'Not Giving a Fuck is Awesome!'

Monday, January 30, 2012
What new thing did you begin this past weekend?

What new thing?  I don’t think anything new.  I think it has been the same old same old, but maybe that’s entirely wrong.  The problem:  people care too much.  I am becoming more and more consumed with the “Who gives a fuck?” mentality.  Not in a self destructive way (mostly) but in an open attempt to regain something of myself I might have lost, because in the end, if you really believe we only have one life?  I mean…fuck it, right?  Who was it…Janis Joplin that said something like, “You’ve got to be true to yourself, because in the end your self is all you’ve got.”  I think somewhere down my road I haven’t been true to myself.  I think that’s why I’m tortured, unless I’m just destined to be forever tortured.  A tortured, tormented, twisted mind.  Yep.  That’s me, alright. 

Trudge trudge trudge.  I try to walk through quick sand but it brings me down.  I try to push my way past things, see the forest through the trees.  What new thing did I begin?  NOT CARING if I am crazy.  Actually, yes – sort of.  I’ve tried loosening my hold on caring.  Multiple epiphanies really get me off daily, but I had this one the one day…man.  It was a doozy.  And it was a long, hard one.  A light switch.  An acceptance.  A realization.

I might be crazy – but is that such a bad thing?  I’m trying to “cure” myself?  I’m trying to be “normal”? What is normal? Overrated people, trying to be different.  A group of people too scared to be themselves?  I’ve always been pressured to do this, because I think I was convinced it was wrong.  Oh, you know, everything, my way of thinking, acting, seeing, being.  But is it?  Wrong.  What is that even?  Can’t define it, can you?  Because it’s all subjective.  Life is subjective.  And life is unpredictable.  We try to make sense of things and have this little line we follow and a path and all this shit, but what is it in the end?  Monotony.  Droning monotony.  A droning monotony of an existence?   There’s my Miss Anthrope.   I’ve missed you. (self hug)  Why do I remember having thoughts about the monotony of life around the age of 12?  I mean, I thought kids were supposed to be happy go lucky and there I was concerned about the cold war and worrying that life was just a meaningless string of bullshit and lies.  I guess I’ve always been misanthropic.  I guess I’ve always been tortured.  I guess this is who I am? 

I was talking to my friend at the bar the other day and we were discussing life and its bittersweetness at one point.  Everything is like that, it seems; bitter and sweet, simultaneously.  And if you think about it, it really makes sense.  Yin and Yang.  Good and bad.  Positive and negative.  The whole of life is the good and the bad, the Yin and the Yang.  You can’t have the Bitter without the Sweet or the Sweet without the Bitter? 

I think most of man’s spiritual dilemma can be traced back to the fact that we struggle with control issues.  Our mind is programmed to create order out of chaos.  When you really get down to the heart of it, nothing in this world makes sense, so we seek it.  We seek things that make sense to us, that have some order.  But we want to control the order.  We can’t accept that maybe we don’t have control over everything?  It’s just that losing control is such a scary thing, isn’t it?  But recently I have come to terms with the fact that there are just simply some things we can not control.  I can control my actions and responses to things, but I can’t control these things in and unto themselves.  I can control my actions, I am told I can even control my thoughts maybe (let me know!)??, but I can’t control my emotions or my feelings.  (Or can I?)  I can only ride the waves.  I can only control the surf, control the direction of my effort.  You can’t change these waves, you can only ride them.    

I digress.  My point, if I had one, would be – I can’t be myself without accepting the crazy and riding the crazy wave.  I’m soul surfing some gnarly waves of psycho.  If my mind was given to me by whatever gave it to me, and I’m meant to give it to something – to give it back, to complete the circuit.  My soul is just trying to complete the circuit.  So I’ll just give in - and go with the flow.  And when you do that, what’s to be, they say will be.  Maybe we aren’t really in control anyway?  Who gives a fuck who is steering?  We’re just back seat driving off the cliff...

[This title was taken from the Jon Lajoie video "Not Giving a Fuck."  If you haven't seen that one, I highly suggest YTing it.]

Masked But Unanimous

Masks.  Everybody wears them, but do we all understand them?  Yes and no.  Let me explain.  I was pondering this tonight while rocking my little girl to sleep.  I suppose this is a theme that often resurfaces in my stream of thought, and it was a really good visual tonight.  My daughter hates going to sleep and sometimes the act of initiating it can be pretty difficult, although tonight she was reasonably tired.  Even though sleep wasn’t far away, she still put up her fight.  She pulls at herself fighting sleep.  She pulls at her hair; pulls at her face; pulls at her ears.  She actually pulls at her own face as if she is unaware that it belongs to her sometimes.  Like it’s not even a part of her, that face.  That’s not where she lies.  She lies within.  

I just thought that this was odd because it is a metaphor of sorts, a huge symbol.  Can it be both?  Sure.  We all have a mask, but we get lost in it and sometimes it is hard to tell where the mask ends and we begin.  But there are really multiple selves within this main Self we are striving to understand, aren’t there?  Many many many selves.  Or is it just one?  One Self.  One mask.  We really are all the same damn thing anyway, so if the point is “One Love” and all that rot, why is there such a split in the human psyche?  What’s my point again?  The mask.  

The mask is often viewed as separate of the Self, or authentic self, I guess.  But if all things are connected in the great things, then aren’t they really the same thing?  Our mask is really part of who we are.  It is included in the Self, because the Self encompasses all things.  Every part of us.  It’s the only place all of these pieces can come together and make sense; order in chaos.  

It’s not the fact that we have a mask.  It’s the fact that we fail to understand this mask.  The mask is in its creation an entity unto itself.  We become our masks and in a way our masks become us.  Only sometimes it is as though we are peering out through the eye holes and all the while we are completely unaware as to what the mask looks like to the people peering at our eyes beneath it. 

