wires and machines, in the middle of the room and at the far end of the room on the righthand side, there was what seemed to be an elevator with gold sliding doors. I sat there for a while, talking with my colleagues...one in particular caught my interest. He was a handsome dark haired man who seemed intelligent and engaging with clear blue eyes. he wore dark fitted jeans and a grey sweater. somehow everything else fell away and he and I were leaning in for a kiss. Suddenly he opened his mouth and the things that came from the birds mouth outside, came from his. they wrapped around me in a way that was pleasurable but disconcerting. I found myself giving in because the feeling of vertigo that I was left with was just too strong. At that point, I started to focus on the others around me and overheard a conversation they were having about the elevator. Apparently the elevator had the ability to take you from one part of the world to the next, depending on which button you pushed. the idea of this was just too overwhelming for me to resist, so I turned, breaking away from the man only to realise that he was the grey and black bird I had met outside. suddenly scared, I began to run toward the golden elevator doors, the only bright thing in this dark dismal room, I pushed the button and doors opened revealing what looked like a regular elevator with a young woman standing inside. she was dressed in a business suit and heels. she held the door for me and I ran inside feeling relief as the door closed behind me. she asked me where I wanted to go and I told her I did not know, maybe the mountains, and she told me she was on her way to the city and proceeded to push a bunch of buttons and the elevator began to move. it moved quickly, making my stomach drop and it seemed to descend for quite a long time, ten minutes at least. suddenly she pushed a button and the doors opened...we were between floors? there was a forest below and a city above complete with people walking around(we could see their feet) and car horns honking. I could hear the chirping of birds and felt confused and scared. I looked closer and saw that between the two worlds was nothing but space and stars. I stood frozen as the woman panicked and ran out into the forest, her high heels sinking down into the earth, she was stuck and that was when I spied the mountain lion behind her. My heart starting pounding as I jammed buttons frantically trying to get the doors to close. that was when my alarm went off. thankfully. I really did not want to see what happened in this dream. I could only imagine it would've been gruesome. sheesh.

I am a fighter, not a lover.

I am a fighter, not a lover. I try and I try yet the only love I can truly feel without being afraid of or being disillusioned with is the love that I feel for my children. the bottom line is this...I like being alone. I ENJOY doing whatever it is that i may want to do without having to answer to anybody. what is wrong with me you may wonder? well, I am beginning to think...nothing at all. I just know what I want and I am finally learning that nobody but me is ever going to be able to provide it. no sad story here, just a sheer happiness with being alive, being social, being a mother and being a painter. kinda hard to make room for much else. maybe one day but...right now it seems that every relationship I get into, I lose interest quickly when it comes to the monotony of co-existing. hmmm... I just dont know. to be fiercely independent is an interesting phenomonon. so far, so good, I just need to learn how to not let myself become distracted meanwhile bringing others down on the way. Not to say that every relationship that I have been in has disintegrated due to me and my nature, it is really to say that when the going gets rough, I see no reason to carry it through. too much distraction from what is really important...my painting and my children and my friends. so, to all of you who may have ridden this little confusing rollercoaster with me, I am sorry but I am sure that I probably warned you in advance.