Love is a Lesson Learned

Tuesday, January 17, 2011
Tell us about your first teacher who was important to you.

Although there were a few teachers in my schooling that really affected me, I think my first real teacher was my grandmother.  She was a hell of a woman.  So much so that it is almost blaspheme even speaking of her using fowl language.  I think that she would be honored that I am categorizing her as a teacher in my life.  She was many things, mostly a wife, mother, grandmother and a house wife but she was also so much more – so inspirational.  She taught me so much and is still in death.  She really had a true teacher spirit.  She probably would have been immensely happy to have been a teacher, but she wasn’t able to even finish high school because she ended up being the one to stay home to take care of her dying mother.  Her husband and her children, she said, was her vocation.  That was an understatement. 

My grandmother’s teaching spirit came through in mostly everything that she did.  She really put her heart into what she did.  She was a loving and devoted wife, an amazing mother to 9 kids, and a grandmother to all of us (there are tons).  I can’t even fathom how she made us all feel so loved?  I can’t understand it, actually.  It still astounds me today.  But that was one of her greatest lessons.  She really was one of the biggest sources of light in my life. She is one of the few people that made me feel good about myself, made me feel special and absolutely made me feel loved.  She taught me how to love.  

When she died I knew that I was losing an incredible source of energy and love.  I knew that I would never be able to tap into that like I did when she was alive, and it was horrible.  It wasn’t like I visited my grandmother everyday or anything (which is ridiculous considering the distance) but I did visit her periodically and see her a lot during my life.  Her influence to the time actually spent with me ratio is astounding.  I used to call her "Mommy-Grandma" when I was a little girl.  This started because I actually would call her Mommy and then catch and correct myself.  It's just one of those things, but I think it is one of those "you're Freudian slip is showing" things.  It speaks volumes about me.  To this day I will also sometimes slip up and refer to her as "Mom."  I learned after her death from one of my aunts how honored she was that I possibly would have thought of her that way.  I was honored to be able to feel that way; to have her influence as a child.  

She continues to be a huge influence in my life and I think about her almost daily.  I still look to her to guide me.  You would swear that the woman was in my head.  Other than the lesson in love, my grandmother's other gift to me was the lesson of faith.  Faith and love - they sort of go hand in hand, don't they?  Although I was sat by my gram a lot while I was little, I didn't live with her.  I've got other structures in my head making up my perspective.  A lot of other things control my brain, but I think her loving lessons really formed most of the positive framework of my mind and I don’t think I would have been able to survive without that love.

Unfinished Projections

Friday, January 27, 2012
How do you feel about unfinished projects?

Terrible. 

I Break in Routine

Obsession.  What is it?  Who knows, I’m too obsessed to look it up.   I’m having a moment so just bare with me. 

I know my mind is artsy fartsy and out there, but I’m just a normal person… I suppose my spirit is that of a writer though and that makes me a little looney sometimes.  I think too much.  I think all the time.  It doesn’t stop.  I think my husband can actually shut his mind of (half the time when I talk to him I wonder if that is what he has done! Ha.) But what a luxury, right?  Seriously!  Obsession!  Why is my mind such a baby that needs catered to with the correct stimulation?  

I am catering to my daughter on a daily basis, and I’m struggling to fulfill her daily wants and give her stimulation, while at the same time craving and wanting my own stimulation.  I have come to realize that it comes in multiple forms.  Right now I am obsessed with a break from routine, yet I continually fail to establish a routine for myself.  I’m still following the pattern.  It’s just nothing is precise.  There’s the understatement of the century.

Untitled: Something I Don't Remember Writing

In the kitchen they saw us kissing,

Our hair whirled ‘round our heads,

Like the wind was mingling with us,

And mixing our souls as we touched.

I laughed and you smiled at nothing.

I noted how often you spoke.

I missed your hands being around me.

I missed our hearts both beating broke. 

A nod of the head in your direction.

A frown smiling back at me still.

I mourn our times never aligned.

I burn for you and always will. 

[January 15, 2012]

Change, Confusion and Time

So, Change comes busting down my door recently with his buddy Confusion.

I’d been seeing him lately everywhere I go, but I thought it was an illusion.

They got me up against the wall; block my face with my hands.

They beat me bad, and then play nice, but they get me in the guts.

Man, it was fucking nuts.

Well, Change says, “Why don’t we go see what Time is doing?”

Confusion got a puzzled look on his face, like it would be an intrusion.

Time’s wasting away, sitting in the dark.

Looking for a light, searching for a spark.

Confusion trips through Time’s door, and he folds over on himself.

Shoulda watched where he was going, ol’ Time’s not in the greatest health.

“Shut the door!” Time says, dusting himself off.

“Rent’s due.  Chaos is coming, and he’ll be shittin’ rocks.” 

[February 7, 2011]

Unchecked Spelling

I ha da thought that I don't really get to post anything without editing it at least first in word or something so I thought that it would be a really interesting thing to try to type up a post without using SPELLCHECK.  

I was thinking abot how horrible my spelling had become and it's because I type too fast for my own good, I don't say that thinking I'm awesome, I just mean that I mess up tons for the amount that I type, but usually only a few words or something.  I thought that it would be interesting to see if I could write a post without using spell check for anythign.  I mean, there are going to be huge red lines all over this thing for me, but fuck it.  What do I care?  It's a blog.  This is an experiment.  Okay, I'm really not messing up as much I thought.  I am usually much better at this.  Maybe I need a subject. 

Here's a subject, I'm tied.  Tired I mean, I'm so ried. Tired.  Dammit!  I'm tried.  I'm tried. shit.  I'm tired.  Wow, didn't realize my fingers wnet the wrong way there?  This is hard typing relaly fast and not fixing things.  Okay, I'm going to try to go as fast as I can.  

I pledge allegienc eto the flat of the United States of America and to the republi for which it stands , one nation, under God, indiviisible with liverty and justice for all.   

There that one wasn't that good.  I guess the theory was a little better than the end result but I am also backspacing a bit.  Does that count?  Hey, it's not even registering the errors in red anymore?  What hapned?? Did it just get used to ti?  this is werid.  I am tiiiiiired.  I have to say that I lke my laptop, it is really cool, but it feels so different from my desktop.  I haven't even used my desk top that much since i got the LT, it must feel neglected all by itself in the dining room. 

Oh well, it was a nice theory.  Maybe if I just didn't backpsace, but it is seirously so hard not to because it is habit, shit, just did it again.  I would be messsing a lot more oup if I didn't backspace at all.  It would be hard to do this without any corrections at all.  I mean, you would make them eventually, but it's nice to make them as you go, too, especially if you are really anal or something. 

I pledge allegicale to the flag of the United States of America and to the repuclic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisibe with liberty and justic for all.  Ha!

Hm.  Pretty lam.e 

A Letter to Kenny Rogers

Dear Kenny Rogers,

Listen here, you drunk.  I think you’re kinda cool and all, I appreciate everything you do, but first off, 1.) those white suits are a little showy.  2.) You gotta leave my girl Dolly alone; I think we both know who’s the wiser.  And 3.) for the record, you can never never never never never sing We’ve Got Tonight the way that Bob Seger does.  You sing like you're trying to lure innocent women to the seclusion of your dressing room, or unsuspecting men to the bathroom.  Bob Seger coos out those words in a voice that he carved himself, like a man - out of silver and clouds, and a little bit of stone, and a dollop of butter cream.  He enunciates what needs to be enunciated, and slurs just what needs slurring.  He croons when he needs to croon.  I have heard Bob Seger sing that song approximately 10, 456 times!  My brain knows every vocal gesture, each rise and fall, each peak, each drop.  And who the hell do you think you are, Kenny Rogers??  You don’t even sing it right!  I mean, you can’t change one of the most important lines of a song and smugly sing it with multiple interchanging women and think you’re just going to get laid and paid!  Oh, what?  You can?  ‘Cause you’re Kenny Rogers?  WTF, Kenny Rogers??  Straighten up!  Quit singin’ it wrong!

Sincerely,

A Critic

P.S. I have never eaten your chicken. I might be missing out on the best part of your legacy here. Chicken and music.  Chicken and music.

How it's done:  

The Past

No matter what you say or do,

the past will not come back to you.

It slips away with the sands of time.

It haunts you like an unclaimed crime.

It laughs and mocks with unseen chances.

It lives in old familiar glances. 

It stalks the future, but kills the present.  

It boils down stews of resentment. 

It steals your minutes and your hours.

It takes away all of your powers.

It manipulates with unseen forces.

It marries minds but soon divorces.

No matter what you do or say,

The past is still with yesterday.

It leads you on then turns you down.

It leaves you looking like the clown.

It burns its bridges and jumps your fences.

It irritates all your defenses.  

It struggles with what's right and wrong.

It lets you down before too long.

No matter what you say or do,

The past will not come back to you.

[April 27, 2011]

The Beginning or End?

Friday, January 20, 2011
Which do you enjoy more - the start of a book or the end?

I have been supposed to finish Siddhartha now for, oh, a few months.  It’s pretty pathetic that I am still on chapter 2 considering it probably has 120 pages if that.  I’ve read the book before at least twice but am re reading it with a group of my friends.  It’s proven to be harder than I thought.  Okay, bear with me.  I’m having a thought.  

 
It’s a short book.  I’ve read it before.  I am actively reading other things in my free time.  Why am I not reading this book?  Is there something in there?  I already know what it is about, is that the point?  Am I putting off reading my book intentionally for a reason, is what I am wondering.

Who Am I?

I’m the Golden Girls. 

I’m Sofia, I’m Rose, I’m Dorothy, sometimes Blanche.

I’m the Desperate Housewives.

I’m all of them.

I’m music in the morning. 

I’m Repunzel.

I’m Sleeping Beauty.

I’m Snow White.

I’m a dwarf.

I’m a beta fish on the counter. 

I’m a to do list on the marker board.

I’m a to do list in the daily planner.

I’m a to do list in the notebook.

I’m a to do list in my head.

I’m a to do about nothing.

I’m a pillow.

I’m a blanket.

I’m educational programming.

I’m Jerry Springer.

I’m Facebook.

I’m media marketed.

I’m a dry throat.

I’m unwashed hair.

I’m smeared mascara.

I’m tired eyes.

I’m sagging shoulders.

I’m a hanging head. 

I’m a lie in the middle of truth.

I’m coal in the middle of diamond.

I’m a missing appendage.

I’m a broken heart.

I’m an unanswered question.

I’m shame inside of pride.

I’m these same old dirty clothes.

I’m unwashed hair and untrimmed nails. 

I’m a smell in the garbage can.

I’m a hungry dog.

I’m a hungry woman.

I’m a crying baby.

I’m a lack of motivation.

I’m a giant piece of lazy. 

I’m so sick I’ll drive me crazy. 

[January 9, 2012]

3 Degrees

After all this time, you’re still the one,

That finds me lost, and shows me home. 

You strip away my false pretense.

And give offense to – my strong defense. 

And of all the flames – you burnt the most.

A lesson learned; that’s how it goes.

And I hide my scars – in 3 degrees.

You can’t see them, but you can see me.

And you know my secret. 