genetics...a curse and a blessing? Current mood: anxious Category: Life Genetics. They can be a wonderful and terrible thing. For instance, right now my hands keep going numb. Thank you dad. thank you for that. I come by it honestly but here is another thing...my daughter. my oldest one. she had one of her very first anxiety attacks. something that started for me around her age(nine and a half) when I began to think that each and every plane that flew over head was going to crash down and kill me and my family. each time I heard one, I had to run outside and watch until it disappeared into the distance...and then later when I found out about global warming and how the earth was going to get too hot for us to survive. this plagued me until just about seven years ago when I realised that all I could do to change it would be to learn more and to act out what I learned. so, back to the point. today, she informed me that the polar ice caps were melting and in another five years they would be gone and the sea level would rise to the height of the statue of liberty. what do you say to that? what do you say when you know that she is right? when you know that overpopulation will continue to add to the problem and that overpopulation will have no end? how do you console a precocious little child how has dissolved into tears, complaining that her stomach hurts and that she in no way wants to die at the age of fourteen? tell her it won't happen? tell her it will all be o.k. when it may not? when things as far as I know are never going to one hundred percent be o.k.!? fuck. if anything I hated myself for passing on these tendencies to fret. to know too much. all I could do was hold her and tell her that no matter what, I would try my best to make sure that she would be cared for. she asked one million and one questions about what could be done to reverse this(a positive thing yes) and I had to sit there and field these questions, knowing that in a way, resistance is futile. the ball is rolling. my mothering instinct battling with my intellectual side, with my nihilistic side. fuck fuck fuck. I love them both so bad and have been fretting for the past nine and a half years, knowing that I have brought them into a more than imperfect world and now...now she KNOWS this. she fears this as I always have. what can I tell her to make it right? how do you explain to a child the thing that it took me twenty five years to learn? to explain to her that although life is imperfect, we are here to live and be happy. to live and do our part to make it more beautiful more liveable. sigh. I tried but having the one track mind of a child, she just does not understand. she can only worry. she feels as though she has no control and I made the mistake of telling her that EVERYTHING we do as humans, create greenhouse gasses and that all we can do is minimize our impact in the only ways we know how. by minimizing our energy intake, our consumerism and whatever else. now, I find her watching me like a hawk, asking me if the heat is on and if so, do we really need it? I see this behavior to be akin to my own when I obsessed over the goddamned airplanes. something that was irrational in a way because I could not control it just as her behavior is irrational because she may be far too little to have an impact. I can only hope that this vein of thinking will lead to bigger and better things. that her intensity of thought and understanding will help her if she lives past the age of fourteen...help her to read up, to gain knowledge and spread the word. be active. be conscious. It is all I can really hope for. to raise a child that wants things to better and is willing to work hard to make sure that it happens. and here I will wish for the thing that I have always wished for...to be blind, to be unaware, to expect the best and ignore the possibilty of the worst. but here I will sigh again because as I said before, genetics are a bitch and I came by this intellect honestly and so has she. all we can really do is work through it and do our best to turn it into a positive thing. 9:44 PM 5 Comments (Add Comment) | 4 Kudos Edit Remove

Thursday, November 15, 2007 Living, breathing, understanding Category: Life While living and breathing, my life has taken me through so many emotions. Sadness, happiness, love, hate, desperation, helplessness, elation and more. Throughout it all, I have found myself trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find understanding whether it be of myself, or the world around me. I have gone through at times, blindly breathing, feeling, doing, while at other times I have had moments of clarity, moments where I believe that what I am doing is what I need to be doing to be sane and comfortable. Throughout it all, I have been just trying to gain understanding the only ways I know how. By keeping my eyes open as much as possible, seeing the things around me and finding ways to appreciate them. Recognize them as being part of my fate. Things like going for a walk with my four year old daughter on a brisk fall day, with the leaves turning from yellow to orange to red, the wind blowing the ones ripe for decay all around the little body of my daughter, clad in brand new jeans, embroidered with purple and pink flowers and her purple sweater, the hood pulled up over her little head, pink shoes tripping through the leaves and branches on the cracked sidewalk while watching her grip the new purple umbrella I bought her earlier in the day when the sky had opened up, letting loose a cold wintery rain. While no longer raining, she is intent on having this purple umbrella above her…Things like making a bowl of kettle corn over the stove for both of my girls in the middle of the day, the wind howling around our little house, a fire in the fireplace, crackling and popping every so often as we bump fingers, fighting for the best bits of popcorn, me sitting, silently gazing at their beautiful downturned faces while listening to their chatter, their farfetched stories of princesses and schoolyard drama, my eldest daughter making up theories for everything as she goes along, inadvertently persuading her little sister to believe in the unimaginable…Things like going for a ride in the car when the air turns warm, the smell of grass and soil in the air, all of our windows rolled down, hair blowing, music blaring, looking back in the rearview mirror and watching them dance and sing to themselves, to eachother, the sun shining on their light brown and honey colored hair, everything new, everything simple…things like looking up at the sun shining through the trees, lighting up the fall leaves like fire and knowing that I may one day use that image in a painting or watching the face of a person I love and wanting, more than anything, to capture the shapes of it, the lights and shadows with my hands, paint, and a paintbrush on canvas, memorizing the lines forever…things like making love with another person and knowing that it is something more divine than sex because at that exact moment, I am connected to that person in a way that cannot happen while fully clothed. Feeling as though, through this connection, I am creating something powerful, something magical or even feeling as though through the action of making, giving and receiving love, I am healing, not hurting a part inside myself and my partners self that may be damaged from the past…even things like laying awake at night, thinking and worrying about my daughters lives, about my life. Thinking of things that I cannot change, thinking of things I can and knowing that these moments like all of the others, are important…the dark and the light are both important when trying to gain understanding. I cannot have one without the other. Maybe I know this from keeping my eyes open, my mind alert and my heart warm and yielding…maybe I just know this from age. Turning thirty has changed me in a way, made me more receptive, warmer and more understanding of the life around me. Growing older has made me feel more comfortable inside my own skin, more able to appreciate the beauty of myself and what is around me without squirming around, worried about how I appear or what I am going to do next. So, maybe the conclusion I am coming to is this: breathing is living and living is finding understanding and finding understanding is what makes me feel complete and when I am finally complete, I can die without regret, knowing that I tried to see and understand what was around me as best I could and knowing that it was all worth it because lived, breathed and tried my best to understand the life around me.