And I know yours too.

And you better keep it.

And I’ll keep yours too.

And of all the games, yours was most fun.

Though I always lost, my team was home.

You took me in, out of the rain.

And helped me feel peace, through the pain.

And of all the rhymes, we rhymed the most. 

Though our timing’s off, that’s how it goes.

And I fit with you – in 3 degrees. 

Our puzzles’ solved, but you can’t solve me.

And you know my secret. 

And I know yours too.

And you better keep it.

And I’ll keep yours too.

                                                                                                        

 After all these cries – yours is the one,

All my tears are lost, but I am home.

And our love’s a bridge between these walls.

But the mortar’s weak – it soon will fall.

And of all the lies – yours hurt the most.

Though, my eyes are dry, that’s how it goes.

And I hide myself – in 3 degrees.

You can see them, but you can’t see me.

And you know my secret,

But I know yours too.

And you better keep it.

And I’ll keep yours too.  

[November 19, 2009]

Conversational Symbolism: The Three Loves of Your Life

So I have mostly been thinking all day long of a conversation I had maybe 3 or 4 years ago with the best man from our wedding.  He is quite the interesting conversationalist and interesting person overall for that matter, and on this day in particular we were speaking of love, maybe in general, I’m not exactly sure of the details or what led to the conversation.  I do remember some of his description of the “saying” or how it is said to go, or however he put it.  He told me a tale that night that inspired a song I wrote called “3 Degrees”, which I will have to post the lyrics to here sometime, it’ll make more sense – maybe. 

Anyway, Best Man told me that in your life, you are to have 3 Loves, and I believe that he might have even described them to me but the details weren’t clearly remembered(ish) until I found this website that kind of went over it.  It is basically in line with what he explained to me, and I have been thinking of this again all day.  It’s a very interesting concept. 

Your first love or your puppy love, he told me, is the first.  The love that got away that you always have that feeling for is the second.  The third of course, the love of your life, I reckon he explained it to me.  I remember him telling me some details about his three.  In retrospect I wished I was journaling more or blogging at the time, it was a very interesting conversation, but I guess I wrote a song because of it at least. 

This site that I found that has the most accurate description as he “told the tale” says that you have many loves but three will remain the greatest – your first love, your ultimate love, and the love of your life. 

Your first love is the puppy love, the first one you usually date in high school and is said not to last that long.  I guess I spent too many years of my life on my first love and gave him the benefit of the doubt too many times? 7 years is a long time for puppy love, but he was the first love of my life. 

Your Ultimate Love is described basically as the one who got away.  I reckon the one that is probably in the end better to fantasize and ponder about than actually ever get to experience so as not to taint and poison and destroy its tender perfectness?  Anyway, that’s how I’d describe it, maybe. 

The Love of Your Life is referred to as the one.  Not Keanu Reeves, but the one that got you at your best and was able to iron out all of the messy stuff and keep you for your good parts, stitching the seams back together.  The one that settled you down.  The one that made you feel whole(ish).  But, how can you be whole if there are 3 parts of you? 

I couldn’t imagine someone having the capacity to love tons of people with the same passion someone can love a few.  But then again, I am still astounded and enthralled by the love of motherhood and I find it hard to believe that your heart could love a second child at all like you love a first one, but mothers do it every day.  That love is split all of the time.  And ideally mothers are to love all of their babies the same but the hard truth is they don’t always do.  Sometimes it’s all out of whack and you are immensely into one.  Sometimes it’s more of an even split.  Maybe it’s just a crap shoot?  Maybe it’s a tender balance. 

It’s certainly an interesting concept and idea that Best Man brought to the table.  It makes you deconstruct and rethink if you have more than that, I guess.  I think perhaps after a little soul searching and living life, you come to terms with who your three are.  Symbolism is funny that way.  Holy shit, is anything real?  I’m not even going there!

I don’t know what other people reflect on.  These are just the things I ponder on my way through. 

"I'm Taking it Back!" - The Resurrection of ICQ

I just installed ICQ 7.7.  ICQ, if you are not aware, is a nifty little program that I think created the internet back in the 90’s.  Not really, but it was a lovely and simple program that was pretty much the precursor to text messaging if you think about.  It was glorious.  You had a number.  You had a contact list.  You messaged people privately. (Privacy? Remember that?)  Or you could chat with groups of people.  A good time was had by all.  It can really go hand in hand with a young teenager learning their way around the web.  It is also good I kept a good head about me.  I was a young girl with access to many anonymous people from all over the world.  I received at least two phone calls from people I talked to on the net while in high school.  (They were actually people I talked to for a long time on ICQ, I didn’t just let anyone call me!  It’s still scary in retrospect if you think about it, though.  This is one of the many instances that I am immensely proud of my past self because it had that could have gone bad air about it.  But yes – I let guys call me from South Carolina and from Canada before because of ICQ.)

I think that ICQ perhaps got lost in the madness of AOL Instant Messenger.  While this was a neat little proggie as well, I never found it as satisfying or appealing as ICQ.  I always missed ICQ, but after my friends weren’t using it anymore and everyone “moved on” what was the point?

I am becoming continually more frustrated with Facebook.  I started a Twitter account to follow Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde, among other things, but that was a main one, and I am intrigued by its possibilities and I love love love how ICQ now hooks up to Twitter.  It is supposedly able to hook up to your Facebook also but it is having a problem with that currently.  Hm. Isn’t that interesting?  Screw Facebook.  It’s a love hate relationship anymore.  It’s like Walmart.  Nothing can be good forever.  It’s like a band once they make it; you almost have to remember them for what they were before they sold out and changed in order to fit in with the money.  Bah.