goodbye sweet youth, I must prime myself for death.
Category: Life

waking up, lacy clad ass in the air, a teeny tiny tank top my only shield from my environment, in a random boys bed. haha, well not completely random, I mean I know him and it was not like THAT but geez. My best friend threw me a thirtieth birthday party last night and I got pretty tanked. o.k. more lies, I got shit faced almost puking drunk and I have not one regret. I am going to look at it for what it is, one last walk of shame down the hallway of my twenties, one last hurrah, complete with all my friends who love me old and new. my actual birthday is on wednesday and I have already been on my way away from the heavy drinking, debauchery filled days of my past. I have been settling down, enjoying days at the pool with my kids, reading harry potter and *gasp* sometimes even watching movies. not to say that the seed of rowdiness has died forever, this is just to say that I take pride in where I have been and how hard it was to get here. I am going to shout my age to the rooftops, tell the truth to anybody who asks because I deserve this. I embrace this. I wear my age like a badge of courage, pride and beauty. yeah fuck it. I will see the beauty in this too. ya got to right? so, I understand that the physical beauty is on its way out and I therefore have to cultivate my mental strength, my caustic wit, my amazing intellect, and my painterly prowess. this is the second phase. death is that much closer but I am about to hit my prime and my stride is strong. This is positive and in no way shameful and though I grew up around women who lied about their age, choosing vanity over pride, I have chosen to rise above that and prove to my grandmothers and their mothers that there IS such a thing as growing old gracefully. I have seen it from time to time and I know it exists. It is just a case of mind over matter...

no more twenty-nine for me. I scoff at the idea...HA.

ALMOST a complaint
Current mood: drained
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