So I’m picking and choosing what I want from the mainstream media machine that is ‘creating’ us.  I’m choosing to blog.  I’m choosing to Twitter.  Yes, I’ll still Facebook reluctantly, but I’m taking ICQ back!  I want to explore it in its updated form and see what it has to offer the web user today.  This should be interesting.  So there you have it.  I’m taking it back!  Join me if you want.  The echo is pretty damn loud in here.  So far only one guy from Spain that follows me on Twitter has found me.  It’s just me and Javier for now, but let’s wait and see who’s coming with me!  I feel like it is the apocalypse and you have to travel around seeking survivors. ICQ-Q-Q-Q-Q???!!  

[My name is Missie Sue.  My number is 635303735.  I am predominantly right brain bored.  Idiosyncrasies keep me going.  ICQ for conversation. My left brain will give my right brain the message.  ;P]

Once Planted, Love Always Grows If You Let It

Friday, January 13, 2011
Tell us about the first time you were in love.

My shriveled heart gave in to your pushes;

We sought to scratch multiple itches.

Strength in numbers when conscious won’t cut it.

My seeking soul latched onto your spirit. 

We met in madness and carried each other.

We learned like children how to be lovers.

Love is a funny thing.  Do we ever really know what it is?  We think that it is this longing in ourselves.  We all feel it - and we think that love is what fills this void, only we equate that with romantic love and thus is created the search for matches.  Why does everything have to have a match? Everything doesn’t.  Love is most definitely the Word, but maybe we’re spelling it the wrong way or something?  I don’t know what my point is.  I suppose, just that the first time you are in love it is a funny time, isn’t it?  Do you really even know what love is?  Some people probably would say that they were “in love” with people who they didn’t even have relationships with.  Is this possible?  What constitutes love?  Does that count?  Can we feel this elusive feeling so intensely that we consider ourselves to “love” people we aren’t even necessarily committed to?  Love is blind this way.  And that’s where I think it differs from true love, real love, the love of light and creation.  It’s different; it has nothing to do with penises or vaginas.  And if you really get to the bottom of the feelings you had in high school, weren’t they mostly centered between your legs more than between your ribs?  The point emerges.  Young love is primarily hormone driven, yet we have the benefit of feeling it completely and intensely, heightened by hormones, carving it out permanently and passionately into our memory, our framework, our hearts, our thinking.  Someone can love you obsessively and leave you forever questioning the meaning of love and your actual value as a person; is there really such a thing or is it just a chemical reaction to something, like my scent, just pheromones?  I am an idea, an essence.  We’re animals.  We’re not special.  I never felt special enough to feel loved when I was younger.  I have always had issues with accepting love.  If you don’t fully feel loved were you ever loved in the first place?  Ponder that proverb.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.  I’m just sitting here watching my husband sleep, the father of my child, the man I live with and give a degree of my life to, and it is so funny to think of the “first” time I was in love.  What if I can’t remember?  What if love to me back then isn’t even close to what I hold the definition to be today?  If we are growing at all, I don’t think that it can be.  But what if a part of me now doesn’t even know what real love is? (Yes, these are the things I think about. :P)

All I’m saying is I have went through my life with this loneliness, this emptiness, this hollow feeling inside of myself.  Always had it.  It seemed to be always there, constant loneliness.  I had my first serious relationship (how serious are you when you are a teen though?) when I was 15 years old.  I dated my boyfriend for a total of 8 years.  I am still very good friends with him today, he introduced me to my husband, and I see him sometimes every day of the week.  I love him.  I have loved him for years.  When we broke up I loved him.  A lot of people don’t necessarily understand what we have and people think that it is odd.  They think it’s odd that I still talk to him, let alone hang out with him and have him in my daughter’s daily life.  He’s friends with my husband.  We’re all friends here. 

It works because we got over the possession stage of love, the pseudo love feeling of owning an individual.  Where we are so desperate to fulfill ourselves that we lay physical claim to people.  There are three men I think I own a little piece of.  Why do we view it that way?  Someday, I want to be able to claim my piece, that’s all I’m saying!  We graduated to where we honestly want the other to be happy.  We don’t pine for each other.  I’m not going to lie, we are closer than just friends, I mean, we used to do it (we just had a laugh about this yesterday), but there are always "what if" feelings in any situation like this.  I have a lot of "what ifs" in my life (enter piece #2).  I suppose some call them regrets.  I have worked on letting them go, but I still have them.  They are a piece of me.  They won’t let go.  Ever.  A person can’t help to wonder.  The difference is, I don’t pine for it.  (Now come on, that’s a lie.)  Okay, I still pine, perhaps, but not for...that.  But what.is.it?

I love my husband more than anyone - other than my daughter, who he kind of gave to me in a way.  He found me at a time of despair and misdirection, when I was completely lost and needed a lot of help.  I think Joey is the “you get what you need” in my life; I feel like he was an answer to something I sent out, the proverbial question again.  I am very blessed and lucky to have the life and things that I have.  My husband takes good care of me and has allowed me to grow immensely as a person.  That is very fulfilling. 

I feel like he has helped me along my path faster than I would have been able to get me there myself just by allowing me time to self reflect.  He has done so much for me and has fulfilled so much in me but his love has also taught me that even though we have this love for someone else, that isn’t what completes us.  We are all capable of being complete on our own, supposedly, because we already are.  It wasn’t the loneliness of a relationship.  It was the loneliness of Self.  Other parts of me.  But where did I lose them, and where did I leave her?

The Medieval Drifts Into the Renaissance

I don’t know if this makes sense or not, but I want a renaissance.  So many of my energies now are just reverberating ripples of shit that I experienced in childhood, adolescence and high school even.  The worse times and hardships are obviously focused on.  I need to burn the sage through the house of my mind.  I want to inspire myself again.  I want to be muse-ical.  I seemed so young and naïve and troubled as a teen but I also seemed so full of passion and energy and spirit, so fresh and alive, so many hopes and dreams.  What ever happened to that girl?

I have a theory that if I surround myself with the positive things of that era it will tap into that feeling from the past.  It’s just a theory, most of my theories are ludicrous, I understand, but I was thinking about how powerful music is and how it psychologically triggers emotions from the time that we remember it from.  Memory is amazing; we can remember the lyrics to a song we haven’t heard in YEARS and we can forget simple things from our daily life.  It’s really quite baffling to me.  BUT my theory – if I could just tap into the Missie Sue that wasn’t scared of failure, that knew there was something special going on and believed in the magical world and other ridiculous concepts before reality shat on her soul. 

Renaissance, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:  “…2. …a movement or period of vigorous artistic and intellectual activity.”  That sounds like just what I need.  If I could just tap into that energy from my past, maybe I can pick up where I left off?  Maybe I can get that girl back?  Maybe I can see what she wanted to say?  I understand I am so much wiser than she ever was, but I also think I have lost touch with something she tapped into far more easily than I.  I’m delving into the subconscious this year.  I’ve been swimming in there for years, but I mostly stay to the shallow end.  I need to give ‘er a good leap off of the old diving board, hands clasped together, head tucked.  I need to see what’s down there.  I’ve been stirring up the waters, but I need to shine some light on the proverbial watering hole, down to the pith.  

Step one is surrounding myself in nostalgia I suppose.  Symbolism is important to the mind, especially to mine I reckon.  I’ve been trying to tap into the music that sustained me at the time, but that’s going to be difficult while still clinging to the music that is sustaining me now.  Baby steps.  I also installed ICQ.  I’m taking it back.  It was one of the coolest things about my youth – exploring communication.  I don’t know if this makes sense.  I don’t know anything anymore, honestly, if I get down to MY pith.  My pith is deep and a little dark but in the spirit of adventure and reclamation I set out on one of the most critical years of my journey.  I’ve tended to this wound enough, let’s see if she can stand - and dare I say, walk again.  

I’m continuing on the Vision Quest(ion) that is my life this year.  I’m trudging on ahead, musing along the way, stepping back – stepping forward.  Stepping sideways I hope all the while just to keep that perspective open.  “For good and for real…for good and for real.”

Coating Screens and Friday the 13th

It's Friday the 13th!  A wonderful day to screen.  I am waiting for my emulsion to settle (2 hours) and then I am coating two screens for a job I have before I escape into the night for an evening of music at an Old House. 

I got out earlier today for about an hour and a half with two of my buddies.  We got to shoot some pool and play with my laptop on the WiFi and have a couple of drinks.  It is immensely amazing to be able to unwind with friends and I am so grateful that Joey stays home with the baby while I do so.  That's a good husband! 

I mixed some emulsion earlier but I had to let it settle for air bubbles and such after mixing it.  I mixed the two parts, the emulsion and then a diazo that is a powder that you mix with distilled water (think iodine mix) and add it into the pink and stir stir stir.  I got some of the diazo on my fingers, I probably should have been wearing gloves, and now a couple of my fingers are dyed amber/yellow.  Hmm.  At least we are in Pennsylvania and not California, I guess it only causes the cancer out there.  :/  I'm going to coat the screens after I post this. 

It is Friday the 13th!  I figure I can't waste this night.  Not that my night would be wasted at home, but for a change I think I have things under semi control around here.  Release!  

We had a full moon recently, it would have been wild if it would have lined up with today.  I can't sit here on Friday the 13th.  I want to take advantage of my energy.  The air is crisp tonight.  We have snow and some decent wind.  I hope the roads are safe for the journey over and back.  Up until now we were having warm days for January.  Imagine that.  It's cold and snowy in January!  Tonight is a night for wine and song.  Screening directly then revelry bound. 

Alone Time: A Rant

I’m currently alone in our bedroom sitting on the bed with the lap top.  I was ready and willing to go into time out.  I think I need it.  I think I deserve it.  So I’m doing it – without guilt.  Or am I?  Maybe I just need a pep talk.  

My husband is off for the day on a Thursday.  He will more than likely have to go back to work tomorrow (Friday) approximately 3 hours away, but it is definitely worth it just to have him here for a day during the week when this happens.  He is out in the living room watching Celie while I am trying to do a few things and make a few phone calls in the bedroom.  I guess I need to do some writing and relaxing first.  This has been one of those weeks.  I guess like all of the other ones.  Monday comes crashing down on me after the weekend and I am left unsure of how to fall into the routine of being alone again.  This lifestyle certainly does do a number on your psyche and sometimes I wonder if someone such as myself is really capable of living this way, because I refuse to admit to myself how hard it actually is sometimes.  Every now and then I do talk about it, but I have learned to exist by suppressing the sense of terror that I actually do feel every time that man walks out the door.  He leaves me.  Over and over again, he leaves me and deep down, you never know if they will ever walk through the door again.  I don’t like to focus on this, obviously, but it is in my awareness, so I fill our conversations with a lot of “miss you’s” and “I love you’s” and try to not to argue on the phone while he is out of town because you really don't know if it will be the last time you talk to them, like they say. (I'm not completely unstable, it's just that my husband does a lot of traveling for work on top of his job being fairly dangerous.)   