so it seems that there is no end in sight. thirty is just around the corner and I am poor as a single mama and I cannot see when or if that will ever change. it is hard not to get depressed when your rent check ALMOST bounced, your power ALMOST got turned off, your daughters ALMOST never see you because you are always working, and you are probably ALMOST the most lonely girl in the world. time goes by and I just sit here in front of my computer, wishing I had a beer, a glass of vodka, anything to ease the pain of my pathetic existence. I am too tired to paint, I want a cigarette( I am almost one month quit) and I am getting older by the second. pfffttt. WTF? how can this be? how can I not just have exactly what I want? why does it have to be so hard? why do I have to work harder than anybody I know only to have less than everybody that I know? oh wait, I know, I made certain, un-thought out decisions and here I am. A starving lonely artist, a chubby single mother, who does not sleep around or hardly date for fear of somehow damaging my daughters egos, and does not smoke for fear of looking old. I mean, what does any of it matter when time just keeps ticking, and I keep getting older and more confused? no relief in sight, so why dont I just buy a gallon of vodka, and pick up smoking again? I mean, why the fuck not? I cant pay my bills, I cant think straight, I cant keep myself awake long enough to get any art done and the hours seem like days when there is nothing to pass the time except self loathing. hmm. maybe thirty will be better. maybe when I turn thirty, I will suddenly become an awesomely productive artist, maddeningly attractive swinger with children who are totally well adjusted because their mommy is a fucking multi-millionaire. lets not forget that part. without that part, none of the rest can happen. or so I have always heard and these days, I am beginning to believe. money makes the world go round I guess because those of us without money are just treading water, living hand to mouth, trying to numb the pain of our existence, while the rest of the world just keeps on moving, growing, buying, and exploiting any bits of beauty that may be remaining. I am missing out. on what? I wish I knew.

if only I could think straight, maybe then I would know. as if that were possible. you know, if it weren't completely futile, I would actually probably let myself be depressed but there is no use in that, now is there? being depressed only makes things harder and more daunting . being depressed only makes people not want to be around you which makes for an even lonelier existence. you can't win for losing I guess. If I were not me, I would think anybody who read this might be worried, but I am me and I cannot escape the fact that everybody who knows me probably knows that I will always pull through because the goddamned warrior in me always finds a way. for better or for worse. for richer or poorer. it is just me and me, til death do us part...

happy birthday to me.

This is not a complaint, because despite all of this, I am still glad to be alive, glad to be able to make jokes, observe the things around me, be a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend and a woman. so really, disregard this last note and know that my body is just under stress after my seven day work week, my heart and head hurt just a little(or a lot?), and my big 3-0 is just around the freaking corner so forgive me as I have a little breakdown for all the world to see if they so desire. this is not a cry for help because, through it all, my will to live is still stronger than most...

oh and p.s. to all of my friends who were concerned about my welfare today and truly wanted to help, thank you. I love you all. I am sorry if I am a bit stubborn. it is what it is and I am what I am.

from there to here
Category: Life

I started off at age twenty, a recently rehabilitated drug addict/ new mother...I knew nothing. The only thing carrying me through was the fact that my body seemed to know what to do. I went through the motions of pregnancy, doing as the doctor told me, as my grandmother told me, as my mother told me. my friends were of no help seeing as how they were as young as me and most likely still on drugs. I drifted away from them as my body changed and my mind grew distant and sad with the weight of the truth. the truth being that I was alone and suddenly very different from my peers, without even a father for my child.

on february eighteenth, 1998, I gave birth to a little life and named it lily. that was about the only decision I made beyond the one made nine months before when I let him take advantage of my body in ignorance of the repercussions. I was too far gone and under the strain of arrested development to know what to do when the police officer at the jail told me that I was pregnant(a whole other story). so there I was on february 18th, 1998 in los gatos community hospital holding my newborn baby girl, tears running down my face. tears of depair, tears of joy, my heart pounding in fear.

three days later, I took her home only to check to see if her heart was still beating and her chest still rising with the rhythm of her breath...every five minutes. over the years I spazzed out in fear over every new trauma to her little body and convulsed in joy over every new accomplishment her little ego acquired. I started off in ignorance and here I am nine and a half years later, far from home, far from that little girl who knew nothing sitting at my computer having just put my oldest and youngest(second time around has been a little better) daughters to bed after plucking a tick off my youngest without a second thought(there was once a time when I almost had a nervous breakdown over lily having come home with her first tick) and I sit here in quiet awe over my accomplishments as a mother.