Honestly, I think I do enough “bitching” at him anyway (note the quotations) while he is here, because I also fear that our entire time together, which is really only a little over two days a week, is used up trying to “work things out” and learning each other.  Note the quotations.  Fighting we will also do, obviously, no marriage is perfect, but mostly what we do I consider working things out, because at least that is my goal.  I’m not sure how my husband views my attempts at communication especially when I am rattling off at the mouth like a Banty hen or something.  I know that he understands I am trying to come to terms with him or something but he also understands that I am very messed up in this head of mine.  He is one of the only people that knows, that has seen, that has felt – how incredibly hard to understand and unpredictable I can be.  Despite my problems, I am thankful I have my husband because even through his inattentiveness he is a good listener and has seen me through a lot of things.  I also am the most honest and open with him than I am with any other human being in existence, and I even value honesty amongst people and friends, I just like my privacy too, but my husband sees me deal with myself nakedly all of the time...mostly.  He also isn't here a lot; there is a lot of me he misses.  I don’t want to paint myself out to be a psycho, that’s not it.  But would it really be a leap to say that I was mentally ill?  Probably not.  Any condition that is diagnosable lands you mentally ill, technically.  I have a lot of issues and emotional problems that are constantly coming to light and healing themselves while numerous others are simultaneously emerging out of the depths of my psyche.  I see myself on a journey of personal growth.  I don’t know how to explain it without me sounding like a complete nut job.  I’m not on and never have been on anti-depressants…maybe I should be.  I’m not in therapy and never have been…maybe I should be.  I have never had what I would consider a strong support system growing up and while I was labeled as “independent” I always felt it was just because I had no choice.  I had to learn or do these things somehow, and I found my resources very limited, let’s just put it that way, and I feel I was left to figure a lot of things out on my own.  Did I make myself independent?  I always felt like I was being shamed by this label.  I always felt like it was a bad thing.  Like my alone time.  I always felt like it was selfish and weird of me to require so much alone time.  But both of these are only because of the way I was socialized.  The problem, perhaps, with the situation, is my shame about them.  There should be no shame in me being able to take care of myself, and there should be no shame in me needing to take time for myself in order to do this.  

Which brings me back to sitting here on my bed on a Thursday.  I love my daughter dearly, but my mind just needs seclusion at times to function.  I need to work on a pointless, random project like this blog, or my Ode To My Little Hot Water Bottle.  I need these sidetracks.  I need this place in my head.  That’s how I de-stress, it’s my Zoloft, it’s my Xanex.  So how does one do this in order to maintain their sanity without jeopardizing their role as a mother?  The point is, I don’t want to have her away from me.  I want her by my side, in the house with me.  I want to be able to handle her and tend to myself at the same time.  I don’t want to have her watched.  It is nice to get breaks once in a while, but I do miss her when she is away because I am so accustomed to the attachment parenting lifestyle.  I just want a happy medium.  And how do I bring that about without looking like a crazy woman to my daughter?  I am not 'just a stay at home'.  I am a work at home.  I am a build your own business at home.  I am a give yourself therapy at home.  

It’s needless to say I have much to work out before I pass these things on to my daughter.  It’s a journey and I am honestly working on all of the pieces of me every day, but I think that I’m missing a few.  Some have fallen off the table, I’m maybe fumbling around looking for them but I’m not looking – because I’m embarrassed that I dropped them.  And who cares?? Who cares if I dropped some pieces and have to pick them up again??  Who cares if I’m not perfect?  I’ve had an epiphany, as it is the season, one of which was that someone can actually have multiple epiphanies in a lifetime, it’s just the change that is possible to come about with said epiphanies does not always accompany each and every epiphany.  We don’t change as often as we REALIZE that we need to change.  Because that is the easy part, realizing.  Changing – now that is the hard part.  And that takes time and work.  So between my head and my business and my baby, I think I have a lot more on my mind every day than just maintaining this household, which is hard enough when I do it mostly alone!

But I shouldn’t feel guilty about needing this time with myself to spew these words out onto these keys and turn them into something visible on this screen.  Something real that can be examined or dare I say, felt.  I shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to get it out there.  I shouldn’t feel guilty that I can’t do everything without effort.  Epiphany. (Aha, the hidden point emerges!)  I feel guilty that I don’t come programmed and just knowing things or being able to do them.  Where did that come from?  Independence?  Expectation, rather.  I feel as though a lot was expected of me for some reason and that is something I need to get to the bottom of because that is why I feel so behind and such a great amount of pressure – for no reason.  This leads me to stress.  I am also, I think, one of the laziest people I know.  Now, maybe I am confusing laziness with depression, but I think that’s what my dad would call it.  I don’t think he believes in it.  He’s like Tom Cruise that way, I guess.  My dad is a very wise mind over matter kind of guy, which I commend, but he’s not really one to tending to the delicate need of the psyche or emotions.  And my mother was always full of them.  And I find myself filled with both of them and am just struggling to stay afloat sometimes I feel.  Sometimes I do feel like I’m sinking.  

I guess that’s why I need alone time.  Time to cry if I want, or write if I want, or play the guitar if I want, or create some other way artistically or pay bills or make phone calls or even clean if I – well, let’s face it, if I have to.  I just want some time to have the option to tend to me, because I think that is not emphasized enough to mothers.  I think we are made to feel guilty about taking the time for us when what are we really worth to our families if we aren’t tending to ourselves?  They don’t want a wound up ball of nerves; they want us at our best.  I take my alone time when I can get it.  I spent a large part of my childhood alone in my room - listening to the Beatles and reading and writing.  Playing with my Self. (the inner one, people!)  And it’s my Self I have been searching for all of these years.  My Authentic Self.  And she is out there somewhere, or in here somewhere, rather.  I will find her.  NaBloPoMo this month is themed on Beginnings.  I think that it’s really about time I had a renaissance of spirit, a reawakening.  I feel like over the years I have lost so much of the Great Spirit that was me – my Self.  But how do you lose yourself and find yourself all in one breath?  See.  This is why I need alone time.  

[To Be Continued…again and again and again…]

The Chaos Sonnet: Reflections on Selections

How could I have been so foolish, so self-absorbed,

So lost I never saw the possibilities in your eyes, only the fear. 

Were you too close to home to be real to me?

And I felt alone in this vying—solemnly trying to make you want me,

To need me, to feel me - I felt I couldn’t read your signals,

I felt I was getting stop signs, and yellow lights - slow down, wrong way.  Turn around.

There was a time in my life when you were the only thing keeping me going,

Keeping me up and running—working for the next time, working my cunning.

I don’t even remember what I was thinking with all that I was doing.

I don’t think you even knew how much you really had me.

But I was ricocheting off of everyone,

And I was blind folded and gagged and bound.

But I will never get over the nuances of life and fate,

And never know why I didn’t come to a stop at your feet instead,

And why you weren’t the one to unbind me and set me free,

The one to ungag me and let me see. 

9/15/09

Beginning's End

Tell us about the beginning of your life.  (NaBloPoMo January 10, 2012)

“Let’s start from the very beginning - a very good place to start.”

– The Sound of Music

Truth be told, I can’t remember the very beginning of my life.  As I posted yesterday, I can remember pretty far back, but not into my mother’s uterus or anything.  

First of all, I think that it is interesting that this asked about the beginning of my life and not my childhood or my youth.  Mostly, I suppose, because in a way I feel like the “beginning” of my life has just ended and I have perhaps just stepped into the middle.  That’s hoping there is a middle and I don’t just leap off into the “end” somewhere eventually.  

I am now entering motherhood and leaving all of my childhood behind me – my beginning.  I am 31 years old.  I was born in 1980.  I graduated high school in 1999.  I started college in 1999 and graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in Integrative Arts.  I started dating my husband in November 2003.  We moved into our current place of residence in 2004.  I established my home business Drifting Sun in 2005.  We got engaged at Christmas in 2005 and were married in July of 2007.  We got pregnant with our first baby in November of 2009 and I gave birth to our daughter in August of 2010.  A light came on in 2011 and I am setting out down a definite path in 2012.

This year is either the beginning of the middle of my life or the end of the beginning.  I am changing so as to better fit into the future.  I am going to be the creator in my life.  I think that I had a very good beginning; a decent enough upbringing, and very blessed in the grand scheme of things.  I’ve had the past nearly 8 years living where we live and establishing and strengthening friendships.  I feel that I had a very good beginning to see me into the future, to see me onto the path of my life.  Given, a lot is still up in the air.  It’s a beginning after all, a new beginning.  The end of the beginning.  But every end is really a new beginning.  I am technically always beginning, always continuing on the path, and I very well may never stop – until the end.

“This is not the end.  It is not the beginning of the end.  It is the end of the beginning.”  (Some 80’s movie...quote at the end…anyone remember??)

I Have Forgotten Infinitesimally More Than I Can Recollect

What is your earliest memory?   

(NaBloPoMo January 9, 2012)

My husband is always telling me during stories in which I am recollecting my childhood how weird it is that I can remember so much.  He has one memory of being in a diaper under a Christmas tree and I think that is pretty far back!  That is one of the only early memories he apparently has, though, and I think that’s probably why he thinks that it is weird that I remember so much - maybe not the entire way back to the birth canal, but I sure can remember a lot of things from my early childhood.  The perspective is important. 

The majority of things I can remember from early childhood are from around the age of 2 to 4.  I think this is why I have been so serious about trying to get myself “together” before Celie starts really remembering things, even though the way that I am now surely is affecting the framework of her mind.  The thing is there really just is no telling how far someone will remember back when they are “grown”.  It’s all up to their mind.  In all likelihood Celie is going to remember some or potentially a lot of the occurrences that are happening now in our lives.  It’s already insane to me to think of/see the fruits of things that she is obviously sucking up like a sponge as it is.  The early baby stage has been the last time in my life I was be able to do a lot of things, but one of them was to flavorfully use and enjoy the fabulous “f” word in my vocabulary, amongst others I will miss, unless I am blogging or in partaking company (which is an endeavor of motherhood all its own and I will surely one day blog about it.)

Anyway, I digress – the earliest memory I actually have from my life is of me in a sleeper of sorts in a crib in the house where my mother grew up on 9^th Street in Philipsburg.  It’s really an image mostly, more than a living memory, and the perspective of it is odd as well.  Given, the older I get the foggier this “memory” gets, but I do remember being bathed in the sunlight from the windows behind me that the crib (or playpen?) that I was standing in was in front of.  I think that my sleeper was yellow, green, or both.  I more than likely was still in diapers.  There was nothing really noteworthy happening in this memory; it was just of me standing up and holding onto the side of the crib.  I maybe was between 9 and 18 months old, though I can’t really be certain. 

The weirdest thing about this memory is the perspective.  I see this memory in my head as if I were in front of myself.  I see “baby Missie” in front of me; I am not looking out at the world from baby Missie’s eyes, I am the world peering at baby Missie.  It’s as if I am witnessing or watching myself.  I have other memories of being young but I don’t necessarily remember them having the outer perspective like this one.  I have a lot of memories of the house on 9^th Street and they weren’t the same as this one. 

This was my first memory.   My memory started where all of my mother’s memories surely started; where my grandmother’s surely started, as she was also raised in that house.  Memory is an interesting and weird thing, though.  We’re not entirely sure how it works or why we can remember some things and not others.  Our brain just seems to make a choice.  But add in the fact that we can have implanted memories as well as false memories, it gets pretty wild.  So what do I remember?  “I REMEMBER EVERY THING!” (Meatloaf reference)  No really.  Not even close.  But I do remember a whole hell of a lot.