There was once a time when I thought that I could do nothing right and now there are actually times when I feel there is almost nothing that I cannot do. there was once a time when I felt my children as a burden on my youth. now I feel as though they are one of the things keeping me youthful. without them I would be nothing and I am happy to sit at home, listening to their even breathing in the next room, looking forward to every new day just to see them grow and change, filling my life with their playful chatter, their bright ideas and blossoming youth.

I will say it again and again and again...I am a lucky woman. to have what I have and still find ways to appreciate it.

my rage is like the pounding rain
Current mood: determined
Category: Life

why does there have to be so much anger? why do I let myself get sucked into it?

I am tired of men and women fighting like cats and dogs and then fucking like it never happened.

I got a letter from an old love yesterday and it was condescending and callous...as usual.

Apparently I have been stupid for a very long time. letting people treat me badly, letting people tell me how to think and how to feel. this may sound strange to those who think that they know me, but those of you that truly do, will not find it surprising at all. Almost every "relationship" that I have ever had has somehow been about abuse and manipulation, whether it be physical , mental or spiritual, I have been struck down and hurt because I did not understand how to be alone and o.k. with all that is me. I have now spent the past three years relatively alone due to the mass amount of hurts that I have acquired...I have had no choice but to try and be o.k. on my own so as not to accumulate any more. upon receiving this letter, I felt angry. for the first time in forever, I let my anger get the best of me. I realise that it may be due to the fact that it has been a long time since I have let anybody talk that way to me and for him to do so when I have been trying so hard to have a friendly relationship with him was preposterous. I cannot allow it and I am finding my rage again though I do not know if it is for better or for worse, but I am tired of feeling ugly, tired of feeling stupid, tired of being told that I am not good enough or smart enough or tough enough or sexy enough. I am what I am and that is all that I am, and I am not gonna let another person tell me different. I have been striving for so long to find somebody who truly loved me for me only to realise that they never will if I do not make them. if I accept anything less, I will get just that...less than what I am worth and if that is not retarded, I do not know what is. slowly but surely, I am finding my strength. the strength inside, the strength I have been told about, the strength that I have been in posession of all along.

he told me that my heart was cold and that I was dead on the inside because I would not take his bullshit nor give a proper response to his letter and pretend that it was o.k.. if that is coldhearted then fine. I may need to make myself like ice and learn how to operate in below freezing temperatures because getting hurt by a socially incompetent, stuck-up, below average asshole is not my idea of a good time. I am tired of trying to be friends with the enemy. the enemies from past and present, can go fuck themselves and see how it feels to be fucked and hurt. I am no longer going to let people hurt me to make themselves feel better. I am no longer going to let them lash out at me while turning a blind eye or offering a soothing word as though it did not hurt, as though I could take it because after all, they were human and they had probably acted out of anger at something I did or said because I am annoying? because deep down, I somehow deserved it? I have always thought that something about me seemed deserving of the pain, deserving of the cruelty. Though as of right now, I can honestly say that the empathetic piece of my heart that has burned so bright and so long is dead and I am finding that guilt has been the seed growing the weed all along that I have been mistakenly been calling empathy.

tomorrow may be different. one can only hope that when the rage subsides and my mind is still, I will open my eyes to a brighter, clearer sky. I mean, hope is a good thing right??

static in the brain
Category: Life

my mind is filled with fuzz, static electricity the ruler, causing all thoughts to just race back and forth, disjointedly, coming to the surface in fragments. it is times like these that I wish that I could switch it to OFF because there is no need for it to be ON. I find myself sitting on the porch, smoking cigarettes, wishing I weren't wishing I could think of something other than the fact that there is a dragonfly hovering about my ankles. all I can do is try to memorize it. memorize the shape of its wings knowing that it is the only way to let my mind go. let my heart turn off.. sometimes I do what I gotta do to get by. don't we all? am I the only one? I think not. we all must sit there from time to time feeling nothing. just watching the minutes tick, not thinking about the fact that our time is limited, we sit and breathe without a coherent thought in our brains, just waiting for that party, just waiting for sleep, just waiting for things to get better, just waiting...not a thought in our heads worth grasping. that is when time gets the best of us. the next thing we know, our hair is grey, sex is a thing of the past, our kids are grown up and our days are empty, thoughts about what we could have been if we focused a little better filling our head as though they are somehow relevant. they arent. now is what is relevant. now is the time to act. to think, to live. be a part of things and don't let the annoying static of everyday life get the best of us...I say this for my own sake for this my friends, is my public note to self.

a woman contemplates the death of a heart
Current mood: contemplative

I like it I don't like it. I want it I can't have it. I need it yet it's bad for me. I crave the thing I cannot have, daydream about the thing that will never be.

I got in the car today and turned on the radio. tainted love. I giggled to myself realising my personal irony coming full circle. I lure them in and spit them out when the taste gets too strong, my mouth recoiling from the intensity of feeling. I immediately find myself hungry again. my mouth salivating, I turn to the next, my eyes mirroring their curiosity, but with just a hint of the roiling waters below. I can't stay with anybody for long. I start to see that they are beginning to love me...that I will be held accountable. I will have to admit to those darker deeper things inside me that I have buried deep, having learned to hide them well and it is then that I bolt. take off running for the distant horizon where I think I can see my own solitude winking at me, beckoning to me. telling me that i am better off alone, that alone is easier than the turning inside out of myself and my soul only to find that this was not the right time, not the right person. I am tired of handing over little(or big) pieces of myself only to find that it was in vain. so these days, I hoarde them to myself, avoiding eye contact with the opposite sex, I gracefully drop out of the game. I tell myself that i have grown up and the need to play is a selfish, childish need and to hurt others due to my own confusion is wrong. the only thing is this...what happens when the day comes and my little mind and heart tell me that they want to share and crave companionship? do I turn away and choose not to trust? or do I run the risk of acting the fool and the demon one more time in hopes of a little lovin?

tttssss...I would prefer a harem instead...a harem full of men and boys, all of them intelligent, all of them entertaining. I sometimes wish I were a man. free to make love and steal affection as I please.

Currently listening:

head of household
Current mood: stressed
Category: Life

sometimes I get so stressed that my vision becomes clouded, my body grows taut. stretched like a rubberband, feeling as though it might snap at any given moment. my children screaming, crying, fighting, and falling sick and otherwise, milk being spilled, child support not being paid, violets daddy picking fights with me in front of my children, violets dad talking bad about me to my children, my phone ringing, my keys being locked in the house, my rent check bouncing,my car breaking down, the bills piling up, my back wrenched, my wallet empty, barely any food to put on the table, the dishes piling up, my house consistently being trashed by my children, my car running out of gas and my cigarettes being somewhere other than with me. no person should carry this much weight on their shoulders. I made these decisions myself, I know. it is just that somehow, in the last few months I managed to a dig a deep hole and now I think I have fallen in...but back to the rubberband thing. I will not allow myself to fall so here I am, stretched tight across this hole of my own making, fingers and toes gripping either side desparately trying to hold on, every muscle in my body shaking with the effort. in my mind, I flirt with the idea of letting go, letting myself tumble to the soft cool earth below where I can just lay and sleep for a while. but no. no that is not possible. my children need me, my friends need me and I have to keep on working and keep on smiling while really, all I want to do is just scream as long and loud as I possibly can, scream until I have no voice, no energy and maybe then, my immediate future will not seem so bleak, the hole may not seem so deep. i know that this will not work but strangely, it is what I want to do. I know I cannot though. I cannot fall apart, I cannot snap, I gotta keep my head down and keep on working. keep on painting, keep on keeping on meanwhile trying to keep a brave face intact to show my children and friends so as not to worry anybody. it is the least I can do. I am the sole provider, the giver of life. I am everything to my little ladies and if I fall apart, so will they. I am lonely, I am scared and I am tired. all I have is my children so for them I will do what it takes and try not to fall apart. try not to shatter into a million pieces because as far as I know the kids are not so good at wielding the broom so there may not be anyone to sweep up the mess.

jesus, what have I gotten myself into???